Rhinocrisy

Via Juan Cole, here’s a Times bit about Arab/Kurd tensions in Kirkuk, which led to a collapse of the patched-together Shia-Kurd agreement to form an Iraqi government. Includes this mournful lament:

“We wish we didn’t have oil in Kirkuk,” he said. “If the oil wasn’t here, we’d have a comfortable life now. All our problems are because of this damned oil.”

I bet no one has ever said that before.

Via Crooked Timber, a nice piece from the Sunday New York Times about government-produced news broadcasts. Before this sets off your BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome, coined by Charles Krauthammer), you will note that the practice actually began under Clinton (or “the Clenis” as Ann Coulter would have it…). I’ll take this opportunity to introduce this fascinating paragraph:

The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush’s recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. “There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press,” Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies.

Wonderful that the rules of journalism demand feigned ignorance of what is obvious to everybody (viz., Bush is engaging in some CYA). Seems to me there ought to be some happy middle ground between that and the manic, insult-peppered rantings of the likes of Greg Palast.