OK, so I didn't just listen to Rancid on the Brooklyn drive. I bookended the trip with some WPGC and some Hot 97. And that resulted in me hearing and liking the new Mariah Carey single. It's extremely salacious; Mariah really wants you to touch her. Except it's got this classic Mariahnoia element: she threatens to hunt you down if she sees your tryst on YouTube. And there's this one line where I could swear she says she'll be up in your business "like a Wendy's interview," which made me laugh so hard I nearly clipped this old lady. But she couldn't have really said that, right?

Update: Commenter T Moore offers an alternative explanation. Mariah is referring to a "Wendy interview" -- i.e., an interrogation by radio gossip maven Wendy Williams.

I just got reacquainted with my old ABC No Rio friend Liz Baillie, and yesterday a compendium of her comic book My Brain Hurts arrived in the mail. I can't recommend it enough, especially if you were, um, a mid-1990s New York City punk rocker. In the span of five panels you'll find nostalgia-trip references to Munchies (remember when Camille got thrown through Munchies' plate-glass window?), Coney Island High (remember when Defiance played one of their last shows, and Stuart Schrader was the only one who still cared about them, even though I maintain they were an underrated band?) and Mike Blank chickenhawking a 13 year old dude with the promise of kamikazes (remember when he gave Lauren scabies?). It's enough to make a guy feel... extremely old.

So one thing you can use as a barometer of taste is the band t-shirts that appear in the comic. Liz is less interested in strict realism than she is in capturing a sensibility, particularly for her queer teenage protagonists: they can go to a show at the Coney, for instance, while wearing Limpwrist patches on their hoodies, even though Limpwrist didn't exist for nearly half a decade after Coney Island High closed its doors. But of all the bands that the My Brain Hurts kids enjoy -- credibility-infused mainstays like Aus-Rotten, Screeching Weasel, Choking Victim, the Subhumans and Crass -- the absence of the Band That Shall Not Speak Its Name is unmistakable. I'm talking about Rancid.

"Salvation" was a dagger to the heart of New York City punk rockers of my age. A brilliant, perfect song that was suddenly mainstream. The Constitution of punk rock dictated you couldn't like it, even though every punk-rock statute and common-law tradition demanded that you did. All of a sudden, everyone who loved Rancid's first record ("Adina's cryyyyyyyyyin'!") had to pretend they didn't like -- and, perversely, didn't listen to -- Let's Go. My freshman year, Jamie Weiss had RANCID written on his green backpack. When "Salvation" hit MTV he dutifully wrote SUCKS below it.

Lord help us when November 1995 rolled around and ...And Out Come The Wolves came out. That record is track-for-track perfect. If you don't like it, you neither like nor understand punk rock. And yet none of us allowed each other to listen to it. It was OK to be gay in punk rock, and out -- as it should be -- but if you so much as caught an earful of Rancid as background music, you kept that shit to yourself. There was practically a riot at the Coney on a Sunday that month when Lars and Brett showed up for a Blanks/Casualties show after playing Saturday Night Live the night before. (You're goddamn right I watched it, and you're goddamn right I jeered them both when Jorge invited them on stage.)

But much as it must be frightful and liberating to finally admit that you're gay, so too was it a relief to finally scream, at the top of your lungs, that Benzonatto was waiting for you on the 60 bus out of downtown Campbell or that Jenny DeMilo don't care nothing about you. This afternoon/evening I drove up to Brooklyn, and the whole way I blasted the first three Rancid records and the last two. Indestructible? Great record. Kids, don't give in to fear. Jenny DeMilo may not care nothing about you, but Rancid? They're gonna take care of you.

The popped-collar fascisti are attacking Angela Valdez. Let's assemble a mob, burn their clapboard houses and instruct them that they should, indeed, fear coming east of 18th street NW.

Enough about Jacob Heilbrunn's brilliant new book They Knew They Were Right and Eli Lake's first-rate national security reportage. Let's talk about me.

Jacob and Eli filmed a BloggingHeads segment in which they moot the idea that Yglesias and I owe something to the neocons. In particular, Yglesias is the beneficiary of a sarcasm-infused style of argument and I have a morbid fascination. Matt stands on his own two, so let me take my part of it.



In the segment, Jacob makes the point that the critics of the neocons frequently fall victim to the same zealotry that the neos display. It's a great point. But the question is why. I'd submit there are two answers. First, coherent (or at least distinct) intellectual movements are more interesting to observers than random agglutinations of people who believe stuff. This has its dangers for those observers: most importantly, selection bias, the tendency to only interpret data that fits the narrative. So the movement can seem more coherent than it is as soon as you adopt the "movement" framework to describe it. The neocons can, to a point, fairly object that they've been mugged in the press by the uncertainty principle.

But only to a point, and therein lies the second part of the answer. Movements are fascinating things. But movements that lie, repeatedly and brazenly, to outsiders about being at all coherent and then impugn the motives of any and all outsiders who seek to understand them -- those are captivating things. And when those movements, to a great degree, influence decisions of war and peace -- those are irresistable things. To belabor the point, you have to add into the mix the conspiracy-theorism, the ignorance masquerading as expertise, the stunning vanity and pretention, the insistence on speaking for an entire 5800-year old culture while denying the movement has anything to do with that culture, the barely-repressed homosexuality... look, anyone who doesn't find that fascinating has a screw loose.

Owing to some freelance obligations I'm only able to read They Knew They Were Right a few pages at a time, and as a result I'm barely halfway through it. But it's obvious from watching my dear friend Eli that Jacob nailed the template. In this segment, Eli backs away from applying the term 'neocon' to himself while simultaneously reaffirming its substance and can't let Jacob make a single point about the neos without disputing it. (Maybe he does earlier in the episode, which I confess to not having watched.) That's all in the fake-intellectual tradition that Jacob perfectly documents. That tradition is bad for America, bad for Israel, bad for the Jews, bad for the world, and bad for the soul. So maybe I have a little morbid fascination.

Freshness from the Washington Independent kitchen: A $20 million liberal push, fronted by John Edwards, to tie the costs of the war to the woes of the economy.

A coalition announced Monday and called Iraq Campaign 2008 seeks to tie anxiety over the faltering economy to anxiety over the duration of the war. Part of its agenda is targeting what it calls "obstructionist" members of Congress—Democrats as well as Republicans—that don’t seek a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. The campaign has an attention-getting front-man: former presidential candidate John Edwards. The effort, however, is not without problems—not least of which is the conundrum of whether antiwar activism turns out to be counterproductive to ending a war.

"People don’t understand why we’re spending $500 billion and counting in Iraq," Edwards said in a Monday conference call, "when at the same time we’ve got 40-plus million Americans with no health care coverage, 37 million-plus living in poverty. It doesn’t make sense to them."

A Robert Greenwald production.

The Washington Post has a great story about how some of the Sons of Iraq, for a variety of reasons, are losing patience with the U.S. military. As much as I've criticized the program, it's obviously better to have them not shooting at U.S. troops than shooting at U.S. troops. So it's disturbing to read that after a mistaken shooting of Sons of Iraq members in Diyala, a local commander saying:

Jubouri said his 800 fighters had taken huge risks to ally with the U.S. military and faced allegations that they are "agents for the Americans."

"If there is no apology, or no compensation, or failure to produce the informers before us, we will carry arms against the Americans," Jubouri said.

More importantly, skeptics of the Sons of Iraq program have -- ahem -- warned for nearly a year that there's no way gunmen in Iraq will ever give up their weapons, and that the Sunnis do not accept not being rulers of the country. As if on cue:

In Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, concern is mounting over a U.S. proposal that calls for about 20 percent of the volunteer forces to be integrated into the nation's army and police. The rest would be provided with civilian jobs and vocational training.


"The Sunnis were always the leaders of the country. Is it reasonable that they are turned into service workers and garbage collectors?" said Khalid Jiyad Abed, an Awakening leader in the city of Latifiyah and an engineer. "We had not anticipated this from the American forces. Of course we will not accept that," Abed added.

That should get people's hair on fire. Instead, we get Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, architect of the Sons of Iraq program and future Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, saying, blithely: "Overall, you will never satisfy everybody." It's attitudes like that that lead people right into the arms of al-Qaeda.

I'm trying to find out if either THFTNR or the Washington Independent is on the Air Force blog blacklist, a story broken by THFTNR friend Noah Shachtman.

The Surge's sister band, The N** Y** T****, gets a deservedly great review over at Pop Tarts Suck Toasted. NYT's next show is on March 7 at the Tank on Church Street in Manhattan, and then rock-brother Rory (the fetching redhead on the right) takes the Velvet Lounge stage the following Saturday, March 15, for The Surge's initial deployment.

This seems like a good time to remind everyone to become The Surge's Concerned Local Citizens. E-mail us at SupportTheSurge-at-gmail-com and we'll send you our merchandise for you to vandalize your city with. Street teams are made of these.

Wired has ten unseen Abu Ghraib photos. Don't click on them if you're not prepared to be punched in the stomach. I actually exclaimed when I saw the first one -- Wash Indy's Mike Lillis asked me if I was OK -- so, really, think before you click. Extremely NSFW.

Two things we learn: One, the thumbs-up at beaten prisoners was not just Lynddie England. Pic #2 is another soldier giving the thumbs up over a dead man. Pic #7 is perhaps the most horrifying of all: it zooms out from the infamous wired-box prisoner to show a nearby Charles Graner inspecting his fingernails.

There really need to be some right-wing crack dealers, who can say that they're standing on the corner awthwart history, slanging Rock.

Paul has an excellent catch today. So about that immunity thing for telecom companies that complied President Bush's warrantless surveillance programs? The thing that the White House is demanding Congress bless? It turns out the reason why the GOP is going to the mat on it is pretty simple: campaign cash.

That is money the GOP needs needs needs. In December, House GOP leader John Boehner said his party's fundraising "sucks." And that would be about when the party raised retroactive legal approval of the telecoms and the government's flagrantly illegal behavior to the level of a first principle.

Only thing is, the telecoms just aren't letting the GOP wet its beak! From a subscription-only Roll Call story that Paul excerpts:

“It’s quite discouraging,” said one GOP leadership aide, referring to the disparity in giving from the telecommunications industry in light of the FISA debate, but also the broader lack of support for Republicans from the business community in general.

“These companies just won’t do anything,” the aide said. “Even when you have the Democrats working against their bottom line.”

So it's all about campaign contributions and not at all about national security. Good to know.

LOL!

Shorter Bob Gates: No one invades Iraq 'cept us!

Shorter Turkish government: Hey, what was your line? Oh yeah -- We will stay as long as necessary and not a day more! We reject timetables, and our commanders on the ground will tell us when we can responsibly draw down our troop levels!

This caught me off-guard.

Iraq's presidential council Wednesday rejected a law on the powers of local government that was approved by parliament and touted by the Bush administration as a sign of reconciliation between the country's ethnic and religious groups.

The three-man council asked that parliament reexamine the complicated and multifaceted law when it reconvenes March 18.

Some politicians said the move could jeopardize the package of political deals approved Feb. 13 to heal rifts between the country's main communities at a time of decreased sectarian violence.

Listen to The Boss:

Now, a good deal has been made out of John McCain's repudiation of talk radio yakmeister Bill Cunningham, who led off for McCain at one of his rallies with the full run of Obama sludge. But don't be distracted or fooled. This is more like an example of what the digital commerce folks refer to as 'channel conflict'. You've got your multiple distribution channels. You've got the way McCain's selling the product. Broadcast. Broad and thematic about McCain. But you've got a number of other product channels to sell through, most of them a lot grittier, but no less essential for ultimate success.

Both can work simultaneously. In fact, in the kind of campaign McCain's running, they're both essential for success (see the 2000 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina). The key is just that the channels don't cross. Because that's when the trouble starts and they can begin to undermine or even short-circuit each other. And that's what threatened to happened here.

Don't insult your intelligence or mine by pretending that John McCain's plan for this race doesn't rely on hundreds of Cunninghams -- large and small -- across the country, and the RNC and all the GOP third party groups, to be peddling this stuff nonstop for the next eight months because it's the only way John McCain have a real shot at contesting this race.

The only thing I'd add is that "plan" here should be understood loosely. McCain, for reasons of necessity, doesn't need to know anything about the anti-Obama guerrillas here. In fact, he can repudiate them without, as Josh explains, cognitive dissonance. But the high road and the low road both lead to the same place.

Or to translate Josh's analogy into terms this blog can process: McCain is Tariq Hashemi, the Cunninghams are the Islamic Army of Iraq or the 1920 Revolution Brigades and Obama is the Shiite government. Hashemi has some ties to the Sunni insurgency but prefers politics to bullets and issues the occasional denunciation of the insurgents. Given his druthers, he'd prefer his more genteel version of Sunni politics triumphs over the rabble. But both want the Shiite order overturned. And the greater the siege of the Shiite government, the better. You can forgive the Shiite government for thinking there's more collusion between Hashemi and the insurgency than there probably is. After all, the government is seeing the confluence of interests here.

Oh yeah, and the elements calling Obama's advisers anti-semites, with or without using the word? They're al-Qaeda in Iraq. And deserve the same fate.

My old friend Michael Calderone does, which is where his new Politico blog comes in. It's a shame he couldn't call it Shooting The Messenger, the title of his introductory post, since that might be the best name for a media blog I can think of. Also, wow, what a terrible caricature. Calderone doesn't look like that. If you see him on the street, ask him about Kovax.

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Orlando A. Perez, 23, of Houston, died Feb. 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from small arms fire during dismounted operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany.

For more information media may contact the U.S. Army, Europe, public affairs office at 011-49-6221-57-5816 or 011-49-6221-57-8934, or send an email to ocpa.pi@eur.army.mil.

Look at this: TPM frontpage editor Rachel Weiner has a personal blog! Sadly there's no Hudde-blogging (we went to the same junior high) but hopefully the flood of traffic she's about to experience (right, everyone?) will pressure her.

There's a bomb going off in Tal Afar, there's a Sons of Iraq checkpoint sprayed up in Kirkuk,

Fresh out at the Washington Independent: Cliff May's crew attacks Democrats, possibly-maybe-they-deny-it-but-who-really-knows does something legally dubious, and loses their Democratic beards.

A neo-conservative but ostensibly bipartisan counterterrorism think tank has lost all its Democratic board members by running an attack ad in Democratic congressional districts through an affiliated enterprise.

The think tank, called the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is a 501(c )3—meaning it was incorporated as a non-profit and non-partisan organization, barred from political activity. Last week, it established Defense of Democracies, a 501(c )4 "non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization," that ran an advertisement urging the House of Representatives to pass the Senate’s version of a bill providing retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that collaborated with the Bush administration’s constellation of warrantless surveillance programs. The arrangement is probably legal, experts say, but the parent think tank receives several grants from the State Department—at least one is worth $487,000—for democracy-promotion programs, making its political activities questionable.

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Kevin S. Mowl, 22, of Pittsford, N.Y., died Feb. 25 at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., of wounds suffered in Baghdad, Iraq on Aug. 2, 2007, when the vehicle he was in encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis Wash.

For more information media may contact the Fort Lewis public affairs office at (253) 967-0152, (253) 967-0147 or after hours at (253) 967-0015 and ask for the public affairs officer on call.

I don't know anything about education. (It won't come as a surprise to readers of this blog, I wager.) So when I need to know something about, in particular, early education, I think, if only there was a blog I could consult.

Well, now there is! Introducing Early Ed Watch by New America's Sara Mead. I can feel my ignorance diminish already.

Speaking of Chris Hayes Chris Chris Hayes, he's just started a new Nation blog called J Street. Newest RSS addition!

And no, I couldn't think of a better headline lyric.

You know what Congress is missing? Some conservative Manlove. Via Chris Hayes Chris Chris Hayes. Not a joke.

Sadr extends the ceasefire. Sadly, no reporter has as yet asked a JAMster about the lay-low, in order to get the genius quote, "Ah, Mahdi Army, we like ta party, we don't cause trouble, don't bother no-body..."

I have a friendly relationship with Noah Pollak, which is why I've left him out of out of what I've been writing about the smear of Samantha Power as an antisemite. But now he's called me "lazy and dishonest," so fuck it.

Pollak's beef is that he never actually uses the word "antisemite." And that's true, he doesn't. It's just not exculpatory, because he's spent three posts -- here, here, and here; the fourth one he links to has kind of a meta-comment on the smear at the end -- implying that she has a special animus against the Jewish state. I will not suspend disbelief on behalf of someone who traffics in innuendo. Pollak is trying to get you to believe that Power, who wrote and published her first book with the assistance of arch-Jew-hater Leon Wieseltier, is an antisemite. He's just too much of a pussy to come out and say that, because then he'd have to defend a baseless point.

He keeps on demanding that Power "explain" prior statements. But why shouldn't Pollak, allegedly a journalist, actually, you know, try to answer his own questions? Here's a simple test. Call TNR at 202-508-4444. Ask for Leon. Ask Leon Wieseltier if Samantha Power harbors any ill will toward Israel or the Jews. Or does Pollak think Leon is no real friend of the Jews? I'm sure Pollak will get right on this and report back, because Lord knows he'd never be either lazy or dishonest.

Update: It gets better! Max Boot just wrote the following:

I’ve known Power for six years and have never heard her say anything that I would construe as anti-Israel. In fact, at a December 2006 forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School at which we were both panelists, she rather forcefully dismissed a claim by a Jewish anti-Zionist in the audience who tried to equate Israeli policy with South African apartheid—a favorite trope of the hard left.

Ready to give it up and apologize to Power yet, Noah?

There we go!

"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel," leading Democratic presidential contender Illinois Senator Barack Obama said Sunday.

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than "just crushing the opposition" is being "soft or anti-Israel."

Now that is the sort of thing that a real friend of Israel says. Not a fair-weather fake friend who'd rather not risk angering your buddies, but the kind of friend who takes your car keys from your hand at the bar. Let's see the Rubins of the world twist his words, so we can demonstrate how little they actually care about the actually-existing state of Israel.

Update: And right on time, the New York StuermerSun [update: that really did go too far, so my apologies to the Sun] runs this vile hit piece, for which the Clintonites are happy to play their part.

Late Update: From the Sun's editorial today:

Senator Obama, in his remarks in Ohio this week to a gathering of Jewish leaders, went a long way toward allaying any doubts that may have lingered in the community about his Israel policy and, more broadly, the spirit of goodwill and friendship that he had for American Jews. In our view, as we have made clear previously, those doubts and concerns were always ill-founded and, in fact, were being stoked by Mr. Obama's political rivals.

Half-credit here. Love that passive voice about "doubts that may have lingered in the community..." How might those doubts have gotten to the community, one wonders?

Another Arba'een bombing. Also, Turkey has invaded Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Tony Cordesman, though -- who really is a small-s serious guy -- we might still win the war, "only if tactical military victories end in ideological and political victories and in successful governance and development." You know, small things like that. Tony, come back to us!

DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Drew W. Weaver, 20, of St. Charles, Mo., died Feb. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Media with questions about this Marine can contact the 1st Marine Division public affairs office at (760) 763-5397.

Hey look, Mattos Locos and I, several sheets to the wind at Saturday's/Sunday morning's Nouveau Riche, made Brightest Young Things. Actually, we made it for this photo, which is a much better (and more representative!) picture of me anyway, but I include this one because on the left you'll see one of my oldest and dearest friends, Colin Asher.

Today Colin won the Cushing Niles Dolbeare Media Award for his reporting on the affordable housing crisis in San Francisco. His excellent piece for the San Francisco Chronicle, in the eyes of the judges, "gave a 'face' to homeless and inadequately housed people" and demonstrated "a dedication to investigative reporting and his commitment to the exposure of an overlooked housing issue."

And to think I knew him back when we hid from cops in Christmas trees and drank tequila in my mother's basement during band practice. I credit Colin with many things, but among them is forcing me to confront a worthy question I had somehow overlooked. When I told him I was becoming a journalist in 2000, during the Targum/New York Press/college days, he asked, "What's your journalism for?" I didn't have an answer, but thought: I should really be able to respond to that. I don't have a stable answer, in all honesty, but I'm reassured of the value of the Mission by having Colin alongside.

Words cannot express what a brilliant idea this is. Maybe I'll steal it when We Are Blackwater gets published.

Megan: So, you're more like cockroaches or Bai Ling?
Anonymous Defense Contractor: Uh, I don't know who that is, but, okay. Basically, there's tons of us for all manner of things- everything from building planes to answering phones.

I totally don't know who Bai Ling is either! This is pretty sweet too.

Anonymous Defense Contractor: So, DOD is like American Idol -- an old idea that hasn't been updated for the future. State is more like Real World or Road Rules -- tired, old stupid bullshit full of vapid assholery. USAID is like The Next Great American Band -- they are the rock stars of the government but no one pays attention to them. Treasury is totally Rock Star INXS because [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson is so J.D. The CIA is One Shot at Love With Tila Tequila because it looks like it's gonna be hot, but once you get a couple of episodes in you want to scrub your brain with a Brillo pad. DHS is Rock Star Supernova, all doomed. ODNI [the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence, created to oversee everyone else] is a similar case. As for the NSC, well, there's got to be a reality show about retarded people, right? That would be apropos here.

This made me want to cry, for real. Catherine has become Flophouse Chairwoman Emeritus. Forever she is Punk Rock Kitchen's pastry chef (she in fact guaranteed this by taking the stand mixer -- yes, yes, I know, it's hers -- but still). Her old room will become a shrine to her for as long as there is a Flophouse.

Sorry, but this just arrived in my inbox and I felt nauseous. This memorial feature has to return. Now with new lyric.

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Keisha M. Morgan, 25, of Washington, D.C., died Feb. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of a non-combat related cause. She was assigned to the Division Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

The circumstances are under investigation.

For further information media may contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at (254) 287-9993; after hours (254) 291-2591.

Both disgusting and creative. Thanks to commenter Alex.

A suicide bomber in a wheelchair killed a top policeman and wounded two others when he blew himself up in the police operations centre in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Monday, police said.

The bomber had entered the building in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, and asked to speak to assistant police chief Major-General Abdul-Jabbar Rabee Muttar, said Captain Luay Mohammed, an official in the Samarra police chief's office.

Major Muthanna Mohammed of Salahuddin provincial police said the bomber, in his 40s, then detonated a vest packed with explosives, killing Muttar and wounding two other policemen.

Scenes from a suicide bombing.

Some Sunnis in Dora said the Shiite pilgrims provoked Sunday's fighting by chanting, "Damn the Sunnis, the highway is now ours," as they marched through the area the previous day.

One leader of a U.S.-backed local Sunni guard force in Dora said in an interview that Iraqi soldiers stationed in the area clashed with Sunnis who went to complain to them about the taunting.

"The army forces overreacted and had a serious brawl with the local residents," said the leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Army forces started shooting randomly at locals."

First they came for Zbigniew Brzezinski, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't Zbigniew Brzezinski. Then they came for Rob Malley, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't Rob Malley. Then they came for Samantha Power, and I'll cut down any motherfucker who so much as bats an eyelash in the direction of suggesting that Samantha Power is an antisemite. These people will stop at nothing until they define all of liberalism as antisemetic. Rubin used to whine about the "criminalization" of the policy debate. Well, sorry: you don't get to do that and then call anyone a hair to the left of you a Jew-hater.

Shmuel Rosner of Ha'aretz profiles Power about the rising tide of extremist, unrepresentative American Jews calling everyone associated with Obama an antisemite. She replies:

But she doesn't understand what all the fuss is about: She doesn't claim that the NIE is correct, but rather that the international community is using it to fend off Bush on the Iranian issue. And lest there be any doubt: "I do not underestimate the threat that is Iran." Her objective - Obama's objective - is "to neutralize Iran."

Happy now, you assholes? Do you have the precious "clarification" you've demanded from a woman who has forgotten more about geopolitics than you'll ever know? Of course they'll never be satisfied, because this game is rigged. Not a single question from them is asked in earnest, in good faith or in the spirit of open inquiry. That's why the response from liberals must be swift, decisive and overwhelming exposure of the smear. They will not stop at calling Barack Obama an antisemite. They will call you an antisemite, whether or not you are Jewish.

Update: Oh, look here too. Look what AIPAC says!

"Senators Clinton, Obama, McCain and Governor Huckabee have demonstrated their support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship," AIPAC president Howard Friedman wrote to NEWSWEEK. (AIPAC says all three senators have strong congressional voting records on issues important to the U.S.-Israel relationship.)

Do you know what that means, Rubin et al (and that includes the Clintonites)? That means it's time for you to shut the fuck up.

My two sons will be named Omar and Kenard. They will have to learn to live in harmony.

The New York Times recognizes the game-changer that is TPM. Even prints two photos of the Flower Station, in which you can see the backs of such famous reporters as Paul Kiel and Eric Kleefeld. The dude in the red shirt? Psychokiller Ben Craw. I don't see Rachel Weiner, Sargent Slaughter or Andrew Golis in there, which is unfortunate.

Meanwhile, Sig Gissler is acting a bitch:

Sig Gissler, the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, said in an e-mail message that online articles are eligible for the awards, but they must have been published on a weekly or daily newspaper’s Web site.

“A freestanding Web site does not qualify,” he said.

The gates must be crashed!

Shiite pilgrims slaughtered. We do not have to wait until the end of the surge to see the end of the surge.

I truly did not know that Jeff was recording this.Also, Rock Band drumming? Hard. Somehow harder than actual drumming.

For NATO to be strong, cohesive and active, the President must give it consistent direction: on the alliance’s purpose; on Europe’s need to invest more in defense capabilities; and, when necessary, in military conflict.

To be relied upon when they are needed, our allies must be respected when they are not.

We have partners, not satellites. Our goal is a fellowship of strong, not weak, nations. And this requires both more American consultation and more American leadership. The United States needs its European allies, as well as friends in other regions, to help us with security challenges as they arise. For our allies, sharing the enormous opportunities of Eurasia also means sharing the burdens and risks of sustaining the peace. The support of friends allows America to reserve its power and will for the vital interests we share.

George Bush said that! In 1999! I came across this November 1999 speech while writing my forthcoming Obama piece, in order to demonstrate the point that you can't really rely on what a candidate says for predicting how s/he'll behave in office.

Yglz:

Ralph Nader to hop into the race. After all, there's not a dime's worth of a difference between a candidate promising tax cuts, pushing more health risk onto individuals, a re-invigoration of George Bush's campaign to dominate the world through military force, and an industry-friendly approach to environmental issues and his rival who's promising substantial socialization of medical risk, a 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions, and end to the war in Iraq (and to the mindset that led to war!), universal preschool, etc. Well, sure, there's judicial appointments -- abortion, gay rights, etc. -- and some small fry stuff about whether or not the NSA will have unrestrained surveillance powers. But basically it's just the same two corporate clones running on virtually identical platforms.

When John Judis clears his throat, he shows up half the journalists in the country. But when he puts his back into it? Damn.

Looming over all of American history--but particularly the country's formative years--is the Biblical figure of Adam, the only person, according to the West's major religions, to have lived unburdened by what came before him. As literary critic R.W.B. Lewis wrote in 1955, in his wonderful book The American Adam, early generations of Americans became captivated by the idea that they could create a future without reference to the past. The revolutionaries who fought for America's independence saw themselves as breaking not only with the Old World but with history itself. "The case and circumstances of America present themselves as in the beginning of a world," Thomas Paine wrote in 1792. Thomas Jefferson believed the new nation should regularly renew itself, arguing that, if necessary, "[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed ... with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But, as Lewis explains, it was after the War of 1812--after the United States had finally cut loose from Great Britain and other foreign entanglements--that the notion of a country unbound from the constraints of history really began to take root. Democratic Review--the magazine of a nineteenth-century progressive movement known as Young America--captured this sentiment in 1839, when it editorialized, "[O]ur national birth was the beginning of a new history ... which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only."

The piece is about Obama. It's kind of, um, comprehensive.

Did you know there's another Clipse mixtape this year? That's right -- "Got Snow?" for 31 Degreez. It's a couple tracks that appear on We Got It For Cheap 3 but waaaaaaay more that don't. I just put it on for the first time. Don't know where you can DL it, as I got mine (for cheap!) from Mixtape Kings.

Update: Holy shit. "Grindin' Part 2" featuring NORE and -- wait for it -- Baby & LOL Wayne.

Update: Wow. Pusha: "It shames me to no end/ to feed poison to those who could very well be my kin/ But when there's demand/ someone will supply/ So I feed them their needs and at the same time cry/ Yes, it pains me to seem them need this/ all of 'em lost souls, and I'm their Jesus/ It was regretted, sympathy to the streets/ I see no pain for their fix when their kids couldn't it/ and with this in mind, I still didn't quit/ and that's how I know that I ain't shit." Wow.

The Big Bear Cafe cult doesn't need my help to corrupt the minds of DC youth -- j/k! It's a good coffee shop! -- but this is awesome.Via Cecily.

This just landed in my inbox from Mike McConnell and Michael Mukasey.

STATEMENT BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REGARDING COOPERATION WITH PRIVATE PARTNERS

“As stated in the joint letter from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence dated February 22, the Department of Justice and the Intelligence Community have been working assiduously to mitigate the effects of the uncertainty caused by the failure to enact long-term modernization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. We learned last night after sending this letter that, as a result of these efforts, new surveillances under existing directives issued pursuant to the Protect America Act will resume, at least for now. We appreciate the willingness of our private partners to cooperate despite the uncertainty. Unfortunately, the delay resulting from this discussion impaired our ability to cover foreign intelligence targets, which resulted in missed intelligence information. In addition, although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the on-going uncertainty and have indicated that they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists. Even with the cooperation of these private partners under existing directives, our ability to gather information concerning the intentions and planning of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets will continue to degrade because we have lost tools provided by the Protect America Act that enable us to adjust to changing circumstances. Other intelligence tools simply cannot replace these Protect America Act authorities. The bipartisan Senate bill contains these authorities, as well as liability protection for those companies who answered their country’s call in the aftermath of September 11. We hope that the House will pass this bill soon and end the continuing problems the Intelligence Community faces in carrying out its mission to protect the country."

Notice they can't even bring themselves to say "telecommunications companies." It's been nearly a week since the Protect America Act expired and, miraculously, I'm still alive. But for how long?

Sick of hearing about Rock Band already? You shouldn't be. It's as much fun as everyone says. Courtesy of CatAn's bf, The Commitment Scheme ran through a powerful RB repertoire. "Vasoline," "Cherub Rock," and... I kind of don't remember the rest. We didn't do "Wave of Mutilation" as I had anticipated, but on the way over from Galaxy Hut we warmed up by belting out a rendition of Live's "Lightning Crashes" when it came on the radio.

Amanda was kind enough to let Capps and me crash at her (extremely nice and grown-up) house. I repaid her by puking on her neighbor's doorstep. Sorry!

Published yesterday evening at the Washington Independent while I was off playing Rock Band: Jerry Nadler tells me that DOJ's Steve Bradbury is a liar.

A prominent member of the House Judiciary Committee called a senior Justice Department official a liar in an exclusive interview with The Washington Independent. The congressman urged the official to resign over an apparent falsehood about waterboarding and proceeded to urge the prosecution of President George W. Bush and former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales for "violat[ing] the law with impunity."

"I suspect he’s lying," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the chairman of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, said about Steven G. Bradbury, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Nadler believes Bradbury misled the panel about the definition of waterboarding during a colloquy over the procedure’s legality.

Someone is wrong on the internet, and it's Susan Jacoby. Andrew Golis cuts her up like he was Dexter.

I swear this just arrived in my inbox from the Heritage Foundation. I'm cordially invited to a special screening of "Shoot Down"! What's that?

On February 24, 1996, Cuban MIGS shot down two unarmed, civilian aircraft of the Brothers-to-the-Rescue organization in international airspace. Cuba's callous disregard for human life resulted in the murder of four individuals and outraged all Americans.

That happened? Huh. What does this tell us about Cuba, anyway?

As Cuba transitions from the control of an ailing Fidel Castro to the leadership of his 76-year-old brother Raul, and as the Cuban military moves center-stage in this process, it is important to recall the nature of the Cuban regime and the dark acts for which its leaders will be held accountable in the court of history.

I was going to do this whole moral-equivalence thing, with the Raul Castro government making a movie called "Guantanamo Bay," but let's let this speak for itself.

It's been a long time in the making, and it required me to lend out my Blogger account, but please welcome to the 'sphere the freshest thing going: Too Hot For NYSun!j/k!

Moe Tkacik asks:

Isn't stress and anxiety the source of some motivation? I say this because I completely and utterly lack the ability to get stressed about shit anymore. I am fully relaxed, all the time, and the speed just makes me moreso. And while I definitely find it irritating when other people (Virgos, for instance) get unnecessarily worked up about pointless shit, I am entirely too Zen to try and impose my worldview upon them about it, and really too Zen to do much of anything anymore. If relaxed people ever got stressed out and motivated, maybe our global conflicts would be over tariffs on meditation robe exports and incense dumping legislation, but no. Hysterical fanatics govern everything.

Yeah. I've kind of got to have too much to do in order to do anything. When I have too little to do, I invent problems to solve. During a spare 20 minutes last night when my meatloaf and garlic fries were in the oven, I started worrying about my inability to fix the Flophouse's plumbing if it came to that. Luckily I remembered that I have to write a freelance piece this weekend, file for 5 p.m. today, put up an old friend at the Flophouse this weekend and go on a (since-cancelled) skiing trip. Everything was back to rush of calm like a needle inside of your arm, as the song goes.

I don't actually know what Zen is, and Moe's use of it as a capitalized adjective is unfortunate, but it doesn't sound like I would want any of that shit. The work is what matters, right? And the means to the work, even if they eat at your soul -- that's a cost of doing business, right?

Could Feist's "I Feel It All" be any better? Why, as a matter of fact, yes. Britt Daniels from Spoon makes the impossible possible. Via CatAn, who I'm going to miss terribly.

Soundtrack for today's DC weather: "Wintry Grey" by Arcturus.

(Crossposted from the Streak.) The classic statement of U.S. soldier frustration with Iraq remains "What kind of people loot dirt?" (Captain Allen Vaught, 490th Civil Affairs Battalion, to Daniel Williams and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post.) But we might have a runner-up! This isn't about U.S. forces, but whatever. Courtesy of subscription-only IraqSlogger:

Common household appliances were transformed into potentially deadly weapons in a workshop raided by Iraqi forces in central Baghdad, according to security sources.

Iraqi police received a tip last week from a resident of the al-Andalus Square central Baghdad east of the Tigris, who said that his neighbor seemed to be unloading dozens of tank-style water heaters into his residence. ...

Last Thursday Iraqi police arrived at the residence with a warrant. Upon searching the premises, they found three water heaters packed with explosives and a further 65 open and ready to be rigged.

OK, now something Too Hot For TWI!

The first house I ever lived in outside my mother's or father's was at 20 Plum Street in New Brunswick during my freshman year in college. (It's a parking lot today.) A slum lord who referred to himself in the third person owned it -- as in, the guy would threaten my roommate Kris Walter with flourishes like, "If Kevin M**** doesn't get his money on time, people get thrown down stairs!" Part of the revenge that Liz enacted on her housemates for being bastards to her was to turn off the power before the rest of us moved out. In a fit of misdirected anger, we took revenge on the house, unscrewing water heaters and messing with the heating and the ducts. (Already Jesse Cannon and a transsexual had thrown themselves through the living room wall during parties.) So what I'm saying is that it's a thin line between college miscreant and terrorist.

Why I love working for Allison Silver:

Jounalists, it used to be said, kept their hats on indoors and put their feet on the desk, respect for authority was a trait they lacked. We hope to continue in that honorable tradition.

If yesterday's ABC No Rio nostalgia was the mania, the post-office workout was the crash. Yglesias I think already posted something about this when he joined, but it says something about the Way of All Flesh when I'm mouthing Screeching Weasel lyrics on an elliptical at a too-expensive gym. (Also a politically connected one. I've seen Gayle Smith and Jamal Simmons there, and rumor has it Andrew Sullivan's husband is an employee.) Yeah, consultant, you're goddamn right you hear Requiem's "Secession" coming out of my iPod buds, because I'm fucking bad ass. Now point me to the baby wipes, because I am done with this machine.

Thinking about it in the locker room, I was all, as Derya said in comments in the last post, le sigh. Then a dude came in wearing a ratty old Anti-Flag t-shirt. I said nothing.

(This really happened. I know it sounds like Leon telling Lloyd Grove that he broke his Kosher-edge at a Patti Smith show at CB's in 1976 -- in other words, bullshit -- but, unlike Leon, I could not make something like that up.)

It's pretty hard to report stories about Steve Bradbury and Barack Obama when a grown-up Erica from the Schizophrenics facebook-messages you after a 13-year silence to let you know that Liz from her band is not only a comic book artist but has documented the mid-90s ABC No Rio scene that even today makes you wistful and nostalgic.

You see the sleepy-eyed girl with the black hair in this picture? That's Derya, who made me one of the mixtapes that started it all back in my freshman year of high school. By stunning punk-rock telepathy, she facebook'd me like yesterday and posted something very embarrassing on my fB page. This picture also features the infamous Caroline -- with the dog collar -- who's involved in one of my favorite ABC stories of all time, in which I miss The Pist's last-ever NYC performance and it was worth it. Colin's cousin Camille is on the far right. The skinhead girl on the left? I don't remember her name either and it's KILLING me, but she ended up writing for New York Press just after I left. Michelle Chen! She's Michelle Chen!

Right now I'm waiting for a callback from Manhattan Congressman Jerrold Nadler -- that Bradbury piece -- and I kind of want to ask him what his thoughts are on having the basement of that cafe by Columbia University used for Violent Society/Hysterics/Prozac Nation shows.

Update: Furious George! They played that show too. Everyone help George out, as he's a national punk-rock treasure. I should have included him in the New York Press post.

Abu Muqawama isn't a fan of the New York Sun, so obviously he's an America-hating antisemite. Funny how many of those there are in the Army! He does, however, make an exception for the Sun's arts coverage and its national-security correspondent, my homie Eli Lake. I'll take his word for it on the arts coverage and big-up the Zionist Scientist myself.

Yes, there is more to the Sun than being a self-parodic neocon-fanzine version of Der Stuermer. For instance, though Abu Mooq is a college football and soccer fan, he -- and the rest of us -- should take note of the nation's best baseball writer is the Sun's Tim Marchman. That's right: best. For instance, read Tim's Yankee spring-training-intro column:

The Yankees' three prodigies are in good hands. The team has proved it will not overwork them, manager Joe Girardi has had a hand in developing some excellent young staffs during his career, and even Steinbrenner has stressed patience and care in dealing with the inevitable ups and downs that come with young pitching. Still, as the fate of Generation K goes, it's best not to count on too much from three prospects who haven't, between them, pitched 150 major league innings in their careers.

The problem for the Yankees is that they are counting on them. Chien-Ming Wang, Pettitte, and Mike Mussina cannot pitch this team into the playoffs alone. It's a courageous move, one fans should support, but the team truly is staking October on the kids.

In his spare time, Marchman even hunts down MP3 versions of Spitboy's True Self Revealed record. You can't front on "Isolation Burns," which I think might also be the new name for Andy Pettitte's late-career splitter. See Tim for the full story all throughout the pre-season, the season, the post-season and forever after.

Newness. For everyone out there who's been noticing that all the civilian intelligence agencies are run by military people, and who wonders if long-term forecasting is losing out to warfighter support as an intelligence priority, here comes some white-label, acetate-only Washington Independent truth and soul:

According to long-time observers, the militarization of the U.S. intelligence community goes further than the uniforms worn by agency leaders. Put another way, those leaders are symptoms of a more fundamental shift over the last several years. With the U.S. mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, intelligence has moved away from long-term forecasting and toward immediate support to military commanders prosecuting the wars.

"There needs to be a semi-independent voice that voices the broader strategic perspectives and is not driven by the [intelligence] demands of day," said Robert Hutchings, who chaired the National Intelligence Council from 2003 until 2005. "The worry is not that Mike Hayden and Mike McConnell happen to be military officers; it’s that the system is now skewed to current intelligence, driven by military operations. That’s leaving too little left over for strategic analysis of what’s going on more broadly. And that leads to [an echo chamber effect]: this is what’s presented to policy-makers, and it just reinforces the worldview they began with."

On Tuesday morning, John McCain was a strong GOP presidential candidate. Right now, he's a lobbyist-schtupper who's weak on terrorism and pro-lying dictator. Funny how that goes.

Scene: a Motel 6. MIKE HUCKABEE, whose face is never seen, sits on a bed watching MSNBC. He is drinking a Diet Coke from the can. Suddenly his BlackBerry chirps. He answers.

HUCKABEE. Hello?

MAN'S VOICE. Hi, Mike. It's Karl Rove.

HUCKABEE. Oh, wow. Hi, Karl!

MAN'S VOICE. Listen, man, we need to talk. You have two choices.

HUCKABEE. What do you mean, Karl?

MAN'S VOICE. You can fight on to the convention. I know people have a lot of buyers' remorse about McCain right now. Especially conservatives--

HUCKABEE. Yeah!

MAN'S VOICE. Let me finish. You've got a lot of support, Mike. I respect that. But consider that if you take this thing down the pike, you're still a long shot to numerically win the nomination, and you probably won't.

HUCKABEE. Yeah, we've kind of thought of that.

MAN'S VOICE. Really, don't cut me off.

HUCKABEE. I thought you were fini--

MAN'S VOICE. So all you'll do is bleed our nominee. And that's bad, Mike. That's bad for you. That'll mean that your career is done. Me and my friends, we remember shit like that. You what I'm capable of.

HUCKABEE. Um.

MAN'S VOICE. But there's another choice, Mike. you can join the ticket.

HUCKABEE. Well, look, we've thought --

MAN'S VOICE. No, listen to me for a second, Mike. you join the ticket. Maybe you guys win. McCain's an old man. He probably won't run for a second term. In fact, maybe I call John next and remind him.

HUCKABEE. Huh.

MAN'S VOICE. Yeah. And if you guys lose? My guys will remember that you took one for the team. And you run in 2012. We'll be there for you. We remember stuff like this too.

HUCKABEE. Um.

MAN'S VOICE. Yeah. Think it over. I'm-a holler at you.

HUCKABEE. One.

Lights.

Mitt Romney is on the couch, in his pajamas, under the covers -- he brought the covers to his couch so he could be more comfy watching TV, as he didn't sleep last night -- unshaven, smelling bad, shoveling soup-spoons-full of the Vermonster into his mouth, and thinking to himself, "Stupid jerk! If only you had stayed in the race three more mother-loving weeks! You really pulled a you-know-what this time!"

I believe the dudes fighting at the end of this video are John Weaver and Mark Salter.Clearly, the real culprit in the John McCain/Vicki Iseman affair is the pharmaceutical industry. Come on, he's 71!

Also, shouldn't the hed for the NYT piece have been John McCain: Deep Inside The Special Interests?

Rich Byrne has been promising for months now to give me a burned copy of Spitboy's excellent, impossible-to-find True Self Revealed LP, which I unfortunately lost in the 1999 unemployed-and-need-to-pay-rent record purge, otherwise known as the Vinyl Nakhba. (Luckily I recovered the Crudos/Spitboy split LP on Ebullition, a total classic.) He hasn't delivered, and he always has excuses. But I just found this Spitboy song on YouTube, complete with DIY video.

And what the hell? Adrienne Droogas joined Aus-Rotten? How did I not know that? I still have my PR blue hoodie -- I'm saving it for my grandchildren -- and it still has the red Spitboy backpatch I silkscreened when I was 17.

Update: Five minutes of YouTubing around, and oh snap. Adrienne brought Aus-Rotten to the next level.

Mark Lilla's essay about Jacob Heilbrunn's They Knew They Were Right is mostly wide of the mark (more when I finish the book), but I have to give Leon credit for publishing this:

Of course, there were Americans of every ideological stripe--not just members of the professional counterestablishment--who supported the war to topple Saddam. Most of them had no fantasies of restoring "national greatness," they just thought that Saddam had the weapons and that we had no better option. Fine. But even that is not the whole story. For it turned out that the liberal hawks who became so prominent after September 11, including here at The New Republic, were indeed interested in restoring "national greatness," though in a new, more left-leaning form. They have been accused of succumbing to neoconservatism themselves, but that is backwards. In retrospect, what seems to have motivated them was the desire to displace the neocons from their dominant perch in Washington by proving that liberalism could be a fighting faith at home and abroad. Clinton's intervention in Kosovo confirmed that was possible, so why not continue the march all the way to Baghdad? Why leave the promotion of human rights and democracy--not to mention the protection of dissidents such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali--to the madmen at AEI, whose domestic policies were loathsome? As Heilbrunn's pages show, though he does not quite put it this way, the temptation to beat the neocons at their own game was hard to resist--which meant, of course, that the liberal hawks also found themselves playing the old reactionary game, which is to use a foreign war to reform society at home.

I have this half-baked idea to record songs with slightly rewritten lyrics, under the faux-Barthean pretext that recording mistaken lyrics as they initially sounded to a perplexed listener creates a certain jouissance. You tweak the meaning that way. Sorry, but I think this is an interesting idea and you're not going to talk me out of it. We'll see what my partner-in-Surge thinks.

For instance. I'm at my desk, deep in the exhausted haze that occurs right after you file a piece. So to wake myself up I put on Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee record, and heard Eric Bachmann sing, "Side by side with the Taliban/ cut into your face." Now, those clearly aren't the real lyrics. But dammit they should be. And with The Surge on its way to the battlefield, perhaps they will be.

Speaking of books you've got to read, we're barely a month away from the release of the best foreign-policy volume of 2008, Heads In The Sand by Matthew Yglesias. No commentator has been as prescient for as long about the structural and political barriers to an intellectual rebirth of liberal internationalism among the foreign-policy establishment. No commentator has been as eloquent for as long at identifying the failures of Democratic foreign-policy thinking. No commentator has been as ruthless for as long at eviscerating the abject failure of conservative foreign-policy thinking.

It's important that liberalism enter the age of Obama. Clearly, something fundamental is changing on the American left. A clear symptom of this is the rise of Yglesias and (to borrow a phrase from Schlesinger) the destruction of the old order. It's true that the author is my roommate and my friend, but Heads In The Sand introduces the new liberalism to its new Neibuhr: its herald, its intellectual backbone, its wit, its ideological mailed fist.

I know Ted Leo's Living With The Living record came out like a year ago, but I haven't really listened to it very often. But I've been on a huge Chisel kick lately, so I broke out "A Bottle Of Buckie" just now. Am I crazy or did Ted totally rip off "Found Out About You" by the Gin Blossoms?

Sorry, I meant did Ted Leo totally include a clever musical reference to the Gin Blossoms, perfectly appropriate for a song about a sweet reminiscence?

You guys have bought Still Broken, right? Alex Rossmiller's awesome-even-though-I-haven't-finished-it account of his time as an intelligence officer in Iraq? Well, if you haven't, read this interview I did with Alex over at TAP, which hopefully will convince you to throw some cash his way via Amazon.

I don't know if people know this, but the military, which loves acronyms, has a particularly pungent one for the Mahdi Army. Those dudes are JAM, for Jaish al-Mahdi, the Arabic name for the Sadrist militia. No word on whether they engage in subversive, disconnected sketch comedy in between death-squad operations.

Here's something I didn't know, but Tom Ricks did. The splintering of JAM has led to a surge in sub-JAM references. There's Criminal JAM, Iran JAM, and my personal favorite, JAM Classic. When Sadr decides to go intergalactic, one presumes there'll be Space JAM, which will be playfully animated.

Unfortunately, the name for a member of JAM is a JAMster. How could it not be a JAMmie? Iraq is nothing but missed opportunities.

How has no one made the Star Wars/Obama shirt that says, "We Are The Droids We've Been Looking For"?

Juan Cole rips John McCain a new one over McCain's Pakistan comments last night. As the kids say, read the whole thing. But, really, let's get into this:

[W]ill we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan, and sitting down without pre-conditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?

Obama said that if he had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of al-Qaeda's senior leadership, who are in the tribal areas of Pakistan, he's wiping them off the face of the earth. Good to know that John McCain, who allegedly knows something about defending America in the course of advocating a war that has made America drastically less secure, would do absolutely nothing. Good to know that John McCain doesn't care that those people murdered 3,000 Americans. Good to know that John McCain doesn't think those souls demand justice. Good to know that John McCain would read an intelligence report about al-Qaeda in Pakistan planning to murder more Americans and say LOL HAI LOOK IRAN KTHXBAI.

Good to know that John McCain thinks Pervez Musharraf is a valuable ally. Good to know John McCain believes that the Pakistani security apparatus is best used when it neglects al-Qaeda, when it neglects to protect opposition candidates, and when it serves as the personal guard of Pervez Musharraf. Good to know that John McCain doesn't believe in results, he believes in satisfying a conventional wisdom that would run America into the abyss and lose the war against al-Qaeda. Good to know that the media won't treat what John McCain said for what it is: a statement of purest surrender against the people that killed 3,000 Americans and will kill many, many more if John McCain is president.

Update: Not everyone's ignoring it. Joe Klein takes McCain to task on Swampland.

Via Dodai/Mattos Locos, a perfect explication of why The Surge exists:

After all, no bands form with the dream of being speccily rowed over by trainspotting blokes in the no-fun corner of the pub. They form to make ladies drink, dance on tables, and want to have sex with them.

On this basis, we can see that women understand rock music in a way men never will.

Here's something I never anticipated. The COIN crowd assembled for a Tom Ricks talk this afternoon. A friend asked me to explain emo to John Nagl. Thrown for a bit of a loop, I got kind of into the weeds: "So there was this punk band, Minor Threat? And they were awesome? And then their singer links up with the guys from his brother's band? They become this other band Embrace, which is, like, less hard but also awesome...?" Blank stare from Nagl. Ricks pipes up: "Think about the music playing in every VW commercial you've heard over the past two years." Eureka moment. It's actually not really true, but I thought: Really? Tom Ricks does this better than me, too?

I think I kind of redeemed myself at the coffee line, when I explained to Nagl the jokes made at his expense on this comment thread. The man knows a lot about counterinsurgency, but he don't know shit about no LOLcats. I thought he'd at least get the concept about being in someone's base killing their doodz, but clearly he's short-changing the ineradicable kinetic aspects of COIN.

Can she hear this speech -- and wow, this is long, it's like triple encore, but still -- and not herself be inspired? She needs to drop out. She is no longer a factor in this race. He nudges toward her, but he is looking at McCain, and the country, and so is McCain. She is honorable and good, but she is in the way of history, and she needs to honorably withdraw. Peace with honor, and the rebuilding can begin.

I have nothing to say about this Idolator post but pass it along because of the 50 Cent picture, since I'm not going to link to the Vibe cover it's from. The reason? Notice 50's beard. Thick along the cheeks and jaw, very very light, barely-more-than-stubble mustache. That's the way I'm going these days. It works for a few reasons.

First, mustaches really are distasteful. But having a beard without a mustache is way too basement-hardcore (or TAP editor). So better to hint at the mustache than get rid of it. Second, approaching your beard like this is, in effect, a protest of the appalling hipster mustache trend. Finally, and most importantly -- as more than one friend of mine has told me, usually with disgust -- you look more like a terrorist this way.

I go back and forth over whether this is a cheap shot. But from the Pentagon:

The Afghan government, with assistance from U.S. and international forces and nongovernmental agencies, has made great progress over the past year in providing health care to the country’s population, a U.S. Army physician posted in Afghanistan said today.

“The impact of medicine on stability (operations) cannot be underestimated,” Army Col. (Dr.) Jeffrey Johnson, the 82nd Airborne Division’s top doctor and command surgeon for Combined Joint Task Force 82’s eastern regional command, told Pentagon reporters via satellite hookup from Bagram Air Base, located north of the Afghan capital city of Kabul.

So how about getting some of that good stuff back here to 47 million people, chief? When I signed on to the Indy I had health care for the first time in a year, and it was like coming up for air.

Three shot outside a Lil Wayne show, canceling the long-anticipated (by me!) Hot Boys reunion. Does the Re-Up Gang have an alibi? My favorite Lil Wayne dis, courtesy of Malice, from We Got It For Cheap Vol. 3: "Sorry, but I don't respect who you applauding/ Lil' N**** flow, but his metaphors boring/ Don't make me turn daddy's little girl to orphan/ That would mean I'd have to kill Baby like abortion."

I hear Mark Pike would take a bullet for Weezy.

Speaking of Mattos Locos, she sends along this Pitchfork piece about Marky Ramone-brand condoms. I know I'm buying some. Did you guys know Marky is also from Flatbush?

Gestures/Surge side project in full effect! We are The Commitment Scheme, coming to a Rock Band platform near you. The record is called You Shall Learn Nothing and this is the cover art. In addition to Capps and myself, we feature LOLCath and Mattos Locos.

Richard Clarke, the Cassandra of counterterrorism, the man behind the unheeded Delenda plan to destroy al-Qaeda before 9/11, has a new book coming out. It's called Your Government Failed You, after his famous apology to the families of 9/11 victims before the 9/11 Commission. I was in the press box at the hearing when Clarke said those words, and it was like an emotional dam bursting. The families -- so angry, so traumatized, and feeling so disrespected -- stood up and applauded him. Clarke remains the only U.S. official ever to apologize for 9/11.

Clarke's latest book is another well-informed and scathing attack on the conduct of the so-called Global War On Terrorism. An essay based on its thesis is found in one of the best sources for terrorism information around, the CTC Sentinel, published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. In a nutshell: make counterterrorism a full-spectrum fight against al-Qaeda across both civilian and military agencies of the U.S. government; get out of Iraq right now; break up the Department of Homeland Security. A taste:

To defeat the al-Qa'ida movement, it must be recognized as a cancer infecting only a small percentage of the greater body of peace-loving Muslims worldwide. While eliminating the cancer is our end objective, our more immediate goal is to keep it from spreading. Yet many of our actions aimed at capturing and killing terrorists have alienated wide swathes of the Muslim world. In short, what we have done to eliminate the cancer has served to spread it. The most important counterterrorism tools are law enforcement, intelligence and ideology. When military action is called for, we must act swiftly and decisively, but in the context of defeating al-Qa'ida, smart bombs, cruise missiles and SEAL teams must be applied like a surgeon's scalpel to prevent a counterproductive reaction among people affected by the collateral damage.

But that's no fun. Let's go waterboarding!

It's too early to predict the beginning of the end for Musharraf, but sometimes wishful thinking provides a certain emotional comfort.

Christ, does WireTAP ever put the Plotz-Goldberg mutual-masturbation session to shame. Omar as Robin Hood? When, exactly, did he distribute his hauls to the poor? I don't think these two understand the show. And maybe, just maybe, they don't like the Sun storyline because they're the kind of reporters that David Simon disdains. The show is not laughing with you, gentlemen.

Update: In all fairness, I should say that in WireTAP 2 I mistakenly pointed to the loss of Omar's coat as foreshadowing his death. Last night Omar had the coat back.

Over at Abu Mooq, pinch-blogger Kip is having some fun at John Nagl's expense. Pile on!

Update: Best comment section ever. The world is not ready for LOLNAGL.

I just interviewed George fucking McGovern. I'm not going to lie: I think that's pretty cool. McGovern, whatever his faults, was definitely Too Hot For The U.S. Senate. According to Robert Sam Anton's 1972 campaign biography, just before McGovern's 1971 attempt with Senator Mark Hatfield to de-fund the war failed, McGovern said on the Senate floor, "Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood." You can't say that shit!

And here he is in a Playboy interview with Milton Viorst:

Viorst: I suppose that Nixon would like to make the late Ho Chi Minh into the Vietnam Hitler. Are you suggesting he might be the North Vietnam George Washington?

McGovern: That's right.

And he was right! Ho was unquestionably the father of Vietnam in exactly the way Washington was the father of the United States! (Except Ho didn't have like thirty goddamn dicks.) And yet you can't say that sort of thing, because the Bill Kristols will excoriate you and the Mike O'Hanlons will tsk-tsk you. But like the Pope said to the Gdansk shipyard strikers, we need not be afraid.

Read Matt "Angel" Duss on the Boston/Huckabee split. (Actually, they should totally record a split 7".) To change the tone dramatically, my memories of the first Boston record will forever be tied to those of my old, estranged friend T.J. Doherty. At the Brooklyn apartment T.J. shared in 2001 with my then-girlfriend, he drew a picture on a yellow legal pad of the back cover of the first Boston record, a shabby but defiant mess, a total A for effort. (T.J. did another one of My Bloody Valentine, which he accidentally titled, "My Bloddy Valentine.") They hung it, as was necessary, on the wall.

T.J. is a brilliant sound engineer. When he was 13 years old, he heard a Steely Dan record, and thought it was so perfect, he had to make music that sounded as good as that. Not 15 years later, T.J. became Steely Dan's engineer. On one crazy night when he was working on a D'Angelo session, he got us into the legendary Sear Sound studios, where Lou Reed and Alex Chilton recorded. By 6 a.m. I was drumming on D'Angelo's drummer's DW set. T.J. won a Grammy for engineering Wilco's Ghost Is Born record and did a great job on Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped as well.

Last month T.J. thought he had a pimple on his face. It was a staph infection. Both his lungs have collapsed. He's fighting for his life in Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey, where he's not allowed visitors. If you believe in God, please pray for him. T.J., I love you brother, and I'm not prepared to say goodbye.

It's been about 36 hours since the Protect America Act expired. How much longer do we have to live?

In the midst of a Moe Tkacik post that covers your bases from Harold & Kumar to Kosovo's declaration of independence, there's a link to an AP interview with a Guantanamo interrogator. He's upset that that people think he's a torturer. In fact, he says, they just tortured a couple of people at Guantanamo and that was years ago and the people who are at Guantanamo now who were tortured were tortured before they even got to Guantanamo! Mom! Make Billy play fair!

"Everybody in the world believes that they know how we do what we do, and I have to endure it every time I turn around and somebody is making reference to waterboarding," [Paul] Rester said. He insisted that Guantanamo interrogators have had many successes using rapport-building and said that technique was the norm here.

Oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Look, I went to Guantanamo Bay in 2005. (Link? Link? Huh? No, TNR archives, fuck you.) I saw the bolts in the floor in the interrogation chamber at Camp 5 where they short-shackled the detainees. The euphemistic Schmidt-Furlow report describes interrogators putting Mohammed al-Qatani in a room so cold for so long his heart malfunctioned. Then there's the simple, unassailable truth that detaining someone indefinitely without trial is itself torture. If there's injustice here, it's not being committed against Paul Rester.

Apropos of Yglesias's portrait of me as a globe-trotting collector of national-security anecdotes -- weird, that's what my business card says -- two things. One, during my Guantanamo trip, my press handler was this very dudely dude named Justin Behrens who spent the days implying that I was a traitor who asked impertinent and unfair questions and the nights (drunken nights) bellowing into the sea breeze that I was his boy because we've been to the same Montreal strip clubs. He went on to run for Congress as a Democrat in 2006.

Two, Guantanamo Bay has a gift shop. Sure, sure, allegedly it's a NEX, the Navy's equivalent of a PX. But you can buy Camp Delta (the detention facility) souvenirs for your friends there. A stuffed iguana that has "Guantanamo Bay" stitched on his left side currently guards my desk at the Indy. I also bought $100 worth of off-color Guantanamo Bay t-shirts, out of my own pocket, for TNR staffers but they still shitcanned me. I'm trying to work out another trip through the Pentagon to cover the KSM trial, so place your t-shirt orders now. May I recommend the JDOG (Joint Detention Operations Group) shirt, which features a snarling canine, much like the kind used on Iraqi detainees after Abu Ghraib was "Gitmo-ized"? Not that we torture!

Another female suicide bomber. The fifth this year. Three dead in the heart of Baghdad.

Later this afternoon the crew is going to see George Romero's Diary of The Dead. Early reviews suggest that the zombies all sit around with Sunny Day Real Estate records and lament Jeremy Enigk's Christianity. That's how you know they're zombies, because they're still not over a conversion that happened fifteen fucking years ago.

The Surge needs your support.

So Rory from The N** Y*** T**** and I are The Surge. We intend to launch an all-out agit-prop campaign in preparation for our upcoming performance at Washington D.C.'s Velvet Lounge on March 15. But The Surge doesn't have enough troops for the entire country. You, my readers, can augment our overstretched force.

If you e-mail your contact information to supportthesurge-at-gmail-dot-com, we'll mail you stickers and other Surge propaganda, stuff we're in the process of creating. Spread it around your neighborhood. You will be our Concerned Local Citizens, our Awakening Councils. Readers of this blog in Iraq are especially encouraged to enlist.

No one can say The Surge isn't working.

My America has returned when a movie like this can be made. Holy motherfucking shit. Extremely NSFW.Via my dear friend Liz Sheridan, who once did something unspeakable in a Chuck E. Cheese. You should be reading her TV & movie blog. Pressure her to tell the Chuck E. Cheese story!

We had a scare in Irbil in January 2006. There were rumors of Arabs at the market near the old city. My friend Andrew's fixer got the warning through text message, and then he sent it to my fixers, and to all their friends and family. I had an interview near the area that morning. My dudes advised us to reschedule. When we ultimately went to the interview, we took a route that avoided the old city. Kurds don't trust Arabs.

Leila Fadel reports from Irbil that Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming an apartheid state:

Every three months, Munawer Fayeq Rashid goes to the Asayech, an intelligence security agency in Irbil, and hands over his identification. The Shiite Muslim Arab never goes alone. He has to bring a Kurdish sponsor to vouch for him.

Although Irbil is part of Iraq, Iraqi Arabs who move here or elsewhere in Iraqi Kurdistan have learned that they're not considered fellow Iraqis.

"They treat us like foreigners," Rashid said.

When he moved to Irbil from Baghdad, worried about the safety of his Kurdish wife and his children, Rashid had to find a Kurd who'd swear that he was a good man. Then Kurdish authorities questioned him intensely before issuing him a residency permit that's good for only three months. He must carry it with him everywhere.

"They asked every detail about me," Rashid said. "'Where do you live? Who are your relatives? Who were your neighbors in Baghdad?' But the most nerve-wracking question was: 'Are you Sunni or Shiite?'"

Read every word of this courageous man's op-ed. Colonel Morris Davis was the chief prosecutor for the military show-trials at Guantanamo Bay before quitting in protest of the potential admissibility of evidence produced by waterboarding.

TWENTY-SEVEN years ago, in the final days of the Iran hostage crisis, the C.I.A.’s Tehran station chief, Tom Ahern, faced his principal interrogator for the last time. The interrogator said the abuse Mr. Ahern had suffered was inconsistent with his own personal values and with the values of Islam and, as if to wipe the slate clean, he offered Mr. Ahern a chance to abuse him just as he had abused the hostages. Mr. Ahern looked the interrogator in the eyes and said, “We don’t do stuff like that.”

Today, Tom Ahern might have to say: “We don’t do stuff like that very often.” Or, “We generally don’t do stuff like that.” That is a shame. Virtues requiring caveats are not virtues. Saying a man is honest is a compliment. Saying a man is “generally” honest or honest “quite often” means he lies. The mistreatment of detainees, like honesty, is all or nothing: We either do stuff like that or we do not. It is in our national interest to restore our reputation for the latter.

How far we've descended when a man's refusal to speak in euphemisms is a singular act of courage. Can we waterboard Joe Lieberman first? Via Abu Muqawama.

The de-Baathification rollback law was a hoax. Why believe the recent spate of Iraqi legislation is any different? Marc Lynch:

But as with the deBaathification reform (which looked so promising on first blush and then not so much when the details emerged), it all depends on the details of the laws, the implementation, and the reception. Thus far, the reporting in the Western, Arab and Iraqi press has been very light on the details, mostly repeating what Parliament spokesman Khaled al-Attiya said in his press conference. Given the centrality of the details, it isn't encouraging to hear that "the parliamentary success was clouded because many of the most contentious details were simply postponed, raising the possibility that the accord could again break into rancorous factional disputes in future debates on the same issues."

The most significant here is the provincial elections law. You hear a lot of whispers from Iraq followers and military types that the Awakening will take Anbar in the election, but the evidence for that seems to be a mixture of the Awakening Council's boasts and the U.S. military's desire to believe them. That's not to say the Awakening Council won't take Anbar, just a point about suspension of disbelief.

Several things will be worth watching if the Awakening councils win in Anbar (or Diyala, or Salahuddin, etc). First, obvs, the new provincial councils' relationship to Baghdad. The Iraqi budget process is a complex, maddening thing that's kinda-sorta modeled on a French system (or so I was told in March) where provincial councils bidding on services offered by the central government ministries. Provincial taxation is minimal, so the provinces rely on disbursements from Baghdad to buy the aforementioned services. Then the governor and the provincial council fight over priorities. That would make Canadians ready to tear each other to pieces. In Iraq... well, why belabor the point.

Next, do the new provincial councils start replacing Baghdad edicts with their priorities, expanding their control over the provinces at the expense of the Baghdad government? More to the point, do they start trying to make Baghdad irrelevant?

Third, what's the character of their governance? Diyala, for instance, is a mixed province. If a majority-Sunni movement takes control of the province, does it start persecuting Shiites? Does the Shiite-controlled central government -- which has Shiites as police chiefs and Army commanders in Diyala -- strike back?

Fourth, does the U.S. paint yet another black-and-white portrait where the Awakening Councils in office are The Good Guys and their enemies are our enemies, etc.?

The Wire will end in three weeks. After that, what'll I have to care about? Top Chef 4. Battlestar Galactica. Anyone know when the new Battlestar season starts? Or why season 3 isn't on iTunes? I was in Iraq for the end of the season and have no idea what happened.

Shorter Howard Dean: {(i)}

Even if Tom Ricks just has a contrib line, finally someone seeks to explain how Ray Odierno went from doorkicker to counterinsurgent. Unfortunately, the explanation feels a bit hollow. Paley n' Partlow:

In an interview before leaving Iraq to become the Army's vice chief of staff, Odierno said one pivotal moment came in late 2006 as he agonized over whether the United States should ally itself with Sunni tribesmen, many of whom had fought with the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq against the Americans.

"I might have had a harder time doing that in '03 and '04," said Odierno, 53, who said descriptions of his division's conduct in those years have been overblown. "But I realized it was time to do that. We had to reach out to them."

In December 2006, Odierno sat down with Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the Sunni tribal leader in the western province of Anbar who led his tribesmen against al-Qaeda in Iraq and who told the general that he saw the best chance for his people in joining with the Americans. "I spent quite a long time speaking with him, and he told me how his mind-set changed," Odierno said. "I was willing to take a risk."

What? How can a general who had a hard time accepting an alliance with the persuadeables really be a seen-the-light counterinsurgent? Petraeus, Kilcullen, Mansoor, all of em jumped at the chance, and understandably so. Sure, the program veered out of control. But did Odierno really see that in advance? Probably not, since the piece reports that he pushed to rapidly expand the program to its ginormous size, which is an accelerant of the problem.

It's a little complicated an explanation. Simpler -- but not necessarily accurate! -- is that Odierno is Odiernoverrated as a COIN convert. The guy's quotes don't exactly inspire confidence:

And Odierno, who was accused in 2003 of failing to understand Iraqi culture, also repeatedly emphasized that the program, which now includes more than 80,000 men, would never work if it were imposed by the U.S. military.

"It's clear now that we can't succeed without the support of the Iraqi people," he said.

Um, when wasn't it clear?

Also, props to Ricks for contributing to a piece that subverted a key aspect of his masterpiece. In a couple days, he's going to preview his forthcoming book, which I hear is called Unfiasco. (Kidding!)

Update: Abu Muqawama is stumped too.

If, as Tony Soprano once said (and fuck that overrated TV show), 'remember when' is the lowest form of conversation, then 'I beat you on that story' is the lowest form of journalistic one-upsmanship. The truth is that the truth is big enough for more than one reporter. And yet I let out a cackle when I saw that three days after me, the LA Times ran this:

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a bulletin Friday to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, one day after the Lebanese militia group vowed to avenge the death of a top commander by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

"While retaliation in the U.S. homeland is unlikely, Hezbollah has demonstrated a capability to respond outside the Middle East to similar events in the past," said the intelligence bulletin sent to about 18,000 state and local law enforcement officials late Friday afternoon.

The Washington Independent: bringing you the day-three story on day one.

Get ready for it all to go away, White America! Barack Obama is coming for you! You will learn there is more to the chicken than just the breasts! Get ready for the dreaded Itis!

As you might expect from a place called the Flophouse, our power is out. Capps reports that Pepco says to call if it isn't back by 7. Until then, 14U is my port in the electrical storm.

Speaking of the Flophouse, Yglesias has his work collected in a new volume called Ultimate Blogs, compiled by Sarah Boxer of the New York Times. Unfortunately, Boxer chose not to reinterpret Yglesias's origin story. Nor does Sara's DNA ever mix with that of Carnage. Still, you should check it out.

Slut Machine posts a heart-melting video from Nickelodeon of the Postmarks playing a song about balloons to grinning toddlers. Back around my way, circ. 1998 or so, Balloons were the name of a Philadelphia black-metal band fronted by this NJ hardcore kid named Rory. Second greatest black-metal band name of all time. The greatest? I think it was Artie Philie who came up with... The Black People.

To amplify what Yglz said, let me add an anecdote. In Mosul last March, the Provincial Reconstruction Team took me to a meeting of one of Iraq's new terrorism tribunals. Three judges were trucked up from Baghdad to preside over Baghdad-related terrorism cases -- all in Mosul, so the insurgents wouldn't, you know, kill the judges. Interesting idea, heavily billed as a rule-of-law achievement, but boring as hell to watch.

Then at the end, as people are milling about and chatting on their way out the door, one of the PRT officials tells a judge how important it is to stand up against terrorism and promote equality and fairness before an impartial system of law. The judge nods at the platitude. "Tell me," he says through a translator, "is it true that in America, Bush can fire prosecutors he doesn't like?"

Joe Lieberman: not exactly a Nazi, but an apologist for Nazi activities.

Last night I met the Connecticut Post's Peter Urban at the Press Club (free taco night!) and he told me how Lieberman apologized for waterboarding in an interview. Say what?

Lieberman was one of 45 senators who voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method where detainees typically are strapped to a bench and have water poured into their mouth and nose making them feel as if they will drown.

The Senate passed the measure.

"We are at war," Lieberman said. "I know enough from public statements made by Osama bin Laden and others as well as classified information I see to know the terrorists are actively planning, plotting to attack us again. I want our government to be able to gather information again within both the law and Geneva Convention."

A couple months back, my friend Malcolm Nance testified before Congress about having been waterboarded. This is from the Washington Post's write-up.

Unlike attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey, who called the technique repugnant but declined to say whether it is torture, Nance said unequivocally that waterboarding is a long-standing form of torture used by history's most brutal governments, including those of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, North Korea, Iraq, the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.

Now, I notice from Andrew that the Nazis might not have used waterboarding as an officially approved tactic, but if Nance said it happened, it happened. So Lieberman is in approval of things that the commandants did to our relatives in the camps. And yet he looks in the mirror and sees the only thing standing between civilization and its destruction.

Don't bother telling me I'm shrill or that this is a reductio ad Hitlerum. Lieberman is an example of vice endlessly telling itself that it is virtue. He gets what he deserves.

Googling around for something Tanya wrote that I could link to in the previous post, I saw that in October, Fishbowl asked whatever happened to New York Press's roster of late-1990s/early 00s all-stars. (Or, as Slivka used to say, its "community of writers.") It gives a pretty good rundown of some of them, very conspicuously neglecting moi, so fuck Fishbowl -- actually, in truth, my college ass was barely worth mentioning during my time on the NYP payroll -- but misses a couple of the worthies. "Does anyone out there have any information on what Andrey Slivka, Tanya Richardson, Alan Cabal or Zach Parsi is up to?" Some of em, yeah.

Slivka: He's in Kiev. Flipped out after 9/11 and decamped to Ukraine, where he edited (edits?) the Kiev Post. Finishing up his novel, which he emailed to me but I haven't gotten around to reading yet. (Sorry, homie! I'm on that shit, I promise!) Rumor has it he and his wife (!) are going to come back to the U.S. to sell some pilfered uranium to the highest bidder.

Tanya: Sadly, we haven't been in touch since Thanksgiving 2003. Her 2002 wedding to Mike Wartella -- who just never liked me -- remains the best I've ever attended, especially the dirty dancing to "Crimson & Clover." I heard she abandoned her legendary rock & roll lifestyle and started editing a magazine about angels on Earth. Tanya, if you're reading this, Daria and I miss you and don't know how to get in touch with you.

Zach Parsi: Who the fuck is that?

Alan Cabal: I have no idea what he's doing. I truly hope he's still alive. I loved that guy. He really was crazy. My favorite Cabal story: in the fall of 1999, I was opening NYP's mail, with stars in my eyes and fever-dreams of one day writing for the paper. I also happened to be writing for my school paper, and around this time there was yet another scandal in Camden, with the mayor selling crack or something. My assignment was to find some kind of how-does-this-affect-Rutgers angle. Meanwhile, Cabal came into the office and mentioned something to C.J. Sullivan (also a great guy) about his time in college in Camden being the high point of his drug use. One thing led to another, and soon I was interviewing Cabal -- on background! -- about how the contemporary Camden drug scandal was nothing like the 70s, when Cabal dealt out of his Rutgers dorm. The quote that made it into the Targum was like, "I sold pure pharmaceutical methedrine to biker gangs." (Yeah, so I just broke ground rules. Whatever.)

Fishbowl also doesn't mention some of the NYP all-stars that it should. To wit...

Rich Byrne: Now at the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Holds court at finer DC bars and listservs. I talk to Rich like daily. Whenever we're at a party he requests the story about Taki calling me from Gstaad. And speaking of: Hey! Strausbaugh! Holler at your boy.

Lisa Kearns: Don't know where she is, but God I miss her. One of the purest hearts, hardest heads and strongest backs in journalism.

Daria Vaisman: My best friend and practically my sister. So international that she splits her time between NYC and Tblisi. She's working on an amazing documentary that I can't write about yet.

Godfrey Cheshire: Fired chief movie critic. Why they didn't fire Armond White instead I'll never know. Where is Cheshire these days?

Matt Zoller Seitz: Obvs. The best film critic alive, arguably the best who ever lived.

Russ Smith: Back in Bodymore. He got that WMD. My first lesson in working for a mercurial owner. Back in 2000, I factchecked the letters section -- yes, you read that correctly -- and the only time I had to do that, what with college and my school paper and all, was Saturday morning. Yes, you read that correctly, too. One such Saturday morning, I was hard at work at 333 7th Ave, 14th Floor, with a soul-crushing hangover, when Russ's two hellions burst into the place. They were like 8 and 5 or something and evidently full of Hi-C. The older one was carrying some kind of plastic sword and tearing through the office. All of a sudden, the kid swung the sword -- hard -- into the base of my skull. I fell out of my chair in pain to peals of the rotten bastard's laughter. Now, you shouldn't ever do this, certainly not to the young son of your boss, but I needed revenge. I picked Little Eichmann up and slammed him onto the bullpen couch. He squealed with glee and returned to his playtime. I had my satisfaction and didn't get fired.

Why bother with an introductory sentence. You know what's an unfairly neglected record? In Name And Blood by the Murder City Devils. Pitchfork predictably shit all over it when it came out in 2000 -- does that website still exist? -- but in truth, it's the sublime sound of what happens when the depression finally switches over to an angry mania. Punk rock for your late 20s. "I wish you coulda been a fly on the wall/ when I was 12 years old/ crying over my homework/ I woulda slit my wrists if it wasn't for/ rock and roll!" Screeching Weasel once made an EP called You Broke My Fucking Heart that didn't come through on its thematic promise. MCD picked up the standard. Remember when they played at CBs, like November of 2000? Right after the record came out? Remember there was some asshole loudly demanding "Fields of Fire"? Well, at work the next day, I said to my friend Tanya, what was up with that asshole screaming "Fields of Fire" over and over? And she was like, yeah, that was me.

OK, couple others. Wild Gift by X. The X debate is about two camps: people who favor the first record, and people who favor Under The Big Black Sun. I'm here to tell you it's Wild Gift you should be praising. "Universal Corner" has one of the sexiest, evilest guitar lines ever committed to vinyl, and you could write a graduate thesis decoding the lyrics. With "Beyond and Back," "Year One," "I'm Coming Over" and "We're Desperate," they fuse the Doors-y L.A. noir with the punk with the rockabilly, a mixture that Under The Big Black Sun kind of overseasons. (The first record is a very, very good salad, but it's not a meal.)

Curtis by 50 Cent. Yeah. What. That's right. What. How many times have you actually listened to it? Look, when it came out, here's what you thought: Curtis is appalling crap, except for "I Get Money." Me too. But if you let it play out after "I Get Money," you'll see there's some gems on it. Have you noticed that "Fully Loaded Clip" and "Bring Em In" are showing up as jacked beats on people's mixtapes? Or that "Hands Up High" actually features a hot verse by Tony fucking Yayo? ("These OGs talkin' 'bout back in the days/ I'll put an RIP sign on your MySpace page!") Yeah yeah yeah he shouldn't have done the Justin Timberlake collaboration, or the Robin Thicke (what the fuck were you thinking?) collaboration, and the Mary collaboration is unsubtle and beneath her talent. But "I Still Kill" and "Curtis 187"? Solid. I'm not saying it's a good record, I'm saying it's not as bad as you think.

True fact: I have no idea -- none at all -- what happened at the Roger Clemens hearing. I just... no. It was a busy week. Ten pieces or so to write. I even catered our editorial meeting. Something had to give, and it was Clemens.

Luckily Matt Blake of the Washington Independent has us covered.

Feel the effects of the high. It's WireTAP part 2.

Holly wrote a great piece about the bind Howard Dean is in if the primaries don't yield a Dem nominee.

“The only thing you do right now is think,” said Don Fowler, a former DNC chairman. “I think any attempt to intervene at this time would be ill-advised.”

Fowler, who has endorsed Clinton, said there was still “an opportunity, a possibility,” that the remaining primaries and caucuses could produce a winner. But if neither Clinton nor Obama has the delegate math in their favor by the first week of June, Dean would have to deal with what he called “the real big bears in the woods,” Florida and Michigan.

The two states were stripped of their delegates when they defied the DNC and held early primaries. The candidates did not campaign in those states and Clinton won both races, although Obama’s name did not appear on the Michigan ballot.

The Clinton campaign plans to ask its delegates from other states to seat the disputed delegations, and underscores how important a unified Democratic Party is in those two states, which are often critical in presidential contests. “We believe the people of Florida and Michigan have voted and their preferences ought to be honored,” Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director, told reporters this week.

But David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, accused the Clinton campaign of trying to rewrite the rules to suit its interests. “I don’t think there is a lot of appetite for that out in the country,” Plouffe told reporters “I don’t think there is a lot of appetite for that at the DNC.”

Gary Hart, a Democratic candidate for president in 1984 and 1988, agreed that Dean should be working hard to resolve the dispute. “He needs to be exploring options – hourly,” Hart said. Hart proposed that Dean move quickly to appoint an ad hoc group of party elders to study the situation and report back to him in three or four weeks about possible ways to resolve it.

Knut has a blog! Translated from ze Deutche. Courtesy of Marissa Long, who really needs her own blog. I also note without comment that Marissa isn't passing along blogs written by koala "bears."

Now it's a return to suicide bombings on Shiite mosques.

A couple years ago I herniated something near my abdomen. When inflamed, the pain is like a steel-toed boot to the testicles. I used it -- legitimately, I contend -- to refrain from helping my roommates move our heaviest furniture into the Flophouse. It's not really something you'd want to aggravate.

Well, aggravate it I have. Walking the dog this morning I felt like sitting on the curb like a vagrant and grumbling to myself. Kingsley was like WHAT ARE YOU DOING C'MON DON'T YOU KNOW WE'RE OUTSIDE C'MONNNNNNN. The last time this happened was after my impromptu Mosul workout with Petraeus, and you can't very well tell company commanders or Provincial Reconstruction Team leaders that you're not going out on a patrol because you're in pain. They'd point you to the FOB Marez gynecologist.

Speaking of. People know that I'm for Obama. But anyone who says a woman isn't tough enough to be commander-in-chief has not seriously thought about what it's like to be a functional human being while gritting teeth through several days' worth of searing pain every 28 days for your entire adult life. How many men could do that? Show of hands.

In a few minutes, I'll head out to join some friends for an anti-Valentine's Day boozer, as reasonable people do on this miserable holiday. For now, I came home to walk the dog, leading me to figure I might as well kill a little time so my phone can recharge. This is what phoning it in reads like.

For the moment, my cardinal complaint is with my iPod. I keep mine on the album shuffle function -- makes life that much spicier. Only thing is, I'm listening to my Flux of Pink Indians material, and my iPod has decided to boycott my favorite Flux track: "Tube Disaster." WTF, iPod? There's only so many times a man can listen to "Myxomatosis" or "Some of Us Scream, Some of Us Shout." I feel like going back to the full track listing and selecting "Tube Disaster" a la carte is a form of cheating. That shuffle function must give me the songs I want. But I'm tempted.

Christ, "Neu Smell" again?

Check out my brilliant boss Allison Silver's interview with the Online Journalism Review about WashIndy. Following Allison's lead, we intend nothing less than to revolutionize journalism.

OJR: We talked to The Huffington Post about an election spinoff project that strives for the same balance; ground-up content steeped in the values of traditional journalism. What other similar sites have you seen, and how do you think yours is different?

AS: There are many other strong sites out there like The Huffington Post—including TPM and Slate and Salon. But I think the Net is not about competition, or limitations. It's indeed like democracy—because it's about making the pie bigger.

I think our mix of reported longer pieces and reported blog, to tell a longer narrative, and our extremely informed commentary is the next step for the Net. Well, we should say, one next step. The Net is many, many things.

OJR: Can you talk a bit about working for a non-profit versus an advertising-based news publication? How do you compare and contrast the two from an editorial standpoint?

AS: As for working on a non-profit, I am sure you know that part of all informed discussion about the future of journalism involves the non-profit model. This is one reason why so many people are interested in what happens with Poynter and the St. Petersberg paper.

Valentine's Day still blows, but this is hilarious.

Carrie Brownstein provides Valentine's Day music advice in a way that deepens my crush on her. I'm thinking about Ann Friedman's favorite emoticon right now.

Yochi Dreazen is a very good Iraq/national security reporter for the Wall Street Journal. And yet people who know him seem to really dislike him. Whatever, I don't care, the work is what matters, and I'm a jerk myself.

But today he got called out by Jezebel. Apparently, in college, he crossed Moe Tkacik. Big mistake.

MOE: Airport bathrooms for the gays!
Srsly though I was just jokin.
I used to have this editor at my college paper.
Yochi Dreazen.
He was also my housemate for awhile.
But that's another story.
MEGAN: Aw, they should totally be decorated. Senators need love too.
MOE: Anyway Yochi Dreazen, whose full name "Yochanan" means Gift From God apparently, was allllways using those dumb little aphorisms as his story ledes. And it annoyed me. He was obsessed w. the strange bedfellows line. Now he works at the Wall Street Journal. I hope he is well! Shout out Yochi if you're listening! That story on the soldiers keeping the underground railroad of stray dogs in Iraq was a Tjerker for reals! Anyway.

I could reply to Mike O'Hanlon's retarded op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, but it wouldn't be as good as what Ilan Goldenberg wrote. I will however flag this:

Franklin Roosevelt, for example, talked often with Joseph Stalin during World War II. That helped in the allies' coordination of military activities, but this contact did nothing to mitigate the brutality and ruthlessness of Soviet expansionism in the aftermath of the war.

And that was the point of Teheran, Yalta, et al, how exactly?

Speaking of Imad Mughniyeh, a THFTNR friend wrote a brief but hilarious one-act play based on a Jerusalem press conference post-assassination:

Question: Did you kill Mughniyah?

Answer: I would like to start off by saying, "Chag Sameach." Happy Mughniyeh
day.

Question: Could you answer the question?

Answer: No we are not saying we did it. But when people plant the car bomb
for 30 years and kill people, other people might want to do the same thing
to such a man.

Question: So you did do it?

Answer: No we are not saying we did do it. But Damascus is a rough place and
even a big shot terrorist is not safe.

Question: So what are you saying.

Answer: That whoever did it must have been capable of hitting their enemy in
a foreign capital where other enemies live day to day and picnic with their
families.

Question: Are you threatening Khaled Meshal's family?

Answer: I don't know. You said this, not me. But if I was Khalled Meshal I
would not want to have picnics with my family in Damascus.

Last year, Megan McArdle and I engaged in an epic gastronomical duel, displayed for all the world to see on BloggingHeads. The battle, forever known as BloggingChefs, resulted in me losing. I took it, at the time, like a man: Megan simply outcooked me. We shook hands, remained friends, and that was that.

Except it wasn't. For a year, I craved revenge.

Now I have it. I bring you BloggingChefs 2: Cherries. Sous-chef Ezra Klein and I prepared three dishes in 90 minutes, all constructed around the incorporation of cherries, for an Iranian-influenced menu I called Persian Subversion. Classic Persian cherry soup to start, then lamb roasted in red wine along with a cherry-saffron rice pilaf, and finally homemade cherry-chocolate truffles. Yes, those are Washington Independent aprons we're wearing.

Special guest appearances by libertarian sous-chef Will Wilkinson -- such a fierce competitor that he literally shed blood -- Tyler Cowen and his lovely wife, NBC's Lindsay Gibson, Amanda Mattos, Catherine Andrews, Kriston Capps, and the art world's Marissa Long.

As promised, that Imad Mughniyeh story. Here's where I have to stunt a little bit. Everyone else today in the press did the who-is-Mughniyeh-who-killed-him-and-what-does-this-mean story. And, yeah, OK, that's cool, that's necessary, I get that. But after talking to sources in the intelligence community this morning, I figured that wasn't the real story. The real story is that U.S. intelligence analysts figure Hezbollah is going to clap back -- at the United States. So that's the story I reported:

One of the world’s most notorious terrorists met a violent end late Tuesday night when a car bomb killed Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh in the Syrian capitol of Damascus. Until 9/11, Mughniyeh was responsible for more American deaths than any other single terrorist, including the 1983 attack in Beirut that killed 241 Marines. And while many in the counterterrorism community cheered Mughniyeh’s death as a victory against jihadism, some in U.S. intelligence circles now fear potential reprisal attacks from Hezbollah against U.S. targets. ...

But current and former U.S. intelligence officials say they fear that Mughniyeh’s killing may trigger a new wave of anti-American violence from Hezbollah. "If they think the Israelis did it," said John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director of the CIA from 2000 to 2004, "and I have no idea if they did, but typically the assumption in the Middle East is that they wouldn’t have done it without our acquiescence." McLaughlin added that he did not know who was responsible for Mughniyeh’s death.

Immediately after the killing—for which Israel promptly denied responsibility—Hezbollah blamed the "Zionist Israelis" in a statement read on its television station, al-Manar. But Hezbollah went further, claiming "the right to retaliate anywhere in the world and in any way it sees fit." Asked about the mood at one U.S. intelligence agency, an analyst who requested anonymity replied that there is "more concern about possible retaliation than anything else."

Other analysts also predicted that Hezbollah will not allow Mughniyeh’s death to go unanswered, and will likely lash out at Israeli or U.S. targets. "I think that’s absolutely correct," said a terrorism analyst who also requested anonymity. "It could be against whomever—targets of opportunity. The sooner [Hezbollah] does it, the better [from its perspective], so there’s a clear sense of linkage. That group tends particularly to go for revenge."

McLaughlin could not say what the likelihood of a Hezbollah attack on the U.S. is, but he did say that he is convinced Hezbollah is, at the least, considering one. "Hezbollah is probably calculating the merits and downsides of retaliation," he said. "I think this crosses a big line with Hezbollah. ... For years, they have carried out operations with a professionalism and skill that you don’t see from practically any other terrorist group—including al-Qaeda. They have a record of casing targets for future consideration.

"At this point," McLaughlin continued, "they’d have to be weighing the pros and cons of doing any of that, probably in some consultation with Iran. The main message, then, is that people need to now be on guard for retaliation."

Oh God.Is this campaign-ending?

Light posting today, as I'm crashing on a react piece about the killing of Imad Mughniyeh. But a quick word about The Surge. Yesterday I wrote about two of our allies, the Stalking Horses and the City Veins.

Today, meet two more. Gestures is the full Kriston Capps experience. Like Kriston, this drums-and-brass combo is a beautiful, insouciant cacophony. From The Depths rises from the, uh, depths of two of my favorite hardcore bands, Catharsis and Requiem, and features an old and dear friend of mine, who sang for both. They'll be playing in DC on March 7 at St. Stephens Church, and I, for one, can't wait. Storm heaven!

Soon enough The Surge will play with both bands. Details as we create them.

Calling Matthew Yglesias commenter JB!

The Surge wants to record your impressive John McCain-centric version of Anti-Flag's "Captain Anarchy/Amnesty." And we want you to be the lead vocalist. Contact me through comments.

It's official. The announcement is here. Rory from The N** Y*** T**** and I are now rock brothers. We are The Surge. In 2008, The Surge will come to the shores of America. You must support it.

We will start from the arterial stretches of the District, secure them, and oil-spot our way outward. First up: on March 15 -- yes, the Ides of March -- The Surge will take the Velvet Lounge on U Street, as part of a coalition with our allies the Stalking Horses and the City Veins. There will be additional announcements, and perhaps MP3s, as we approach D-Day.

You know, as much as I whine about all the support the U.S. gives to the 'Sons of Iraq' militiamen -- $123 million and counting over the past year -- clearly, they don't see it the same way. The Post's Amit R. Paley reports after an attempted assassination of a notable Son of Iraq:

The target appeared to be the headquarters of Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader of the Awakening movement.

In an interview an hour after the blasts, Suleiman said he was enraged that the U.S. military was not doing more to protect the Awakening fighters. The explosion, which destroyed much of his compound, killed or injured several of Suleiman's guards but left him with only minor wounds from flying glass.

"Where is the support of the Americans for us? They put us in this dilemma and now they are doing nothing for us," said Suleiman, who is also prince of the Dulaimis, one of the largest tribes in Iraq. "If they don't do something about this, then we may decide to withdraw our forces from the streets."

"Tell Bush: Great work," he added sarcastically.

No respect, I tell you!

Let's see if I can write this in a neocon style.

Michael Rubin is a third-rate policy "intellectual" who edits a magazine founded by a well-known bigot. Unsurprisingly, given that background, he's decided to smear one of the bravest advocates of marrying human rights with American power, Samantha Power, as an antisemite. He does this all in the service of building to the point of smearing Barack Obama, whom Power advises, as an antisemite.

Like the coward that he is, Rubin doesn't ever actually come out and say what he's saying -- namely, that Power is an antisemite. Instead, he flags a question Power asked a New York Times reporter at least five years ago as evidence that she "seemed upset" that the paper eventually called the Israeli non-massacre at Jenin a non-massacre. Such are the standards held by those who worked for the Bush administration -- Rubin worked for the constellation of flat-earth Pentagon directorates known collectively as the Office of Special Plans -- and constantly accuse the rest of us of myopia.

Befitting his cowardly McCarthyism, he demands that Power "explain what she did mean." I can't speak for Power, but the idea that people like Rubin deserve to ever be treated as good-faith interlocutors needs to be stamped out. The proper response to people like him is constant, incessant ridicule. What he's doing -- and will deny if ever he's called on it, like cowards do -- is constructing a slander of people like Power, a true and clarion proponent of American power and American justice, so he can imply with a wink that Barack ("Hussein!") Obama will murder Israeli babies in a Sbarro. In truth, Samantha Power has published, after this little quote appeared, in The New Republic, which is not in the habit of publishing antisemites.

Charming people like Rubin deserve to be treated as they would be in a more appropriate context for their manners, such as a prison yard.

Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the nascent state of Palestine, gave an interesting speech at the National Press Club this afternoon. Fayyad took repeated shots at his Islamist rivals in Hamas by describing the kind of Palestine he desires: "one that must be open and democratic, faithful to the rule of law, respect for human rights, cultural sensitivity and religious tolerance." Much more subtly, he used a trope of the Bush administration against it in a sotto voce challenge.

First, Hamas. I had the chance to submit a question to Fayyad. Can Hamas be a partner in a democratic, tolerant Palestine, or does its illiberalism render it a hindrance to his aspirations? Here's his response.

I think an important part of being in government, and an important part of leadership, is to make it absolutely clear to people as to where we stand on basic, fundamental issues. A lot of focus has gone in the past, traditionally, to the political side of the equation. Before it was a question about the broader issues of the peace question, and not as much attention was given to attributes of statehood, as I talked about in my statement today. The kind of state we aspire to have, the kind of society we would like to see the [inaudible] go up, that vision is very important to us.

I think it's important to speak forcefully, openly and with conviction on these issues, outlining a point of view that is in sharp contrast to the point of view, in many important respects, put forward by Hamas. There's nothing wrong with political differences or differences of view. Words, I think, can be blotted out, if only we can find agreement on the most fundamental issues that need to be agreed. And that is a security document that works to the development of the Palestinian people, and one that is consistent also with the need for us to live up to our commitments in this important period. That's key. Because these issues have to be debated, we have to speak our mind about where we stand on these issues.

He went on to call Hamas's takeover of Gaza a "catastrophe... The most significant blow to our right to attain freedom and fairness for our people since the occupation of '67. It was a major, major, major setback."

Now for the subtle part. By count, Fayyad used the word "freedom" nine times in his speech and during the brief Q-and-A that followed. That seemed a lot like a subtle challenge to President Bush's so-called "Freedom Agenda," or at least a test. How committed is Bush, in his final year in office, to taking steps that secure the liberation of a democratic Palestine? Fayyad rushed off after barely an hour to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. That question, in all likelihood, lurked as the subtext for their entire conversation.

Jon "This Man Is Not A Republican" Chait has a fantastic McCain thinkpiece in TNR. (Whomever gave it the headline "Maverick Vs. Iceman" also deserves kudos.) With typical Chaitian economy, it cleanly places McCain in precisely the context the GOP frontrunner doesn't want: a Kerry-esque figure who doesn't understand himself.

Except for one thing:

Even the ideological tendency McCain is most strongly identified with--neoconservative foreign policy--is, as John B. Judis explained in The New Republic, a relatively recent development: McCain originally opposed intervention in Bosnia and worried about a bloody ground campaign before the first Gulf war (see "Neo-McCain," October 16, 2006). McCain's advisers include not only neoconservatives but also the likes of Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. It would hardly be unimaginable for McCain to revert to his old realism, especially if Iraq continues to fail at political reconciliation. He could easily be the president who ends the war.

Eh, I dunno. Maybe. Nixon in China and all that. But McCain would lose precisely the remaining conservatives he would need to get reelected if he began a withdrawal. I thought Judis's piece kind of overstated McCain's realism: it was less a function of deep-seated belief than on the confluence of different political circumstances -- namely, a Democrat was president, and it was pre-9/11. When circumstances change, the bellicosity that has always been evident in McCain's political persona amplified tremendously. He also just may actually believe, as he said last month, that we really do need to stay in Iraq forever.

OMG. Vice made a movie about an Iraqi heavy metal band. It looks like the greatest movie of all time.It's at the Berlin film festival this week. Luckily a THFTNR friend will be on the scene to bootleg it.

Steve Clemons reports that Tom Lantos, the only Survivor serving in the U.S. Congress, has passed today. RIP. I wonder if Jonah Goldberg will have the courage of his convictions and remind everyone that he thinks Lantos was a liberal fascist.

The CLC (Sorry, "Sons of Iraq") power-grab story goes mainstream. Reports Alissa J. Rubin of the Times:

Conflicts between provincial governments and local Sunni Arab forces allied with the United States intensified this weekend in two provinces. The conflicts raise the prospect that the creation of the forces, known as Awakening Councils or Concerned Local Citizens, formed to fight extremists and bring calm to the country, might instead add to the unrest in Diyala and Anbar provinces.

In Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, 300 members of the local concerned citizens groups, many of whom are former insurgents, left the outposts, from which they start patrols and guard the surrounding areas.

The citizens groups said the walkout was a protest against the Shiite police commander for the province, whom they accuse of being sectarian and a member of the Mahdi Army, a militia affiliated with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, according to an official in the governor’s office who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The police commander, Staff. Gen. Ghanim al-Quraishi, has accused many in those citizens groups of continuing their past activities of killing and displacing Shiite families, and he has removed some of them from their posts and detained others.

The American military recruits and pays the groups to fight Islamic extremists. Although the groups have mostly seemed to be cooperating, more recently their behavior has been problematic.

In Anbar Province, tensions escalated between leaders of the local Awakening movement and the Iraqi Islamic Party, which as the sole major Sunni party to contest the most recent local elections won control of the provincial council. Party members said Saturday that they might bring a lawsuit against the Awakening leaders for saying they would oust the party from control; the leaders had previously called for a new election in the next few months in order to try to win seats on the council.

Wow, who could possibly have seen this coming? A militia force of ex-insurgents who hate the Shiite government trying a power grab after the U.S. gives it cash and weapons, and asks only "trust" in return? No, not the valiant forces of Sheikh Abdul Sattar! Never! They're bravely standing up against al-Qaeda, and in return they ask only that Iraq become a vibrant pro-American democracy! They'll give up their guns on general principle, just as soon as al-Qaeda is driven from Iraq and the 25-foot statue of George W. Bush goes up in Firdous Square! This could never come back to haunt us!

Remember 2005, when President Bush said we were winning in Iraq, only to later concede that we weren't (but the dirty hippies who said that at the time were still wrong)? Back then, the Rand Corporation penned a study outlining the now-conventional wisdom that the Bush administration invaded Iraq without a clue of how to occupy it, a central mistake that exacerbated the insurgency. The New York Times's Michael Gordon reports that the Army censored Rand's unclassified report. Why?

The Army's line:

The report on rebuilding Iraq was part of a seven-volume series by RAND on the lessons learned from the war. Asked why the report has not been published, Timothy Muchmore, a civilian Army official, said it had ventured too far from issues that directly involve the Army.

“After carefully reviewing the findings and recommendations of the thorough RAND assessment, the Army determined that the analysts had in some cases taken a broader perspective on the early planning and operational phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom than desired or chartered by the Army,” Mr. Muchmore said in a statement. “Some of the RAND findings and recommendations were determined to be outside the purview of the Army and therefore of limited value in informing Army policies, programs and priorities.”

The likely truth:

A Pentagon official who is familiar with the episode offered a different interpretation: Army officials were concerned that the report would strain relations with a powerful defense secretary and become caught up in the political debate over the war. “The Army leaders who were involved did not want to take the chance of increasing the friction with Secretary Rumsfeld,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to alienate senior military officials.

Cowards! In mid-2007, Army Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, a hero of Tal Afar, wrote an incisive j'accuse in Armed Forces Journal, blasting the general officer corps for failing to stand up to the daydream believers in the Bush administration. Yingling looks really prescient right now.

It's also worth noting that what the Army did hurt national security. One of the reasons the U.S. possesses the mightiest Army in the history of mankind is because it's an adaptive, learning institution. To deny the Army the benefits of learning from the Iraq debacle in order to insulate George W. Bush from criticism is a betrayal of that institutional mission.

Ezra Klein isn't just one of the world's best liberal bloggers and op-ed writers. Over the past year, he's become a nimble, thoughtful and versatile chef. I was reminded of Ezra's blossoming culinary skill a week ago Saturday, when he was my sous-chef in the second annual BloggingChefs competition. (Coming soon to a BH.tv near you -- hint, hint, guys...)

Finally, the man throws a little on the pulpit: his much-discussed, highly-anticipated kung pao recipe. I'm thinking this'll be my Wednesday dinner.

On the cusp of Spring Training, Joe Girardi gets a Jack Curry profile in the Times:

As Girardi raved about embarking on a new beginning with the Yankees, he meandered into an emotional discussion about a possible ending. After Girardi drives to Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday for spring training, he is not sure when or if he will see his ailing father again.

Jerry Girardi has Alzheimer’s disease and is in an assisted-care residence in Illinois. Two weeks ago, Girardi visited his father and saw a once-robust man who had lost more than 40 pounds because he forgot to eat, who slept a lot and who was mostly reduced to giving one-word answers.

“He doesn’t talk,” Girardi said. “But I felt like there were two seconds when I left and said, ‘I love you, Dad,’ he responded. He said, ‘I like you.’ I just felt like he looked at me different for two seconds. That’s big for me.”

Jerry Girardi will be rewarded, in Heaven, with the 27th championship.

At least 23 dead in a bombing outside Balad.

Via Dana, this Hillary video is very funny.

Kingsley came home from Baltimore today. He's got his drink and his four-step.

Vote for Noah against Angelina in the Petraeustakes. Just look at those bedroom eyes. And notice that Petraeus is all touching on Noah, while curiously keeping his hands to himself when in the presence of Angelina Jolie. Raises all kinds of questions about his judgment, if you ask me.

Check out Marc Lynch on the latest development in the Anbar Awakening Council's emerging putsch in the province. Yeoman work, he's doing. But also note that Marc is biting my style with the lyrics in the headline.

It's been an extraordinarily bad day. All of it is my fault. So many unforced errors, badly expressed thoughts, inability to keep my stupid mouth shut. I want this to be over.

But dude. There's a GODDAMN METAFILTER POST ABOUT THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT. And it says something very nice about me in particular.

Their independence cannot be verified as they have yet to file their first financial disclosure form. I was drawn to the Washington Independent because it is new home of Spencer Ackerman, a close observer of national security policy, but all the stories I have read there seem to be high content and skeptical of authority.

Thank you, Shot Hot Bot. I really needed that today.

George Packer has an amazing essay in the debut issue of the revamped World Affairs foreign-policy journal. Summarizing it is beyond my abilities, so just read it. But the gist is that most Americans have a reductive view of Iraq that can't account for the complexity of the country. Our understanding, and what facts we emphasize, tracks with whether or not we think the Iraq war was just or wise. I don't really disagree with that. But something about the piece rubbed me the wrong way. (Full disclosure: Both Packer and WA's editor, Lawrence Kaplan, are friends of mine. Kaplan has also commissioned a piece from me.)

A falsely justified and poorly waged war hardly deserves the excuse of good intentions. Iraq was a folly and a failure of the kind that happens once every few generations and leaves consequences for generations to come. The war swept up millions of lives, changing them in ways that were impossible for anyone to predict. In the summer of 2003, Iraq was volatile and fluid, and no one who knew anything knew what would come next. Some Iraqis spoke of a better future coming in six months or a year. Three years later, the better future had receded far into the distance: hunkered down in Baghdad or exiled in Damascus, Iraqis spoke of fifteen years.

By then the war was not about nothing. No war ever is. I don’t know where Haithem and Muna and the others are today—some of them might well be among the Iraqis I know to be dead—but for them, the war had a meaning. It meant a chance to live a decent life, something that had never been remotely possible and remains a dream even today. The war began as folly; it became a tragedy when the hopes and lives of Iraqis and Americans began to be expended by the thousands.

“I can never blame the Americans alone,” an Iraqi refugee named Firas told me in early 2007. “It’s the Iraqis who destroyed their country, with the help of the Americans, under the American eye.” To gain this wisdom, Firas had to lose almost everything. What would it take for Americans to understand what Firas already does? A recognition that Iraq was everyone’s loss, whichever side you were on.

This isn't wrong. But what does Packer's insight get you? Less vitriol, sure. More complexity, definitely. And those are good and worthy things. But I don't know anyone who says the war was about nothing. Rather, journalists, intellectuals, veterans, etc., have spent years trying to understand just what the war is, was, and will become.

And to do that, you kind of do have to privilege certain facts. For instance -- and I'm trying to make this as value-neutral as I can -- the U.S. has promoted a quasi-official militia force of 80,000 mostly ex-insurgents; and the U.S. also says it wants the Iraqi government to possess a monopoly on violence. Both statements are true. But the first is clearly more significant than the second. Perhaps Packer is simply saying that we should caveat our assessments more thoroughly. And that's, again, generally wise. But there comes a point when all the caveating and the complexity becomes a dodge -- a way of avoiding the big picture of what needs to be done. If you're pro-war, I'm not sure it's inappropriate to say, "I believe the necessity of the war overwhelms the mistakes that the U.S. has made, so I'm not going to emphasize those mistakes." Similarly, if you're anti-war, I'm not sure it's inappropriate to say, "I believe the the folly of the war overwhelms the positive things the U.S. has done, so I'm not going to emphasize the positives."

Perhaps this is a mistake on my part. Maybe I'm apologizing for intellectual dishonesty. That's not what I mean to do, but maybe it's the net effect of my contention. And Packer's essay is filled with legitimate, insightful points. (Caveated enough for you?) But judgment does involve discriminating between significant and insignificant things. A brief in favor of complexity, nuance and suppleness can fall victim to a kind of vanity, where one believes that not rendering judgment is evidence of a commentator's superior virtue. The Iraq war is too important for that. Packer is offering a valuable corrective to the sin of self-satisfaction, but maybe the corrective needs some correcting as well.

Could it be that the Sunni tilt against al-Qaeda isn't permanent? Interests, not ideology, determine everything.

Mark Lynch and Ilan Goldenberg point out that real rifts are emerging between the Awakening Councils and the Iraqi Islamic Party. In Anbar, at least, the two groups are locked in a power struggle, with the Anbar Awakening Council threatening to "raise up weapons against the Islamic Party if we do not achieve our demands," according to one of the council's leaders. The blatant move to replace the IIP creates a disincentive for the IIP or its Sunni allies to push provincial elections in parliament, thereby entrenching the struggle and forestalling a ballot-based resolution. Old guards do not like to be replaced. The Shiites in Maliki's government don't really show themselves to be particularly keen on accelerated provincial elections either.

Now on top of that acrimony with the Sunni establishment, add al-Qaeda adopting what might be called a population-centric approach. The Washington Post:

The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq is telling its followers to soften their tactics in order to regain popular support in the western province of Anbar, where Sunni tribes have turned against the organization and begun working with U.S. forces, according to group leaders and American intelligence officials.

The new approach was outlined last month in an internal communique that orders members to avoid killing Sunni civilians who have not sympathized with the U.S.-backed tribesmen or the government.

From internal documents and interviews with members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a picture emerges of an organization in disarray but increasingly aware that its harsh policies -- such as punishing women who don't cover their heads -- have eroded its popular support. Over the past year, the group has been driven out of many of its strongholds. The group's leadership is now jettisoning some of its past tactics to refocus attacks on American troops, Sunnis cooperating closely with U.S. forces, and Iraq's infrastructure.

Who knows whether this will actually happen. After all, over the last five months, AQI attacks on Awakening Councils and CL-- er, Sons of Iraq have doubled. Similarly, who knows if it'll be too little too late from AQI's perspective.

Still, Americans have always had a hard time accepting that Iraqis' reasons for doing what they do rarely reduce to the reasons we'd like them to adopt. The anti-AQI tilt occurred not because of some come-to-Jesus ideological overhaul in Anbar, but because AQI had overplayed its hand through violence and intimidation. If AQI backs off the violence and intimidation precisely when the Awakening Councils perceive themselves to be receiving a raw deal from the Iraqi government and the Sunni establishment, maybe the Sunnis un-tilt. Stranger things have happened.

Actual Iraq/national-security blogging will return soon, I promise. This is a super-substantive blog that adds a lot of value to the public discourse in addition to being unbuttoned, irreverent and fun.

But for now the music monomania continues. If you're in the DC area tonight at 10 or so, you should really come to IOTA in Arlington to see the revamped, stronger-than-ever City Veins. Orange line to Clarendon. Normally I don't go in for alt-rock, but City Veins, which contain my friend Charles, are just that good. Plus they have a drummer named Spencer who isn't me.

ABC No Rio was like the Girls & Boys Club of New York City punk rock. Dingy, barely habitable and perfect. Every Saturday, come what may, a different matinee show. The venue, a squat, was in perpetual financial and legal jeopardy with the city. In May of 1998, my friends Jesse, Sam and myself put together a two-day, 25-band hardcore festival to raise money for ABC. I think we netted $20,000. Los Crudos played. Martin breakdanced while my back was turned. It remains one of my life's great regrets.

My fellow ABCer Mike C passed on this Brooklyn Rail story about ABC No Rio's impending redesign. Unbelievable.

The plans for the new space are near completion, but the organization needs to raise about two million dollars to pay for it—a huge sum for a DIY art space with a yearly budget of only $80,000. Grants, donations, benefits and an art auction held at Deitch Projects in 2005 have already brought in $400,000, however, and a second major art auction is planned for early June.

The fundraising will not be easy, especially for a group of people more experienced at making do than making money. But No Rio’s volunteers are prepared for the long haul.

It warms my heart that ABC No Rio will survive for the next generation of The Kids.

"Louisiana" by the Loved Ones might be the best Katrina song ever written. (The possible exception is "Hey Katrina" by Lifetime, but they wrote that one like nine years before the Hurricane.) I really can't stop listening to it.

And while you listen to it, read this arresting, haunting, perfect Tom Lee post about his trip to rebuild a church in the Lower Ninth War. Ezra once observed to me that the best writer of all our friends isn't even a goddamn journalist. Tommy, you're embarrassing us!

What a great feeling it is to see your friends play an amazing show. The Gaslight Anthem simply killed it last night at the Black Cat. Memories of a thousand Manville Elks Lodge weekends poured out of their guitars. And good between-song banter from their pretty-boy singer!

Gaslight were supporting the Loved Ones, who I hadn't seen before. I wanted to hang out with some out-of-town friends, so I only caught the last third of their set, but it was extremely strong. When did Fat start signing good bands? God, first Against Me! (honestly, I love New Wave.) and now them. I ended up buying the brand-new Loved Ones CD -- rarely do I buy a single non-alcoholic thing at shows, but I was drunk and the bands were on tour -- and all morning I've listened to their song "Louisiana." Great stuff.

Here's some live Loved Ones material I found on YouTube. It actually starts off sounding like that song "What I Like About You" from the beer commercials, but it gets good.

Greatest TPMtv ever.Ben Craw is a giant of internet cinema.

Michael Mukasey, you need to stop dicking Paul Kiel around. I've worked with that guy. He doesn't play your Pretty Ricky shit. Brooklyn is going to run up on you. Put TPMm back on that press list.

This is a public service announcement. Have you downloaded We Got It For Cheap Vol. 3 yet? The Clipse and the Re-Up Gang have now recorded, by my count, one amazing album, one amazing mixtape, one classic mixtape, one classic album and now another classic mixtape. (Also a kick-ass remix mixtape.) There is simply no track record in rap like this. They promise on Vol. 3 that a new Clipse album will drop in October. I don't know how they follow up Vol. 3, but I guess, as Chris tells Marlo toward the end of season three, that's one of those good problems.

Tonight at the Black Cat: My old friend Benny's new band The Gaslight Anthem, who are blowing up. Great, great New Jersey punk rock -- in fact, central Jersey punk rock, as befits Benny's reputation as Benny Manville, who put on shows for the kids at the Manville Elks Lodge. You'll want to say you liked them before they sold out, got famous and sucked. If you're in the DC area tonight, come on down. I'll be the one up front in the Blackwater t-shirt.

Also, you get bonus points if during "Drive" (this song right above the text here) you know what they're referring to when they sing "It's been Try.Fail.Try for years!"

When I was 14 until I was 18, I went to high school with the poet-musician currently known as Rebecca Roulette. When I was 19 until I was 21, I worked and wrote for New York Press. And now that I'm 27, not only do I drum in a side-project band with Rebecca's guitarist/boyfriend Rory, but the Rebecca-Rory supergroup known as the New York Times is profiled in this week's New York Press. It truly is bewildering, the way the universe revolves around me.

My eye is drawn to this quote, however:

“I love Heavens to Betsy and Bikini Kill,” gushes Rebecca, asserting her affinity for the early ’90s riot grrl bands. “It’s hard for me as a vocalist not to be influenced by the musicians I loved when I was 15.”

Bitch, please! I knew you when you were 15. We both know you were not listening to Heavens to Betsy back then. You were listening to Hole. And you were writing me obnoxious Valentine's Day notes attacking my punk-rock credibility. You should know better than to be fronting in public.

As I walked to get lunch I passed by an actual record store. They still have those! It was Melody on Connecticut Avenue in Dupont Circle, and they had a whole bunch of Vampire Weekend posters in the window. I thought, hmm, that's a band I always forgot to check out. Now that they're advertising in an old-timey record store, the hype must be over.

So I downloaded the record when I got back to my desk. You guys out there have all heard it, I gather, but I'm like seven songs into my first listen. And, you know, not bad. A for effort. A little bit "Me and Julio"-era Paul Simon, a little bit Tom Tom Club. "A-Punk" is a good song. I don't know what's punk about it though.

Jesus fucking Christ this is disgusting. I know it's not exactly a stunning insight that al-Qaeda is evil, but this is a video recovered by the U.S. military that al-Qaeda in Iraq made to train child terrorists. That shit is a fucking war crime.

It's true. Wreck is friends with a jellybean. My guess is that it's a Mike & Ike, since we don't keep jellybeans in the Flophouse, and it seems that Sara brings a stash of Mike & Ikes over when she comes by. But Wreck doesn't care about its origins. He cares that they bro down, hang out in some sunbeams, take naps, share bawdy stories, clown around and do other stuff that dogs and jellybeans do.

Meanwhile, Kingsley comes home on Friday after his month-plus trip to visit Sue and Jes in Baltimore! I've missed that adorable scamp something fierce. Kingsley Amis, my dog's namesake, once observed that it's half a life without a woman. It's at least three-quarters of a life without a scrappy hound.

My just-posted Washington Independent headline is better than the one I have here, but Elana was at Mitt HQ last night and wrote a great Huffington Post piece about it. Romney's faux-Bay Statery really came through.

Of course, this stand off only enhances his campaign image as an eyedropper full of red in an ocean of blue. This message irks some Massachusetts residents. As King points out, "he is selling himself as being from but not of Massachusetts, by disciplining the belly of liberal America." (This tactic isn't unlike the one Giuliani pursued as he attempted to find a toehold with the conservative base using a message that seemed to distill down to "Can you believe I managed to tame the rabidly liberal multicultural beast of New York City? Oh, and 9/11.")

But, of course, distancing himself from his former record causes a bit of whiplash to those he used to govern. When Bay State residents hear Michael Murphy, a Romney advisor, explaining ''[Romney's] been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly," one can understand a bit of cognitive dissonance. As Carl and Judy Sapers, 75, of Cambridge, explained, "He was a satisfactory governor, he was dashing, and, at the time, he was where we'd like him to be on social questions like gays and choice whim makes him seducing the fundamentalist so much more infuriating. He doesn't feel like he is ours." Ultimately, Romney has a bit of the feel of a man from nowhere in particular.

You guys would support me if I submitted a casting video to No Reservations, right? I think it's time for me to take Tony Bourdain to Iraqi Kurdistan. My homies Soran and Gharib can drive us around and translate and take us to the good places to eat.

Seriously? From Alexandra Zavis, embedded in the Diyala River Valley:

They first appeared about 18 months ago: masked gunmen in speeding cars and scooters that kick up the mud along the canals weaving through lonely villages here.

Scooters?

NSFW, but Forgetting Sarah Marshall's trailer made me laugh so hard that my boss IM'd me, "ik now you are watching smut." How I love you Kristin Bell. Via Amanda.

Newness from your boy over at the American Prospect online (now under new management!) about Jim Webb:

There is a lot of speculation that Virginia Senator Jim Webb would make an appealing vice presidential nominee for the Democrats. Some of it emanates from this magazine. It's not hard to see why. Webb is a tough-as-nails Marine veteran of Vietnam who served as a Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, a vociferous enemy of the Iraq war and an extremely improbable progressive. He's also from the capitol of the Old Confederacy as its 11 electoral votes trend Democratic. What's more, if the nominee is Barack Obama, having a war veteran who also writes paeans to the Scots-Irish cultural tradition round out the ticket creates a juggernaut not seen since Spider-Man joined the New Avengers.

But there's actually a more important way Jim Webb can help elect the Democratic nominee. It has everything to do with the story he can tell at the convention this summer—a story about how the Republican Party abandoned him, and through him, the U.S. military, at a time of war. Call it the Reverse Jeane Kirkpatrick.

I'm pretty pleased at myself over that Spider-Man reference.

I hope you'll vote for Barack Obama today.

It won't surprise readers of this blog that I'm primarily interested in national security. And there the choice is relatively straightforward. Barack Obama recognizes that the security of the United States depends on promoting justice abroad. Strength -- military strength -- is a component of justice, as Obama's willingness to contemplate using force in a dire circumstance in Pakistan demonstrates. But it's much, much more than strength. It's the strength of the wise, the courage to correct one's mistakes, to offer dignity to a world that will not accept American leadership that humiliates it -- but would accept American leadership that respects the aspirations of mankind. During the Bush years, we've mired in a cynical and pointless debate about promoting freedom abroad. Obama is the only candidate who understands that we should really be promoting justice. No justice, no peace.

Obama is the only candidate the marry strength and justice and wisdom. His foreign policy starts with ending the most disastrous national-security mistake in recent American history; and then it proceeds to undo its deep-seated ideological foundations. When faced with that prospect, especially from the most electable candidate in the race, nothing else will do.

Beyond that, there are some serious problems with Hillary Clinton. First, she would lose to John McCain, and the Hundred Years War would continue for at least eight more years. Second, I write today in the Washington Independent that Clinton's Iraq position is a morass of cowardice and opportunism that will doom her presidency -- not that she'll make it to the White House.

None of this should be surprising when considering Clinton’s evolution on Iraq. Indeed, Clinton set herself up to run for president as both a pro-war and an anti-war candidate—depending on the contingencies of the war and the politics of the moment.

Clinton’s statements during October 2002 have received much attention. But what she’s said in the intervening years demonstrates a vertigo-inducing lack of clarity. Her position tracked the political zeitgeist elegantly: cautiously in favor of the war before it started; enthusiastically in favor of it during its first year; overtaken with doubt during 2004; nervously against withdrawal in 2005; cautiously in favor of withdrawal ever since—and all without so much as an acknowledgment of her myriad repositioning. At no point did she challenge the prevailing assumptions behind the war.

Looking at Clinton’s statements during critical moments in the war underscores her obscurantism on the most important issue of U.S. national security—a stance that makes sense only in the related contexts of strategic confusion and political expediency.

The choice is yours: cynicism or, finally, redemption. Choose wisely.

Update: For an example of how a professional chooses between presidential candidates, read Ezra.

Five years ago today, Colin Powell sealed Iraq's fate, and ours, at the United Nations. Jonathan Schwarz takes a memory tour.

David Plotz on The Wire:

This is a random train of thought: Over the past five seasons, The Wire has shown us schools, drug dealers, politicians, unions, cops, and a newspaper. But it occurs to me, as we near its finish, that it has never really shown us young black men at work. It has brilliantly captured the no-choice lives of the young street dealers and the way in which the smartest and most ruthless of them make a career from drugs. But The Wire has never presented the alternative path.

Except for, oh, Fletch, Carver, Sydnor, Randy, arguably Sherrod in his intern phase... Should we up the age limit to come up with more counterexamples, or is that enough?

But is it really necessary to explain why the show shows more criminals than civilians? It's not just the game that's rigged, it's life itself. Remember the scene in season 4 when Marimow's ignorant, myopic determination to "make rips" leads the cops to entrap a young man biking to work into buying drugs for them. They demand he break the law and then lock him up for it, wrecking his path out of the ghetto -- literally: they take away his bike -- for the brutish exigency of making an empty statement about who owns West Baltimore's streets. I think David Simon might be trying to tell us something about injustice, Mr. Plotz.

This is by far the best Clipse mixtape yet. Like, head and shoulders. And I love Volume 2. "Like Pearl Jam, I kill my peers like Jeremy/ And here I am, with open arms/ Like Journey/ Ooh baby, I like it raw/ Ol' Dirty/ Shame on a n**** for even feelin' he worthy." Holy shit.

Update: Jess Harvell has bad taste.

We Got It For Cheap Vol. 3. It's finally here. You can't download it yet, but I'm listening to it right now at the Clipse's blog. Goddamn, it had to drop when I'm on deadline, didn't it.

Update: Tom Lee is a goddamn genius. He Got It 4 Your iPod.

That's for you, Dad. David Tyree's helmet for MVP.

Update: Yeah.

One Sunnyside resident, Luis Pinzon, 27, was overcome with joy. “We finally beat Boston,” he said, wearing a Lawrence Taylor jersey. “That’s all I care about. We finally beat ’em. Not Boston. Undefeated Boston,” he said with vindictive relish. “That’s who we beat. As long as they won, I don’t care if the Yankees lose to the Red Sox for the next five years. I’m not going to complain. That’s enough. I’ll give my first-born child to — to — to whomever.”

Late Update: KSK kills it.

Via Noah Shachtman, CIA Director Mike Hayden picks the Giants!

Giants, 28-24. The spread favors the Pats, but careful intelligence work looks beyond the obvious. The Giants are hot now. Three playoff wins on the road (like the Steelers before Super Bowl XL). Regular season finale shows they match up well against the Pats. Besides, nobody's perfect!

Now if only the Giants can cut the balls off the Patriots like Hayden did to CIA Inspector General John Helgerson. Go Jints!

Meet the new de-Baathification Commission, same as the old de-Baathification Commission.

Another part of the legislation that has been criticized is the makeup of the new de-Baathification body. It is the same as the old one, just with a new name.

"The fact the committee remains would be among my main concerns. It was tied to charges of corruption and politicization -- and that is likely to continue," said a U.S. diplomat who has worked in Iraq.

This is more important than what the de-Baathification law says. In case you haven't noticed, there's no rule of law in Iraq, only the prerogative of the strong. What the de-Baathification Commission says goes.

Forgive the sappiness, but an adaptive, learning Army is an amazing, inspiring thing to behold. Via Abu Muqawama, check out this amazing exchange on the Small Wars Journal Jedi Council about to what degree the surge constitutes a change in strategy from the 2005-06 campaign plan. Gian Gentile! Pete Mansoor! A host of brilliant COIN theorists! Raise a glass to the warrior-nerd.

Wow. Just wow.

Victoria Nuland has an op-ed in The Washington Post about NATO in Afghanistan. I didn't read it. Nor do I intend to. I just wonder if people know that Nuland is married to Bob Kagan, making her the clandestine wing of the Surging Kagans. She also used to work for Dick Cheney on his shadow NSC during Bush's first term.

Recently I joined a band. More on that later. But I want to say that when we release a record, I hope we do it on a label called Secretly Kagan.

To borrow a line from a master, Len Nichols is shrill:

"I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," said Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, a leading supporter of mandatory insurance, who called it a "Harry and Louise evocation."

"It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Ill.," Nichols said. "I just find it disgusting that this kind of imagery is being used to attack the only way to get to universal coverage."

Daaaaaaaaamn! Hours later, Nichols and New America sent out a press release apologizing for the Nazi reference. But seriously, I had no idea health-care wonkery was this cutthroat. You guys might consider switching to the relatively serene world of Iraq analysis.

John Conyers recognizes: You cannot hold Paul Kiel back.

The website TPMMuckraker, which played an important role in providing information to the public concerning the U.S. Attorney scandal, revealed that it has recently been removed from DOJ’s press release email distribution list. Who made this decision and why, and was there a change in policy in press release distribution after you became Attorney General?