Arianna hits it out of the park on ISG

I know everyone doesn't love Arianna Huffington all the time, and myself I find there's far too much National-Enquiresque celebrity stuff on Huffington Post.  But she's at her snarky, snide best in yesterday's blog post, Cutting the Fat from the ISG Proposals.

It took us a day, but we finally plowed through all 79 proposals submitted by the Iraq Study Group. Now, we're all for thoroughness, but 79 seems like overkill -- it's hard enough to read through 79 proposals, let alone try to implement them. Here then is HuffPost's look at seven of the Group's suggestions that should be the first to go:

Chase Arianna and see the fruits of her painstaking labours over the jump...

Recommendation 4: As an instrument of the New Diplomatic Offensive, an Iraq International Support Group should be organized immediately following the launch of the New Diplomatic Offensive.

First, did we miss the Old Diplomatic Offensive? Second, we'd love to think that an International Support Group is going to work but, really, it's just going to be a lot of sitting in a circle on folding chairs wondering when this guy is going to shut up about his wife leaving him for some other guy who blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

How can someone be so dead-on snide when English is her second language?

Recommendation 73: The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence should accord the highest possible priority to professional language proficiency and cultural training, in general and specifically for U.S. officers and personnel about to be assigned to Iraq.
We kinda doubt the Pentagon kept forwarding addresses for all those fired gay Arabic interpreters.

Too bad, it would be nice to see them grovelling to get them back.

And my personal favourite:

Recommendation 21: The President should restate that the United States does not seek to control Iraq's oil.

Too hard for him to pull off with a straight face.

Read the whole thing... it's delicious.