June 2003 Archives

Harry Haun writes this at MSNBC.com:

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Hepburn’s perverse sense of fun, it has been suggested, compelled her to wear high heels the day she first set eyes on the rumpled forehead of Spencer Tracy. Perhaps so. She and the co-star she had selected for “Woman of the Year” met in an MGM corridor, and the problem was readily apparent.

“I’m afraid I’m a little tall for you, Mr. Tracy,” she remarked coolly.

The next line is usually credited to Tracy, but it was really their producer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who interceded with just the right retort:

“Don’t worry, Kate. He’ll cut you down to size.”

In that brief, sparky encounter is the stuff of which myths — and at least nine movies — are made, for it capsulizes the kind of affectionate tug-of-war that Tracy and Hepburn were to wage for the next 25 years.

As screen teams went, there were none better.

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Indeed. Rest in peace, Kate. We won't see your equal ever again. I'll miss you.

Fred Kaplan writes this in Slate:

Was Bush lying about WMD? Maybe not. Here's how they could've misread the evidence.

He proceeds to re-tell the tale of the "missile gap" of the late Fifties and how the CIA, the Pentagon and a winning Presidential candidate relied on bogus information about the enemy's nuclear capabilities.

Michael Kinsley writes this in Slate:

Why are we even bothering to keep looking for those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? At this point, what difference does it make whether we find them or not?

Trying to find them serves two ostensible purposes: One is to prevent them from being used, and the other is to settle the argument about whether they exist. But neither purpose really applies any longer.

Don Imus, this morning, talking to Mike Barnicle:

"No WMD found yet. Was President Bush lying or was he just a dope?"

Of course, maybe the question was really posed by his bald-headed stooge, Bernard McGurk.

Let's make an important distinction between pre-emptive war and preventive war.

Pre-emptive war is what happens when a state targets an enemy that represents an imminent threat of attack. The Six-Day War was a pre-emptive war.

Preventive war is what happens when a state targets an enemy before they can become an imminent threat of attack. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a preventive war.

Here's why this is important:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is quoted in USA Today, calling for an investigation into POTUS' pre-war allegations of WMD in Iraq:

"Sooner or later, we will have hearings. It's entirely appropriate to do so," said McCain, the No. 2 Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which could hold hearings soon.

To those of you who assume that the WMD issue is being kept alive by Bush-haters or the anti-war crowd: lose that idea, fast.

True, I'm no big fan of this POTUS. But regular readers of this blog know that I supported the war before, during, and after. I admired Bush's balls, and I even thought his landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln was cool.

But like Mark Bowden (author of "Black Hawk Down" and another sincere supporter of the war) says:

"When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained."

And although many might like to brush comments like Bowden's under the rug, I think this issue is so important that I will not stop talking about it.

And if you think that makes me a Bush-hater, or unpatriotic, then that's your problem, not mine.

In the last few days there has been a lot of discussion about whether POTUS lied about the existence of WMD in order to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iraq.

The issue is important because the doctrine of pre-emption (invented by Bush for this war) requires that the attacking country be sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that their enemy has WMD and will use them yesterday.

Christine Brennan of USA Today says this about Sammy Sosa, but the same could apply to George W. Bush:

A man who has built a wonderful rapport with the American public by acting like a good sport now is perceived to be a cheater.

Like Sosa, POTUS didn't need to cheat. We didn't need the bogus excuse of WMDs to justify toppling the thug Saddam.

So why'd he do it?

Mark Bowden is the celebrated author of "Black Hawk Down" and a sincere supporter of the war. Listen to what he's saying about POTUS in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained.

(Hat tip to Joe Conason)