Tom Ricks is Wrong About Wikileaks

Tom Ricks has provided some of the most valuable reportage there is about the Iraq War, but this attitude confuses me: "Maybe I'm going soft, but the Wikileaks dump kind of makes me ill. The whole situation strikes me as a bit sordid. I worry that great newspapers are getting played. If the leaks brought great revelations, I might think differently, but so far I don't think I have been surprised by a single thing I've read."

I'm always confused when a reporter seems to be arguing against making more of the record available -- particularly when the argument is, essentially, "so what?" Even if the openness doesn't redraw the broad outlines of a story, the details represented in the Wikileaks dump still offer nuance and texture to what's known. And though I consider myself relatively well-informed about the state of the war, I was still surprised -- and disgusted -- by the level of human-rights abuses committed by the new Iraqi government. I already knew that it wasn't really all that "free" in our usual understandings of the term, but did I know that Iraqi soldiers were cutting off the fingers of adversaries? No, I didn't know that. I'm glad Wikileaks let me know.

Does the Tea Party Even Exist?

The Washington Post tried to contact every single Tea Party group in the nation: "Seventy percent of the grass-roots groups said they have not participated in any political campaigning this year. As a whole, they have no official candidate slates, have not rallied behind any particular national leader, have little money on hand, and remain ambivalent about their goals and the political process in general."

All I'll note is that every time I critique positions that seem to fly under the "Tea Party" banner, I'm told the movement is too diffuse or too young or too something to criticize in conventional terms. Now I wonder if the movement is anything more than barely focused inchoate rage.

The Strikes in France

I usually think the United States could use a little more social democracy. On the other hand, I find it difficult to sympathize with union members in France who are striking to avoid raising the retirement age to 62. I mean: Retiring at 60 sounds nice. I'm not sure it's a fundamental human right.

Why NPR Matters

Jim Fallows: "To hear the Fox/DeMint attack machine over the past week, NPR is simply a liberal counterpart to Fox -- a politically minded and opinion-driven organization that is only secondarily interested in gathering news. I believe that the mischaracterization is deliberate, and I know it is destructive and wrong."

The Great Bailout Backlash - NYTimes.com

Shorter Ross Douthat: We must punish our politicians for doing the right thing.

The Glorious Invasion of Grenada!

Today is the 27th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, which is apparently a holy day for those who worship at the Shrine of Reagan. I'm not sure if the Grenada triumphalism has always been part of the conservative victory parade, or if that's a relatively recent development, but it's embarrassing either way. The story of Grenada is this: Our big military defeated Grenada's tiny military to control an island of no strategic importance on a flimsy pretext. It wasn't difficult, it wasn't necessary, and it didn't deserve the Clint Eastwood treatment. It was a way for Ronald Reagan to look tough without the dangers of quagmire. Pride in that "victory" is a bully's pride, hollow and a little bit shameful.

Queer Eye for the G.I.?

It's a measure of how far the gay rights movement has come that many (if not most) in the opposition feel the need to cloak that opposition in sober, relatively unbigoted language. Fred Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" signs are shocking to the conscience, in part, because lots of people who broadly share that idea refuse to share that language.

Luckily, there's the Washington Times and today's "Queer eye for the GI" editorial to give us a peek into the anti-gay id. Here's a small selection:

The destructive force unleashed by the Pentagon's collaboration with the leftist agenda is apparent from the circus created when homosexual activists like Dan Choi sashayed over to the Times Square recruiting center to make a political point in the short period in which the Phillips order was effective.

"Sashayed"? Sure, if you mean "strode purposefully into the recruiting station." It's a little different from mincing over in a feather boa, which is what the Times conveys.I suppose we should be grateful the Times decided not to use the slurs normally found on Fred Phelps' signs.

Aside from the transparent gay baiting (as Adam Serwer rightly called it), there's also this issue:

Pentagon officials have been pretending that they have not already made up their minds on this issue. Generals have issued blanket denials that the conclusions for the forthcoming working group report on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" have already been decided. It appears that as the White House rams its radical homosexual agenda through the military, too many generals and admirals are willing to sell their brothers in arms down the river if it means they can keep a shiny set of stars on their epaulets.

I'm not sure how this is substantively different from the "General Betray Us" ad that outraged conservative activists a couple of years ago. The Times is accusing the military's uniformed leadership of treason, basically, because they're not acting in accordance with the Times' agenda. It's ugly, ugly stuff.