On Monday we sat down (virtually) with the New York Times oped page’s Paul Krugman to talk about his new book, The Conscience of a Liberal, what it’s like being ‘radicalized’ by the Bush administration and what he thinks the “big stand up and cheer moment” of the 2008 campaign has been so far.
Over at The Plank, Jonathan Cohn digs into the muck of S-CHIP, Michelle Malkin, and that kid from Baltimore.
At today’s White House press briefing, the Armenian genocide resolution . . . the new FISA bill . . . and Turkey’s military action in northern Iraq.
After the Blackwater incident a few weeks ago, just a couple days ago there was another incident in which a different contracting outfit, this one from Australia, shot and killed two innocent Iraqi women. How frequently has this been happening in cases where the story ‘hook’ just wasn’t recognizable enough in the US to get much press?
Last week we told you about the International Peace Operations Association, the lobby/trade organization in DC for military contractors. Seems Blackwater has just cancelled its membership.
Apropos of why the US military and the Iraqis seem to be getting shut out of the Blackwater investigation is this question: what’s the State Department’s thing with Blackwater? What was it in the contracting personnel or system at State that led to this one outfit getting such an inside track? Does it go back to Bremer?
Late Update: One TPM Reader chimes in …
I’m sure you’ll get lots of leads on this from your network.
Something this reader would like to see is an interview with you and Jay Garner. Since he was the first ‘civilian’ leadership boots on the ground, I think he might provide an interesting perspective on the mercenaries. Was State and CPA actively planning to have the contractors perform a role, or was it Bremer’s brainchild after realizing that Rumsfeld’s minimalist plan wasn’t going to be able to do it all?
Garner had some choice things to say in Woodward’s book.
One man injured in the Nisoor Square incident and the estates of three who were killed are suing Blackwater in the US courts. The case is being handled by the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The issue is whether Hillary Clinton was equivocating in her denouncement of torture yesterday, keeping her options open were she to take the White House. Bloggers jumped on it yesterday. The Obama campaign makes it a campaign issue today.
Late Update: The Obama and Edwards anti-torture stances do appear to be less nuanced than Clinton’s.