Kevin Drum, who certainly seems like a reasonably nice guy, just absolutely stinks at analyzing any news that comes out of Iraq. Like many bloggers, he simply accepts mainstream news stories at face value, and he rarely reads Iraq news from any sources outside those the Bush administration finds as useful outlets for public relations.
For example, Drum thinks it’s really good news that the Iraqi “parliament” is finally in the process of filling key posts in the government. Filling these posts isn’t good or bad per se. It’s whom they are being filled by that is important. And all indications are that the personnel being selected are not conducive towards reducing sectarian tensions. For example, the post of parliamentary speaker was allocated to Hajem al-Hassani, a Sunni expatriate who lacks any popular base and alienated his Sunni constituency by refusing to withdraw from the provisional government (along with the rest of his party) when the government endorsed the U.S. assault on Fallujah.
During last month’s public relations blitz, designed to convince us of the readiness of Iraqi forces to combat the Sunni insurgency, liberal blogger after liberal blogger stumbled all over themselves to note that “things were getting better” over there, never noting that all these reports were being generated by interested parties in the Iraqi provisional government. Few reporters have actually sent reporters out into the real Iraq to determine just how much control these security forces have established. When a journalist commits an actual act of reportage, the result is almost always a disturbing story like this.
And completely ignored by liberal bloggers, with the exception of Spencer Ackerman’s Iraq’d is the degenerating situation in Kirkuk. If you’re going to comment on the situation in Iraq, and you fail to comment on this ticking timebomb, you do your readers a great disservice.
I’m sorry, but Drum you get snowed more than Minnesota.
