O.K.

We've now have given a really thorough read, and its quite something.

Don't listen to the partisans on either extreme. Their time has (has to!) pass. This is a largely ideology free assesment that has -- clearly -- as its first and fundamental objective to insert a major wake-up call into the partisan and bitter discussion of Iraq and reach the American people (oh, them) with a somber and dead-serious message: In Iraq, we face a catastrophe of monumental proportion.

As mentioned in a quick post yesterday, the tone itself is the most striking thing about the report. Only a fool -- or someone looking to shoot partisans arrows or throw partisan flowers -- would take the recommendation very seriously. Other have made and will continue to make every one of them. They are there for two reasons: because they must be, and because they show that there are MANY MANY things that can or could have been done to address the crisis. A QED cri de couer for dynamic, desperate action.

Wise Men! Patriots! Surrenders Monkies! YOU Decide

So much analysis of the Iraq Study Group Report!

Sheryl Stolberg's is pretty good. Note the quote from Baker at the end. He really believes that he has thrown the President a life-line and a lot of political cover with this report. Will push repudiate the family retainer?

The either iratitating or indespensible Howie Kurtz is indespensible this morning with an excellent round-up of all the other MSM coverage, as well as some key bloggers. He links everything I would plus a whole lot more, so see Howie for one-stop shopping.

10 Soldiers Dead on Day of Study Group Delivery

A horrible reminder of the real stakes here. Ten more dead just today for the hubris of Bush and the neo-cons.

SCATHING!

We've just gotten done giving the Iraq Study Group Report a good thorough skim. Complete readind tonight. The 79 recommendations are a little hard to take in in their entirety, but what's really rather remarkable is the tone. It is simply scathing!

"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating"

"The Iraq government needs to show its citizens - and the citizens of the United States...- that it derserves continued support."

"Sectarian violence has becom the principal threat to security." [Not Al Qeda, Mr. President].

"The Iraqi government is not effectively providing its people with basic services...the government sometimes provides services on a sectarian basis...security is lacking...corruption is rampant....capacity is inadequate."

"The public interest in not well served by the government's preparation, presentation and review of the budge for the war in Iraq."

And on and on. What's striking throughout the report is a prevelant pragmatic tone that seems self-consciously emphasized by the commissioners in startling contrast to the Rumsfeldian non-sense we've been subjected to for the past several years.

Andrew Sullivan's Dark Vision

Click here for Andrew Sullivan's ruminations on the big bad picture in the middle east. It seems he sees a regional conflagration as virtually inevitable. Its the long predicted Arab vs. Persian clash, and he sees it as inevitably here, with Iraq "the trigger not the cause."

We agree almost completely. Here are our exceptions:

• Andrew's inevitability is not so inevitable. Its hard to see Sunni Saudis and Egyptians getting into a shooting war with Iranian/Iraqi Shia. The regimes in charge of those two nations are totalitarian monoliths with little hope of fielding effective armies for off-territory war-fare. The regimes are too hated by their own people to make prolonged warfare likely, much less inevitable.


• Iraq is the cause, not the trigger. Think back to September 12th and the relative stability of the region at that moment versus today. If the US, given the moral authority and global support it could have wielded, had stopped at Afghanistan, put real force into the Palestinian/Israeli peace process and spearhead globally supported diplomacy to open restrictive societies, we would be in a very different place right now.

Chickens of Death!

Check out this sunny little item from our friends at Consumer Reports. Bottom line -- more than 80% of US chickens carry disease causing bacteria: the highest level ever. Add to this the seemingly weekly e. coli scares (today's its Taco Bell...tomorrow???) and its clear that the American food supply, once the envy of the world for its safety, is in big trouble.

Lack of regulation? Over-industrialization? Probably both. Are we heading back to an era of overcooked meats? Say it isn't so...and wash that Spinach in Clorox (recipe to follow).