Zelikow and the overthrow of Maliki: How Washington works

Glenn Greenwald, in a series of iterative updates, describes how our government works -- by giving us the details on the emerging overthrow of (the very nasty) Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. In the old days this type of story only emerged in books written decades after the event, but now we get to see 'em in real time. I love these blogging journalists, but full credit to CNN as well.

It's a long story, and so familiar to what we've read over the past six years that it's hard to stay awake all the way through. The most important outcome of this expose is probably yet more shame heaped on The Washington Post, which presumably traded OpEd space for future privileges (jobs? news? leaks?) -- a bad move on national security matters.

I look forward to reading about what's going on behind the corruption story. Is this really all about deposing Maliki, or is it about providing political coverage for abandoning Iraq, or is it some messy mixture of both?

As to our culture of corruption -- how do you beat these things back? It's up to the voters. If American voters decide they care, they can change who they vote for. I've yet to see much sign of caring American voters, but one can always hope ...