All Hank, all the time.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by Spanky
The guy seems to think everything Rumsfield does is wrong.

Other than support for missile defense, what do you think that Rumsfeld has done right?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I read Dan Quayle's autobiography.

Children's books don't count.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Gattigap
No, no. Something about Iraq that doesn't burst into flames. Or, as Stewart happened to put it to Ricks (Fiasco) a couple weeks ago, is there anyone writing a book these days on Iraq and the campaign there titled something like "Good Job!"

Right now to write a good book on what is going on in Iraq you would have to be privy to stuff that only the military and the administration knows. They most certainly aren't releasing all the relevant information, and most of the reporters are flying blind. It will be years before a descent book can be written. At least that is my opinion.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
He is the Pentagon Reporter for the Washington Post. Need I say more?

Considering that you just recommended a book by a reporter for The New Yorker, one might start to think that your concern about where people write is selective.

Seriously I have seen him interviewed a few time including on Frontline and the guy seemed incredibly biased to me. The guy seems to think everything Rumsfield does is wrong. When people are that sweeping in their criticism my radar goes up. Its like listening to George Will talk about Clinton or McCain.

I have not seen him speak, and you may be right. OTOH, there are a lot of reasonable people who think that everything Rumsfeld has done is wrong. Sometimes sweeping criticism is deserved. What is a sportswriter covering the Temple football team to do?

Lefty bloggers whom I respect were trashing Ricks a few weeks back when his book came out because his reporting from a few years ago gave little sign that he thought the war was a clusterfuck. So he has been accused of following the conventional wisdom too closely. (Which itself would be a form of bias.) Others have defended him.

Whatever one may think of Ricks, it's too cute by half to respond to a fairly specific factual assertion by saying that he's biased and then failing to otherwise engage. If that's your best effort, why bother?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Spanky
Right now to write a good book on what is going on in Iraq you would have to be privy to stuff that only the military and the administration knows. They most certainly aren't releasing all the relevant information, and most of the reporters are flying blind. It will be years before a descent book can be written. At least that is my opinion.

Actually, this sounds a lot like the materials Ricks drew from in writing his book. It's a shame you consider him an agenda-harboring America-hater.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Cletus Miller
Other than support for missile defense, what do you think that Rumsfeld has done right?

We turned the tide of the war in Afghanistan and ended that conflict rather quickly and Rumsfield was right in that we didn't need a lot of troops to conquer Iraq. That invasion was text book. He has done some stuff wrong, but he has done a lot of things right.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Spanky
Right now to write a good book on what is going on in Iraq you would have to be privy to stuff that only the military and the administration knows. They most certainly aren't releasing all the relevant information, and most of the reporters are flying blind. It will be years before a descent book can be written. At least that is my opinion.

I think we are already descending, but to each his own.

So basically there is no point on writing anything about Iraq because those who actually know about things can't write about them, and no one else knows anything? Or is this purely applicable to books.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Whatever one may think of Ricks, it's too cute by half to respond to a fairly specific factual assertion by saying that he's biased and then failing to otherwise engage. If that's your best effort, why bother?

If someone wrote a book saying that Pol Pot wasn't a bad guy, I wouldn't have to read it to know it was probably mostly bogus. Too many of Rick's claims just don't pass the smell test. I can't read everything, and I try and stick to people that I feel make the most sober assessments.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Have you ever read a book by someone with a conservative bias?

Yes. I don't tend to read a lot of books about current events, except that I like to keep up on the intelligence/counterterrorism stuff. I prefer history and fiction.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
If someone wrote a book saying that Pol Pot wasn't a bad guy, I wouldn't have to read it to know it was probably mostly bogus. Too many of Rick's claims just don't pass the smell test. I can't read everything, and I try and stick to people that I feel make the most sober assessments.

What's a claim that Ricks has made that doesn't pass the smell test?

And I'm still waiting for you to point to something suggesting that Iraq's WMD programs lasted much beyond Desert Fox. Anything?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I read Dan Quayle's autobiography.

Lose a bet?

Winter storm trap you in a cabin where that was the only book?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
Lose a bet?

Winter storm trap you in a cabin where that was the only book?

Close. It was my third year of law school. A roommate had worked in a bookstore before law school and had tons of books. I read almost everything he had.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This is batshit crazy:

• Unless Congress steps in to stop it, the IRS is set to begin implementing a wildly inefficient plan to outsource the collection of past-due taxes from those who owe $25,000 or less. IRS employees could collect these taxes for about three cents on the dollar, comparable to other federal programs' collection costs. But Congress has not allowed the IRS, which is eliminating some of its most efficient enforcement staff, to hire the personnel it would need to do the job. Instead, the agency has signed contracts with private debt collectors allowing them to keep about 23% of every taxpayer dollar they retrieve. Employing these firms is almost eight times more expensive than relying on the IRS, but, according to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, it fits in with the Bush administration's efforts to reduce the size of government.
  
  Over 10 years, the companies hired are projected to collect overdue taxes totaling $1.4 billion, $330 million of which the companies keep as fees. According to the IRS' own estimates, over those same 10 years, the agency could collect $87 billion in unpaid taxes at a cost of just under $300 million — if allowed to hire sufficient personnel. In total, utilizing the private sector instead of augmenting IRS personnel would leave in the hands of delinquent taxpayers more than $85 billion owed to the federal government.

Spanky, is there someone you can call about this?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What's a claim that Ricks has made that doesn't pass the smell test?

And I'm still waiting for you to point to something suggesting that Iraq's WMD programs lasted much beyond Desert Fox. Anything?

This seems like an absurd question.

1) No one knows, except for people with security clearance, if there were WMDs after Desert Fox. You make it sound like you and I can access information that would shed light on the subject. We can not.

2) What I do know that it is painfully obvious that operation Desert Fox did not wipe out Saddam Husseins WMD program. Either it was moved or Saddam destroyed it, but to suggest Clinton took it out with Operation Desert Fox is just absurd.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What's a claim that Ricks has made that doesn't pass the smell test?

His criticism of Franks. The whole Muddy Boots Sojer thing. That he is not that bright. Just a yes man that doesn't think about what he is doing. I have seen Franks interviewed and he is not stupid. You may not like his strategy but he definitely has thought it out.

I should also point out that he is another king of "anonymous sources". That also makes me sckeptical.