A NEW TWIST?

Dan Drezner parses new reports that suggest that there was only one leak from the administration (not six) and thta it might well have been unintentional. It’s plausible – well, about as plausible as any of these scenarios has been to me.

BARONE ON ARNOLD: A judicious round-up, for British readers.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “The September 11 attacks were probably closer to Dresden or Hiroshima in that a lot of planning and resources were put into deliberately killing civilians in large numbers. The IRA’s killing of civilians is equally wrong, but the IRA would argue that it did so by accident. That is no succour to the victims’ families, but the IRA was one of the few guerrilla organisations that gave warnings.” – Gerry Adams, IRA front-man, interviewed in the anti-war newspaper, the Independent. I love the idea of terrorists killing civilians “by accident;” and the equation of America in 2001 with Nazi Germany or Fascist Japan in the last world war. And then there’s this answer to the wonderfully blunt question: “Was the IRA right to try to blow up Mrs Thatcher?” Adams’ answer begins, “Well, you have to see it in the context of the time …” Every now and again, the mask slips and you realize that many people out there are not just anti-American. They are actually pro-terror.