Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Can't I Wait for the Movie to Come Out?
On the morning after the day former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry said blogging is becoming to Democrats what talk radio is to Republicans, I am happy to be on the air again.
Can I say that I wish Bill Clinton would stop saying nice things about Bush, calling him a strong leader and all that? Yes, I know that the Democratic Convention's TV show is designed to appeal to the 37 swing voters in Ohio who will decide the election, and as such mustn't do anything to make them feel bad, but give me a break. You'd think, as the leading Democrat in the country, he'd be tougher, especially when ever soul in the hall knows how bad things are and who's to blame. But this whole week is not about them. It's about the Ohio 37, so anyone with a taste for political red meat will have to shop elsewhere. (Howard Dean is among the speakers tonight. Knock 'em dead, Governor, but whatever you do, don't take the saltpeter.)
One more thing about Clinton: I have become much less a fan in the last few weeks. The triangulating, all-things-to-all-people side of him has been more visible to me lately than it was during the entire eight years of his presidency. Whether he's trying to burnish his historical legacy, keep Hillary politically viable in the future, sell books, or what, I don't know. But compared to the likes of Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, he's been positively kind to Bush in a way that hardly becomes the leader of the opposition.
Recommended Reading: The American Conservative's interview with the anonymous author of Imperial Hubris. AmCon is a publication for conservatives who haven't swallowed the neocon Kool-Aid and as such, its perspectives on current events are different from the general wingnut opinion, not to mention the usual commie-lib rags I read. Anonymous warns that our choice in the war on terror is not between war and peace (as Dick "Him Before He Dicks You" Cheney suggested again this morning in an NPR soundbite), but between war and endless war. It's not a happy thought, and Anonymous offers no solutions in the interview. But he does suggest recognizing that "they hate us because they hate freedom" is an utter retreat from reality--and once we realize that, we can get on with the job of winning the war we have no choice but to fight.
Also Recommended: Not all of the "channels" in the blogosphere will be devoting time exclusively to the Democratic Convention this week. Robert Dreyfuss, for example, is devoting this week to discussing what's wrong with the 9/11 commission's report. Yesterday he discussed the powerful new centralized intelligence apparatus the commission recommends, and the danger of hurrying to put it in place during an election campaign. (On a side note, NPR reported this morning that the White House says Bush is reading the commission's report. Raise your hand if you think a guy who can't be bothered to read newspapers is hefting a 567-page book around the house.)
On the morning after the day former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry said blogging is becoming to Democrats what talk radio is to Republicans, I am happy to be on the air again.
Can I say that I wish Bill Clinton would stop saying nice things about Bush, calling him a strong leader and all that? Yes, I know that the Democratic Convention's TV show is designed to appeal to the 37 swing voters in Ohio who will decide the election, and as such mustn't do anything to make them feel bad, but give me a break. You'd think, as the leading Democrat in the country, he'd be tougher, especially when ever soul in the hall knows how bad things are and who's to blame. But this whole week is not about them. It's about the Ohio 37, so anyone with a taste for political red meat will have to shop elsewhere. (Howard Dean is among the speakers tonight. Knock 'em dead, Governor, but whatever you do, don't take the saltpeter.)
One more thing about Clinton: I have become much less a fan in the last few weeks. The triangulating, all-things-to-all-people side of him has been more visible to me lately than it was during the entire eight years of his presidency. Whether he's trying to burnish his historical legacy, keep Hillary politically viable in the future, sell books, or what, I don't know. But compared to the likes of Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, he's been positively kind to Bush in a way that hardly becomes the leader of the opposition.
Recommended Reading: The American Conservative's interview with the anonymous author of Imperial Hubris. AmCon is a publication for conservatives who haven't swallowed the neocon Kool-Aid and as such, its perspectives on current events are different from the general wingnut opinion, not to mention the usual commie-lib rags I read. Anonymous warns that our choice in the war on terror is not between war and peace (as Dick "Him Before He Dicks You" Cheney suggested again this morning in an NPR soundbite), but between war and endless war. It's not a happy thought, and Anonymous offers no solutions in the interview. But he does suggest recognizing that "they hate us because they hate freedom" is an utter retreat from reality--and once we realize that, we can get on with the job of winning the war we have no choice but to fight.
Also Recommended: Not all of the "channels" in the blogosphere will be devoting time exclusively to the Democratic Convention this week. Robert Dreyfuss, for example, is devoting this week to discussing what's wrong with the 9/11 commission's report. Yesterday he discussed the powerful new centralized intelligence apparatus the commission recommends, and the danger of hurrying to put it in place during an election campaign. (On a side note, NPR reported this morning that the White House says Bush is reading the commission's report. Raise your hand if you think a guy who can't be bothered to read newspapers is hefting a 567-page book around the house.)
