Get a Room, You Two

The ideological tensions between the US State Department and the Pentagon are escalating into a single-malt media brannigan. One day after Newt Gingrich tore State a new one from the podium at the American Enterprise Instutute for "diplomatic failure" in dealing with Iraq, and for being too cozy with dictators, unnamed State sources laid into "some administration officials" (i.e., Defense neocons) for shortsighting Iraqi shiites' ability to organize after Saadam's overthrow. In other words, to Neocons like Gingrich, the "dips" at State couldn't pave a footpath in Afghanistan without a 1,000-page white paper and a sip of aquavit, while to Powell and the fellows from State, the rec-room fratboys in Defense couldn't stir diplomats' Nescafe in local matters of consequence. Stay tuned, I hear Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage are going to settle the score over a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.