PSoTD

For David Broder to go home. He's earned his retirement. He needs to quit squatting on a fable of a reputation, and enjoy his remaining years doing something more beneficial for society, something recreational that will no longer force him to find sillier and sillier ways to trumpet his Broderisms.

I'm all for people working as long as they can do their job usefully and credibly, but Broder seems to be beyond that point. Today's column is just a case in point. Broder seems to believe that a third party candidate for President should exist because people don't want to vote for Democrats or Republicans. That is a worthless position. It is a wasteful position. If, if, if... if Broder were even correct that Americans want a third party candidate, that choice would be driven by policy plans, and not because they were a third party candidate. We want health insurance fixed and reasonably priced. We want out of the Iraq War. We want responsible politicians that work in a more clear environment. We want those things.

David Broder doesn't do anything to try to help Americans resolve these wants, in one way or another. He simply writes about diversions. He's cooked, he's done, and it's time for him to go home.

Does Tom Friedman read blogs? One of the beauties of blogging is that a writer's work can be treated as a reflection of how he or she thinks, and some analysis can be made of how they come to conclusions.

One of the weaknesses of newspapers is that they treat a writer's work much more as a transitory experience. This is a major flaw in the editorial room, and it allows for writers to continue writing - and being clearly wrongheaded - for years and years and years, because each written exercise in boneheadedness is seen separately and not as part of a flotilla of feebleism.

Really, it is time for newspapers to review their columnists, and the ones that have been grossly and constantly proven wrong about the most important items of the day, such as Iraq, should be dropped. Particularly in light of analysis, readily available, that shows an inept kind of determination process. Keeping them on just is more editorial crapping into the pool of information the newspaper is supposedly trying to maintain.

I wonder what he uses to slick his hair back.

I wonder how he'd feel if it was his own family - and only his family - that suffered in this supposedly needed terrorist attack. Is that a fair price for temporary unity?

From Today's Zaman:

Veteran syndicated US columnist Robert D. Novak has said he would be happy if his reporting about an operation before it took place rendered inoperable a joint US-Turkish military move to suppress terrorist action by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in Iraq.

Robert D. Novak His article, published Monday, led to much speculation in the Turkish media, almost all of which agreed that it was a "pre-emptive leak." Novak said that US officials are planning a US-Turkish operation that, if successful, would avert a Turkish invasion of Iraq.

Participating in a meeting held at the Washington-based think tank The Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Novak responded to questions from Turkish journalists about the information provided in his article.

Novak said he received the information from a Congress member who was against such an operation and later found two additional sources confirming the same information. Milliyet daily's veteran Washington correspondent, Yasemin Çongar, highlighted in her article on Friday that Novak used the third-person singular masculine, hinting that his source was a male member of Congress.

In his article Novak said that Eric S. Edelman, a former aide to US Vice President Dick Cheney and now undersecretary of defense for policy, last week gave secret briefings concerning the issue on Capitol Hill. "While detailed operational plans are necessarily concealed, the broad outlines have been presented to select members of Congress as required by law," Novak wrote, adding that "US Special Forces are to work with the Turkish army to suppress the Kurds' guerilla campaign."

Novak told Turkish journalists that the planned operation aimed at killing PKK leaders and he was personally against such an idea. "If an improper operation has been sabotaged because of this article, it would make both me and the member of Congress who gave me the information happy," he was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency in remarks translated into Turkish.

When asked whether he believed that his article had harmed US interests and served to advance the interests of the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the US and a majority of the international community, Novak said: "You're calling the [PKK] a terrorist organization. Others call them 'the Kurds' freedom fighters.' I said this once on television and got into trouble. I believe that one side's 'terrorist' is the other side's 'freedom fighter.'" The fight between Turkish security forces and the PKK dates back to 1984 and has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of both civilians and soldiers.