When His Not Obsessing About AG...

...Josh Marshall makes good points on other stuff:

"For all the endless debate about strategy and tactics, past and present about Iraq, it is astonishing how little the public debate in this country entertains the idea that the occupation itself is the cause of the unrest and violence in the country.

"This isn't an original and unheard of concept. I know that. Indeed, it's common sense. But in our public debate it is what we might call the logic that dare not speak its name. The point occurred to me when looking at the discussion going on at PostGlobal.

"Of course, the bitter irony is that it doesn't have to be one or the other. As I wrote a couple years ago, the really awful thing about the situation we've gotten ourselves into is that we're both the glue holding Iraq together and the solvent tearing it apart. And neither is this to say that there aren't all sorts of hatreds and social pathologies helping Iraq rip itself apart on its own. Iraq's Sunni minority had its heel on the neck of the Shi'a majority long before the US become the dominant power in the region -- for many centuries, by some measures. But like a wound that is not allowed to heal and thus becomes infected again and again it is folly to assume that Iraq can set itself right as long as the occupation lasts. Particularly because it is one that fundamentally lacks legitimacy, which has always been the heart of the matter."

Editor's note: I kid TPM on their awesome and comprehensive coverage of the Gonzalez scandal. Marshall's little band of Woodward's really came through for the American public in investigating this issue when the M$M was ready to completely ignore it. I only miss their critiques on other issues.