So my prediction of a boringly easy Detroit victory over Cleveland wasn’t exactly born out. It seems that we are all witnesses to the brilliance of Daniel Gibson (or something). Since I picked the Cavs to get blown about by the Pistons, I suppose my prediction that the Cavs are going to get blown out by San Antonio may not carry a ton of credibility, but the fact still remains that this is going to be a Finals reminiscent of the Spurs-Nets matchup of yore.

It’s good New Republic versus bad New Republic and I’m afraid that while it’s not much of a competition it’s certainly fun to watch.

Via Scott Horton, Congressional Quarterly‘s Jeff Stein notes that the geniuses in the Defense Department seem to have been deliberately courting US-China conflict:

While Bush publicly continued the one-China policy of his five White House predecessors, Wilkerson said, the Pentagon “neocons” took a different tack, quietly encouraging Taiwan’s pro-independence president, Chen Shui-bian. “The Defense Department, with Feith, Cambone, Wolfowitz [and] Rumsfeld, was dispatching a person to Taiwan every week, essentially to tell the Taiwanese that the alliance was back on,” Wilkerson said, referring to pre-1970s military and diplomatic relations, “essentially to tell Chen Shui-bian, whose entire power in Taiwan rested on the independence movement, that independence was a good thing.”

This is, of course, no surprise. Francis Fukuyama has recounted that during the 1990s doldrums Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan discussed the fact that their “Neo-Reaganite” foreign policy required a new enemy, and that people in their circle debated whether to make the enemy China or Islamism. They reached the conclusion that China was the best option, only to reverse course after 9/11 and put the emphasis on Islamism. In either case, they regard US-China conflict — and, indeed, conflict between the United States and other countries generally — as something to be encouraged.

One issue that came up in the debate was whether or not reading the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq would have given Hillary Clinton and/or John Edwards a better perspective on the war. Years later, and in the heat of a primary campaign, it’s a bit hard to look objectively at that issue. But if you look at the relevant section of this 2003 Judis/Ackerman joint on the manipulation of intelligence, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they really should have read it.

We learn that Bob Graham “received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies–noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive.” It also seems that the Senate Intel Committee “received the DIA’s classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments.” Graham and Dick Durbin had been demanding an NIE on Iraq “and toward the end of September, it was delivered. Like Tenet’s earlier letter, the classified NIE was balanced in its assessments. Graham called on Tenet to produce a declassified version of the report that could guide members in voting on the resolution.” But when the declassified version came out “Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration’s case for war.”

I took this picture and I think it looks pretty cool — long exposure time, low exposure, at night on the beach.