Call It A Comeback
The Trib did right. And I think this is the key point:
“I simply don’t think that a newspaper can sanction that kind of behavior,” said Rich Oppel, editor of the Austin American-Statesman. “It’s a conflict of interest when you have a close personal relationship with the subject of an article. It’s the same as if you were to have a financial relationship with the subject of a story or some other close relationship.”
When you need a laugh during the day, go here.
The fruitcakes are amazing…
This is Karl Rove on drugs. Perhaps he’ll send Bush to the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner.
I had hope. This dashed it. This is shorter than his average blog entry and it appears from reading the entire article he is criticizing, that Mary McGrory is primarily guilty of poor writing. She seems to be referring to domestic oppression, but without any transitions from one part of the article to the other the distinction is blurred.
This is a waste of bandwidth. Sullivan has great things to say on some subjects such as diversity and the Catholic Church.
Sullivan goes off his rocker. I liked Sully when he wrote for the New Republic. He provided excellent critiques of the administration and while more conservative than I am, made coherent arguments based on principles usually.Unfortunately, he seems to have become a partisan shill now.
Let’s look at a couple claims today. He seems to think the UN Strategy was a brilliant ploy by Bush? Huh? Bush wasn’t brilliant, he just got slapped by enough people in his own party to realize the go it alone strategy wasn’t going to work. If he was brilliant he would have done this i in the first place and not caused strategic allies to have to waffle. Now, the leadership in Egypt and Saudi (hardly an ally, but strategically yes) look even weaker to the alternatives in those societies.
This strategy is right and it should have been pursued right off the bat. For an administration that claims to be disciplined they have lost control of an essential debate. Now, those we need to help are in a position that weakens them. That isn’t a success in any real terms when the same result could have been arrived at without the same problems.
Josh Marshall adds a lot to this debate. ”
If the president fell flat on his face in the middle of the Rose Garden some of these characters would applaud his uncanny foresight in having arranged for the ground to be in just the right place to break his descent. Shades of the personality cult. ”
As to Clinton acting on terrorism and Iraq? Let’s remember this garbage. I was for a hardline with Iraq then, and I still am. Remember Trent:
“”I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time,” Mr. Lott said, “Both the timing and the policy are subject to question.””
Now, who can seriously complain about Clinton letting up on Hussein? Was part of this self-inflicted by Clinton’s utter lack of self-control? Yes. Does that mean it wasn’t the best policy at the time? No.
The Sudan and Afghan strikes? Coats, Specter and Kemp all called him on it. The only people pushing for more at that time were Goss and McCain and sort of Hagel. They can bitch, Sully, you can’t. Why not? Let’s hear what you had to say
“In retrospect, only one moment in the past year will, I think, endure as a grave threat to the integrity of the United States. And that was the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan last August. The evidence that this bombing was well-thought out and well-targeted is extremely thin. At best, it smacks of incompetence. At worst, it smacks of the use of American arms and credibility for the purposes of short-term political gain for the president. I know everyone is sick of investigations. But, if ever an independent investigation is called for, it is surely into the origins of this particular episode. I say this not because I am squeamish about the use of force abroad but because the use of such force should always be beyond suspicion and reproach. The only time, I think, when impeachment was even vaguely justified was when those raids evoked the question of something truly rotten in the White House. Republicans, however, were more concerned with what the president did with Monica Lewinsky than what he did with the Armed Forces of the United States. In the long run, there will be no more damning indictment of them than that. ”
We missed Osama by an hour or two. Perhaps Sudan was a bad choice. But by an hour or two we missed the Islamic fascist who would later kill more than 3000 Americans in one day.
Clinton shares some blame for distracting the nation, don’t get me wrong. But the bitching and moaning about his actions to take on terrorism at the time were unjustified and Sullivan was a part of that problem.
I’d send money, but he won’t take it from out-of-state. Jim Leach is one of the most honest and decent humans in elective office. If he were to lose it would be a true loss to this nation. He brought down Gingrich and he forced Clinton and Rubin to maintain a wall between banks and business (and Gramm too). While I don’t understand how he can vote for the current House leadership, I heartily recommend any central Iowans to vote for him.
In the relation to the above:
Rep. Jim Leach
(R-Iowa), House International Relations Committee
“It would be a mistake to cast doubt on president’s motives. The fact is that two indefensible terrorist acts were perpetrated on U.S. embassies causing the deaths of a large number of American and African citizens. Response is appropriate.”
While I don’t put it past this administration to use Iraq for the fall elections (and I’m guessing it won’t work), that is irrelevant to the debate of whether we should go after him or not. The above quote serves us all well. Of course, Leach is much more skeptical of action on Iraq than I am.
Broder makes an important point. We only remember the truly great of the past while discounting the competence of most we see today. Those who screw-up get our attention, but all of those who are quietly compentent don’t get the attention.
“Unfashionable though it may be, I am here to assert that the quality of candidates at all levels, but especially for governor, is rising — not falling. As the barriers to women and minorities are reduced, the level of expected competence continues to improve.”
Amen.
Da BBears. And Illinois won too. Hopefully they can salvage something from the season.
And of course, ROTFLMAO, apparently God has a sense of humor, huh Brenda?
Testing problem
This comes via Instapundit. Great analysis of a non-event. What is amazing is that they didn’t even accept the possibility this was a crank. Along with a bunch of self-righteous garbage about “how they won’t do that again.” Besides being an inane old white guy cliche, it doesn’t really address the problem of why these guys pulled the joke in the first place. A nosy busybody got all nervous because some ferinors walked in a Shoneys.
What is even more odd is the strange sense of wanting it to happen to a place near them. It reminds me of the coverage in St. Louis after 9-11. The newscasters just couldn’t handle that something so important didn’t happen to St. Louis and seemed to almost regret it.
Then again, maybe she thought they should have better sense on where to eat…
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