About Pakistan, I’m of the firm belief that holding free, fair, and open elections will result in a democrat assuming the Presidency. If the government can then break the hold of the Army over domestic policy, and make it subordinate to the civilian government, I think it has a real chance of becoming a functional country. The problem is how to break the hold of the Army — remember part of the reason Musharraf is in power now is because he tried to start a war in Kashmir, and the fallout humiliated Nawaz Sharif so much he couldn’t resist the coup. There are several ways to break the Army’s hold on the government, all of which require a tremendous amount of space and a great deal of research (i.e. more than is worth putting in here), but the point is, in broad strokes, a series of solutions for “what to do” could be laid out…. a courtesy the Economist doesn’t seem to consider necessary to extend to its readers these days.

And about Simon’s post – he changed what his post was after he realized he didn’t have a case. It was complaining about Jonathan Chait’s non-response, and once he realized Chait’s essay was written before the Miniter piece, he had to change it to a general critique of TNR. That last bit is probably valid, but it doesn’t make Simon’s case any better, considering his complaint was that “real” journalists are sloppy and don’t do their homework.

You need to respond to hit pieces before they’re published, or your magazine is skirting the issue!

That particular complaint about his piece may not be valid but that is hardly the thrust of people’s issue with his post, and it has been acknowledged by Simon (the losers game is the fact that most wouldn’t acknowledge it) and his acknowledgment points out his complaint is still valid about the TNR’s handling of it in general (nothing about responding before it was published, but after) and the main thrust of the complaint against the piece still stands. If I point out to an editor the day after a football game that they got the name of the player who fumbled wrong, I don’t get to act as if they should retract the whole story including who won or lost. Simon had a point challenged, he dealt with it.

In fact, might I argue that when you do handle something correctly and people ridicule you, in defense of people who have handled things atrociously, that that is why politics has become a losers game.

Maybe they’ll hire me as a correspondent to rectify this.

I have asked before, and while I don’t expect much (nothing against you, thus my question is to you.) I just think it is a bunch of very tough calls. So here it goes, what to do about Pakistan?

So the CIA is indeed capable of self-criticism. That’s nice. My question is: what have they done to correct these obvious flaws since? If the classified sections of the report don’t answer this, then it’s still a big ol’ waste of time, for they now know just how deeply ineffective they are… that is to say, no better than psychics.

So you get to criticize the CIA, but I don’t. I get it, I see the score. I am now going to go and sulk in my room.