Where Are the Advisors?

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There are days when I wish I had some special insight into goings-on in Iraq—what might be done, whether or not it’s all going to turn out okay—but most days it’s difficult to read the news and do anything other than echo Juan Cole’s line: “Sometimes you are just screwed.” Meanwhile, in more good news, Eric Umansky notices that the new Iraqi government is laying off workers—always a good way to add a few disgruntled unemployed Iraqis to the ranks of the insurgency—and is, ah, a tad behind in paying its special forces units. Also a bit of a problem.

Now I know that Iraq is supposed to be a sort-of kind-of sovereign country, and make decisions on its own, but aren’t there supposed to be American advisors around trying to warn against this sort of thing? No, apparently not; there hasn’t been an ambassador in Baghdad for six months. Of course, let’s not accuse the Bush administration of being slow on the draw. On matters of real urgency—like appointing an Ayn Rand acolyte to the SEC—the White House has no problem racing through the nomination process.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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