Instahoglets June 25th 2008

By Cernig

Some stuff from the heavy hitters that's worth a read .

- Atrios and Athenae at First Draft on the dumbf**kery that is Tom Friedman, a man who thinks the CPA was an Iraqi government.

- Hilzoy on Scalia's willful shilling for discredited propaganda in his dissent to Boumedienne. Apparently making a documentary is "returning to the fight".

- Jack Balkin has some comments now that the blinding obvious from 2006 - that the Bushies were packing Justice with ideological fellow travellers - has turned out not to be just a conspiracy theory after all, despite the best efforts of the Right's cheerleaders to say it was.

- IIan Goldenberg - Don't look now but there is a broad consensus on what the next administration should do about Iran - diplomatic engagement.

- Brandon Friedman - General Petraeus writes "We cannot kill our way out of this endeavor." So what is the Army and Marine Corps doing there, then?  Petraeus has designed a counterinsurgency plan that, for it to work, would require thousands of educated, culturally and politically aware, Arabic-speaking Americans to implement.  That's all well and good, but it's just unfortunate that no such organization exists.  I'm still not sure why we keep asking the Army and Marine Corps to do such a thing.

- Spencer Ackerman writes that over 200 foreign policy heavyweights are calling for the US to get out of the torture and secret prison business. "Among the signatories: Bush Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and State Dept. counsel William Taft IV (!); Reagan SecState George Schultz; Clinton SecStates Christopher and Albright; Clinton national-security adviser Tony Lake; Carter/Clinton SecDefs Brown, Perry and Cohen and about 200 more. But would torture victim John McCain enact such an executive order if elected? "

- Kevin Drum wonders about the latest agitprop on that "Box on the Euphrates", repeated by David Ignatius, that Syria was just hosting a nuke weapon program for Iran because it's neighbourly that way.