Friday, December 28, 2007

Two articles you need to read

I'm sorry I haven't been able to do much today. However, check out these two important articles elsewhere in the blogosphere...

First, check out the New York Times article on Hillary Clinton's Résumé Factor: Those 8 Years as First Lady. As it turns out her, "experience" isn't really experience in the same sense as we all mean it.

Notice these key quotes:
And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled...

She did not wrestle directly with many of the other challenges the next president will face, including managing a large-scale deployment — or withdrawal — of troops abroad, an overhaul of the intelligence agencies or the effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons technology. Most of her exposure to the military has come since she left the White House through her seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

When it came to the regional conflicts in the Balkans, she, along with many officials, was cautious at first about supporting American military intervention, though she later backed air strikes against the Serbs and the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.


Second, go see Juan Cole's Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007 - including:

10. Myth: The US public no longer sees Iraq as a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign
6. Myth: The US overthrow of the Baath regime and military occupation of Iraq has helped liberate Iraqi women
3. Myth: The Iraqi north is relatively quiet and a site of economic growth.
1. Myth: The reduction in violence in Iraq is mostly because of the escalation in the number of US troops, or "surge.

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