This is going to be a quickie.  I know, I've promised that before, but this time, maybe I'll keep my word.  As is often the case, I'm a penny short and a day late to the debate about WikiLeak's document dump.  It hasn't quite fallen off the front page yet...but if I count right, the last column by one of the paid guys is number twelve down the list, (posted July 27) and we're on to the Chevy Volt, the Anti-Defamation League and bigotry, anyeating chickens or starving, and final lessons (are any lessons final?) from BP.  I'm not complaining--the topics are interesting and to coin a cliche, variety is the spice of life.

Us ordinary  folks have moved on to other things as well--as best I  can determine by title, none of the recommended posts are specifically about the document dump...so everyone else is off to other places too, and here I come to the prom (stag as usual) only to find the streamers are limp the lights about out, and the janitor sweeping up the confetti.

I posted a few little snippets in the  comments, including a paragraph in response to an interesting question from KGB999 I was supposed to answer in 60 words or less--an impossibility for someone as guilty of Logorrhea as I am. 

ANYHOW--I added a link to a place the historians like to play... the National Security Archive at George Washington University.  On the 27th the NSA had not a mention of the document dump.  Historians are slowpokes, aren't we? 

BUT we're starting to catch up.  Today, Nate Jones, Graduate Student in History at GWU  has a pretty interesting (MHO) blog post at the NSA. Document Friday: wikileaks, Raw Intel, and the Rise of the Taliban,  Read it, and make sure you read down to his example, which not only includes a picture of Mullah Omar (remember him?), but links to the documents in the security archive upon which his example is based.

The NSA is getting some overdue plaudits out of all this.  The Director, Tom Blanton, appeared on  the Stephen Colbert Show...proving that Harvard History Grads can have a sense of humor.  He also appeared on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on American University's Radio Station. 

So there you have it...some insight into how the minds of historians work... I'll turn out the lights now that the prom is officially over.

Do I dare try previewing this?  Nah.  I'm on vacation--let the typos take care of themselves.