It takes a lot to make Pauline Kael talk like Yoda, but these are parlous times. Over at the Weekly Standard, poor Bill Kristol is at such a loss for words, and sense, that he’s asking the American people to choose a President based on his taste in film! It’s true! Here’s the deal: Katie…
Search Results for: iraq
Further thoughts on the current discontents
If we can take Barack Obama at his word—and I fear we have to—we are in all likelihood entering a new era of regulation. Whatever Wall Street Pacification Package emerges from the current confusion, it certainly won’t turn things around before election day, which is looking more and more like a blowout win for the…
The Ample Ass-Covering of Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum is back from Afghanistan, and she has a tale to tell. According to Anne, the job is tough but doable. “Though Americans like to talk about “winning” and “losing” the war in Afghanistan, on the ground it’s clear that those categories aren’t relevant. Of course we can “win”: The real question is whether…
Surge n’ Pause, n’ Pause n’ Pause
OK, enuff with the Mary Worth stuff. I’m also an expert on foreign policy. Seriously! In today’s Washington Post, we learn that “Pentagon leaders” want to delay any reduction in U.S. troops in Iraq for at least another Friedman unit—that fabled six months after which “we’ll know a lot more” and our “real but fragile”…
Get them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow dept.
In Inside Higher Ed, Jack Stripling notes that Owen Cargol, until recently head of the U.S.-funded “American University of Iraq,” left his position as head of Northern Arizona University back in 2001 in part because of the publication of an email from Owen to a NAU employee describing himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back,…
The Washington Post, Moving the Damn Goal Posts
If there’s one thing of which the Washington Post never tires, it’s predicting victory in the Iraqi war. The Post’s June 1 lead editorial is headlined “The Iraqi Upturn: Don’t look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.” Well, don’t look now, but the Post may be lying again. Notice…
The Washington Post, searching for purpose
Why are we in Iraq? Good question! Damned good question! Originally, it was stop Saddam from attacking us with “weapons of mass destruction,” nukes in particular, or at least that dreadful yellow cake. There was no chance that Saddam would attack us, of course—he wasn’t that dumb—but the mere fact that he had those WMD…
The Washington Post agrees with me
The Washington Post editorial page, which can be quite prescient when not talking complete nonsense on Iraq, agrees with me that the real outrage emerging from the Hillary/Mark Penn imbroglio is that Penn is being fired for lobbying in favor of free trade with Colombia. The Post makes the achingly obvious case for the free-trade…
Il Whopper di tutti Whoppers
Having complimented the Washington Post earlier today on one its editorials, it’s time to go back on the attack, a task made all too easy by today’s effusion, “Good Sense on Iraq: At last, a Bush administration defense secretary listens to his commanders.” Like everyone else defending the War in Iraq, the Post is busily…
Debunking Myths or Creating Them?
The Washington Post has plenty of editorial space available, and it’s hardly unreasonable for the editors to offer its pages to “competing views.” But when offering space to outside opinion, one might expect, as a courtesy to its subscribers, that the Post would require these contributors to state their case honestly—opinion yes, propaganda no. But…