Friends & Enemies

Friends Like These:

This is the number one story on Memeorandum today.



I would like to say -- it would suit my temperment -- that this story was a waste of air and that we should be reading Obama's new plan for Iraq instead. However, he has demonstrated such a disloyalty to his own statements that I see no reason to bother with anything he says or writes at this point. I think we can say with some certainty that anything he says is designed for political advantage in the moment, and will not be considered binding in any way in the future.

So, since the discussion I'd prefer to have is really off the table -- it's bootless to argue about where his plan is wise (though I like the focus on nonmilitary assistance that he's been mentioning lately; a more complete reading on the subject, from people who can be relied upon to mean what they say, is LTG Chiarelli and MAJ Smith's paper from the Combined Arms Center), or where it is foolish. His word, he has demonstrated, is irrelevant.

Thus, the popular opinion -- that the New Yorker story is actually more important than Obama's stated plan on Iraq -- is actually, sadly, tragically correct. "With friends like these," folks; though I suppose, given Obama's record on loyalty to his friends, that one reaps as one sows.

Still, I don't really want to talk about the New Yorker. Maybe we could talk about Chiarelli instead -- it's the one point from Obama's piece that I think is strongly correct, and a worthy idea that deserves wider consideration and awareness. On the chance that Obama might not reverse himself, then, let's read the Chiarelli piece and talk about it.