February 2007

Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps

ArchPundit February 2, 2007 1 Comment

NIE

The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

Washington Post

In a discussion of whether Iraq has reached a state of civil war, the 90-page classified NIE comes to no conclusion and holds out prospects of improvement. But it couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests and fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption.

Ahem, it reaches no conclusions as to whether it is a civil war while indicating its far more complicated than a civil war.

The thing is a Civil War between two or three factions is reasonably addressed politically. However, a multifaceted break down in all of the civil institutions means its a Hobbesian state of nature.

Or more simply, a giant clusterfuck.

Democrat vs. Democratic

ArchPundit February 1, 2007 9 Comments

I responded to Mark Shelden’s defense of poor grammar in comments, but I think the point is fairly clear:

It isn’t common English usage to use the term Democrat to modify a noun. Your comparisons are odd since Republican was originally an adjective that was then turned into a noun because of its usage in for advocates of different stripes and then the party.

The examples are rather odd, but to give a more comparable example it would be similar to using the despot for despotic. One would not say someone is a despot ruler, one would say they are a despot or a despotic ruler.

Despot ruler makes one sound like a rube as does Democrat Party.

I often find this debate rather bizarre. How many times do we here that young black men should use English properly? I tend to agree with Jesse Jackson that they should, but I also think Republican party members ought to use English properly as well.