While the issue of dual command brought up in this article is a worthy critique of the "surge" plan, Salon's not doing anyone any good by purporting the notion that Fred Kagan is a credible expert. I could explain all this myself, but it's already been done quite effectively over at talkingpointsmemo:

Just a note on Fred Kagan – the guy is not an expert on insurgency, civil war, or stability ops. He has a Ph.D in history, with a focus on the 19th century Russian military. His major scholarly book is on Napoleon from 1801-5. From what I can tell, he has no serious background studying the issues that are at the core of his “surge” plan (his AEI bio page is below). So I am completely baffled by the extent to which the media has given him credibility as a “military expert”; one imagines how the surge would have been received if Kagan was accurately identified as “an expert on Napoleon and the early 19th century Russian army.” His CV reveals no publications in refereed history or political science journals in the last decade. Basically the intellectual architect of the surge is an oped/Weekly Standard writer whose only substantive expertise is on Napoleon. Great. . . .

And it gets better.

BelgraviaDispatch notes that Kagan seems to have trimmed his necessary number for the surge from 80,000 to 30,000 over the three and a half weeks from early to late December. They've got him kowtowing so bad you'd think the White House were a tenure committee.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011921.php

I must applaud you for engaging the blogosphere directly in this piece. Even if Salon is not necessarily "mainstream", it feels established enough to warrant kudos for recognizing that the blogs are an equitable partner in the field of alternatives outside the mainstream.

As for the defenses and criticisms in your article I must say that I largely agree with your analysis. My political awareness was conceived on 9/11, and my partisan convictions were formed on dailykos in the run up to the Iraq war when I was looking for someone to confirm to me that I wasn't crazy for thinking it was complete horseshit. I became and remain a pragmaticly partisan Democrat due to the influence of sites like DailyKos and MyDD.

As I have found my party identifcation, though, I have been starkly aware of the dangers of blind partisanship as exhibited by the current republican party. I don't see it as something that could manifest itself fully within the Democratic party to any large degree, but from time to time it will rear it's ugly head as is the case with the Edwards and Obama dustups in your article.

What I and many like me have seen over the last several years is the true danger of a party that refuses to accept reality. I believe that the liberal blogosphere, while prone to the occasional emotional outburst and flame war, is acutely aware of the need for honest criticism even when it is pointed at one of its own. Transparency and criticism will be this country's only way out of the mess the GOP has made of this government, and the lefty blogs damn well better get behind those concepts regardless of party affiliateion

One more thing, please don't forget that the blogosphere is composed of lurkers like me. While this is one of my more substantial comments, I would say that I've probably only made one comment or post my own blog for every 500 other blog pages that I've read. The only time I jump into the discussion is in situation like these when I just haven't seen enough people echoing the same sentiments I hold, which in this case is that Salon has been as fair and as forthcoming as I think anyone could reasonably expect. Your pieces on Obama, while a bit contrarian in that they seem to be reaching in order to find honest criticisms of the man, have been fair. The negative comments I've seen from readers here and elsewhere all strike me of people who read the articles in a very superficial manner.

P.S. Thanks so much for picking up Glenn Greenwald. I like knowing my subscription's value has increased ten fold.

So they're mostly mad that Gonzales is a bad liar?

Nowhere do I see any condemnation of the fact that Gonzales has repeatedly lied to Congress. Of course that would force them to recognize that what is at the root of the US Attorney scandal is misuse of executive power. NRO is just mad because Gonzales "fumbled" the coverup and the only reason I suspect they are throwing him under a bus now is in an attempt to diffuse this scandal from rightfully tainting the GOP for a generation. I for one want to make sure that when Bush's wrongdoings are fully exposed to the public, that we hold all of his enablers like NRO and most of the conservative establishment accountable for ignoring these abuses time and time again.

While I believe that requiring user registration will elevate the quality of comments and provide the Salon user community with some measure of accountability in tracking opinions, I certainly hope that there are many more changes to come in the letters system. Here's what I'd like to see:

• Ability to use anchor tags
• Kill the pagination
• Threaded replies

Oh, and ignore the comments about the font, it's fine.