Plus--Maybe we just want to make Hillary suffer a bit.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Pinch Works Fast: The New York Times' value has been cut in half in less than three years.  It's now worth a little more than $17 a share. In 2002, it traded above $50 a share. I wouldn't worry about Rupert Murdoch buying the Times at this point. I'd worry about Rupert Murdoch's nanny buying the Times. ... [Thanks to S.B.6:30 P.M.

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Thanksgiving Tune-Out? Why is Obama suddenly sinking in Rasmussen's national robo-poll? His number for Monday was obviously awful. Maybe all his supporters stopped answering the phone for Thanksgiving. But you have to wonder whether the cause was this widely-reported Saturday story  (which I thought would help him)... 3:15 A.M.

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Tuesday, November 20, 2007

How Does the Surge Hurt? I'm willing to be convinced that the instinct to keep up Petraeus' "surge" (as long as it's showing promising results) is wrong. But the recent Podesta/Korb/Katulis op-ed--"Strategic Drift: Where's the Pushback Against the Surge?"--didn't come close to doing the trick. When you write a sentence like:

the progress being made at the local level often undermines the stated goal of creating a unified, stable, democratic Iraq

you have to come up with, you know, an example. Maybe in the next sentence! Podesta et al. argue that Iraqi national reconciliation--and "constructive" intervention by regional powers--will only come when America withdraws. That may be true (though it seems tendentiously optimistic). But we can always withdraw. In the meantime, how does "progress at the local level," including "declines in the overall level of violence," actually hurt? Without that argument, the piece looks like positioning. ...

Update: Kevin Drum tries to supply the missing paragraphs here, here  and here. Maybe you will find them convincing. The basic issue is whether empowering Sunni tribes outside the new Iraqi state eventually promotes a stable reconciliation or a future civil war. ... But attempting "integration" of Sunnis directly into the Maliki government wasn't working very well, was it? Likewise, withdrawing and hoping for Shiite benevolence--and benign intervention by "regional powers"--seems pie-eyed. Attempting to achieve some sort of stable balance of local power, on the other hand, has worked before in this sort of situation, no? It seems worth a shot, especially if the ongoing cost in American lives gets reduced to a tolerable level. ...