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Site contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com
...via Glenn Reynolds. This one is for Columbia Journalism students:
What should a newspaper’s executive editor do after receiving “a tip from a credible source that one or more unspecified articles in recent editions of the newspaper contain fabricated material”?Hypothetical, of course.
Update: One editor answers:
If newspapers don’t have an alternative, readers do. It’s called the Internet. That’s why newspapers, if they don’t want to be dragged further into irrelevance and disrepute, have to tell The Associated Press they are dissatisfied with its product.More here.
A week from today, Worcester will leave Columbia Falls, Maine, to lead the trailer full of wreaths down the coast. This time, it won't be just the trucker, Worcester and his wife, Karen. This time, there'll be an escort of a couple hundred Patriot Guard Riders, a national group of motorcyclists who take it upon themselves to display their respect for fallen service members.If you'd like to help out with a donation, you probably can't:This time, Worcester and friends won't barrel down the interstate; they're taking the slow road, Route 1, so that more motorcyclists -- perhaps thousands more -- might join the caravan.
This time, the wreath-laying won't be a private affair. Instead of the 10 or 12 volunteers who had been rounded up in past years by Wayne Hanson, a retired federal law enforcement officer who lives in Springfield, at least 500 people will be ready to help lay the wreaths Dec. 14 -- and maybe many more.
Worcester has always returned the checks that people send him. The wreath-laying is his personal statement: "This is the least we can do."But you might want to look into this:
<...>
"It's just a way to pay respect," Hanson says. "When I came home from Vietnam, well, it wasn't the best time to be in the military, or to be coming home. But this -- it brings tears to my eyes to see 5,000 wreaths laid out across those white government headstones. You can't think about anything but that ultimate sacrifice these people made to give us our freedom."
This year, the interest in Worcester's project has exploded to the point that he had to find some way to extend the tribute, so he has launched http://wreathsacrossamerica.org, a Web site that coordinates similar rituals at more than 200 military cemeteries around the country.
Let it never be said that WaPo isn't ideologically diverse. I mean, they have articles ranging from "Bush is teh suXors!" to "Bush is REALLY teh suXors!" Today's online front page shows the following columns re the Bush Presidency:
He's The Worst Ever
Move Over, Hoover
He's Only Fifth Worst (this might be "optimistic" one)
Time's On His Side
Making such judgments when the man's defining element (Iraq/GWOT) has yet to be resolved is premature at best and ideological masturbation disguised as analysis at worst.
Since Lincoln is generally recognized as either the best or second-best president, it's worth looking at his time in context and comparison. It's fun to think that Lincoln was some preternaturally great Commander in Chief and that the outcome of the Civil War was near-destiny since the man and the hour had met [ed: they said that about Jeff Davis] [AL: I know, it's my post, shut up].
But face it: Lincoln is Lincoln only because he won. Had he lost the Union, we wouldn't have these silly polls since half the people that became president after Lincoln would have been president of an entirely different country.
Professor Reynolds' has a creative writing assignment for the 'sphere:
So can the blogosphere do better? I'm going to try a blog symposium on Iraq, Iran, and Syria. I want some new ideas -- beyond "cut and run" or "stay the course" -- on things we're not doing that we should be doing.In this case "submission" is probably the wrong word...
<...>
Is it a good idea? You tell me. And add some other ideas of your own. Put "Iraq Symposium" in the subject line, and add a link to your blog entry. I'll pull them together in two or three days.
Update: Another observation from Glenn:
In fact, it seems as if Donald Rumsfeld, judging by his classified memo thoughtfully leaked to the New York Times, remains more open to new ideas than many of his critics, who often seem stuck in 1968.Which, I think, is accurate. Rumsfeld's memo did present some concepts beyond those bandied about thus far (in public, at least). But this symposium is a good chance for a lot of folks who are smarter than Rummy to prove it.
Robert should move next door to Alabama. Those guys know how to take care of their veterans. Just check out the license plate they authorized.
If that doesn't scream "Alabama supports our troops!"...I don't know what does.
Now as far as the Rummy memo leak is concerned, I defer to Crittenden, who has a much larger brain than I.
These options were unattractive to Rumsfeld because, having become stuck on stupid, he insisted on going to war with a downsized post-Cold War army, and insisted that politicaly and psychologically traumatized Iraq could sort itself out. He and President Bush did not move to expand the Army in the fall of 2001, when they could have had all the recruits they wanted and a blank check from Congress. So Rumsfeld didn't have the forces to put into Iraq, and he no longer had the political capital to raise a larger force.
Okay, maybe that quote doesn't have a whole lot to do with the memo, but the larger Crittenden piece does. I just got hung up on the "transformation" bit. Loved Rummy, but was never a fan of his vision for the 21st century force.
Hotel Tango to Murdoc for the 'Bama plate.
What the heck is that?
A pioneer is what she was, just as the nickname "The Covered Wagon" implied.
Her story here.
From Robert Stokely: "Today, I am embarrassed to be a Georgian."
Why? He's just discovered that if a GI gets wounded and medevaced out of Iraq in the first half of his tour he and his family lose a significant benefit. Details below.
Come January, various Presidential Wannabes and former committee minority leaders who have found themselves transformed into majority leaders will all be chanting the same chant, "Staying the Course is not working". They'll all demand something, anything "change" in order to fix things.
Those of us who are watching Iraq closely know that the course has been changing all along. An Iraqi battlion here or there taking over an AOR, a brigade of 1st ID soldiers at Fort Riley being taken off line and reset into a "training brigade", units moved from one AOR to another, a slow methodical closing of Forward Operating Bases, yet another Stryker Brigade being formed at Ft Lewis, etc...
None of which made much of a difference on the day they happened, but make a huge difference 12 or 24 months into the future.
All of which are too subtle for a Pentagon Press Corp whose careers have been based on discovering a purchase order for a $300 toilet seat or a $75 hammer.
The "Fix it Now" crowd would not be denied on a need for an "immediate change", they got it in the form of firing Secretary Rumsfeld.
In a few days the Baker Commission will hand down its recomendation from on high, in many political circles, it will be given the same stature as God handing down the Ten Commandments to Moses.
Unless we want General Casy and Gen Abizaid to be hamstrung by the recommendations of the Baker Commission, the case has to be made that substantial changes way beyond the Baker recommendations were being considered for some time.
The substance of the memo isn't my largest concern. I am scratching my head like Greyhawk on this; no big shocker about what it says in that we are already doing much of it. You can argue about degree or delay if you want - but that isn't what should keep you up at night.
No, here is what worries me, the first thing that came to my mind is something that Andy McCarthy states very well at The Corner.
If high officials — in wartime, no less — figure they better not give their best, most candid advice on sensitive, publicly-charged issues because opposing policy factions are going to leak each other's memos to the press, the initiative and creativity of the smart people we want in government is stifled. And the leaks will be used to portray the administration as disintegrating into rancorous chaos, which avalanche feeds on itself.On my very micro scale, I am known as the guy who walks into your office 5 minutes after you send me an email. Some things I will not respond to via email, or leave a phone message about. I got burned bad last tour, not going to happen again. I cannot imagine what it is like at the highest levels where you often have to put things in a memo - as walking down the hall or calling VFR direct isn't an option - and having no security that your "CLASSIFIED MEMO" will not be held in the confidence it was delivered. Communication will come to a dead stop. Andy McCarthy is right.
Free Fall. Like watching a train-wreck in slow motion.I don't care if you have spent the last five years sticking pins in your Rummy and Shrub voodoo dolls, you cannot find solace it this turn of events.
I mean, can you guess what newspaper printed the following?
Following is the text of a classified Nov. 6 memorandum
Update: Andrew McCarthy at the Corner:
If high officials — in wartime, no less — figure they better not give their best, most candid advice on sensitive, publicly-charged issues because opposing policy factions are going to leak each other's memos to the press, the initiative and creativity of the smart people we want in government is stifled. And the leaks will be used to portray the administration as disintegrating into rancorous chaos, which avalanche feeds on itself.
NYT:
Two days before he resigned as defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld submitted a classified memo to the White House that acknowledged that the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq was not working and called for a major course correction.You can ignore the NY Times framing of the memo, of course, because in a rare departure from their normal modus operandi they've provided the actual text. If you read it you'll find that many of "above the fold" options describe what we're going to be doing in Iraq for the next year or so - as per leaked portions of the Baker Committee report, the Pentagon review, and comments from House and Senate members over the past few weeks.“In my view it is time for a major adjustment,” wrote Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been a symbol of a dogged stay-the-course policy. “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”
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