I probably shouldn’t comment on this post, since Yglesias is actually complimenting the administration (sort of), but within this post sre some rather illuminating bist which may explain some of Matt’s eternal pessimism and constant nay-saying:
I learned yesterday afternoon that there’s a project underway in the US government to write securities laws for the new Baghdad stock exchange. In light of what’s taking place on the ground in Iraq, this sounds a bit like a bad joke, but it really is an example of the sort of nuts and bolts nation-building that I (and others) have been criticizing the administration for not paying enough attention to, so I was glad to hear it. Of course we’ve learned lately that our own securities laws aren’t so hot, but maybe we’ll do better for Iraq.
A perfect illustration of just exactly what makes me mental when I see all of these mindless criticisms of the current coalition. This, btw, is exactly what supporters of this administration are talking about when we claim that the coalition is not being given credit for all the good things they are doing in Iraq. It isn’t because we want to gloss over the difficulties, and it isn’t because we have reached Goldbergian levels of media paranoia, but because we know that a lot of people are mounting endless, ridiculous attacks about the situation in Iraq based on one-sided (lopsided) reports and a lack of information.
Matt just learned this ‘yesterday,’ but how long has this been going on? Is this effort to rebuild the stock exchange over two months old? If it is, I guess it is just part of the plan to rebuild Iraq that Yglesias and others have been screaming was non-exsistent? How can Matt make the comment ‘In light of what’s taking place on the ground in Iraq’ when it is clear there may be a helluva lot going on in Iraq that he just hasn’t ‘learned’ about yet? I guess it is understa=ndable to think that everything in Iraqis a failure when your main sources of news are Josh Marshall and the NY Times.