I’ll be on the Chris Matthews syndicated sunday show this weekend and also on Howie Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources” on CNN on Sunday. Also: Hitch and I will reprise our double act on Tim Russert’s CNBC show next week. Stay tuned.
NOW, MANITOBA: Marriage for everyone slowly expands in Canada. Outbreaks of incest, bestiality and widespread increases in divorce do not seem to be occurring.
“Disclaimer: I’m a kerry supporter. As a statistics student…Slate’s polling deal is about as unscientific as you can get. This is the kind of shit I study at school part-time and do for a living full-time. I strongly urge you not to rely too much on Slate’s summary. In short, it is comparing apples to oranges. By aggregating the data like that they are compounding the errors in their data rendering any sort of grand prediction pointless. The differences in methodologies between the polls (the phrasing of the questions alone!) makes aggregating the data like that USELESS. The best I can say is that the electoral votes that they consider “solid” are indeed that…the rest of it is nonsense.
I believe Bush is ahead but seeing a modest and predictable dissipation of his convention bounce which was both strong and entirely within the parameters most professionals predicted. Best guess is that Bush has and will maintain a statistically significant edge of about 5-7 points going into the debates….barring outside forces. The good news for Bush is that with every passing day the ranks of the undecided decline and the polls actually become somewhat more accurate.
Interesting but useless fact: At this point in 2000 Al Gore maintained a lead over Bush that is almost identical to the lead Bush currently enjoys over Kerry.”
Our Iraq debate is bearing fruit. Belmont Club counters my worries. Greg Djerejian argues back here. I don’t think there’s much doubt that the U.S. has been scaling back offensive operations against the insurgents for the past couple of months. The fact that, even then, casualties have increased is worrying. Then there’s the possibility that this pause will make re-taking Fallujah and other trouble spots that much more difficult and bloody. Money quote from Greg:
That question is, if we really needed to get back into towns like Fallujah–would we be losing more troops now than we did back in April because the insurgents have re-grouped, strengthened, and are becoming (that dreaded, over-used word so loved by the New York Times!) more “sophisticated”? Unfortunately–and this goes more to Sully’s point than Wretchard’s–I fear the answer is yes… Also, folks, a capital city like Baghdad is critical in all of this. You can’t have foreign nationals, willy-nilly, being kidnapped from the Mansour neighborhood smack dab in the morning on their way to work. You can’t have myriad suicide car bombings slaughtering new Iraqi police recruits seemingly every day. You can’t have the effing perimeter of the Green Zone unsecured at this late juncture. Not only is it critical to exert real control over the capital as a strategic matter–it’s also of hugely symbolic import–for us, for the international community and, yes, for the insurgents.
Amen. Losing control of critical parts of Baghdad is, er, not a good sign.
The Iowa Markets poll shows a Bush break-out as well. I guess Harris and Pew are off. Slate’s summary is helpful.
WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT IRAQ?: Belmont Club looks on the bright side: they don’t seem to buy the Newsweek argument that the insurgency is reaching a new level of sophistication. And they argue that the U.S. casualties are concentrated in a few places within the Sunni triangle. And so the status quo endures. I sure hope they’re right – and the security collapse in the Green Zone, trouble in the north, Zarqawi’s continued strength and the remaining threat from far-from-disarmed Sadrist militias is not as grave as we might expect. It is indeed very hard to figure out what is happening. But it also seems to me that military deaths may not be the best way to analyze this. After all, the White House may well have been withdrawing troops from sensitive areas in order to minimize casualties in the run-up to elections (perhaps prior to an attack on Fallujah in November?). And the major recent target of the insurgents has been the Iraqi civilian population. Do we have monthly figures for their deaths? Given last week, when over 130 were murdered in a few days, it’s not unreasonable to assume that things are getting worse. We sure know that almost no reconstruction aid has been disbursed – a full year and a half after liberation. If that isn’t incompetence, what is? Sid has gotten some relatively senior military guys to wring their hands. And I keep reading newspaper stories detailing how Iraqis have responded to new terror attacks by blaming the Americans. I hope Belmont Club is right; and all this other stuff is misinformation. But they haven’t convinced me yet.
ZEYAD WEIGHS IN: Meanwhile, my old reliable, Zeyad, is not sounding too optimistic. He views the rounds of violence as semi-coordinated, a fore-runner of a future power-struggle or civil war:
The most likely scenario in the event of a premature withdrawal of occupation forces is this: Sadr will move to gain control of the south and most of Baghdad, other Shi’ites will submit by intimidation. The Marji’iya will have no power to intervene unless they are willing to allow a violent civil war between the various Shi’ite factions. Iran is likely to interfere, but perhaps not directly.
At the same time, Sunni elements will move to consolidate their power over their areas. The fundamental foreign and Salafi constituent would be too weak to control any area. Each town would be virtually independent until the strongest (and most ruthless) group can control the Sunni areas north of Baghdad. The Kurdish region would break off the rest of Iraq and the Peshmerga would move to control oil fields in Kirkuk. Later, there would be a bloody confrontation between the different groups until one subjugates the others and controls the country, this would probably take years and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would die, many more would try to leave Iraq.
With this bleak scenario in mind, one can easily interpret the current pattern of violence. I am not saying this is going to happen soon, I’m only trying to understand how the various groups are thinking and how it reflects on their current actions. Of course, I may be wrong, but I am inclined to believe that this explains it. Each group wants to survive the occupation to fight for power in the future.
This, of course, indicates that the key is to insist that we are not leaving any time soon – which is obviously not what the election of John Kerry would achieve. It may be that the only way out of this mess is to stick with the man who helped make it. I have a feeling that that is what many people are now reluctantly concluding.
A ROAD FROM HELL: And if you feel like reading some harrowing reporting from the scene, try this.
Kerry is hitting his stride. Here’s part of what he told the National Guard:
“[The president] did not tell you that with each passing day, we’re seeing more chaos, more violence, more indiscriminate killings. He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder – that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists. He did not tell you that with each passing month, stability and security seem farther and farther away… You deserve a president who will not play politics with national security, who will not ignore his own intelligence, while living in a fantasy world of spin, and who will give the American people the truth about the challenge our brave men and women face on the front lines.”
Just tell the truth, Senator. And expose the incompetence of this administration’s war management. Every day.
No one doubts that Rathergate is a huge story for the mainstream media – but for a blog that focuses only on media? Today, Romenesko puts Rathergate as his ninth story. The big stories that beat it out for attention? A new editor at the “Chicago Defender.” “Humor writer discovers online audience is a mean crowd.” “Houston Chron praises Smiley for giving $1 million to school.” And: “Bush hasn’t taken a question from campaign journos in weeks.” (The Washington Post story that Romenesko links to leads with John Kerry’s reticence.) Romenesko has every right to run a left-wing media column. But, really. Does he think anyone believes he isn’t spinning frantically every day?
CORRECTION: The Rathergate flap was, in fact, the fourth item posted by Romenesko, not the ninth. I waas reading it in reverse chronological order.
It turns out that Faghag.com, I mean Wonkette, was citing this much longer list of blogosphere fashion. My bad.
Ryan Lizza observes the surreal nature of Dr Pangloss’s re-election tour:
[F]or the most part, spending time on the trail with Bush is like being transported to a parallel universe. The only music is Christian rock and country tunes about plain-talking everymen. The only people who ask the president questions are his most feverish supporters, never the press. In this alternate universe, Iraq and Afghanistan are marching effortlessly toward democracy. The economy is, in the words of former Broncos quarterback John Elway, who introduces Bush in Greenwood Village, “the best in the world.” John Kerry, whose platform is to the right of Clinton’s in 1992, is calling for a massive expansion of government.
Yes, it’s working – for now. But if the voters realize at some point in this campaign that the president is simply living in a dreamworld, they might vote for someone who, for all his faults, is at least able to recognize reality.
Wonkette weighs in on various bloggers’ fashionable home-wear:
• Millionaire socialist Katrina vanden Heuvel: Tin foil hat; pannier hoops, skirt and bodice of vintage peach jacquard silk with scatter beads & ribbon roses
• Andrew Sullivan: White leather beaded wedding dress with matching jacket & Morticia train
• Josh Marshall: Milla Jovanovich unisex Joan of Arc mail suit with flattering shoulder pads & Teflon jodhpurs
Teflon jodhpurs in the Starbucks on Connecticut Avenue? You go, girl.
The Dish 