Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Best bullshit line of the day

“My friend Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is one of the only independent journalists living in Kandahar full-time,” begins Joshua Foust…  As opposed, I reckon, to the dozens of MSM hacks who line up for frosty Taj beers by 3 pm each day at the bar of the Kandahar Foreign Correspondents Club. Bonus points for ...

585499_090528_Shieldb2.jpg
585499_090528_Shieldb2.jpg

"My friend Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is one of the only independent journalists living in Kandahar full-time," begins Joshua Foust... 

“My friend Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is one of the only independent journalists living in Kandahar full-time,” begins Joshua Foust… 

As opposed, I reckon, to the dozens of MSM hacks who line up for frosty Taj beers by 3 pm each day at the bar of the Kandahar Foreign Correspondents Club. Bonus points for the four-barreled name featuring a “van.” Didn’t young van Linschoten’s cousin Winston prep at St. Paul’s, and later get involved in a regretful scene at a Princeton boathouse with two Emma Willard girls and a wolverine that had imbibed too much champagne?

In reality, I am told the best bar in Afghanistan outside Kabul remains the Bamboo in Jalalabad. They also can arrange a tour of Tora Bora for you, but the heavy security costs extra. 

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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