Shoot-Then Think

It is really interesting watching the GOP leadership demonstrate how NOT to handle a crisis. Their handling of the Fordham resignation was a classic. They managed to turn a person willing to resign and stay silent into their worst nightmare, instantly.

I must say that I am distressed at much of the news cycle this story is controlling. There is a lot of important information being pushed out of the news as a result.

The United States and allies cannot resolve the current sectarian violence in Iraq, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said today during a lecture in Minneapolis.

[...]

In Iraq, "staying the course isn't good enough because a course has to have an end," Powell said...In the U.S. today, a challenge the war poses is a question of whether an essential "bond of trust that must exist within a nation...has been shaken," he said. The extent of the damage to trust will be measured in the November elections, he said.

The situation in Iraq is turning worse by the day and will only continue to worsen.

Two months after a security crackdown began in the capital, U.S. military deaths appear to be rising, even as fatalities among Iraqi security forces have fallen, U.S. military sources and analysts said.

The U.S. military Tuesday revised to eight its count of American deaths in the capital on Monday, the highest daily toll in a month. In September, 74 U.S. troops died nationwide, about a third of them in Baghdad, according to the military.