Phi Beta Iota: Poor Newsweek. First they can't afford a photographer of their own, then they develop a cover and story that is patronizing in the extreme, rather than sexist. And then to make it worse, their cover story is so badly ranked beneath stories about the story that they are inviisble. Great photo. Memorable. Newsweek, on the other hand, is NOT memorable.
Sarah Palin may claim to scorn elites, but her new book will ring familiar to its Beltway readership.
Getting even with those who crossed her, praising her allies and generally putting a self-serving sheen on last year’s presidential campaign, “Going Rogue” is typical of the political memoir genre of recent vintage. It’s the sort of book that will send the political class scurrying to bookstores, eager to see how they fared in what’s known as “the Washington read.”
With no index, though, Palin’s book has made that ritual more difficult.
Amazon Page
So POLITICO, having obtained a copy of the book before its Tuesday release, has created a reader’s guide to “Going Rogue,” grouping the many characters into three categories: Friends, Foes, In Between.
Below the Fold we provide a commentary and links to a number of books about the prospects for honest independent government in 2012 and beyond.
Most Americans have this whole Fort Hood massacre all wrong. Maj. Nidal M. Hassan was not a terrorist. And he wasn’t a mass murderer. And he may not even have been a coward. Maj. Hassan was an enemy combatant.
A Man in a HundredBy ALEXANDER COCKBURN CounterPunch Weekend Edition November 13-15, 2009
The general obviously doesn’t have Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on his bedside table. Gibbon wrote flatly that the introduction of foreigners “into Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary and more fatal.”
Something has gone terribly wrong in the entire reaction to the Ft. Hood massacres, as evidenced by the media, the administration, the military authorities, and perhaps the public at large.
Kilcullen: Send either lots of troops or none at all
November 12th, 2009
Some quick notes from Georgetown, where David Kilcullen has just addressed students and faculty at the Center for Peace and Security Studies. Highlights below:
The oft-touted 1:50 (or 20:1,000) ratio is “flawed.” It was based on post-war reconstruction studies done by the Rand Corporation, not on actual insurgencies. Successful COIN campaigns have employed ratios that vary widely. It also refers to total security forces, not just — in our case — American troops. Finally, it’s better to think about the military presence functionally, rather than numerically.
“Where local officials sleep” is a good indicator to track progress. In the film, I Am Legend, Will Smith must get home before the vampires come out to feast. Similarly, in Afghanistan today some 70% of provincial governors sleep in Kabul instead of the provinces they govern. This is bad.
The recent closing of this five year award-winning newsletter by Mark Satin, author of the book Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now has yielded a marvelous “best of the best” series of links on a single page that we strongly recommend to anyone with a brain interested in democracy and the creation of a prosperous world at peace.