At the end of January of 2007, shortly after Bush proposed the surge, Barack Obama countered with a Senate bill featuring a plan for withdrawal from Iraq by March 31, 2008, which would have been fourteen months later.
Fortunately for Iraq, the bill didn’t pass. Instead the surge came to pass.
But at the time of Obama’s proposed bill all that was in the future, and it must have seemed to Obama that it was his move, not Bush’s, that was bold and forward-looking. Continue reading →
I’ve written about the wondrous cantaloupes we’re having this season, but last night I got burned by some artichokes. Continue reading →
Tony Snow has succumbed to colon cancer at 53. His philosophy was to make the most of his remaining time after his diagnosis, and from the looks of it he did.
I enjoyed Snow’s tenure as press secretary, especially after the lackluster and obviously uncomfortable McClellan. He will be missed.
In an Ann Althouse thread about how she was turned off by Obama’s saying “you’re not listening” to critics accusing him of changing his Iraq stand, my attention was caught by a pro-Obama statement in the comments section:
And he’ll refocus the war on terror on fighting terrorists instead of nation building.
This idea that the nation-building involved in the aftermath of the Iraq War and the fight against terrorists are mutually exclusive doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s not either/or; they are linked. Continue reading →
Amidst all the brouhaha involved in our interminable election campaign, Iran not-so-quietly continues on its course to obtain nuclear weapons. It’s also recently fired off a few demo long-range missiles with enough reach to target Israel, and although that’s gotten more press, it’s the nuclear program that’s particularly worrisome.
What’s the solution? Continue reading →
A 52-year old woman has sued underwear giant Victoria’s Secret for an eye injury caused when a metal clip securing a rhinestone heart to a thong flew off and injured her cornea. This is another example of just how readily litigious our society has become—not to mention how dangerous it is to wear thong underwear.
Monica Lewinsky proved the latter point quite some time ago. Maybe that’s the reason fashion seemed to at least attempt to go the other way for a while, with boxer shorts for women becoming popular in recent years—complete, in some cases, with vestigial flyfront but no rhinestone hearts. The shorts look good on the models—but then again, so would gunny sacks. That doesn’t mean everyone should go for them; not very flattering to most.
But back to Macrida Patterson, the plaintiff in this case; no boxer-short-wearer she. Continue reading →
Ralph Peters knows that in any battle between a mere pen and a ruthless sword, the sword will win, despite the proverb to the contrary:
Billions of words have been hurled at Sudan’s government. The misery in Darfur not only continues but deepens. While intellectuals wrestled with compound sentences, Darfur degenerated from selective oppression to savage anarchy.
Yes, despite all those fine words that make writers feel good about themselves, the carnage will continue when the offenders don’t give a hoot about public opinion. Continue reading →
I wrote recently about my inordinate love of cantaloupe, and how wonderfully tasty they’ve been this particular year.
I just wanted to say that the joys continue unabated. Every single cantaloupe I’ve eaten since I wrote that piece on June 28—and believe me, I’ve eaten a lot of them—has been better than all the cantaloupes of yesteryear.
What’s going on? Have they injected them all with some sort of flavor enhancer, the MSG of the melon world? Have they developed a new and sweeter variety, like they did with corn back in the early 90s? Anyone have a theory?
Since I became a blogger I don’t enter into political arguments too often in the real (as opposed to the virtual) world.
One reason is that I’ve found such talks only rarely to be fruitful and civil, even though I try mightily to preserve both attributes. Another is that most of my friends know my general point of view already, and most are not all that politically oriented—after all, a decade ago I was a person who rarely discussed politics at all. A third reason is that this blog focuses my political energy and takes care of much of my personal motivation to be part of such exchanges.
But that’s not to say that the subject never comes up in what’s known as real life. Continue reading →
When I read this news about Obama’s Iraq reversal—and then his reversal of his reversal—one sentence struck me as strange, but I wasn’t exactly sure why (it’s the second one in this quote):
I am absolutely committed to ending the war. I will call my joint chiefs of staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war.
It seemed to me to have an odd tone, something like a child play-acting at being commander-in-chief. Continue reading →
This reads like an Onion article, or Tom Lehrer patter.
But, unless the NY Times has taken on a new identity and become a purposeful parody rather than an unintentional one, the piece is actually a totally serious exploration of the travails of the very very very rich, and the therapists who specialize in treating them to the tune of $600 measly bucks an hour. Continue reading →
Obama’s figured something out. Or maybe he figured it out a long time ago.
That’s this: if you are so obscure that the public doesn’t know much about you, then changing your mind and then spinning on almost every issue on a daily basis—including issues that you’ve said are core values you hold, such as campaign reform—won’t register. Continue reading →