Well, I must admit, the fall of Saddam’s regime occurred much more quickly than I had ever expected. (Ten bucks says the Iraqi cabal card decks are all over Ebay in six months.) But, as Michael Kinsley notes, our victory doesn’t answer the tough questions about why we got involved in the first place. And while the images of liberation coming out of Baghdad right now are undeniably stirring, my doubts about this conflict – and the amateurish diplomacy that preceded it – remain…and particularly if Gulf War II spills over into Syria or Iran.
Author: KcM
Lake Effects-Based Ops.
Lake Effect returns from a two-month hiatus with some interesting reflections on the Iraq war. Well-worth reading, as always.
Fuzzy Math.
After the GOP punts on the tax plan (assuming a post-war Bush will have the leverage to push the bigger tax cut), the House passes a budget blueprint featuring record deficits. That’s just brilliant. Y’know, I wouldn’t hire these guys to run a Seven-Eleven.
The Republican Pastime.
I knew there was a good reason I didn’t like baseball. Apparently the Hall of Fame has cancelled a Bull Durham retrospective because (gasp!) Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are against the war. (The Hall of Fame only allows in all-American racists, drunks, and wifebeaters, not peaceniks.) Tim Robbins wrote a nice reply: “Your subservience to your friends in the administration is embarrassing to baseball and by engaging in this enterprise you show that you belong with other cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame…Long live democracy, free speech and the ’69 Mets; all improbable, glorious miracles that I have always believed in.” You go, Tim. As Spike Lee pointed out in the first five minutes of He Got Game, basketball is the true American pastime nowadays anyway.
Dodge this.
The final trailer for The Matrix Reloaded is now online. And – for the return of Agent(s) Smith if nothing else – it looks like more fun than you can shake a stick at. With two of these, The Hulk, and X2, it looks like we’re headed for a fanboy summer. Speaking of which, isn’t it about time for some quality Return of the King news?
By, the way, I finally caught Final Flight of the Osiris, and while it was ok it definitely wasn’t worth sitting through Dreamcatcher for. Dreamcatcher was basically two and a half hours of being stuck in the last fifty pages of a Stephen King novel. [King starts great stories but all too often (It, The Stand, The Tommyknockers…heck, almost all of ’em) has no idea how to finish them.] I’m not sure how closely the movie followed the book, but it was just all over the place, and it made no sense on many levels. (What exactly is the life-cycle of these creatures?) After forty-five minutes, I was really bored. Can’t say I recommend it, that is unless watching a misshapen-looking Donnie Wahlberg proclaim “I Duddits!” to the heavens is your bag.
By George, he’s right.
“During his presidential campaign Bush cried, ‘I’m a uniter, not a divider.’ As one critic put it, ‘He’s got that right. He’s united the entire world against him.'” George McGovern goes house on Dubya, and it’s definitely worth a gander. (Via Looka.) And, if Dubya approaches his religion with anything more than born-again zeal, perhaps he’ll take a moment’s reflection on this: “We will, of course, win the war with Iraq. But what of the question raised in the Bible that both George Bush and I read: ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul,’ or the soul of his nation?“
Jolly Green Giant.
Harry gets his hands on a new picture from The Hulk. While the monstrosity in question looks quite good here, I’m really not looking forward to the introduction of “hulk dogs.” I can buy a huge green guy in purple pants, but that’s just plain goofy. Update: The Hulk Dogs are online. Ah, Berk could take him.
Mmmm, bacon.
Yum. Both the Dubya administration and the Senate bloat up the war bill with pork barrel spending. As John McCain put it, “I didn’t realize that Al Qaeda had reached all the way to the South Pole.” Speaking of wartime handouts, Dems Henry Waxman and John Dingell want further scrutiny into contracts given to Halliburton subsidiaries by the GAO. All I know is, if the Clinton administration were involved in this type of quid pro quo, Dan Burton would have had an investigation up and running weeks ago.
Kerrying a Torch.
Continuing with his newfound Chris-Rock-in-Head-of-State candor, John Kerry announces he will only appoint pro-choice Supreme Court justices if elected. (He also takes the time to differentiate between political “litmus tests” and the defense of constitutional rights.) Kerry’s really onto something lately with the whole anti-Gore, Straight-Talk-Express bit…let’s hope it continues.
No Representation with Taxation.
While still desperately in denial about the nation’s exploding debt, the GOP has, as expected, gone to war against its own moderate wing and threatened to sink the budget, in the hopes of preserving Dubya’s $726 billion tax giveaway. This is despite the fact that the Daschle Dems have in essence already capitulated again, agreeing to pass an equally wrong-headed compromise plan half that size. Sigh…the Dems really have to get it together. At any rate, hopefully moderate Republicans will take DeLay’s budget blackmail for the desperate, dangerous gamble it is and call him on it. Nothing screams GOP these days quite like a government shutdown.