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March 01, 2007
Dialogue
1. The forever on-point Dan Froomkin on today's revelations re: intelligence on North Korea's nuclear weapons program:
So let me make sure I've got this straight: Top Bush administration officials driven by long-standing resentments used bad intelligence to achieve their foreign policy objectives, which then ended up backfiring spectacularly? And we're not talking about Iraq?
No, we're talking about that other dismal "Axis of Evil" failure of the Bush era: North Korea.
It now appears that the White House in 2002 used dubious claims of North Korean uranium enrichment as an excuse to break a Clinton-brokered deal, thereby allowing North Korea's poisonous dictator to build up a stockpile of plutonium, which in turn led to the building of as many as a dozen nuclear weapons, one of which he exploded in a nuclear test last year.
And consider the incredible irony of the timing.
News about how unfounded those uranium-enrichment claims were may be emerging now because North Korea's renewed willingness to admit international arms inspectors threatens to expose to public view all the evidence to the contrary.
Something like 140,000 American troops are in harm's way in Iraq. And the entirely unchastened White House is making familiarly dire -- and maybe familiarly unfounded -- intelligence disclosures about Iran.
It's enough to make you scream.
Indeed it is. Oh what a long, long, long national nightmare. Anyone out there have the code for putting a big ol' countdown timer up at the top of the site? I wanna start counting down the end of the Bush II era. January 2009, here we come...
2. Schnipper month begins over at THE FADER. A must-check.
3. I admire the fact that Obama gave McCain a pass today for McCain's "wasted" comment last night on Letterman. Specifically, McCain said: "Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."
It's obvious what McCain was trying to say, and equally obvious he meant no disrespect to fallen soldiers or their families. That said, I can understand the implicit political refusal to classify a soldier's death as a waste. Even though so many deaths in this country can reasonably be called a "waste," it still is impolitic to refer to an American soldier's death as such, and I think appropriately so. The soldier is by normative definition but a piece in a larger whole; terrifyingly, he or she acts without individual regard or consideration. Soldiers act - and die - for the interests of the rest of us, at least in theory.
Of course, the problem arises when a President abuses the breathtaking power entrusted to his office and calls on the military to act for reasons unclear, unjustified, or inappropriate. Bush is such a President: he has ordered military action when none was needed. He has sent Americans into battle without proper planning - or even proper provocation. This is a war of caprice. As such, it is a betrayal of the military's - and the nation's - trust, and that's why we see politicians like Obama and McCain slip up and call it a waste.
Granted, it is a waste; unquestionably so. I will never believe Bush's "preemptive" war in Iraq was worth this horrible cost. But it's just not fair to call these lives wasted when the dead soldiers didn't have a say. Hell, they simply answered the call - a call they had every reason to believe, hope and trust would only be sounded if necessary and just.
Obama made the same slip last month in Iowa. Here's the coverage of Obama's reaction:
Earlier this month, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., fell into a similar controversy after telling an Ames, Iowa, crowd that Americans "have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."
Finney said these two situations were apples and oranges.
"Sen. Obama apologized. He immediately saw his error," she said. "And he also does not support the war."
But at the Senate today Obama defended McCain, surmising that McCain was trying to say what he had been trying to: that the troops deserved better planning and preparation than the Bush administration had given them.
"One thing I don't think McCain can be faulted for is his dedication to the troops," Obama said. "He's been there, done that."
Good for you, Obama, for making the important point - that this administration's criminal lack of planning for a unnecessary war has senselessly cost American lives - while simultaneously resisting the urge to engage in a silly, counterproductive game of gotcha.
4. Finally, a message to Tyra Banks: You fucked up when you cut Kathleen last night. I might hold it against the show. Regular visitors to this space know I'm an ANTM devotee. I don't know anyone else who watches it each damn cycle like I do. But listen, Tyra, all that can end real quick if you keep fucking up and kicking out the only likable girls on the show. Kathleen was fucking INCREDIBLE, man - Brooklyn's finest! The walk, the talk - yo all I could think last night as I watched the Cycle 8 premiere was DAMN, this girl is entertaining as fuck and I wanna see a whole lot more of her. I wanted to put her on a t-shirt. I was gonna devote lots of ol stencimilla space to covering her antics all season long. I was convinced she was AT LEAST in the final four. And then - inexplicably, inconceivably! - she got the boot. Fuck all that.
Here she is, Kathleen from Brooklyn, in her brief but undeniable glory. She's first up.
Posted by caps at March 1, 2007 02:48 PM