Wednesday, June 04, 2003

InstaPundit quickly and convincingly unspins the latest Wolfowitz story. Relax Insty, we know the war wasn’t about oil. You already explained it – the war was about Saddam’s nuclear weapons, er, weapons of mass destruction, I mean, fought for humanitarian reasons. It’s hard to sing the jingle when the tune keeps changing. 4:54:46 PM    comment []

“Rudolph is the kind of Southerner the national media salivate over.” Dennis Rogers is feeling a little testy about the way the world is shown North Carolina. Can’t say I blame him, and the Piggly Wiggly stuff is dead on.   But he kind of loses me when he says of Eric Rudolph, “Even though he hasn't been convicted of anything and must be presumed innocent, he is already being portrayed as a cold-eyed, racist, anti-gay, survivalist, anti-abortion bomber who made fools out of the feds.”   It’s not public opinion that must presume innocence, just the justice system, and that only pertains to the bombing part. Everything else here is pretty well documented, isn’t it? Rudolph is a racist, anti-gay, survivalist who made fools out of the feds. We grow some like that here, just as they do in the other 49 states. (Thanks to Mark Tosczak for the link). 1:12:59 PM    comment []

Salam Pax is the future of journalism. He blogged from Baghdad during the war. That earned him a job as a columnist at a big newspaper, which also runs a weblog page of its own. The lines have blurred for good. 11:21:01 AM    comment []

Tom Friedman: (T)here were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason. The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world...The "right reason" for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime…The "moral reason" for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass destruction and genocide…the stated reason: the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America.. A deft summation of spin and reality. Friedman also distinguishes between the disgust many Americans feel at being lied to, and the need to finish the job we’ve started anyway. Friedman: Finding Iraq's W.M.D.'s is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the C.I.A. But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war. 11:05:31 AM    comment []

Johnny Cash and June Carter: “We got married in a fever, hotter than pepper sprout...” Lisa and I got married fourteen years ago today, and we aren’t yet even thinking about Jackson.   I say we stay together because of the children (neither of us wants to be stuck with them), she says the only reason she’d ever get married again is because she doesn’t know how to work the DVD. But the fact is that we love each other and value our marriage and our family, we have similar values and dreams, and we laugh a lot. Which is good, since tonight’s big anniversary activity is chaperoning the fifth grade end-of-year party. 10:52:41 AM    comment []