A number of other weblogs have already pointed out the sheer idiocy of Dubya’s “Bring Them On” remark to Iraqi belligerents, so I’ll just give an Amen. I highly doubt the men and women on the ground in Baghdad every day share the President’s cavalier attitude about their lives…Amateurish to say the least.
Category: World at Large
Creeping Doubt.
This is a week old, but I didn’t see it until Meet the Press yesterday: Conservative columnist George Will tries to account for the missing WMD. “But unless America’s foreign policy is New Age therapy to make the public feel mellow, feeling good about the consequences of an action does not obviate the need to assess the original rationale for the action. Until WMD are found, or their absence accounted for, there is urgent explaining to be done.”
Ding Dong.
Well, it finally happened – Strom Thurmond died. I’m reminded of Hunter Thompson’s Nixon post-mortem. Never has a man more undeserving held sway over a state so long. Lest anyone forget what Strom stood for in these days of eulogy, the guy was a racist through and through – he still holds the filibuster record for his attempt to prevent civil rights. With his shadow finally gone, South Carolina can name a road or two after him and then embrace the future.
Willful Disbelief.
Salon examines the reasons for Dubya’s continued public support despite the WMD shenanigans. “Just imagine how much shock and complaining there would be if we learned that ‘American Idol’ had been rigged. But Bush and his comrades can use deceptive means to launch a war and to pass trillion-dollar tax cuts that bust the bank — and then skate away.” In related news, the New Republic offers a concise overview of the story to date.
Poisoning Heaven until the 28th.
I didn’t mention this before, but my sister Gillian and her boyfriend Ethan were spectacular last Saturday evening as the leads in Don Quixote. I’m going back to the Met this evening to catch the two in Swan Lake. If you haven’t yet seen ABT this summer, New Yorkers, you’re running out of time…
Card-Carrying Conservatism.
While the Democratic party as a whole continues to seem as divided and stymied by the Dubya dip as they do Weaponsgate, several of the candidates lash out on their own, including John Edwards, who calls the Dubya tax cuts the “most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since Socialism.” I’d think Eugene Debs is probably turning over in his grave at the comparison.
“I think we can ride this out.”
With the Weaponsgate furor still simmering (Dean has now called for an investigation), Dubya and his cronies try to confuse cause and effect in Iraq…apparently it no longer matters if WMDs are found or not, because Saddam was a bad man. In other words, the Bushie plan is, as per usual, to keep spouting the same propaganda until people start overlooking their leap in logic. Hmm…well, it seemed to work for the Iraq-9/11 connection, didn’t it?
Reason to Deceive.
Weaponsgate update: While Dubya rails against “revisionist historians” (what, then, was he doing in Poland?), the British parliamentary inquiry into WMDs heats up. I’m going to be supremely annoyed if Blair goes down for this and Dubya doesn’t.
The Cooler King meets the Muscles from Brussels.
Heard any really awful movie news lately? How ’bout this gem – Jean Claude Van Damme will be starring in a remake of The Great Escape. That’s flat-out egregious, even worse than Keanu as John Constantine. The Great Escape does NOT need to be remade, but if you’re going to do it anyway, the cast should look something like the one assembled for The Thin Red Line. And there should be no – I repeat no – Van Damage anywhere near the freaking picture. If they have Van Damme jumping the fences on his motorcycle, I expect the ghost of Steve McQueen will haunt him until the end of his days.
Don’t Call it a Cover-Up.
Typical. While the term “WMD” gets more and more broadly defined by Dubya, Fleischer et al, the GOP issues a lockdown on joint and open hearings into the Bushies’ use of CIA intelligence, since “criticism of the intelligence agencies has been divisive and could hurt national security.” Um…wouldn’t misuse of intelligence agency information to start a war compromise national security too?