Month: October 2006

From my letter to the editor in the 10/30/06 Washington Post, in response to the editorial Insult to Injury in Iraq by Frederick W. Kagan (resident scholar/conservative hack at the American Enterprise Institute):

In his op-ed, Insult to Injury in Iraq, Frederick W. Kagan blames the U.S. military for the Iraq fiasco, saying that Central Command “never actually made establishing order and security a priority.”But wasn’t it Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld who threatened to fire anyone who brought up the subject of “post-invasion operations” (also known as nation building) in Iraq? And wasn’t it the Bush administration’s aversion to nation building that limited our postwar options?

Mr. Kagan shouldn’t blame the military for following orders.

I wrote this because nobody in the Washington Post seemed to be making a distinction between the military and the ideologically driven agenda of the Bush administration. More people need to do so.

From The Atlantic Monthly: A chart which breaks the 2004 electorate into twelve politically relevant “tribes” based on their values, behaviors, and religious affiliation. Each circle corresponds in relative size to the group it represents. The chart reveals some polarization of the electorate. But it also shows that voting preferences do not sort as neatly by cultural values or religious affiliation as people might expect: