Iraq war a stage-managed ideological loss-leader

* heywood at blogintegrity via drifty:

"From there, it's not hard at all to imagine these people envisioning a voluntary war as a sort of stage-managed ideological loss-leader. It got out of hand because they had no idea what the fuck they were getting into, and they're stupid as well as sociopathically indifferent. But none of that changes the redefined context of what the "mission" really might have been in the first place.
And the keepers and purveyors of the official narrative, as they now find their fortunes intertwined with the people they objectively report on, are invested in retaining their lost cred by finding ways to slowly back away from that narrative. Which leaves it to us to return to how the original terms of debate were set and taken for granted. It's not nearly so complex or oblique as to be the realm of conspiracy theory; it's just a matter of whether we want to trust proven liars and co-opted messengers, or our own lyin' eyes."

"a voluntary war as a sort of stage-managed ideological loss-leader" heh. if you read the rest of the post, you might agree.
* aravosis is angry at iraqi politicians having a holiday break:

"Yeah, well we're not in the middle of a civil war being financed by someone else's blood and money, you ungrateful ass."

ungrateful?

* guardian:

"A civil servant and an MP's researcher were today found guilty of leaking a secret memo detailing talks between George Bush and Tony Blair on the Iraq war.

David Keogh, a 50-year-old communications officer, passed the "extremely sensitive" memo to Leo O'Connor, 44, a researcher for the anti-war Labour MP, Anthony Clarke.

He hoped the document would find its way into the public domain and expose the US president as a "madman".
[]
Sir Nigel, who said his advice to Mr Blair covered the "waterfront" of foreign, defence and security issues, was persistently questioned about whether documents were marked secret simply to cover up political embarrassment, but denied it.

Mr Tedd added: "The real position, I suggest, is that central to any principle of confidentiality is protecting any American leader from public embarrassment by the disclosure of what is said.""

* froomkin:

""Only 22% of Americans accept the administration's argument that U.S. forces in Iraq are preventing new terror attacks on the United States"

and most of them are pundits.

* froomkin:

"One of the things that I think will emerge from the DOJ scandal (and possible from the Reading First one as well) is how thoroughly micromanaged key cabinet agencies are.

Judging from what we've seen at DOJ, and I don't think it's entirely atypical, the real lines of power in this administration extend from the White House's political staff to young, willing political operatives in the cabinet agencies. The cabinet secretaries themselves? Purely figureheads."