More for the O'Hanlon Brief [Steve Clemons]

Mike O'Hanlon is under siege from many corners.  He's a smart, prolific guy -- and I wish he had not co-written the oped that got George Bush to finally read the New York Times.

But he and his co-author Ken Pollack have written a piece that has empowered those who believe in devoting more lives and treasure for a flawed and illegitimate war and occupation -- and they've set themselves up for this onslaught. 

I still don't understand how O'Hanlon could have co-written with James Steinberg one of the very first major articles calling for US troop withdrawals from Iraq and then have written "A War We Might Just Win."

I recently communicated with Steinberg and then encouraged The Nation's Ari Berman to follow up, and as Berman makes clear, Steinberg has not changed his views even a nanometer.

I've also recently learned that Mike O'Hanlon is under contract with the US government's propaganda network, Alhurra.  I'm not quite sure what I think about that yet -- but it's something that ought to be in the open.

(Many thanks to Andrew for the guest-blogging perch this week along with blogger-stars Hillary Bok, James Kirchick, and Gregory Djerejian.  Here's a short piece I wrote recently about Andrew's Monday nuptials with the pleasantly startling Aaron Tone.  You can catch my regular political and foreign policy commentary at The Washington Note.)