This is Seymour Hersh’s latest New Yorker piece. It is worth reading for a number of reasons, not the least of which, as Jack Shafer at Slate points out, is because Hersh has always been wrong (do follow Shafer’s links to other errors of Hersh):

"At almost every critical turn since the events of 9/11, Hersh has leapt to the front of the editorial pack with a bracing, well-researched, and controversial explication of the war on terror. And almost every time, Hersh’s predictive take on the course of events has been wrong. Boneheaded-dumb wrong."

What we are witnessing here is Hersh becoming a pro-establishment martinet who not only is wrong, but is finding Straussian conspiracies (read Neoconservatives in the daily left wing and/or establishment press) in everything and everyone from Wolfowitz to Kristol to Cambone. Those who have lost all the arguments are really bitter (and mean) and the name calling and the gall will continue. It is worth reading this latest attempt by Hersh, in large measure to see how quickly he will be proven wrong. As Shafer puts it, "If Hersh’s interpretive/predictive streak holds, we should expect to find proof of WMD and a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaida within the next two weeks." Also see some fine writing on Hersh’s vitriol and the media’s obsession in trying to make Strauss so influential in matters of intelligence (no, not Nous) from Nicholas Antongiavanni at The Remedy (and Masugi below that). There will be more on these matters, count on it.