The Annotated New York Times

From Saturday’s New York Times:

Some other analysts do not object to Mr. McCain’s portraying the insurgency (or multiple insurgencies) in Iraq as that of Al Qaeda. They say he is using a “perfectly reasonable catchall phrase” that, although it may be out of place in an academic setting, is acceptable on the campaign trail, a place that “does not lend itself to long-winded explanations of what we really are facing,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

...and author of a 2002 book entitled The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, which played a major role in causing this goddamn catastrophe. Funny how the Times forgot to mention that, since they do mention the title of Juan Cole’s book in the next paragraph and Ira Lapidus’s book a few paragraphs later.

What would it take for someone like Kenneth Pollack to stop being treated respectfully as a wise expert on Iraq by the press corps? How much blood does someone have to have on his hands before the Times refuses to quote his opinion that a simplistic and misleading justification for prolonging the war is “perfectly reasonable”?