September 2002 Archives

Why does the media go ballistic every time Al Gore gives a speech?

Michael Kelly went absolutley nuts when Gore recently gave a speech about the coming war in Iraq. Kelly all but suggested that Gore should be medicated for being a pathological liar.

The Daily Howler responded by constructing its "Four Pundit Rules" that must be followed when reporting on a Gore speech.

The Editors of the New Republic were somewhere in the middle, saying that Gore is more of a typical (i.e., weasel) Democrat.

I remember how I felt about Walter Mondale during the 1984 campaign. What a dork! And I didn't much like Mike Dukakis either.

So maybe liberals like Kelly hate him because, most importantly, he blew it.

And the Reps hate him because, like Joe Klein writes in Newsweek: the Republicans are afflicted by a near psychotic rhetorical twitching whenever the man who won the popular vote in the year 2000 makes a public appearance.

James Robbins of the National Review is alone in suggesting that Al Gore may eventually have the last laugh.

Regular readers of this blog know that I hate the way POTUS et. al. cozy up to the Saudis; I think they are a terrorist regime as defined by the Bush Doctrine.

Whatever.

But recently, I came across this quote that just raised my dander one more time:

The Saudi envoy is "a very seasoned diplomat," Ari Fleischer gushed, "a very affable fellow, very good humor, speaks English better than most Americans."

Is there a way to spin this statement so that it doesn't sound like "most Americans" are being dissed?

Vic Hanson answers a fundamental question:

Q: Does Saddam Hussein really pose a deadly or immediate threat to the United States — and how, as a democracy, in good conscience can we act preemptively?

A: "Since September 11 there has no longer been a margin of safety — or error — allowing us a measure of absolute certainty before action. Long gone is the notion that American soil is inviolable or that enemies will not butcher thousands of civilians unexpectedly and in time of peace.

"All we need to know is [that he did the following]:

• broke the armistice agreements of the first war
• violated the weapons-inspections accords
• likes to attack other countries
• dallies with terrorists
• has nightmarish weapons
• and has already fought us once.

"That he is a dictator, killed thousands of his own people, sought to assassinate a president of the United States, tried to destroy the ecology of Kuwait, and sent missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia are not misdemeanors."

You can read the rest of his piece here.

A lot has been said about whether we have seen enough "proof" that Saddam is dangerous.

Because I am a writer, allow me to analyze some of the imagery that is being tossed around in the media today. Specifically the image of the "smoking gun."

"We don't want a smoking gun. That means it's been fired already."

(Donald Rumsfeld)

"This time, a smoking gun will look like a mushroom cloud."
(Condoleeza Rice)

I include these examples to help you visualize the threat that we, as a nation face, from terrorists like Saddam Hussein.

Still don't get it?

Perhaps you are among those whose imagination (in that wonderful understatement from Bibi Netanyahu) "is not so acute." Because, as he says, "had al Qaeda posessed an atomic device last September, the city of New York would not exist today. Last week, we could have grieved not for thousands of dead, but for millions."

Imagine that.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A suspected Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded Israeli bus in the heart of Tel Aviv on Thursday...

Suspected? Suspected of what?

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue."

----- Winston Churchill

Mark Helprin
wants to know why George W. Bush is "a president more of word than of deed."

For the record, Helprin is no liberal Bush-basher. Helprin is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is also a former speech writer for Bob Dole.

Recently he wrote a piece in the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal admonishing POTUS for his conduct of the terror war in the year since 9/11. He compares Bush with FDR in the twelve months after Pearl Harbor. Listen:

A year after Pearl Harbor, FDR exemplified the probity of an America that knew its enemies had yet to be dislodged from their citadels.

In the previous 365 days [after Pearl Harbor] we had quadrupled defense spending and military production, doubled military manpower, turned the Battle of the Atlantic, invaded North Africa in history's then largest amphibious assault, begun the Burma Road, engaged Hirohito's air force, bombed Tokyo, checked the expansion of the Japanese Empire, and triumphed at Midway and in the Coral Sea.

And President Bush? According to Helprin, Bush has dithered away the last 12 months. Helprin paints a picture of a President who is all hat and no cattle:

He did not ask America to sacrifice or fight, but to shop.

In the days following Sept. 11, he was sitting on a great war horse ready to run, and he dismounted. And every time he was pushed back up by a people rightly incensed and eager to mobilize, he slid off the saddle and started talking.

Never have so many war plans been discussed so openly and so long for so little.

Like his father, who listened to clerks rather than to the rules of war, and broke off the attack, the son has wasted momentum, virtually assuring that the next battle will be fought on the enemy's terms.

What kind of war can you fight if you cannot even bring yourself to declare it?

He draws attention to the difference between Bush’s tough talk about the military and his actual record:

Though the president campaigned to restore the military, he has not.

His first defense budget represented virtually no change; the second--after Sept. 11--a minuscule increase; and the third, though much trumpeted, a wholly insufficient one.

Less the purely operational costs of the "war," the president's third budget is 3.1% of GDP. The Clinton administration directed a larger share of America's resources to defense even as it severely degraded the military of which President Bush is supposedly the savior.

Timing is everything. Helprin’s piece appeared the same day that the Saudis seemed to signal that they would aquiesce to our request for access to Saudi military bases. That said, his words are validated by that outcome:

You cannot lead a nation in war if you dare not recognize the enemy.

[President Bush has failed] to recognize Saudi Arabia as the ideological, diplomatic, financial, organizational, and strategic center of the new terrorism:




• ideological in its exportation of intolerant Wahhabism;
• diplomatic in coordinating opposition to American military action in the Gulf;
• financial in its subsidy of al Qaeda and other terrorists;
• organizational in providing personnel, infrastructure, and access to the U.S.;
• and strategic in that it is the depository of great wealth, the center of mass, and the blocker of crucial routes of invasion.

He questions Bush’s judgement as Commander in Chief:

You cannot lead a nation in war unless you are willing to strike the enemy at his heart. The president has reportedly overridden professional military advice stipulating a minimum of 250,000 troops and three months' buildup for an invasion of Iraq, in favor of 50,000 or so with a few weeks of staging.

Read the entire piece.

With friends like this, the Republicans don’t need Democrats.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on the op-ed page detailing the story of Kenneth Levine of Vermont. Mr. Levine faces a variety of charges, including four felony counts, because he rented a room and post-office box in Castleton. Why did he do this? So that his two daughters could spend seventh grade at Castelton Village School instead of the local school in his home district. Mr. Levine's explanation goes like this:

[He] feared his daughters would be harassed, the way his son was, at the public school they were supposed to attend: Otter Valley Union High School.

Ultimately [his son] was expelled for bringing three knives to school (which he did not use); the Rutland Herald reports that some Otter Valley students said they wouild "get" his sisters when they came there.

Well.

Put aside the weird choice here: he sneaks his daughters into a new middle school so that that they'll presumably be grandfathered into a new high school two years down the line. What. Ever.

No, what's way more interesting is the weird moral tone that is assumed by the Journal.

Listen:

The Journal says they are "not for fraud." They say they do not condone bringing knives to school. That said, the Journal opines that Mr. Levine resorted to setting up the Castleton residence only after the district denied his request to let the girls' tuition be transferred to another school.

Then they say this:

If Mr. Levine, a schoolteacher himself, had the money to pay the tuition costs at Castelton, there wouldn't be a problem.


But that's the main issue with school choice today: You have to be rich to exercise it.

That's it? You don't get in unless you're "rich?"

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read that was written by a someone who advocated "school choice."

We sent our kids through K-8 private school. Trust me, it was an enormous challenge. We most certainly were not then (and are not now) "rich." We're already in serious hock and my oldest child is slated to start college in just three short years. We'll make it, somehow. But I'm not asking for your sympathy; just some clearheaded thinking on your part.

We were able to make it with the help of the school and its program of tuition assistance. This program was, and is, funded mostly by private donations to community non-profit organizations. It's not perfect; but it works.

Make no mistake: we were expected to make substantial good-faith sacrifices in our lifestyle. But what better investment is there than your own most precious treasure, your children?

How come Mr. Levine feels that he is exempt from having to make similar sacrifices? Doesn't he believe in his childrens' future?

By the way, I do not feel "victimized" by the politics of the public school system. Does it need improvement? Yes it does. But I don't believe that it needs to be dismantled to make way for a 100% privatized system.

Would it have been nice to have had voucher money in my pocket during their K-8 years? Sure. But something tells me that our private school would have scaled back their tuition assistance so that it would have been a wash in the end.

You can choose to send your kids to private school if you really want to. Or not. I don't care, really. But don't insult my intelligence by couching this as a battle for "school-choice." Because we have school choice now. Period.

Mr. Levine could probably get his daughters into the private school of his choice by making the same sort of choices we did. But he chooses not to do this. Why? I don't know, nor do I really care.

But here's what I do know: that the Journal and its cohorts use the "school-choice" buzzword to obscure their real agenda: the dismantling of the public school system and its teachers' unions.

My two cents worth:

I was not invigorated by Bush's speech. Please don't get me wrong -- I am not slamming POTUS. I give him credit for doing it, really. I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to be a team player. I think he did a good job, given the mission. He achieved the objective.

But...I felt unmoved. You know why? Because he wasn't speaking to ME. He was speaking to the slugs at the UN.

The United Nations. A body that, historically, has acted in a manner that is beneath contempt.

Bush's speech was an uncomfortable necessity, kind of like going to the dentist to get a root canal. You have to do it; you know the pain will stop; but when you're done, you're just back where you started.

The thing that bothers me most is that the speech sounded a bit too much like it was written by Colin Powell. And nothing sets my teach on edge MORE than listening to Colin Powell address the situation in the Middle East.

Sorry for the rant. It's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

It's just that I'd like to be the guy who turns the screw while Saddam's head is in the vise.

And another thing...In view of Bush's (perhaps necessary) gambit with the UN, what will Congress do now? POTUS wanted them to authorize a resolution of support before splitting town in October. Will the UN act that fast?

Remember? In the run up to the Gulf War, Congress didn't act until the UN had checked in.

Will they insist on the same sequence? If not, how will they justify bucking the precedent?

No, uh, pun intended.

Somebody has too much time on their hands. It's probably me. Come to think of it, if you're reading this, it's probably you:

Order a soda in Michigan or Minnesota and you're clearly an outsider. Ask for pop in New York City and you risk being ridiculed.

Bert Vaux, a linguistics professor at Harvard University, says many Americans are overly passionate about how they refer to the popular beverage family.

The pop-soda-Coke divide has always created vague, and usually incorrect, assumptions about who says what where, Vaux said.

But for the first time, Internet technology -- and 29,000 votes on a Web site -- has offered a definition of the debate's borders.

The site, created eight years ago as a college project, asks visitors to enter their childhood zip code and the soft drink term they use. Their vote is then placed on a map as a colored dot [green for "pop", red for "Coke" and blue for "soda"].

Who's winning? It's, um, bottle neck and neck. Pop and soda each have about 11,300 votes, or 39 percent. Coke has about 4,800 votes.

...and Florida splits almost right in half between saying Coke and soda.

Vic Hanson
writes in the National Review:

Generals and the military brass call civilians who seek the liberation of Iraq "chicken hawks" and worse. Yet such traditional Vietnam-era invective I think rings hollow after September 11, and sounds more like McClellan's shrillness against his civilian overseers who precipitously wanted an odious slavery ended than resonant of Patton's audacity in charging after murderous Nazis.

Who would have thought that there would be an anti-war split within the GOP? And that the nominal anti-war side would be the uniformed military?

We've fallen down the rabbit-hole for sure.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

-----Abraham Lincoln

This was written by my brother, Robert Rubyan. He lives in New York City. I have included his words exactly the way he wrote them on 9/11/2001. You can see his photos from that day here.

My story begins on a sunny September Tuesday morning as I prepare for my busiest workday of the week. Three classes at BMCC and FIT from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm, Art History and Multimedia Computing.

“Good Morning America” is on in the background. The 8:55 am local news is about to come on when all of a sudden there is an announcement of a “breaking news report” a plane has hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It seems to be an accident…

I take the elevator to the corner supermarket to buy a few groceries then drift over to Fifth Avenue, by the Flatiron building to stare in disbelief at the burning North Tower. I take one photo, promising myself more as soon as I go to Chambers St. for my BMCC class
.
There is a plaza with a perfect vantage point at the main entrance, four blocks from the Twin Towers. I have "Ancient Egypt, the Old Kingdom" for today’s lecture. A great civilization with colossal architecture.

The Twin Towers have been one of my favorite New York landmarks for a long time . I remember first seeing them when visiting from Detroit when they were being completed, over 30 years ago. I have a nice wide angle B&W shot with a passenger jet high in the air passing between from that period. The view from the top was breathtaking.

When I get back upstairs, Virginia is agitated. “I just saw a second plane smash into the South Tower live on the tube! “ she exclaims.

I have to leave immediately, or I’ll be late. Adjusting my tie, donning my photo ID, stuffing my class materials into my backpack, I throw it over my shoulder and hasten towards the Union Square subway station, to catch the Lexington Avenue Express to City Hall.

An ominous gray black pall of smoke rises in the distance as I beginning walking south; it disappears behind the skyline as I approach 17th Street. I‘m looking forward to taking closer photos. The magnitude of the disaster hasn’t sunk in.

As I enter the station a crowded 4 train waits, and I jam on. It pulls slowly out of the station. People on the train are confused, worried. Some are trying to use cell phones. There are nervous conversations between strangers. Conflicting announcements about train service come over the PA. A normally 6 minute trip takes 20 minutes of stops and starts.

A young man standing next to me exclaims “this is the payback for the U.S. and Israel pulling out of the racism conference in South Africa”. I restrain an angry reaction. ”Isaac and Ishmael were both sons of Abraham” I reply. He shrugs. I mention this attack exceeds Pearl Harbor. He turns his back.

The Chambers Street station is chaotic, people milling, a myriad of police, firemen and rescue workers gathering in the area leading to City Hall Park. I head up the stairs, worried I will be late for class.

Exiting in City Hall Park, I immediately see the Towers burning behind the clean vertical Gothic shaft of the Woolworth Building. The street is a chaos of slowly moving gawkers, police, fire engines, cop cars, emergency vehicles, a cacophony of sirens and horns.

As I walk towards BMCC I keep my eyes on the Towers and take more photos. As I’m framing a shot on the corner of Broadway I hear a loud cracking sound and I realize the South Tower is collapsing, out and down.

One of the longest seconds of my life stretches as I realize I’m probably witnessing the death of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of innocent people. Clouds of dust and smoke and fragments of building erupt outward in eerie slow motion. It’s like a scene from the movie “Independence Day”.

All of a sudden I realize police are screaming “RUN, RUN” and gesturing wildly uptown. A huge cloud of dust and debris is racing with frightening speed up Broadway towards us, chasing hordes of fleeing people. I gape in amazement then come to my senses and run east on Chambers. Suddenly the air is filled with dust and concrete debris, tiny fragments of steel, aluminum and glass. People are crying, yelling, staring, pointing, coughing, gasping and wheezing. A plainclothes detective with a gold shield hanging from his neck on a chain attempts to direct but he’s totally ignored. The massive crowd swirls around him like the molecules of a grimy torrent.

Back at the subway entrance, I go downstairs to see a phalanx of police blocking the turnstiles. They gruffly inform us that the subways aren’t running. The air is a haze of dust and grit. Swirling particles of debris are sparkling everywhere in the bright sun as I return to street level. I head uptown on Centre Street, walking next to a businessman covered from head to foot in a thick layer of gritty dust. Before I can raise my camera he’s out of range. My mouth is filled with grit and the metallic taste of fear.

While pausing for a red light at Houston Street, a man in a light summer suit says “ I was standing on John Street looking at the Twin Towers when I saw the first plane hit. Everyone thought it was a missile attack, until the second plane smashed into the South Tower.”

I walk uptown, in a crowd of mostly silent, dazed, people, some are crying, some are wheezing painfully, a few laughing hysterically.

Around 11:00 am I arrive home, sweat soaked and totally nervous. I shower and wash my clothes, fearing radioactive, chemical or biological warfare.

Virginia is also afraid and urges me to leave the windows closed and the AC off. It is uncomfortably hot and I leave to process my film at the 1 hour lab on the next block. The streets are empty of cars but thronged with people. The subways have stopped running.

When I return with photos, my Mother has called. I can’t get through at first ‘cause the phones are working only sporadically. I call for news of my son. I learn he’s in Brooklyn at the home of a classmate.

I finally get through to Detroit, to Mom’s relief. She listens intently to my eyewitness report, outraged at the loss of human life, and we both suspect the Muslim Fundamentalists.

After a day of watching the cataclysm on T.V. we retire, but I wake up at 4:00 am with the “tape” of my horrific vision of the collapsing Tower playing in my mind over and over. I try to escape by reading SciFi.

Around 6:00 am I encounter my neighbor and her friend on the elevator. He was late yesterday to his job in the World Trade Center. “Now I’ve got nowhere to go” he says sadly, as they exit. His job has vanished and who knows how many of his coworkers are gone?

We are at war and this is the beginning of a new historical era. This is not just a criminal act, but an attack by evil on the symbol of America and Western Civilization, and what this immigrant boy holds dear.

I will never forget September 11, 2001.

This is my story, written on that day.

I got up early and helped the kids pack their lunches and get ready to go off to school.

Our daughter came downstairs and asked me if what she was wearing was OK. She had gone shopping the night before with her mom. She had bought some new clothes. This was the first time I had seen what she picked out.

"How's this Daddy?" she asked.

"Looks really nice," I said.

She had on a long sleeved pullover shirt; it was dark blue-grey. On it was a picture of the World Trade Center.

I didn't think twice, of course. Who would? I do remember wondering if she knew the name of the building. We had been to New York not too long ago for my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. The kids had seen the WTC from the top of the Empire State Building.

I guess it made an impression on her.

I finished making her lunch. At about 8:15 am I dropped her off at school.

On the way home, I stopped at the newstand and bought a copy of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, quickly scanning the headlines. On the radio, NPR was talking about the rumored death of the leader of the Northern Alliance, Masood. There was some dispute as to whether he was actually dead or whether just in hiding. There was some talk about continued unrest there, some further talk about the Taliban.

I don't recall if Osama Bin Laden's name came up in the report. I switched off the radio just before the initial reports came in.

When I got home I went upstairs to my office to do some research on a project.

At about 9:30 am I got ready to leave. I got into the car and turned the ignition key. The radio came on.

I guess I'll never forget what I heard next.

It was President Bush. Apparently he was at a press conference. But the sound that caught my attention was the cameras. The sound of dozens of cameras.

The "click-whirr-click-whirr" of the motor-drives going into furious double time instantly tipped me off that this was something out of the ordinary.

I don't remember the exact words:

"Attack....terrorist...Pentagon...World Trade Center...airplane"

I almost put the car into the ditch doing a U-turn. I headed back to my house. I ran inside.

My wife was on the phone with a client. Her voice was quiet while she sat at her desk with her headset on sitting in front of her computer.

I poked my head in the door and motioned to the TV in the living room.

I flicked on the TV. I had expected something along the lines of the attack in 1993: people streaming out of the building, traffic all snarled.

What I saw shocked me profoundly.

The WTC towers were burning like a couple of smokestacks at the Ford Rouge Plant. I gasped involuntarily -- my hand shot over my mouth. I remember feeling dizzy. I remember sitting down.

My wife came into the room, took one look and gasped as well. She was still on the phone. "Turn on your TV! Turn on your TV!" she said to her client. "They've bombed the World Trade Center!"

The next hour or two was one unbelievable picture after another. This was happening so fast! I was having trouble telling what was live and what was on tape.

They showed the second plane plowing into the second tower. This was the worst shock so far: This was no Piper Cub -- This was a passenger jet. After it hit, it looked like it went THROUGH the building. The fireball bloomed like an evil flower.

"Oh god, there were people on that jet." My wife's voice was flat, in shock. I swallowed and blinked back tears.

Then more pictures: People on the ground covered in soot, turned grey from head to toe. Pictures of a monstrous whirlwind travelling at tremendous speed at sidewalk level, people running for their lives.

Then the first tower started to disintegrate before our eyes. It didn't topple so much as disappear in a column of smoke and fire, huge pieces crashing to the pavement below. Thankfully we didn't see the bodies falling out of the sky.

I couldn't believe that one of the towers was gone. How strange! One tower would remain behind like some horrible reminder of what once was.

I needn't have wondered long; the second tower started to go, right in front of our eyes, the giant TV antenna plummeting straight down like a spear. It landed in the street like a giant tombstone.

I tried calling New York City. My brother lives in lower Manhattan, not far from the WTC. The line was busy.

A TV reporter said all planes had been grounded. But there was still one plane in the sky over Washington. We watched pictures of people streaming out of the Capitol, the White House, the Justice Department. We saw pictures of the Pentagon on fire.

A heard a report that ANOTHER plane had crashed outside of Pittsburgh. ("Pittsburgh? What's in Pittsburgh?")

Then we got a call from our son: school had been let out and he was coming home with a friend. What about our daughter? A friend called and said she had pulled her daughter out and did we want her to get our daughter and bring her home. We thought about it and figured that if the school wasn't letting out, then they could watch over her for now.

Then a few minutes later our daughter called: "Can you come and get me? There's only a few kids left."

She came home and the first thing she said was, "Look at what I'm wearing! Can you believe it? You should have seen the way the teachers were looking at me!"

Indeed.

In the end, our family was safe. I was finally able to get through to New York. My brother was OK. No one else we knew there had been killed or injured. We thanked God for that.

I told my kids that they would tell their children and grandchildren about this day. They would remember this day as long as they lived.

I also told our daughter that she couldn't wear her famous shirt ever again.

"No way!"

"Way. Don't wash it, don't wear it, put it away and pull it out once a year so you can remember this day forever."

If you're like me, you want Saddam crushed.

That said, you must be getting frustrated with the way the administration is handling this important mission.

What is the problem? Proof. Providing proof that Saddam will kill again and again if we leave him alone.

But put aside the question of whether we have enough proof already; put aside the other question of what we do once we're all satisfied with the proof.

The administration seems to be botching the part about proving it. Lefties like Joe Conason are eating Bush/Cheney's lunch:

[T]he president has been caught in two embarrassing misrepresentations of the supposed basis for his alarms.

On Friday at his press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush cited a 1998 IAEA report on Iraq's nuclear program and a satellite image of a former nuclear installation near Baghdad.

Over the weekend, those claims were effectively debunked by Robert Windrem, one of the best and most experienced journalists at NBC News.

What Bush said was wrong, and what the photos showed wasn't much.

The abuse of photographic and other "evidence" to promote war is an old tactic, as this story reminds us.

There were no Iraqi troops looming on the Saudi border in September 1990, although the Pentagon said it has top secret satellite photos showing 250,000 of them there, threatening the oil fields and Western civilization.

(The man running the show back then was Dick Cheney, who now tells us he has the proof, again.)

But this is all beside the point.

The real point isn't whether Saddam will kill again if he has the chance.

The real point is what we're going to do about it. And how. And when.

Unfortunately, the public opinion polls aren't much help: the majority of the electorate wants Saddam out but only if there isn't much shooting involved.

Good luck.

NRO's Rod Dreher said, "There are three kinds of people who run toward disaster, not away — cops, firemen, and reporters."

We've read about the first two kinds of people. Now you should read about the third.

It doesn't take much anymore to get me angry about what happened on 9/11.

Those of you that know me, know how I feel about the terrorists who attacked us that day. People might say the wrong thing (i.e., anything about "moral equivalency") and...I'm liable to go ballistic.

Sorry.

But, god, when I see this picture (above)...or ones just like it...my throat tightens and my eyes just well up...and I don't know why.

Has anyone had that reaction? I wish I knew where that comes from....

I often read Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of the National Review online, but lately I have found his stuff to be, well, almost unreadable. Here is the opening paragraph of his most recent column, "Impromptus":

I was musing the other day about what a child might say to Joe Biden (not to pick on him — just to select someone of that ilk). (That’s a great Bob Novak word, by the way, isn’t it? “Ilk.” If I had a nickel for every time I heard him say it on The McLaughlin Group . . . ) (By the way, happy 20th anniversary, McLaughlin.) (Further by the way, I never know how to spell “nickel” anymore, thanks to that (wonderful) Oklahoma senator.)

Wow.

Where's the editor? Oh never mind. He's the editor.

I hate this war that’s coming in Iraq. I don’t think we’ll be proud of it. We Americans are reluctant warriors. We fight when attacked. We didn’t even invade Cuba when we learned the Russians had missiles there.

I oppose this war because it will create a millennium of hatred and the suicidal terrorism that comes with it. You talk about Bush trying to avenge his father. What about the tens of millions of Arab sons who will want to finish a fight we start next spring in Baghdad?

---Chris Matthews

A recent study released by the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago tried to pinpoint the correlation between your nose and your libido, and its findings may make you rethink next year's Valentine's Day gift.

According to the study, the odor most sexually arousing to women was not cologne or chocolate or any of the other smells traditionally thought to be appealing to females.

No-o-o-o-o-oooooo.

Instead, researchers found that the most sexually arousing odor to women was... Good and Plenty.

You know, that licorice candy that stains your fingers and hasn't changed its packaging for decades.

Yep.

That and cucumbers.

"Ordinary decent people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary decent people in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I am certainly not, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am."

---Monty Python

P.S. More aphorisms here.

Rosemary Esmay writes (presumably in her husband's place, who has vowed to stop reading this blog):

My grandfather was taken away to Stalin's camps for the crime of being an Elder in a small farm village full of dirt-floor one-room houses. My parents and aunts and uncles were rolled over by that murdering
bastard Stalin...

...All this was still going on while he was allied with the U.S. and Great Britain against Hitler. He was still busy murdering Jews--and Poles, and Catholics, and other Slavs--while he was meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta....

Dean's right. You still haven't said clearly what you want the Bush policy to be. Even now you still haven't done this. You're also being selective. Dean's never defended the Sauds. He's repeatedly called them pigs and treacherous snakes. He also never said you were a Bush Basher because you've said you won't vote for him.

You're being very selective in what you quote, when you aren't just making things up.

By the way, do you ever get tired of that Valley Girl "What. Ever." business?

Rosemary:

You still believe I haven't said clearly what I want the Bush policy to be?

I'll try again, in words of one syllable.

This would be my "Teddy Roosevelt" approach:

1. Send a clear sign,
   
2. And/or take new steps.
   
3. But pull back, if need be.

   I pause while you contemplate...Moving on:

4. They must see: things are worse.
   
5. We may take the first step to end talks.
   
6. We may take the first step to send them home.

   I pause again while you contemplate...Moving on:

7. This is not a joke.
   
8. Time is short.
   
9. Make it clear: what goes down next is up to them.
   
10. P.S. ==> DON'T. TEST. ME.

signed,
POTUS

Sorry if that is over the 25-word limit. I think it's a fair and balanced approach. It is proportional. It is calibrated. We speak softly and carry a big stick.

The big stick? You know. Seizure of the oil fields and air bases. Everyone knows the US is capable of doing it.

But do we need to SAY it? Nope. Everyone knows the realities.

Should we DO it? Must we do it? Time will tell.

When in doubt, please consult steps 8-10 above.

Bottom line? Speak softly, but carry a big stick.

You might feel that we are being rude to them. Even if I thought that was true, my reaction would still be to say, "tough luck."

But it won't be rude because it could be done entirely back-channel, if necessary.

That's what the "striped-pants" boys (again, Truman's phrase) are paid to do.

On another point, you say Dean never defended the Saudis. You say he's repeatedly called them pigs and treacherous snakes.

Well. Is this why he said the following?:

"I think that all these folks have their hearts in the right place."

Which is it? Pigs or soulful allies? You can't have it both ways.

If it's the latter, then I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter's literal embrace of Leonid Brezhnev just before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

There's an eery reprise of that in Bush's declaration that he had gazed into the eyes of the former KGB head Putin and seen that he had a good soul.

Hope Bush's thing turns out to be more accurate than Carter's. But I'm an American; I have experience with Murphy's Law.

Re: your long recitation of Stalin's bloody history...I have two comments.

First, I'm well acquainted with the record. And (if anything) it proves my point, not yours.

I know that the alliance was a calculated risk by Churchill and FDR. They knew that Stalin would open up the Eastern front and kill Nazis. They could not have predicted the scale of the next 50 years of horror and slavery and oppression and death that the Allies would get in the bargain.

And if they did, then may God have mercy on their souls.

That said, we are the beneficiaries of 20-20 hindsight.

Shouldn't we at least be debating a bit more whether we want to REPEAT that prior episode in world history...

...instead of vilifying and mocking those that question ANOTHER such alliance...? Come on! Stalin killed Nazis! What are the Saudis doing? They are covertly funding the killing of Jews!

My second comment:

Rosemary, my life has been pretty good in America. I thank God that my father brought us here. It was the best thing he ever did and he did a lot of good things in his life.

I think you probably feel the same way, too, about your life and your family.

But the reality is that, because neither one of us was born here, we have no illusions about the rest of the world out there.

We know what the world is like, in a way that native born Americans can only imagine.

My children's grandparents on both sides have experienced first-hand the horrors of war, genocide and Holocaust.

But I've taught them that we're Americans now.

What does that mean? It means two things: It means that we can forgive but we must NEVER forget.

Ara

P.S. As far as the "valley girl" thing? Sorry. But I've been meaning to ask Dean -- What's up with calling people a "butt-head?"

Tell him I said hi.

Great article from Stanley Kurtz in the National Review. He does a great job of summarizing the opposing sides of the Iraq debate:

• We must take out Saddam before he secretly passes his weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda, thus leading to a disastrous attack on America
• A war will stretch our military and domestic resources to the limit, dangerously weakening our ability to deal with future crises yet unseen.

He points out that the potential solution lies in expanding our military forces beyond their current levels; indeed the uniformed military at the Pentagon (Truman's "brass-hats") are already signalling that this is their desired objective through their currently stated reluctance to engage in a war at all. This might be, Kurtz points out, because they are concerned about the effects of a "successful WMD attack against U.S. forces."

But it also might be because they know they won't get the build-up, and they are just flat-out against putting their troops in harm's way under the circumstances. This is presumably a variation on the Powell Doctrine.

The (civilian) Pentagon hawks have an answer: a quick strike by a small force will reduce our vulnerability to such an attack. This presumably is the outlook of Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al.

The frustrating part of this is that while we are arguing about this, Saddam wriggles off the hook. In other words: if the administration backs down now, and refuses to invade Iraq after all it has said, then Saddam will know that his weapons of mass destruction have succeeded in scaring us off. Bush understands this; but he can't say it because it plays into the hands of those who want no attack at all, i.e., the doves. Oddly enough, they are aligned in a bizarre way with the brass-hats at the Pentagon.

So Bush is in a box; indeed, Frank Rich of the NYT has said the same thing.

What to do? Kurtz says it's better to have our forces facing chemical and biological attack now, rather than to subject our troops, and the country itself, to WMD attacks when Saddam is even stronger. This would seem to mitigate for a quick strike by a smaller force. In other words, proceed with the Cheney/Rumsfeld plan; and put the long-term build-up on the back burner.

Kurtz believes that if the public saw the debate framed this way, they would side with the brass-hats in the Pentagon and fund the larger long-term build-up, including (presumably) re-institution of the draft. Personally, I'm not sure; a lot depends on POTUS' powers of persuasion. Speaking as someone who had a draft-lottery number in the early 70's I can attest to the range of emotions this option might engender.

Kurtz ends by saying this:

If we can't take action in Iraq, and keep sufficient troops on hand to deal with the consequences, we shall shortly enter a deeply dangerous new era in which proliferating weapons of mass destruction essentially neutralize America's military dominance, freeing up rogue regimes to act with impunity throughout the globe.

More than we know, this may already be happening.

I guess this is why POTUS gets the big bucks, eh?