Posted 4:37 PM by Floyd

Here's the start of a blog post from Gregg Easterbrook:

I'd like to propose a simplification of the entire Iraq/WMD debate. It's this: If the reason we went into Iraq really, truly was that the Bush administration really, truly believed Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, then there is nothing of which the administration need feel shamed --but the United States must immediately leave Iraq.

Infinite Monkey David called this "nonsense" and said "Gregg Easterbrook has lost his mind". I wouldn't go that far, but Easterbrook does come across as an earnest 12-year-old who says things like "Let's make it against the law for people to violate the law!"

I also found interesting an earlier posting, in which Easterbrook mocked Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart further determined that it will still sell the leading women's mags--like Cosmo, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Redbook--but will shield their covers. Why? Because the women's mags increasingly highlight articles about hot sex: which, it appears, women like. Set aside the classic male/female split, that men want to look at pictures while women want to read about sex. Just consider that the women's mags would not be increasingly featuring writing about hot sex unless focus-group studies showed this is what female readers are interested in.

At the end of his post Easterbrook toed the liberal party line on beauty:

Sidelight: Easterblogg's friend Donna Fenn wrote a devastating article 20 years ago, for The Washington Monthly, about how women's mags hold their readership by endlessly, subtly suggesting that no matter how stylish, smart and kissable a woman becomes, it's just never quite enough. The headline: "NINETY-NINE WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR INSECURITY!"

But Gregg, women's mags would not be increasingly featuring writing about women's insecurities unless focus-group studies showed this is what female readers are interested in...