(For people not familiar, that's the book by Jonah Goldberg that Glenn is referring to at the end of the first update.) From the review: "In this provocative and well-researched book... wisely curbs his wry National Review style ... well-researched, seriously argued—and funny." Even the caveats are telling. The reviewer writes that "other [i.e. non-conservative] readers may be stopped cold by the parallels Goldberg draws between Nazi Germany and the New Deal". Apparently conservatives are supposed to take equating the Nazis and FDR in stride, though liberals may have an issue with this.

This is the same outfit that bashed Glenn's book for being one-side without taking on the merits. Needless to say, just as they provided no specifics for faulting Glenn's arguments, they provide no specifics for why they think this book is "well-researched" and "seriously argued". I mean seriously, the first time I ran into this book, I thought at first it was satire.

See

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205506125&sr=8-1

Uh, kufir77, note that Glenn referred to the "connection she made". Yes, the article makes a connection as Glenn no doubt well knows. But that's not the connection Glenn's plainly referring to.

I'm a little surprised. He's usually on the right side on such issues. The vote was unanimous among R votes as Glenn said (13 R's didn't vote).

-- to say nothing of an important book a year -- would be plenty for mere mortals, yet you also write the equivalent of an Op-Ed on a daily basis and continually respond to comments. All based on careful thought and research, while dealing with some of the most heated political topics. I don't know how you do it Glenn. I really don't.

It's nice to hear her say that. But where do you think she shared this insight? Why in the comments section at Swampland, of course. She saves her posts for topics like "The Thong Primary", which is presumably even more important and undercovered.

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/04/the_thong_primary.html#comment-469842

Does anyone know who likely was the editor for this article? Michael Gordon (and the Times collectively) should be held to account of course, but also his editor(s) specifically.

In my ideal world, news orgs would publish the editor's name as well as the journalist's byline. (Bloomberg News does this, I don't know of any others.)

It's interesting to contrast the US in Iraq with Britain in WWII. Iraq was unequivocally a war of choice for the US. In contrast, in WWII Germany tryly posed an existential threat to Britain: it was far from clear in real time that Britain would not fall to a German invasion. Yet my impression is the British government was nonetheless fairly straight with their populace at the time, in absolute terms and doubly so when compared to the US in Iraq today.

I can't seem to dig up documentation on the internet, but a specific example as I recall it: At the end of 1942 in the Battle of the Barents Sea, the Germans sank a minesweeper (HMS Bramble) but misidentified it as a destroyer. IIRC, the British authorities did not publicly correct the Germans' mistake. Thinking like the Bush adminstration, they could have scored a PR coup (and even an accurate one) by saying the German press accounts were wrong, but they didn't want to tip off the Germans that they'd made a mistake and risk giving them even the slightest intelligence edge. In other words, even -- perhaps especially -- in its darkest days, they were wholly focussed on winning the real war, not the PR war.

Under the Canadian constitution, democratic governments can (with some exceptions) overturn for a finite period court rulings of unconstitutionality by invoking the "notwithstanding clause". One can argue for or against such a system. Wittes apparently would think the Canadian system is better. Fine. And he can propose amending the American constitution if he likes. But as Glenn says he needs to recognize that this is not the current US system. Dura lex sed lex and all that.

In a similar vein, check out tis WaPo discussion with Anne Kornblut:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/05/23/DI2008052303300.html

There's some tough competition for her worst comment, but I'd lean for this exchange in which -- incredibly -- she doesn't understand that the questioner's praise of Bumiller is sarcastic:

Potomac, MD: McClellan needs to get over himself. The nerve of blaming the media for their failures in the run-up to the War. Elisabeth Bumiller so eloquently explained how things work the night before the Iraq War started, 4,000 dead American soldiers ago: "it's live, it's very intense, it's frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you're standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time.".

Anne E. Kornblut: That's a good point. (I'm a huge Bumiller fan). To that I would add that most reporters, or at least this reporter, looked continuously for cracks in the facade internally, and the assistance of an aide such as McClellan in helping us understand the flaws is essential. I would urge all future White House aides to remember that sometimes the press can be a friend when things inside start going wrong.