Iraq Study Group Report, 2.0
As they pitch it:
As expected and in line with standard government practice, the report issued by the Iraq Study Group on December 6th comes to us written in a language that guards against the crime of meaning—a document meant to be admired as a praise-worthy gesture rather than understood as a clear statement of purpose or an intelligible rendition of the facts. How then to read the message in the bottle or the handwriting on the wall?
Lapham's Quarterly and the Institute for the Future of the Book answers the question with a new form of discussion and critique— an annotated edition of the ISG Report on a website programmed to that specific purpose, evolving over the course of the next three weeks into a collaborative illumination of an otherwise black hole. What you have before you is the humble beginnings of that effort—the first few marginal notes and commentaries furnished by what will eventually be a large number of informed sources both foreign and domestic (historians, military officers, politicians, intelligence operatives, diplomats, some journalists), invited to amend, correct, augment or contradict any point in the text seemingly in need of further clarification or forthright translation into plain English.
It is a noteworthy exercise, and the list of participants is certainly impressive. As is the technology undergriding the exercise - developed by the FoTB folks.
It is only open to pre-invited commenters, for now, so it be illuminating to see how the eco-system of this text evolves (will commentators be explanatory, critical, discursive, as a whole?) and how the wider political communities (dKos, atrios, huffposts and instapuns etc.) interact - or not - with the ISRG.
A report that, having been largely ignored by the WH and the punditry, looks destined for the dustbins - will the network save it?
On a technical note: They have kept the structure of the report intact. Why not separate out all the Recommendations from the Report? Or show us everything the report says about Insurgency? Or everything on the Middle East process? There is the potential to break the text apart and re-stitch it.