[F]or all the buzz surrounding the WMD quotes, the real stunner comes in the very next paragraph. It's there where Tanenhaus says Wolfowitz is "confident" that Saddam was "connected" to the original World Trade Center attack in 1993 and that he has "entertained the theory" that Saddam was involved in the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995

There's some dispute over whether Wolfowitz intended this part to be on the record. However, Brad DeLong is correct in pointing out that for us non-journalists, the important part of this is the substance of Wolfowitz's comments.] Then there is Douglas Feith's attempt to refute allegations that the DoD tried to spin the WMD story. The New Republic's &c points out that Feith's attempt backfired, leading to accusations of "doublespeak" and labeling Feith and others "browbeaters." Today, it's a Deputy Assistant Secretary, according to USA Today:

A Pentagon official conceded Tuesday that planners failed to foresee the chaos in postwar Iraq, as another U.S. soldier was killed and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signaled that guerrilla-type attacks could continue there for months. Joseph Collins, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for stability operations, said that despite careful planning, the Pentagon was surprised by the extent of looting and lawlessness. Postwar conditions have ''been tougher and more complex'' than planners predicted, he said.

Assignment to Phil Carter: is this just a series of unanticipated screw-ups, or is this an example of Rumsfeld losing the ability to rein in his subordinates? Developing....

Conservatives are at their absolute worst when the name "Clinton" comes up. There's a visceral hatred there, every bit as deep as the far left's hatred for President Bush, but the conservative hatred for the Clintons seems broader.... But the thing is, who cares? Maybe she [Hillary] lied; maybe she didn't. Honestly, I don't think most of us will ever know. But why are conservatives so obsessed with speculating about it? Sure, if she knew about President Clinton's infidelities earlier than she claims, then she lied in some public interviews. But lots of politicians have lied in lots of interviews about lots of things much, much worse than whether or not their spouse was sleeping around. Conservatives really, really should move on. Because right now, it just looks like a lot of them are pursuing a vendetta -- they have the tone of the outraged self-righteous moralist who can't believe that the public still hasn't figured out how superior they are to the scum which, inexplicably, keeps rising to the top. Get over it. Bill Clinton was a popular president, and, by most accounts, Hillary Rodham Clinton is a popular senator. If the GOP really feels the need to attack Senator Clinton, it should spend less time drawing horns on pictures of her and more time arguing against her policy proposals (which, as far as I can tell, have generally been moderate since she took office). Enough is enough: personal animosity is not a political platform. At least not one that I am willing to support.

I'm with Josh on this... and I've never even met Chelsea (go read Josh's post to understand that line).

"Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience. So let us go now, you and I, and test our consciences to their fullest extent."

For me, it's all in the empirical testing and observation of good theory. Values no doubt shared by the quote's inspiration. UPDATE: By the way, I think Kevin Drum should win. It's easily the worst of the lot -- it also made me laugh out loud.

copying with variations is an important form of creativity, and this should make us prudent and measured in our condemnations of plagiarism. Especially when the term is extended from literal copying to the copying of ideas. Another phrase for copying an idea, as distinct from the form in which it is expressed, is dissemination of ideas. If one needs a license to repeat another person's idea, or if one risks ostracism by one's professional community for failing to credit an idea to its originator, who may be forgotten or unknown, the dissemination of ideas is impeded.... The concept of plagiarism has expanded, and the sanctions for it, though they remain informal rather than legal, have become more severe, in tandem with the rise of individualism. Journal articles are no longer published anonymously, and ghostwriters demand that their contributions be acknowledged. Individualism and a cult of originality go hand in hand. Each of us supposes that our contribution to society is unique rather than fungible and so deserves public recognition, which plagiarism clouds. This is a modern view. We should be aware that the high value placed on originality is a specific cultural, and even field-specific, phenomenon, rather than an aspect of the universal moral law.

I'm still not convinced that Posner is correct -- but I am convinced that the blogosphere will strongly resist Posner's assertion. We traffic in the very ideas that Posner discusses. To us, any theft of our ideas is a theft of our intellectual progeny. To the general public, however, it matters not a whit.

Since the Taliban's fall in 2001, Afghan exiles and refugees have been slowly returning, giving the city a new vibrancy. New shops and restaurants are open, and women walk the streets alone, unescorted by male relatives as required by the Taliban. Once-forbidden music blares from alleys, and movie DVDs are on sale.

If you read the story, it's clear that most of the city's problems date back decades. Efforts to create a national police force, rebuild roads, help malnourished children, and voter registration are proceeding apace. India and Afghanistan just signed a preferential trading agreement. However, the key political problem remains the lack of central authority and persistence of low-level violence. On this front, one can point to limited progress. This week, for example, local governors pledged to transfer more tax and customs revenue to the central government of Hamid Karzai. And the Washington Post reports that Karzai has relieved Aburrashid Dostum, one of the most opportunistic warlords in Afghanistan, from his regional post. However, several grains of salt are in order. As the Economist notes:

[T]he governors had little to lose. Mr Karzai has no power to enforce the agreement, let alone to collect back taxes, or even to work out how much is actually being raked in at remote border posts by often corrupt officials. Mr Karzai said that the customs money would help boost central-government revenues from a pathetic $80m last year (excluding foreign aid) to $600m next year. Not likely, say observers close to the finance ministry. Several of the governors, notably Ismail Khan in the west and Abdul Rashid Dostum in the north, will still have the power to skim off what they see fit, albeit a bit less than before. After all, they need the money, not least in order to pay for their extensive private armies. Mr Khan's alone is tens of thousands strong, far outnumbering on its own the national army that Mr Karzai is trying to build.

And the Post story notes the following on Dostum:

Attah Mohammad [an ethnic Tajik militia leader whose forces frequently clash with Dostum's] had asked Karzai to relocate Dostum to Kabul rather than let him return to the north. But Dostum will be allowed to stay in the north, where he maintains a militia force numbering in the thousands, and advise Karzai on military and security affairs from afar

There are also reports that Al Qaeda is reconstituting itself in Afghanistan. To sum up: progress slow, security still a problem. Developing....

[S]ometimes it isn't enough merely to list the contents in a show or a book to determine its merit. How a taboo topic is dealt with can be just as important. In Buffy, the "how" is intriguing because of the show's honest portrayal of consequences.... What saves the show is its realistic grounding. Sure, it's about a skinny girl who throws demons around, but the writing honestly depicts how individuals struggle in their lives. Characters make mistakes and sin but pay consequences and change over time. In this way, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has consistently confronted human suffering and addressed compelling themes.

When a television show earns cultural praise from Christianity Today,The American Prospect, National Review Online (though they hated the finale), FHM Magazine, Reason (according to Virginia Postrel) and the New York Times editorial page, you know you're talking about something that cannot be reduced to a whiff of transient pop culture -- you're talking about a pathbreaking work of art. I'll close with two quotes. The first is from an Onion interview with the show's creator, Joss Whedon:

I designed the show to create that strong reaction. I designed Buffy to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can't be loved. Because it's about adolescence, which is the most important thing people go through in their development, becoming an adult. And it mythologizes it in such a way, such a romantic way—it basically says, "Everybody who made it through adolescence is a hero." And I think that's very personal, that people get something from that that's very real. And I don't think I could be more pompous. But I mean every word of it. I wanted her to be a cultural phenomenon. I wanted there to be dolls, Barbie with kung-fu grip. I wanted people to embrace it in a way that exists beyond, "Oh, that was a wonderful show about lawyers, let's have dinner." I wanted people to internalize it, and make up fantasies where they were in the story, to take it home with them, for it to exist beyond the TV show.

The second is from Zacharek again, capturing how I'm feeling today:

[T]here have been many days when, after a particularly potent "Buffy" episode, I've found myself feeling vaguely off my game, my mind clouded with a gauzy, muted sense of dread. When a show jostles your equilibrium to the point of haunting your days or robbing you of sleep, when it finds a place in your imagination that also rubs, hard, at the core of who you think you really are, it starts to look like something more than what we simply call TV.

Mission accomplished, Joss.

we are free to criticize the governments and all, but for a long time people were afraid to take on the extremists. But in the last two years, and especially after September 11, people sort of began parrying with them, if you know what I mean. Now I think there will be people who will go in for the knockout punch. Frankly speaking, we are tired of them. If you want me to speak boldly, I'm tired of obscure ranters, I'm tired of people who have very little knowledge of religion trying to force down my throat teachings that do not subscribe to the views of Islam.

Read the whole thing.

"Our paper has a commitment to diversity and by all accounts he appeared to be a promising young minority reporter," Mr. Raines said. "I believe in aggressively providing hiring and career opportunities for minorities." "Does that mean I personally favored Jayson?" he added, a moment later. "Not consciously. But you have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama, with those convictions, gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team. When I look into my heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes."

Two other must-read essays on this topic. The first is Eric Boehlert's discussion in Salon -- it's worth seeing the ads to get to it. The piece does a nice job of pointing out the combustible mix of elements -- Blair's ability to schmooze, Raines' management style, and yes, race -- that led to the scandal. Here's the money quote:

Times metro editor Jonathan Landman, who tried to warn fellow editors at the paper about Blair's increasingly erratic behavior, says the truth lies somewhere in the middle. "There are two conventional wisdoms out there [about the Blair scandal]," he says, but "neither one of them is right. It's not a morality play about race and affirmative action, as some would like to suggest, and it's not a story that has nothing to do with race. Race was one factor among many in a subtle interplay."

Read the whole thing -- and, if you're wondering where Boehlert is coming from, read his previous Raines piece from last December. The other must-read today is Don Wycliff's Chicago Tribune essay. Wycliff is the Trib's public editor, an ex-Timesman, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. The key grafs:

Almost as depressing as reading the Times' voluminous account of l'affaire Blair has been reading the e-mail traffic for the last week or so on the National Association of Black Journalists' listserve. Much of the discussion has been near-apoplectic in character, as members fulminate, agonize and hand-wring over the uses to which they fear the Blair case will be and is being put by opponents of newsroom diversity. Indeed, the NABJ itself issued a statement Friday that said in part, "While Jayson Blair is black, his race has nothing to do with allegations of misconduct." Not only is that false; it's foolish. Almost as foolish as the notion that Blair's behavior somehow demonstrates the bankruptcy of the entire effort to diversify the staffs of America's newsrooms. Gerald Boyd, managing editor of the Times and the first black person ever to ascend to so lofty a position at that newspaper, was quoted in Sunday's story as saying Blair's promotion to the status of full-time reporter was not based on race. With all due respect--and I have genuine respect and admiration for Gerald Boyd--that does not ring true. On the strength of the Times' own description, Blair's work record to that point was marginal at best. Only something extra--like the hope that he might contribute to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s noble goal of a more diverse newsroom--could have justified his promotion. Nothing, I'm afraid, could have justified subsequent decisions to assign Blair to major news stories like the D.C.-area sniper case and the war in Iraq--stories on which he lied, cheated and stole his way to front-page treatment and those "attaboys" from the bosses that every reporter covets. This is a kid who should have been on the night shift, learning the basics.

A closing note. Those readers suspecting me of schadenfreude are mistaken. Well, OK, I experienced about five minutes of it reading the story on Sunday. And yes, I like to critique the Times coverage of foreign affairs from time to time. However, I also link to it a fair amount. Compared to any other American paper -- with the partial exception of the Christian Science Monitor -- their international coverage simply covers more ground than anyone else. The Times gets more criticism than any other paper because it's more widely read than any other paper.

Baghdad residents and U.S. officials said today that U.S. occupation forces are insufficient to maintain order in the Iraqi capital and called for reinforcements to calm a wave of violence that has unfurled over the city, undermining relief and reconstruction efforts and inspiring anxiety about the future. Reports of carjackings, assaults and forced evictions grew today, adding to an impression that recent improvements in security were evaporating. Fires burned anew in several Iraqi government buildings and looting resumed at one of former president Saddam Hussein's palaces. The sound of gunfire rattled during the night; many residents said they were keeping their children home from school during the day.... [T]he British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, expressed disappointment with efforts so far to bring democracy to Iraq. He told the British Parliament that "results in the early weeks have not been as good as we would have hoped." Straw also said the lack of security in Baghdad has been disappointing. An office and warehouse belonging to the aid group CARE were attacked Sunday night. In two other weekend incidents, two CARE vehicles were seized by armed men, the organization reported today, asking the U.S. occupation forces to "take immediate steps to restore law and order to Baghdad." "The violence is escalating," said Anne Morris, a senior CARE staff member. "We have restricted staff movement for their own safety. What does it say about the situation when criminals can move freely about the city and humanitarian aid workers cannot?" Baghdad residents have been increasingly preoccupied by violence and the uncertainty it has produced, slowing relief and rebuilding efforts. One U.S. reconstruction official said tonight, for example, that as the Americans seek to distribute salaries and pensions, 20 bank branches have been unable to open without U.S. protection in the absence of a credible Iraqi police force. "Security is the biggest problem we have," the official said. "The banks don't feel comfortable opening, and I agree with that."

This failure of U.S. forces to engage in active peacekeeping goes back to a problem I discussed last month. It's not going to be solved anytime soon.

With tens of thousands of U.S. troops positioned just to the east and U.S. officials warning Syria it could be the next object of American ire, Syrians acknowledge they are feeling vulnerable. These regional developments -- nothing less than an "earthquake," according to Khalaf M. Jarad, editor of the state-run Tishrin newspaper -- have prompted Syria to alter its foreign policy to accommodate U.S. demands, while rethinking its domestic affairs. "When your neighbor shaves, you start to wet your cheeks," said Nabil Jabi, a political strategist in Damascus, citing an Arabic proverb. "It means you must study the new situation in your neighborhood.".... But the changes in domestic policy may ultimately prove to be of even greater consequence. During the past two weeks, the Syrian government has licensed its first three private banks, considered an essential step in modernizing the state-dominated economy, while approving two new private universities and four private radio stations. Officials are now reviewing the possibility of removing military training from the curriculum of schools and universities and eliminating a requirement that all students join youth groups affiliated with Syria's ruling Baath Party, according to sources close to the leadership. While discussions about reforming the Baath Party have been underway for at least three years, they have taken on a much greater urgency since the collapse of Iraq's Baath Party government, said Syrians close to the leadership. "If now people feel a more pressing need to do that, so much the better," said Buthaina Shaaban, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry. "I think it's normal to be affected by external events and to use it for your own benefit, to reform your reality."

Meanwhile, Juan Cole reports that Egyptian opposition parties are also seizing the moment to push for greater democratic reforms in their country. Developing....