Wonkette
- Here’s your weekly think tank event roundup:
- Tuesday, July 21: Running for president didn’t seem to pan out for Howard Dean, and neither did running the DNC. To cut his losses, Dr. Dean is focusing on a hot button issue, health care. On Tuesday at 12:30PM, he discusses why health care reform must happen now, in accordance with the release of his new book about health care, which will make America healthier, right?
- Wednesday, July 22: Rudy Giuliani takes center stage at AEI at 10AM Wednesday to discuss/whine about how Obama and friends are turning America into a Communist country. Seems like this storyline (blah blah blah, bailout = communism, blah blah blah), amazingly has yet to disappear from conservative rhetoric.
- Wednesday, July 22: Fancy this: Alaska has a STRATEGIC role in the defense of the lower 48. And here we thought the state was totally expendable! Sarah Palin may be an idiot, but the Heritage Foundation, hoping to sway public option/not ready to concede defeat/run by people who need to just GET OVER IT, is dedicating Wednesday from 2PM-3PM to enlighten us about the most important and vital state in the union.
- Friday, July 24: The death of everyone from Michael Jackson to Walter Cronkite may be overwhelming the usually sleepy summer news cycle, but these celebrity passings cannot distract us forever. The United States Institute of Peace graciously brings us back to reality on Friday, focusing on how the Taliban has rebuilt itself to the extent that we’re asking the question, “Can the Taliban Win in Pakistan?”
- Friday, July 24: The trillions we spend on America’s military might are making us “Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free,” as least according to the New America Foundation. At their event on Friday at 12:15PM, they discuss why we evidently can’t even blindly spend our way to safety. Hopefully Obama has a Plan B.
“Can the Taliban Win in Pakistan?”
I think that question has even started to alarm the ISI, which is one of the reasons Pakistan’s military actually moved against the Taliban in the Swat valley recently. I just started reading Descent into Chaos, and the amount of double-crossing that the Dubya administration had to overlook in order to effect their “looks like a solution” solution to the Afghanistan problem — so that they could move on to Iraq — might just end up being their biggest historical failure. Although there are so many failures still in the running for that title that it’s too soon to tell.
Anyway, I’m barely 100 pages into it, but it’s worth the read.