this is an adventure

A close reading of McChrystal’s analysis directed to the Pentagon and the White House “provides a window into his thinking. It shows why a COIN campaign is needed, how it would be carried out, and why the kind of narrow counterterrorism effort favored by so many amateur military strategists is unlikely to succeed.”

Steven Malanga on the foreclosure disaster: “It’s clear that little about the financial nightmare we’ve been through has prompted Washington to examine closely the data that’s available and reevaluate its long and often disastrous policy of subsidizing home ownership in America at risky and often counterproductive levels.”

The Czech obstacle to the Lisbon treaty must now be cleared at a Brussels summit on Oct 29: “The preferred EU option is to offer the Czech Republic “legal guarantees” such as those that were given to Ireland, before the country held its second, successful referendum on the treaty earlier this month.”

“The challenge that the Democrats faced in the summer remains: can they find a compromise that (a) wins 218 votes in the House; (b) wins 60 votes in the Senate; (c) is not some Frankensteinian monster that scares off the broad middle, which Mickey Kaus has cleverly taken to calling the congressional id.”