Know thine enemy
In Slate, Michael Kinsley makes a cogent, and characteristically pragmatic, argument against Bush's war-on-terrorism rhetoric. If you just keep repeating that your enemy is "evil," and don't explore his motivations, you're going to do a lousy job of preventing other enemies from proliferting. Meanwhile, in Salon Premium, Josh Marshall explores the quandary Bush administration hawks find themselves in now that the president has chosen to work through the U.N. and its resolutions. Latest twist: Rewrite Bush's speech. "Maybe the president said that the issue was making Saddam live up to the resolutions, but in fact whether he does or not is really beside the point, because the real point is that Saddam can't be trusted and must be ousted." [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]