Joe Biden and Leslie Gelb wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times quite a while ago in which they laid out a proposal for a partition in Iraq. While the piece received some press at the time (little of it flattering) it has mostly gathered dust since then. Biden is trying his best to once again breath new life into this plan.

It may not be the best solution. As many have pointed out Iraqis by and large do not support partition; Iraqi identity is a strong force. However, as Biden says in a new Op-Ed today, in the South Carolina paper The State, “Absent an occupation we cannot sustain, or a dictator we do not want, there is no way that Iraq can be governed from the center — because there is no center.” George Packer, as I recently wrote, and others are starting to remind us that we must start to think about how we get out of Iraq, and what we will leave behind, if we are ever going to end this war. Perhaps Joe’s plan deserves a second look.

In Iraq, the military refers to those who have been killed as fallen angels.To date, 3,780 of our brave men and women have been killed in action.

How many more angels must fall before this war ends?

In January, the president asked us to support a surge of troops that would give the central government in Iraq breathing room to stand up on its own feet and to bring about political reconciliation between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
The State | 09/25/2007 | A plan for a stable Iraq

The Note over at Mickey Mouse Dot Com has really gotten quite good of late, as Rick Klein has started to slip more comfortably into the sort of snarky early morning prose that so distinguished that sheet under Mark Halperin’s reign. He has been having a blast with the Wide Stance of (soon to be former) Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), as shown here:

Collecting the reasons that Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, didn’t do it:
1. “Wide stance.”
2. “He said/he said.”
3. Roaming toilet paper.
4. He’s a commuter.(?)
5. “Witch hunt.”
6. “Jiminy!”
7. “I am not gay. I never have been gay.”
8. “I am not gay. I love my wife.”
Craig also, apparently, loves political reporters. (Imagine what the next 36 hours will bring. And is he holding out the possibility of becoming gay in the future?) From the moment he thanked reporters for “coming out today” to his press conference, his surreal public appearance in Boise yesterday afternoon displayed all you need to know about why Craig has approximately zero friends left in political circles — and why the GOP is praying that he steps down, or at the very least steps aside before facing reelection next year.

Interestingly, this is the third (by my count) prominent Mitt Romney campaign co-chair, sponsor, or organizer who has had to leave the campaign due to personal peccadilloes. Hmmm:

Campaigns love the upside of endorsements, but they’re seldom prepared when bad news comes. Craig’s arrest “is one more reminder of the potential downsides for candidates: guilt by association, questions about judgment in the friends they pick, and several news cycles of bad publicity,” writes The Boston Globe’s Brian Mooney. “To avoid lasting damage, campaigns try to move quickly to limit the fallout” — which is why, of course, Romney isn’t waiting for this to play out any further.

I think Mr. Klein got it wrong with this next prediction, however. He should have known that on the second anniversary of the hurricane, all of the networks (his own included) already had at least one 5 minute Katrina package ready for the evening news (ABC ran two):

If there’s a benefit for the GOP, the “cloud over Idaho” Craig talked about yesterday is overshadowing the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush visit the Gulf Coast today, after the parade of Democrats who blasted the Bush administration’s response to the disaster have cleared out of town.
THE NOTE: Craig Awaits Judgment

We knew it had to happen, and now it has.  In about ten minutes, Alberto Gonzales will announce his resignation.  Former Sen. John Edwards summed it up best:

Former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., was first out of the box: “Better late than never.” (Karl Rove only got three words from Edwards — “Goodbye, good riddance” — in case you’re keeping score.)
THE NOTE: Gonzales Exits, Dems Attack

Fresh from the Independent’s Los Angeles bureau:

The Bush administration has consistently thwarted efforts by the World Bank to include global warming in its calculations when considering whether to approve major investments in industry and infrastructure, according to documents made public through a watchdog yesterday.
On one occasion, the White House’s pointman at the bank, the now disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, personally intervened to remove the words “climate change” from the title of a bank progress report and ordered changes to the text of the report to shift the focus away from global warming.
Wolfowitz ‘tried to censor World Bank on climate change’ – Independent Online Edition > Americas

Color us jaded, color us cynical, but this just doesn’t surprise us anymore.

This story ebbed and flowed across the wires all night, last night, as Pawn drifted in and out of sleep to the dulcet tones of the BBC news readers. The New York Times however, came up with the most disarming of headlines, “Musharraf Decides Against Emergency”:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Thursday decided against declaring a state of emergency in Pakistan and will press ahead with plans to hold free and fair elections, a government minister said.
Pakistani media have been reporting that the military leader would impose a state of emergency to deal with rising violence and political instability — a move that a senior government official confirmed was under consideration.
Musharraf Decides Against Emergency – New York Times

PS – If you like the photo above, or are simply intrigued by it, check out the whole Vogue Italia photo-spread, “State Of Emergency” by Steve Meisel at Foto Decadent.

“A Bloody Failure” is how The Independent subtitles this brilliant piece of reportage from Patrick Cockburn, direct from Baghdad:

The surge is now joining a host of discredited formulae for success and fake turning-points that the US (with the UK tripping along behind) has promoted in Iraq over the past 52 months. In December 2003, there was the capture of Saddam Hussein. Six months later, in June 2004, there was the return of sovereignty to Iraq. “Let freedom reign,” said Bush in a highly publicised response. And yet the present Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, claims he cannot move a company of soldiers without American permission.

In 2005, there were two elections that were both won handsomely by Shia and Kurdish parties. “Despite endless threats from the killers in their midst,” exulted Bush, “nearly 12 million Iraqi citizens came out to vote in a show of hope and solidarity that we should never forget.”

In fact, he himself forgot this almost immediately. A year later, the US forced out the first democratically elected Shia prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, with the then US Ambassador in Baghdad, Zilmay Khalilzad, saying that Bush “doesn’t want, doesn’t support, and doesn’t accept that Jaafari should form the next government”.
The surge: a special report by Patrick Cockburn – Independent Online Edition > Middle East