Author: Andrew Sullivan

Six word memoirs from Iraq and Afghanistan:

More here. Leah Carroll remembers her father's stuggle with PTSD:

I was born years after the last US soldier had officially left Vietnam, but, growing up, the specter of the war was constantly at my back. It rode with us in the car on bright days that might erupt into a sudden summer storm, turning my father's mood black and edgy because it reminded him of the jungle. It was ever present on the nights when my dad, drunk and brooding, sat me on his lap and recounted his killing of a Vietnamese teenager. The problem of lasting trauma is perhaps best stated in Lethal Warriors by General Mark Graham who says, "PTSD is like a hurricane. If you're in the path, it doesn't matter who you are, it hits you."

Within 24 hours, one lurches from hope to this:

As voting was under way to re-elect President Jalal al-Talibani, members of the Iraqiya bloc, a Sunni-backed coalition that won the most seats in the March 7 election, tried and failed to force a vote on a series of demands. Among them were commitments to release detainees and to reverse the disqualification of three of its candidates on the grounds that they were loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. At that point, just as officials with the Obama administration were expressing their delight in a news briefing that Mr. Allawi will be part of a new Iraqi government—a result the United States had sought for five years — the Iraqiya bloc walked out.

That included Osama al-Nujaifi, who had just been elected the new speaker of Parliament, and Ayad Allawi, who had been Mr. Maliki’s chief rival for prime minister. “There’s still no guarantee from the other side that what they promised will be implemented,” said Jaber al-Jaberi, a top member in Iraqiya, before the start of the session…

After the walkout, parts of Iraqiya returned to the session, suggesting possible divisions within the bloc. With the diminished numbers, however, there were not enough votes to give Mr. Talabani the required two-thirds majority on the first round. A second round of voting, requiring only a simple majority, was to follow.

“From the start I knew this agreement wasn’t sustainable,” said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker. In an arrangement that attempts to wrap every coalition into a power-sharing government, Mr. Othman said, “you expect problems.”

Howard Gleckman calls out partisans on the left and the right for selectively reading the deficit draft proposal:

[I]f Bowles and Simpson could just get the left to recognize that the plan is in fact a significant tax increase and convince the right that it cuts income tax rates more than at any time since Reagan, maybe they could get somewhere.

Hillary wins friends in Australia. Obama charms the Indonesians. Better than the shoulder rubs of the past.

Tom Jensen finds some good numbers for Palin in multiple states:

Romney's ahead [in a PPP Florida poll] with 28% to 22% for Palin and 15% for Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee. It should be noted that although Romney does have the lead, it's a much less lofty one than what he posted in a March PPP poll of the state when he had 44%. The only other candidates included in that poll were Palin and Huckabee and we're finding more and more as we do these polls that when new folks are added into the mix it tends to hurt Romney more than anyone else. His support is less solid than Palin's and Huckabee's so even though he looks like a very nominal front runner at this point, he's also the candidate most likely to see his support collapse as things heat up.

A vintage gay tumblr.

Tongue in cheek, Larry Sabato and Alan Abramowitz mock pundits predicting that Obama will lose re-election:

Historically, incumbent presidents who have sought another term have won them by a two-to-one margin. Those aren’t impressive odds. How many of us would bet on a horse with minimal chances like that? Since 1900 only one incumbent president whose party captured the White House from the other party four years earlier (Jimmy Carter) has been beaten. The other incumbent losers—Taft, Hoover, Ford, and the senior Bush—were from a party that had held the White House for two or more consecutive terms. But the key is that Carter and Obama are practically twins; both won the Nobel Peace Prize. Enough said. Moreover, the present moment is unprecedentedly perilous for an incumbent president. There’s really no comparison in the existence of the American Republic, save for about a dozen crises like the Civil War, economic panics, the Great Depression, world wars, and 9/11.

Avent echoes Yglesias:

Some of the recommendations are problematic, but they're generally fairly sensible. But the reaction to the report makes one thing perfectly clear—the bipartisan commission has done absolutely nothing to create either the will or the bipartisan consensus to make any progress on the deficit. And I think it was pretty silly to expect that it could have.

America is not Britain.

Its government is a minefield of checks and veto-points. To pass big budget changes, and especially changes that will cause short-term pain to concentrated, organised interests (like pensioners) Congress must be driven by and allowed to blame a real economic urgency. And right now, there is no urgency. The 10-year Treasury yield currently sits at 2.6%. It hasn't been above 5% since 2007. It hasn't been above 6% since 2000. In 1994, when the big budget-balancing deal was cut, it was close to 8%. The world has a thirst for safe assets, and American government debt is just about the safest on offer.

I think is is too convenient an excuse for inaction. To refuse to endorse a sensible proposal to address a real problem because there's a lack of political will for it is circular. One reason there is no political will is because the public hasn't forced it; and the only way to get the public on board – if you are a blogger – is to raise consciousness, make the arguments and do your best. Defeatism on something this important is, well, defeatism. Especially since this president is in such an excellent position to gain real political traction from endorsing this. And soon.

Seriously, even with a gun at my head, I doubt it: