The Iraqi blogger Riverbend disappeared for a while, ominously. She's OK... has been trying to get out of the country for two months, is finally getting out. I wish her well.

Probably her blog wouldn't have become so popular if she weren't of a type that Americans can comfortably identify with: young, secular, upper middle class. And if it's true as rumor has it that her family was politically privileged under Saddam, then I'm sure she has plenty of blind spots - but these days only an idiot could call her reports propaganda or think things are fine over there. She's a good writer who did a necessary job.