[corrected to note that Damon is the Sexiest Man ALIVE!, not merely the Sexiest Man of the Year, as I originally suggested]

When People magazine says you’re the Sexiest Man Alive

you are, like it or not, the Sexiest Man Alive.

When Damon learned he was chosen — he turned them down! Damon wrote People a “fabulous” letter explaining that he doesn’t normally talk about his personal life. He said he was blushing when he read that he had been picked. While he got a huge kick out of the nod, he didn’t feel worthy, he said. “You just gave an aging suburban dad ego boost of a lifetime,” he wrote.

But People persisted, and decided Damon was still its “Man.” In fact, the letter ended up backfiring for Damon — since it reflected all the things People’s editors love about him, including his “irresistible sense of humor,” his dedication to his family, and his “heart-melting humility.” Damon wound up giving People permission to reprint the letter, in this week’s issue.

Got that, Matt Damon? After ten years of trying to avoid the pitfalls of the fame game, ready or not, here they come!

MoveOn’s favorite traitor, General David Petraeus—known in the military as the author of the contemporary counterinsurgency methods and also of the seemingly effective application of that strategy in Iraq in recent months—has been called back to Washington to help select our country’s future generals:

The Army has summoned the top U.S. commander in Iraq back to Washington to preside over a board that will pick some of the next generation of Army leaders, an unusual decision that officials say represents a vote of confidence in Gen. David H. Petraeus’s conduct of the war, as well as the Army counterinsurgency doctrine he helped rewrite.

Lots of positive feedback here.

Our revulsion of war notwithstanding—and nobody should underplay how much everybody hates war, fear of war, war hysteria, and war-mongering—retooling the military couldn’t be more important. Henry the K for one is seeing a rare tectonic shift in international relations:

He also emphasized some profound changes in today’s geopolitical environment. He pointed out that the world we have known for 300 years now — the “Westphalian” international system that arose after Europe’s wars of religion and is based on the nation-state — is “collapsing.” This may be a much more profound shift than the move from dynastic to national motivations following the 1814-15 Congress of Vienna (about which Mr. Kissinger has written) and a more serious challenge to international stability than that posed by states such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. The nation-state is weakening in Europe, he observed, and has met with mixed success in other parts of the world. “Only in Russia, the United States and Asia can it be found in its classic form.”

Meanwhile, across the Middle East and southern Asia, although nationalism remains a powerful force, many cast themselves as a part of a greater Islamic community defined in opposition to the West. In Mr. Kissinger’s view, a single formula will no longer adequately describe this international system.

More lessons in triangulation from Mr. Kaus:

When solving a problem requires that a powerful interest group give up its most cherished demand, you won’t solve the problem by finding “common ground,” “bridge-building,” or “compromise.” If the “common ground” doesn’t include the cherished demand, the interest group won’t go along with the project. In order to break the impasse, it helps if a politician can subject the cherished demand to public scrutiny (i.e. ridicule). Turn it it into a liability. That’s not finding “common ground.” That’s triangulatin’! Make the uncommon ground uninhabitable, and all of sudden a new “common” ground starts looking like home. … When the interest group complains angrily that you are creating a “distraction,” “smoke screen,” or “scapegoat,” you know you are making progress. …

Everybody taking notes?

Not having been subjected to his rule—and thus to the notorious spinning that came out of his office—I have the luxury of considering Tony Blair’s comments and arguments on their merits. He hasn’t moved an inch on Iraq:

In my view if it wasn’t clear that the whole nature of the way Saddam was dealing with this [WMD] issue had changed I was in favour of military action. And, I am afraid, in one sense it is worse than people think in so far as my position is concerned. I believed in it. I believed in it then, I believe in it now.” But did he feel remorse about a war and an occupation that left 4,000 Americans dead, 150 British dead, 75,000 Iraqis dead by the most conservative estimate and more than 3 million refugees?

“There’d be something wrong with me if I didn’t, or an acute sense of responsibility which I . . . will have for the rest of my life,” Blair said. “But I can’t say what I don’t believe about this; whatever it began as, it is part of this wider struggle today and . . . if there’s anything I regret. . . it is . . . not having laid out for people in a clearer way what I saw as the profound nature of this struggle and the fact that it was going to go on for a generation.”

And for once his conclusion was, very uncharacteristically, gloomy. “The enemy that we are fighting I am afraid has learnt . . . that our stomach for this fight is limited and I believe they think they can wait us out. Our determination has got to match theirs and our will has got to be stronger than theirs and at the moment I think it is probably not.”

Read the whole thing.