Jumping The Shark

I had high hopes for The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. But, by 30 pages in, I realized the book had "jumped the shark." Let's look at it. A Harvard trained lawyer, one of the country's best known trial attorneys, throws in the towel, sells all his worldly goods and treks off to India on a spiritual odyssey, only to return as a wise prophet from the Himalayas. Yeah, I can identify with that.

Me, my visions are more down to earth, like Laura Palmer's psychiatrist in Twin Peaks. One of the country's best trial attorneys throws in the towel, sells all his worldly goods and treks off to Hawaii on a spiritual odyssey, only to stay there and operate a successful macadamia nut farm.

File under The Legal Profession.

11:15:39 PM    Go ahead, make my day  []  trackback []  

Does Vanessa Williams Get Reinstated?

The Miss America Pageant is planning to show more skin.

File under Current Events.

11:08:07 PM    Go ahead, make my day  []  trackback []  

Just What Is He Trying To Say?

From John Kerry's interview with Don Imus yesterday:

Kerry explains his "plan" for Iraq:

IMUS: You know, Senator Kerry, you say you have this plan to get out of Iraq in your first term, which, barring some scandal, would be four years.

(LAUGHTER)

I've known you a long time, Senator Kerry.

KERRY: That's counting correctly. That's counting correctly.

IMUS: What is this plan you have?

KERRY: Well, the plan gets more complicated every single day because the president...

IMUS: Try to simplify it for me so I can understand it.

KERRY: I'm going to just tell you why.

IMUS: OK.

KERRY: Because about -- I can't remember whether it's -- several months ago, I said, "This may the president's last chance to get it right in Iraq." That's what I said. And I said, as Joe Biden did and others did, "Mr. President, you've got to lead. You've got to get the international community at the table." The president has never done that. Now it's obviously, with the situation on the ground, much more complicated; I have to acknowledge that. It is more complicated. But I would immediately call a summit meeting of the European community. They haven't lived up to the obligations of their own resolution that they passed at the U.N. It is important to do much more rapid training. Senator Biden came back from over there, other experts have observed they're not doing the training that's necessary, at a pace that's necessary, in a way that's necessary to establish the security. And it is going to be critical to accelerate that kind of training.

But look, I have to look and see what I have on January 20. At the rate the president's going, nobody can predict what will happen on January 20. I'll tell you this: A new president, with new credibility, with a fresh start, who listens to the military leaders, doesn't fire them, like General Shinseki, when they give him advice they don't like, a new president who has credibility with the foreign leaders, will have the opportunity to isolate the extremists and to bring people to the table in different ways: for border security, for training, and to do the things necessary to provide stability. I'm committed to providing that stability, but I'll tell you, this president is making it tougher every single day by just not understanding and not being honest about what's going on.

IMUS: But it sounds -- that may or may not be a good plan, but meanwhile, we had three soldiers dead in Iraq yesterday and how many die before -- wind up over there in the rehab room at Walter Reed before a plan like this kicks into effect? Also, I was talking to...

KERRY: Well, Don, I realize that, but the fact is that the president is the president. I mean, what you ought to be doing and what everybody in America ought to be doing today is not asking me; they ought to be asking the president, What is your plan? What's your plan, Mr. President, to stop these kids from being killed? What's your plan, Mr. President, to get the other countries in there? What's your plan to have 90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the cost being carried by America? I mean, he is the president today, and we have given him advice from day one; from day one, from the floor of the Senate when we debated it where I said don't -- you know, you've got to have other countries with you, don't make an end runaround the U.N., the difficulty is not winning the military, it's winning the peace; and he ignored it. And others -- the bipartisan, Dick Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Joe Biden, and the Foreign Relations Committee gave him advice that he chose to ignore. And since then, many times we've stood up and said, "Mr. President, this is what you have to do." He's chosen not to do those things.

IMUS: We're asking you because you want to be president.

KERRY: That's correct. But I can't...

IMUS: He's not going to answer any questions.

KERRY: I can't tell you what I'm going to find on the ground on January 20th.

Kerry explains his vote on the Iraq war:

IMUS: You said, Senator Kerry, a while back, not that long ago -- and I assume you meant all of the things you're talking about now, but you said knowing what you know now, which would include just what you've been talking about, you would have still voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, which doesn't make any sense to me.

KERRY: Yes, it actually does make sense.

IMUS: Explain it. Help me out here.

KERRY: Let me explain it to you. I felt in 1998, and I said that Clinton ought to have the power, the authority to use force, in order to force Saddam Hussein to have inspectors, to be able to disarm. The only way to get the inspectors in was to be tough, to have the threat of force and the authority to use force. I was prepared to use the force if he didn't do what he needed to do. But I warned the president, as did many people, take the time to build up the international coalition, don't rush to war, because the most difficult part is not winning the military part of the war; it's winning the peace. The president ignored that. And what he basically did was cut off the inspection process and rush to war. Now, I believe that Saddam Hussein was sufficiently duplicitous and, you know, couldn't obviously -- you don't trust him, so you needed that threat to be able to make certain you had the inspectors and were going through a process to hold him accountable. But we could have held him accountable. We had two-thirds of that country in a no-fly zone on day one. And the fact is that what the president wanted to do was just get in there and go do it. And he did it in such a rushed way that he ignored what the consequences would be. It was wrong to rush to war without a better understanding of what you'd confront in a hostile, postwar Iraq. It was wrong to rush to war without a better understanding of Iraqi nationalism and Iraqi tribal separatism. And it was wrong to have no plan except the initial military victory. So when they won, they didn't even guard the ammunition dumps, which now are the weapons that are being used against our soldiers.

Still flip floppin'. 

File under The Presidential Election.

8:55:11 AM    Go ahead, make my day  []  trackback []