links for 2008-03-10
Washington Post Death Spiral Watch

New York Times Death Spiral Watch

From Ilya Goldenberg:

democracyarsenal.org: Five Out of Eleven: Oh, I love it when Mike O'Hanlon is in the NY Times:

The most intriguing area of late is the sphere of politics [in Iraq]. To track progress, we have established "Brookings benchmarks" -- a set of goals on the political front similar to the broader benchmarks set for Baghdad by Congress last year. Our 11 benchmarks include establishing provincial election laws, reaching an oil-revenue sharing accord, enacting pension and amnesty laws, passing annual federal budgets, hiring Sunni volunteers into the security forces, holding a fair referendum on the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk, and purging extremists from government ministries and security forces.

At the moment, we give the Iraqis a score of 5 out of 11 (our system allows a score of 0, 0.5, or 1 for each category, and is dynamic, meaning we can subtract points for backsliding). It is far too soon to predict that Iraq is headed for stability or sectarian reconciliation. But it is also clear that those who assert that its politics are totally broken have not kept up with the news.

Here's the best thing about this. There is no way to refute it because his scoring isn't up anywhere.... So, five out of eleven it is because that's what Mike O'Hanlon tells me it is.

Sure enough:

The New York Times says that there is an ongoing "Brookings benchmarks" set of indicators on Iraqi political progress that simply... does not exist.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

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