The Importance of Good Timing

This column would have had a better shot at being convincing a couple days ago. You know, before the mind-blowing, historic, fairly peaceful, 70%-turnout elections of a lifetime.

Situation Grows Steadily Worse in Iraq

Unless we were going for comic timing, in which case, yeah, that's pretty funny.

Now, I know Molly Ivins could easily have written this column before Iraq's elections. Such is the nature of column-writing. But apparently she was sure enough of impending disaster that she felt secure in writing a snarky piece about America's non-victory in Iraq that would run less than 24 hours after Iraqis went to the polls. To me, that wouldn't be a safe bet.

But Ivins has been known to have an inaccurate picture of the facts on the ground in Iraq before.