Jokers Wild

Guy Raz offers us this about Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates. According to Raz, "He’s a pretty well known figure here in Washington…he’s basically been described by colleagues I’ve spoken to as a technocrat, highly competent manager, somebody who’s not necessarily ideological…" Raz needs to learn to interview some people besides Washington insiders because there are those who think that Gates is less than "highly competent" and is ideological.

Then in response to Renee Montagne, who says, “when it comes to Iraq…the talk is about a possible surge in troops," Raz responds, "…you know you can think of it as sort of doubling down your bet or sort of one last push to see if a temporary increase in troops you know in hot spots like Baghdad and al-Anbar could reduce a good deal of the violence..."

Nothing at all about how a surge in troops is utterly contemptuous of the November 7th vote repudiating the war in Iraq. And is there a more crass way to describe sending more troops in to the nightmare of Iraq than as "doubling down your bet?" Lastly, someone needs to tell Raz that neither a capital city of 5-7 million people wracked by sectarian horror, nor a huge province of a country is a "hot spot."

Wisest of Wise

Cokie Roberts tells us this morning that Clark Clifford [who replaced McNamara as Secretary of War in 1968] "was considered one of the wise men of Washington, and that’s who you’re hearing from a good bit now—that whole Baker-Hamilton commission was considered the elder statesmen of the two parties coming together to give their advice and one of the wisest of wise men according to many people in Washington is Colin Powell who yesterday decided to break his silence on the war in Iraq.

Wise men? One of the wisest? In what way is Colin Powell wise? Frankly he was a complete and complicit tool in the whole Iraq War project and used his "reputation" to sell it. Based on his behavior, he is either a complete idiot, or a self-serving liar. Given his past I'd put my money on the latter.