So Much Folly, So Little Time

This has been another week when I'm coming home too late or too tired to write much. It looks like SnS will be on a reduced schedule for a while.

Meanwhile, there's plenty going on elsewhere. Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has some sobering observations about our relations, or lack of them, with Iran. In part, he's reacting to

' George W. Bush last week announced that American troops in Iraq were henceforth authorized to "kill or capture" any Iranian intelligence agents they discovered in Iraq. The announcement came on the heels of his pledge in the State of the Union address to bring another aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf, a move that clearly targeted Iran.

The danger of Bush's anti-Iran fatwa

As if that wasn't enough foolishness for one Administration, there's plenty more going on in Iraq. Read about it at Informed Comment (Juan Cole's blog). Permanent links to today's articles are here and here.

But wait, there's more. This is also the first week of testimony in the Scooter Libby trial. For those of you who may not have noticed, this is a trial related to the Bush Administration's efforts to discredit a critic that ended up revealing the identity of a CIA undercover agent he was married to. Christy Hardin Smith, Jeralyn Merritt, and Marcy Wheeler have the lowdown, plus live blogging of the trial, at FiredogLake. There have been some amusing and disturbing revelations already in this trial, the narrative of which is a sort of microcosmic glimpse of the arrogance and incompetence of Bush and the people he's surrounded himself with. I suspect I'll have some observations later, particularly about the careless way the Administration has been handling this country's secrets.

Try not to get too depressed, and just remember that in another twenty-three months this nightmare will be over.