I've become less and less impressed with Andrew Sullivan. I've watched in dismay as, over the past couple of weeks, Sullivan has shifted some residual - or growing - resentment of Bush as bracing for a series of critical remarks about post-war Iraq that are as bipolar - Sullivan just spent a year lavishing praise and exclaiming steadfast trust for Bush - as they are transparent and, embarrassingly, based on nothing but whim and headline. I enjoy reading Sullivan and I've been working hard trying to give him some leeway, but emotion is clearly overwhelming any sense of objective judgment in his writing.

To wit: Sullivan added an entry today, Saturday, entitled "The Mess in Iraq." He cites a "devasting" account from a "pro-war writer" and generally predicts, Von Hoffmanesque, disaster.

Now, Jonathan Foreman is certainly pro-war. But either Sullivan hasn't read Foreman lately or else Sullivan doesn't mind if a comparison between two articles Foreman wrote within three weeks of each other betrays unsteady, almost completely contradictory opinions - like those found in Sullivan's articles.

In the May 12 issue of the Weekly Standard, Jonathan Foreman published an article entitled Bad Reporting In Baghdad with the subtitle You Have No Idea How Well Things Are Going. It's been celebrated by the progressive right for the better part of two weeks as an exposé on the smashing success of the Allied occupation and the liberal media's failure to report it. Foreman bubbles giddily:

It's endlessly fascinating to watch the interactions between U.S. patrols and the residents of Baghdad. It's not just the love bombing the troops continue to receive from all classes of Baghdadi--though the intensity of the population's pro-American enthusiasm is astonishing, even to an early believer in the liberation of Iraq, and continues unabated despite delays in restoring power and water to the city. It's things like the reaction of the locals to black troops. They seem to be amazed by their presence in the American army. One group of kids in a poor neighborhood shouted "Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson" at Staff Sergeant Darren Swain; the daughter of a diplomat on the other hand informed him, "One of my maids has the same skin as you."

[...]

[Y]ou won't see much of this on TV or read about it in the papers. To an amazing degree, the Baghdad-based press corps avoids writing about or filming the friendly dealings between U.S. forces here and the local population--most likely because to do so would require them to report the extravagant expressions of gratitude that accompany every such encounter. Instead you read story after story about the supposed fury of Baghdadis at the Americans for allowing the breakdown of law and order in their city.

Well, I've met hundreds of Iraqis as I accompanied army patrols all over the city during the past two weeks and I've never encountered any such fury (even in areas that were formerly controlled by the Marines, who as the premier warrior force were never expected to carry out peacekeeping or policing functions). There is understandable frustration about the continuing failure of the Americans to get the water supply and the electricity turned back on, though the ubiquity of generators indicates that the latter was always a problem. And there are appeals for more protection (difficult to provide with only 12,000 troops in a city of 6 million that has not been placed under strict martial law). But there is no fury.

Foreman, to his credit, calls this a "honeymoon" and wisely cautions that things could go "horribly wrong." But from yesterday's New York Post article, Foreman is almost as uncontrollable in his despair and distaste for the American governmental administration of reconstruction, a historically difficult and slow-moving task.

For Sullivan, Foreman's four-AM-phone-call-diatribe piece is enough to bitterly talk of "affairs [spiraling] out of control." But this is the best Foreman can come up with:

1. Restoring electricity is slow in Baghdad - while monstrously successful in Basra, where more "have power than ever before." Interesting: Basra is much smaller than Baghdad; the latter was also the seat of the Ba'athist regime and therefore much more likely to contain gangs of recalcitrants or guerillas.

2. Miscommunications are frequent between the Americans and the Iraqis.

a. Allied troops are not, apparently, able to fire on looters.

b. Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid accidentally stuck the Ba'athist star on its first broadcast.

c. Sergeant Leon Peters, presumably of Foreman's unit, is awfully worried that yellow humanitarian packages are slow to arrive; after all, it's been more than thirty days on his account.

d. ORHA is light-handed with reconstruction, particularly electricity, relying on local engineers for much of the work. It appears months and months of America being derided as an imperialist power did make an impact, and the Allies are loathe to tell the Iraqis what to do or how to do it. Amazingly, the Iraqis could care less. But the damage is done. Does the "world community" not understand that it reaps what it sows?

e. Civil Affairs is poor on keeping appointments with Iraqi representatives, citizens who are probably quite used to the prompt attention they received from the Ba'ath Party. Ba'athists must have been polite, punctual and would know perfectly well who they were dealing with (and what they looked like, and how many televisions they had, and who their friends were, and what torture would be the most psychologically effective, etc.).

3. Normal business in Baghdad lags behind in restarting due to electrical failures (though couldn't one make an excellent argument that free enterprise sort of lagged behind for the past twenty years due to dictatorship?).

4. In a stunning reversal of inter-organizational relations, the American military resents the bureaucrats ordering them to do the dirty work.

5. Some Ba'athists are being reinstalled by the Allied occupation force, the Allies desperate to correct the infrastructure failures being blamed on them. Did Foreman hear about the 15,000-30,000 Ba'athists shut out of politics altogether? He didn't, did he? And, this should be taken somewhat in light of the fact that every far-reaching, authoritarian regime has left a few nameless underlings in initially tenable positions for, well, desperate and beleaguered American occupation forces. The Germans and Japanese complained, then they moved on.

Foreman at least has the consistency to report that "The failure to provide power, water, etc. may not necessarily be ORHA's fault."

Beyond that, it's a tempest in a teapot. It's not a mess, nor big trouble - if it is, then I question the depth of either Sullivan or Foreman's "pro-war" stance, because they obviously didn't know what they'd be getting into.

At a time like this, I wish I were finishing reading books on post-war Japan rather than just cracking them. Suffice to say, and a blow to Foreman and Sullivan's vicissitude: if the Iraq situation is as successful as the early years of the Japanese occupation, poor old Sergeant Peters won't see many yellow humanitarian packages in the hands of most Baghdad residents until about early 2005. Chances are, though, 2003 Iraq will be leaps and bounds ahead of Japan in 1945 and 1946, and those yellow packages might take several more weeks to be delivered.

Blogging isn't quite about meritocracy - but journalism still is. It's unfortunate to see rightfully respected men like Sullivan or Foreman, benefitting from their previous accountability, presenting an absolute historical vacuity; panicking, pointing fingers madly, or worse. It has got to stop.