Is that he's way too personally invested to ever again act objectively. I must admit that flipping back and forth between here and Swampland provides a sort of guilty pleasure as Joe continuously gets skewered with his own words.

I couldn't help but notice that he tries to differentiate himself from you by claiming that he does "reporting" in contrast to whatever it is you do, but his idea of reporting is to cultivate friendships with big-important people and then report what they tell him. He's incapable of realizing that when you look at a situation from the outside-in you actually see a clearer picture. In that regard, He's a victim of his own success.

I don't think you can accurately say that Klein and his ilk are Power Worshippers...etc.

Never underestimate the power of consensus. As anyone who has been in the "out" group in High School knows, the power one weilds exists only insofar es everyone agrees that it exists. If you don't believe this then I suggest you try to explain where the value of the money in your wallet comes from.

The danger of course comes when the consensus starts to unravel. The agreement to honor the value of money is too important for anyone to challenge seriously but the agreement to honor the opinions of the punditocracy is far more fragile. This naturally greatly adds to the entertainment value of the spectacle of it's destruction.

Klein means well, and certainly doesn't consider himself a dupe, but because his critical thinking skills are limited by conventional wisdom, he is easily bamboozled.

Klein might mean well in his role as a reporter but when it comes to defending himself against attacks such as this, his malice is quite unshielded. Face it. He's a thin skinned jerk. Unfortunately that's what makes him such an easy target. It also draws the debate away from the (get ready for it)

................serious issues of the day.

Both Joe Klein and Shooter share the same operational premise. If we leave Iraq there will be more killing than what is currectly taking place. Since Joe Klein is a reporter who has actually been to Iraq then he's in a perfect position to investigate this question. Simply this, what is it that our American soldiers DO that prevents violence? I've been assured repeatedly that they do so, but no one has as yet explained to me how.

The Congressman who revealed the other day, that if we leave, then Al Qaeda will take over selling us oil probably spoke as much truth as anyone on the subeact. I'm all ears. How do our troops prevent killings?

That people who say that Iraq will become a bloodbath if we leave and that it will be our fault for leaving are full of s(-)it? I'm shocked! I had no idea!

My question was serious and shooter's response does provide an opening for discussion. Soldiers are not policemen. Their primary purpose is to take and control ground and they do so by killing anyone who stands to prevent them from doing so. To expect our troops to ACT as policemen is an invitation for disaster on several levels, the first of which is of course their habit of solving problems with overwhelming force.

We of course were told going in that by now, the Iraqi's would be responsible for their own security. Everything that has happened since has been a case of the Adminstration covering the failure of anything we've been told would happen happening and the resultant change in story.

This has happened so often, that its earned its own name.

FU

Fitting, isn't it?

shooter interprets people ignoring him as meaning something beyond people ignoring him.

If ignoring shooter were all it took to be on board that the US is the world's police then even the Chinese agree. Amazing!

I wonder if the country hasn't shifted sufficiently to make total disengagement from Iraq thinkable and Clinton seem a captive of past presumptions about American power and how it should be wielded

When the founder were designing our Country, they did have a bit of distrust in the common man so they designed the 2 House legislature with the Senate more removed from the shifting winds of puplic opinion. They however were careful to place war-making powers in the body closest to direct accountability to the people.

Recent history suggests that theirs was a wise design and that we have done our heritage a disservice by falling away from the need to formally declare war.

The one thing I'm sure the founders didn't forsee would be that "the press" would not only show disdain for the "common man" but open and unapologetic contempt. This is indeed a remarkable turn of events.

The headline in the NYT says it all: "Gonzales Dealt Blow In Account By F.B.I. Director".

I too have noticed that the media loves a football game and will cram whatever the truth may be down until it will fit in a football game format.

Whether they do this to add to sales or simply to avoid work remains an open question. But the resulting distortions of reality are reaping tragic consequences on a daily basis.

Just now cut 'n' pasted from google news:

Gonzales' Tough Week

CBS News - 4 hours ago

I was going to write this morning about Atlanta Falcons’ quarterback Michael Vick and the Kobe-like arraignment he endured Thursday—news flash: his lawyer says he’s innocent—but when I trawled through the papers online this morning it became clear that ...

Its really quite simple. Soldiers kill people for a living. Since killing people is generally (with noteworthy exceptions) considered an immoral act, the nobility and uprightness of soldier's actions becomes quite fragile and has to be defended with particular vigor. The possibility that our soldiers are in fact, mere humans and some of them might even be assholes has to be pushed back at all costs. I personally find the whole process disturbing.