After reading Assassins' Gate I think I've finally come up with a position on the Iraq War that I can live with.

The American People were certainly lied to in starting the war, and it seems to have been run by men and women with singular agendas that had little to do with combating the threat of terrorism. Incentives right or wrong be damned, we went in there and we tore that sovereign nation apart. Every American, right or left, should right now be quite concerned about putting that nation back together.

It would be great if the media -- instead of running one more expose on the documents someone found, or another article offering conclusive proof that some cabinet member lied -- could start focusing a little more on what it's going to take to get us out of Iraq. People might be able to donate clothes, money, or materials to initiatives that get Iraq back on its feet. There may be a complicated socio-political minefield left behind, but at least it won't be said that the US came in and created a big mess, and then was to proud to clean it up.

This is a platform that could galvanize the left as well, and these could be the things that the left begins to say that John Kerry never said. There's got to be a better platform than playing "The President Is An Idiot;" while it might be true it's a position that's divisive and gets little accomplished.

History will take care of this country's leadership, and I doubt they will be judged favorably. The time has come to forget this muddy and shameful past and focus on the present and the future.

Assassin's Gate, PART I

After reading so much about George Packer's book Assassin's Gate I decided to get a copy for myself. I'm about halfway through, and it's a lot of information to amass. The beginning of the book is full of the kind of stuff that particularly gets former politics majors excited, and that's the political motivations that lead leaders into whatever spots they get themselves into.

AG talks a lot about the extent to which the Bush Administration was influenced my the writings of Leo Strauss, and there's some focus given to an essay by Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt called "Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence."

As biased as I would like to be, I keep trying to be objective (and, of course, reminding myself that if even half of what's in Packer's book is true, the Iraq war is still patently outrageous) and since I've not read the book all the way through or done much work looking for corraborating sources, I am going to defer to the excellent discussion of Shulsky and Schmitt's paper that's going on in the Blog Sic Semper Tyrannis

I will go so far as to say that I do truly hope that our decision to invade Iraq was based on more than this paper, which reads to me more like throat-clearing than foreign policy.

William F. Buckley, one of the nation's leading conservatives, has conceded that perhaps the war in Iraq ain't all it's cracked up to be. I'm not going to write anything about how glad I am to hear that, when really I'm distressed that it takes an otherwise intelligent person so long to finally say the right thing.

What is most disturbing about the Buckley column, however, is the rhetoric that's arisen as a result of it. I've seen so many conservative bloggers fall all over themselves to try to find a position to maintain in the face of being confronted with Buckley's "betrayal." Never mind the fact that the war has flown in the face of accepted US military and foreign policy doctrine from the very beginning. Never mind the resignation of high-level Bush officials during the course of the war. Never mind objective evidence of other Administration failures like the response to Hurricane Katrina. Last of all, never mind the fact that there's ample evidence and concession from the President himself that the war was based on "faulty intelligence" and probably never should have been fought to begin with. Oh no. The "conservative" bloggers feel it's a good war, and even if it isn't we're there and that's that.

I don't have children, but I keep thinking of children. I think of a 16-year-old kid, caught with a bag of pot in his dresser drawer saying to his father, "Well I thought it was good for me, a cool thing to do, whether it is or isn't is not important. I spent $60 on that bag and I have to stay the course." For a party that talks so much about personal responsibility I don't see a whole lot of it coming from the leadership. Instead I see people attacking Buckley for never really having being conservative enough. That's when the debate separates from logic and common sense, that's when thinking stops and killing is justified.

I'm not 100% sure I agree with the position that we have to stay in Iraq, since I don't see much evidence that our leaving in a year is going to be much different than our leaving now, but I'll concede the "stay the course" arguments. Support the troops, absolutely, I've never taken any other position. But the evidence is overwhelming that there's a leadership failure here, and the fact that there are so many that are not only willing to ignore that, but working to justify it is an affront to civilized discourse. This is just as bad as saying the "intelligent design" debate has two sides. Well yeah, it does: there's scientifically supported fact, and then there's mumbo jumbo. The mother, standing over that 16-year-old saying, "Absolutely, the pot's not so bad for him, and to prove it let's give him the car!" that's where the Right is coming from.

Wake up over there, it's over.

My prediction about Times Select was wrong...New Year's Day has come and gone, and it's still with us. Well, I've been wrong before.

Lately, it seems every fashion magazine, cover, hip TV show is about exactly three people: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston. I've admittedly devoured gossip probably more than I should have, and I don't have anything against any of them, but haven't we maybe had enough of America's most famous love triangle?

Most of these articles are titled something like, "Jen Bounces Back." I wonder that Jen ever didn't see the writing on the wall. The thing that made Jennifer Aniston was Brad Pitt. Friends "jumped the shark" in its 2nd season (can anyone believe that show actually was Emmy worthy), and the show's lunchboxes are now on clearance sale for $9.99 at the NBC online store. Jen was (admittedly arguably) the worst of the three females on the show, and 4th or 5th over all. (At the bottom of that list is David Schwimmer, mostly for being an actor who would probably have won an Academy Award by now had that show never come along -- and who do you blame when it's your own damn fault?)

I don't even want to get into the rest of her career, other than to point out her certainly notable performance on the Bill Bixby directed TV version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

So why does she make the tabloids? Because of her brilliant acting talent? Or is it because she's the ultimate sucker, the Ed Rooney (to extend the FBDO reference) of that trio, and everybody loves an underdog? Brad Pitt cheats on and then leaves his wife for his pregnant girlfriend, who steals him away knowing he's married, something that would be completely reprehensible to most were it to happen to someone at the office or in a circle of friends. But America, instead, is rooting for Brangelina, and good for them.

Maybe I have better things to worry about?