I know better than to read the National Review, but this quote in an article on “Gen X in the Green Zone” contains a remarkably stupid comment from Michael Ledeen’s daughter in defense of the vast number of kids who got jobs with the CPA in Iraq based soley on their ideological affinities:
[Simone] Ledeen, who is also (NRO Contributor) Michael Ledeen’s daughter and for that reason featured prominently in the Washington Monthly article, says: “I question the idea that young people in the CPA are not experienced. Who has experience in what we’re doing? What precedent is there for that?”
Is Little Ledeen kidding? Somalia? Haiti? East Timor? Rwanda? Bosnia? Kosovo? Those are just the total make-overs from the 1990s. There are all kinds of folks with functional experience in this or that field; surely we could do better than someone who “majored in political science, rarely watched financial news channels and didn’t follow the stockmarket … for the difficult task of rebuilding Iraq’s shattered stock exchange” Yes, that is quote, and from the Wall Street Journal to (max) boot. The article, called “This little novice went to market . . . in Baghdad”, is reprinted in the Australian Financial Review and worth a read.
When encountering remarkably stupid comments like this from the right, I occassionaly contemplate opening an anonymous blog to expand my options in the vocabulary department. I can hardly wait for these morons to start streaming back into DC.