Day Late, Dollar Short -

Day Late, Dollar Short - The Pioneer Press is running the "Rumsfeld Memo" story...

...roughly a day after the entire blogosphere identified and jumped on the story's spinning and inconsistency. There are enough links to this "controversy" in that link to keep you busy reading for hours.

UPDATE: Lileks, of course, has it pretty well dialed in:

The memo itself is not that surprising, given the source. I’d be more alarmed if the memos consisted of back-slaps and promises off shiny medals for all. As I wrote to Hugh Hewitt today: this is the difference between American military culture and Middle Eastern military culture. Saddam would never have wondered whether he was doing the right thing, because everyone in his chain of command would have assured him that they were 110% successful 24-7. And no one who got Rumsfeld’s memo worried that it would be followed by a bullet in the head for giving the wrong answer to question #17.

How about the left?

Some bloggers get it. Josh Marshall gets parts of it right:

There is something oddly refreshing about hearing the Sec Def think out loud...In a similar way, there’s something appealing about listening in on his brainstorming.

...and parts of it wrong:

what’s troubling about this memo is that it really does seem to be a candid appraisal meant only for his top advisors. And even in that context there’s apparently no sense that any of the key strategic decisions in the war on terror might have been flawed or misguided.

...and parts of it seem to speak from Marshall's partisan myopia:

Here’s the line: “Should we create a private foundation to entice radical madrassas to a more moderate course?”

Couldn't we just build a super-strong ladder up into space instead of using those rocket?

You’d think the madrassas backed by the America-funded Madrassa Foundation (administered, no doubt, by General Boykin) might take a bit of a hit to their legitimacy. But, you know, I’m a details man. And why quibble with a bold idea …

Like the, ahem, Marshall plan? The one so many of Marshall (Josh)'s intellectual cohorts poo-poohed sixty years ago, in the same way Josh Marshall quibbles about our current involvement?

Note to Marshall: If you're a "detail man", you certainly know that there are ways that sort of funding can be insinuated into the Arab world without having "USA!" printed all over it.

Posted by Mitch at October 23, 2003 05:35 AM