Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), 90 days ago:
“What we do can affect the outcome. But if we don’t see progress on two of the three big issues — oil revenues, de-Baathification, provincial elections — in the next 90 days, it may not happen. And Iraq could be a failed state.”
Just for good measure, let’s also not forget that Graham also said we need not worry about Iraq failing the vast majority of the agreed upon benchmarks for progress, because a major step forward was near. “In a matter of weeks, we’re going to have a major breakthrough in Baghdad on items of political reconciliation â the benchmarks â because the Iraqi people are putting pressure on their politicians.” That was Sept. 2.
Oh, all right, one more. Graham told Time magazine’s editors that unless there was political reconciliation in Iraq within 90 days, Americans should give up hope. “If they don’t deliver in 90 days, I will openly say the chances for political reconciliation are remote,” Graham said, adding, “If they can’t do it by the end of the year, how do you justify a continued presence?” That was Sept. 26.
For reasons that Iâve never entirely understood, the media establishment decided years ago that Graham is a âseriousâ lawmaker whose opinions on Iraq necessarily have merit. I have a hunch, reality notwithstanding, this won’t change.
It took a while, but David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter seems to have noticed a problem with the conservative movement’s approach to competence.
It also has to be admitted: Many of us on the conservative side have fed this monster. (Rightly) aghast at the abuse of expertise by liberal judges, liberal bureaucrats and liberal academics, we have sometimes over-reacted by denying the importance of expertise altogether.
“‘Heart’ is crucial,” one of George W. Bush’s early evangelical supporters argued in a 2005 newspaper column. This same writer accused those conservatives who questioned Bush’s “faith-based initiative” of having “holes in their souls.”
So now instead of holes in our souls, we conservatives are getting candidates with holes in their heads.
As Kevin Drum put it, “Welcome back to the reality-based community, Mr. Frum. Good luck reining in the beast you and your colleagues have spent the past three decades unchaining.”
House intel committee makes a bipartisan vow not to be thwarted from investigating the CIA torture tapes.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has a post up at TPMCafe on today’s debate on the new FISA bill and telecom immunity.
Rudy pulls resources out of New Hampshire to focus on Florida, where he’s also falling fast.
NYT covers blogger’s nasty attack on author of WaPo‘s Obama Muslim piece–but devotes only one sentence to actual criticism of piece.
Dodd promises to filibuster FISA bill until he runs out of breath. Still no word on what Clinton, Obama and Biden will do.
Suddenly Iowa’s a real race in both parties. And the Sunday show yakkers were full of talk about the nosediving Hillary and Rudy campaigns. Check out what they said in today’s Sunday Show Roundup …
Four years later, what did it all mean? We’ve invited some of the leading innovators from that campaign to join us to discuss the legacy of the Dean campaign.
Dean’s former deputy press secretary, Garrett M. Graff, will be discussing his new book, The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House. The Dean campaign was not really about the internet, it was about the message, Graff contends in his first post.
Joining Graff will be Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter. Their new book is Mousepads, Shoeleather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics. In her first post, Teachout argues that people have misunderstood the lesson of the campaign by focusing just on how it allowed the campaign to decentralize tasks instead of focusing on how it decentralized power.
Other participants this week include Jerome Armstrong, Zack Exley, Aldon Hynes, and Tom Swan.
Karl Rove’s memoir not drawing as much interest from publishers as expected.