The Dish

You may remember them from such movies as "The Matrix" and "V For Vendetta." One of them is now a sister.

After blaming the previous "supine" Congress and Rumsfeld for our current impasse, she repeats that skepticism of Petraeus’s report is merited. She seems to have conceded that there’s no chance that the Congress can stop the continued escalation. That won’t inspire the netroots, will it? Money quote:

"You wrote the book, General, but the policy is not by the book, and you are being asked to square the circle, to find a military solution to a political crisis."

Ryan Crocker’s testimony was far less cogent than Petraeus’ because he has almost nothing substantive to point to (except some photo-ops in the last couple of weeks). And when he does make an assertion – that the current situation reminds him of America’s civil rights struggles, for example – one tends to shudder at its inappropriateness, or gape at its vagueness:

Most Iraqis genuinely accept Iraq as a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian society – it is the balance of power that has yet to be sorted out.

Er, yes, Mr Ambassador. Thanks for pointing that out. Crocker’s real point is his final one:

Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse.

I’m not so sure. And nothing Crocker said today swayed me.

Out-takes from Fred Thompson’s first marriage in the British papers. His first wife stands by him though. Her brother explains why:

"It has been a bit of a dilemma, deciding whether to support him. But his political philosophy and ours are very close, time heals and Sarah and he had three children together. We believe he can beat the hell out of the Democrats."

A chronology of false assertions of OBL’s demise. I’m guilty too.

Another Petraeus graph: showing again that the "surge," the Anbar tribe turn-around and the decision of Shiite militias to hold back while Maliki consolidates Shiite power have reduced the energy of the insurgency to levels of … eighteen months ago. I don’t see this as an end to the civil war, just an abatement. If you were worried about the insurgency in 2004, three years later, it is far, far stronger – and the political center has collapsed entirely. The tactical gains of the surge seem to have prevented a slide into an abyss – but not much more can be said at this point. And the announced aim of the surge – political reconciliation – has failed.

Here’s an intriguing new study of the neuronal impulses of self-described "liberals" and "conservatives":

New York University political scientist David Amodio and colleagues decided to find out if the brains of liberals and conservatives reacted differently to the same stimuli. A group of 43 right-handed subjects were asked to perform a series of computer tests designed to evaluate their unrehearsed response to cues urging them to break a well-established routine. "People often drive home from work on the same route, day after day, such that it becomes habitual and doesn’t involve much thinking," Amodio explained by way of comparison in an e-mail.

"But occasionally there is road work, or perhaps an animal crosses the road, and you need to break out of your habitual response in order to deal with this new information."

Using electroencephalographs, which measure neuronal impulses, the researchers examined activity in a part of the brain — the anterior cingulate cortex — that is strongly linked with the self-regulatory process of conflict monitoring.

The match-up was unmistakable: respondents who had described themselves as liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine.

Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this … should be changed."

And smart conservatives, recognizing their own flaws, can learn from liberal adaptivity.

Reading Petraeus’ letter to the troops, The Daily Bellwether asks:

Could that pose a problem for President Bush if Petraeus is correct and people start asking: Why were things bungled for so long? Where was the leadership in 2004, 2005, 2006? Why were we told things were going well when they obviously were not? Would the war and dying be over if the White House had recognized sooner the Pentagon and Central Command needed competent leaders?

Phil Carter is more circumspect about the import of the letter.

This is his account of civilian deaths in Iraq. Compare it to the independent assessment posted here. The data, at its most positive, suggests that we have reduced the carnage to the levels of early last year, after a huge surge last winter.

Not-so-lovely:

The people I met who were critical of the regime, when asked "Are there many people like you?" answered, "I have no idea."

As you can imagine this makes it extremely difficult to gauge exactly what people think about democracy, freedom and a future coexistence with Israel.

That’s a problem for much of the Arab world, alas.