Tom Ricks media blitz

Tom Ricks has released a new book, "The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq," and has been pimping it on TV and in print.

Here he is on Meet The press discussing Iraq...

...and Afghanistan.

Thomas Barnett also has a book out, and takes a moment to lament the promotional advantage that Ricks enjoys as a traditional media insider:

Then check out Tom Ricks' new book, excerpted big-time on the frontpage of the Washington Post. His associated story on Odierno, the man who changed the course of the war, is also big-time news just in time to plug his book's release. I mean, that's pretty cool when you can get the editors of a national newspaper to pretend that the lead items of your book just so happen to warrant national coverage just before your book comes out. I mean, if Ricks wrote this stuff all down months ago, why not get that newsworthy stuff out there back then? I know, hardy har. "Meet the Press" talked about having me on "sometime," but guess who's on today to plug his book out on Tuesday? Of course, because this weekend news cycle is just screaming for a history of the surge from 2007 and 2008.

...

You ever wonder how MSM journalists always seem to have bestsellers? I don't. They enjoy an entire system of scratch-my-back-today-and-I'll-get-yours-tomorrow. They put in the years and so they get the media access when the book comes around.

Of course, Tom's latest article was also just a book-selling exercise, but hey.

Abu Muqawama highlights an excerpt from said Odierno article, while poking a bit of fun at the idea that The Surge™ was crafted by a few, good, men:

Now if you happen to know a lot of the people who were responsible for implementing the surge, you also happen to know there are several different narratives for who was responsible for making the surge happen. Team O, Team P, and Team First Cav all have their own versions of what happened, and those are just the guys and girls in Baghdad. I can only imagine how many people in the 202 area code also take credit for the drop in violence that took place over 2007.

What narrative do I privilege? Whose story do I trust the most? Well, I take a very unconventional view of surge history. In my mind, it was all one big romantic comedy, filled with sexual tension and hi-jinks.

On the long flight home to Washington in a C-17 military cargo jet, Gates, who declined to be interviewed for this article, disappeared into his mobile home in the plane's belly with Pace and a bottle of California cabernet sauvignon. A few days later, Odierno got the word: Gates wants you to have all five brigades.

Now if that isn't the funniest thing you'll read all weekend, I don't know what is. This is how we plan our wars, world. Why you lot haven't succeeded in beating us in more of them I have no idea.