Goofy title that misses the entire thrust of my work. Journalist never bothered to talk to me, despite my several attempts to set up a phonecall. One thing I learned early in my career: never underestimate the laziness of journalists. But frankly, it was like pulling teeth with this guy. As for the content of the piece, hmmmm. How about I read the review on Amazon and maybe yesterday's post and call it a day? Seriously, I don't rethink the war, I rethink the postwar. If I predicted several months before the war (remember, I write PNM the article in December 2002) that the postwar in Iraq is a going to be a doozy, and far harder than mega-jobs in Japan and Germany, how does this guy interpret that I "rethink the war"? Such precision in language only matters if you want to further understandings instead of just agendas. No one inside the defense community calls me a "hawk"--just the opposite in fact. Typically, I find such casual misidentifications with a certain whimsy, but you have to get off your ass and actually talk to me to gain such a pass. Yes, this guy's "attempts" were unsuccessful, but it wasn't because I was hard to reach, it's because he just didn't make the effort. If he had offered parenthically, "I just didn't put in the effort to actually talk to this guy, so I'm stitching bits and pieces that fit my predisposed opinion of him from his site," then I would have said, honesty in advertising.

Update: Editor's note: But, hey, they've got that article at the top of their Life page today, with a link here to the weblog, so that's a good thing. Welcome Alaskans!

In sharp contrast, let me cite two interviews I gave yesterday that were just great. One was with a Fairbanks radio host whose questions were in the top twenty of the maybe 500 interviews I've given since writing PNM. Excellent 8-minute segment that's running now in Fairbanks. Other interview was some Juneau teenager (junior) who had used my work in her school project and just wanted to chat on the phone. Since she put in a bit more effort than our professional journalist from Anchorage, she got 50 minutes (good warm-up for me last night), because that's how seriously I treat such inquiries.