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I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator and am now a journalist. I am the author of three New York Times bestselling books -- "How Would a Patriot Act" (a critique of Bush executive power theories), "Tragic Legacy" (documenting the Bush legacy), and With Liberty and Justice for Some (critiquing America's two-tiered justice system and the collapse of the rule of law for its political and financial elites). My fifth book - No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State - will be released on April 29, 2014 by Holt/Metropolitan.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

What happened to Instapundit's blog symposium on Iraq?

By Blue Texan

By Blue Texan --- "When three people tell you you're drunk, it's time to sit down." -- Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 6/18/2006

Greetings, fellow Unclaimed Territory readers. I'm Blue Texan from Austin, TX, and I can usually be found at my blog, Instaputz. And why is it called "Instaputz" you ask? It's exactly what you think: to taunt and ridicule Glenn Harlan Reynolds, aka "Instapundit" aka "Mobius Dick."

Anyway, it's great to be here. Many thanks to Glenn Greenwald for having me.

A couple weeks ago, with great fanfare, Mobius Dick announced that he was launching a blog symposium on Iraq. It was a damn good idea, too, because, as he noted again and again, those bunch of paper-pushing, inside-the-box thinkers in the Baker-Hamilton Group couldn't possibly come up with anything useful. I mean, a former Supreme Court Justice, two former Secretaries of State, a former Secretary of Defense---what the hell do they know?

Besides, a panel of actual experts is soooo pre-Army of Davids.

Anyway, when he made the announcement, Mobius Dick wrote,

"I'm going to try a blog symposium on Iraq, Iran, and Syria. I want some new ideas -- beyond 'cut and run' or 'stay the course' -- on things we're not doing that we should be doing."

Well, let's ignore for the moment the point that those two "ideas" aren't really ideas at all, but shallow GOP talking points, parroted by Bush followers like Mobius Dick to attack Democrats. And let's also put aside the fact that Democrats like Murtha, Kerry and Biden have been publicly offering alternative proposals on Iraq for months, while Mobius Dick labeled them traitorous disgraces and insisted that we were winning.

But the mighty 101st Fighting Keyboardists responded enthusiastically to Mobius Dick's call to action. Here at last was a chance for the Army of Davids to prove itself, and to snatch victory from the pro-terrorist MSM and Defeatocrats, and pave the way for the Great Leader's triumph in Iraq.

The centerpiece proposal of the symposium's first round was perfectly summed up by Mobius Dick himself thusly:

Bottom line: "Regime change. More of it."

In a nutshell, Mobius Dick's symposium concluded that our problem in Iraq is that we haven't invaded enough Arab countries. What we really need to do, pronto, is invade Syria, Iran, and possibly Saudi Arabia, and then we'll have those people right where we want them.

In your face, James A. Baker III!

As I noted at the time, the reaction in the blogosphere wasn't pretty. Conservative Andrew Sullivan called it "unhinged," Kevin Drum deemed it "insane," and another conservative blog, Balloon Juice, wrote that it was beyond parody. And those were the good reviews.

Strangely, there hasn't been a single word about the symposium from Mobius Dick since. After only one round, it appears it's all over. Has Mobius Dick lost interest? Has he lost faith in his Army of Davids? Is he busy grading papers or cutting a new album?

Maybe it's just that Mobius Dick realized that he's had too much neocon moonshine, and it was time to sit down.

I guess this solving Iraq thing is harder than it looks.

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