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Drooling on the Pillow

Monday, January 05, 2004

This will be a Happy New Year for Somebody 

I read the James Traub's New York Times Magazine article that everyone's remarking on today. It was indeed an important and extremely interesting piece, but not a very persuasive one. I have no expertise in any of the many areas it touches on and you should read Armed Liberal's take on it, one of many substantive blogs I've seen today.

To be fair, I'm not sure it's meant to be persuasive. It's more or less a roadmap for the Dems for 2004 no matter who takes the nomination. Traub does not argue any of his assumptions: the war was unilateral and unnecessary, the post bellum is a disaster, it has made us less safe and everyone in the world hates our guts. These are presented as givens, perhaps too evident to argue. Of course many people share these assumptions and for them, the conclusions are inescapable. Taking this road precludes Traub from engaging those who do not share all of those assumptions, however, which signals this as a political, rather than a policy statement.

Still, what an intelligent and absorbing article, perfectly poised at the lip of what proves to be a very interesting year.
Posted by: Sluggo / 1:52 PM
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