From Dissent, No Refuge Here: Iraqis flee, but where? Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq: When describing Iraq, the word "peace" is seldom used. Truth be told, the Americans have restored order to many parts of the county. But Iraq remains fractured, and where new schools are built today, bombs could explode tomorrow. The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Elegies From an Iraqi Notebook: An Iraqi reporter chronicles life, love and death in Diyala Province. A Knife Under the Collarbone: Most soldiers in Iraq battle faceless IEDs. But in Fallujah, the fighting was hand to hand.
From The New Yorker, in a city run by people who have spent their lives endlessly reenacting their election as class president, Karl Rove was un-dull: he was the fabulist, boundary violator, autodidact, mean boy, schemer. Karl Rove dreamed of creating a "permanent Republican majority." But the era of conservative values that emerged in the 1990s is coming to a close. Death Grip by How Rove directed federal assets for GOP gains: Bush adviser's effort to promote the president and his allies was unprecedented in its reach. John Judis on how political psychology explains Bush's ghastly success.
A review of The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert D. Novak (and more). What is confidentiality? In the Libby case, Norman Pearlstine had to decide: A review of Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War Over Anonymous Sources. A journalist meditates on the wonders of balance and explores how it works: A review of Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie.
