With emphasis added:
"I think that the record will show that the last five years have been years of reorganizing our international alliances for this long war and reorienting our strategic policy toward one that simply will not accept the conditions in the Middle East and in other places that have allowed extremism to flourish at the expense of moderation.
Condoleeza Rice on today's Fox News Sunday.
[Hmmmm. If you have the right to "refuse to accept" conditions over there, does that mean that people "over there" have the right to refuse to accept conditions over here?]
If this turns out to be true, or even credible, there is no justification in the known universe for Rumsfeld's continued role as Secretary of Defense or even toilet bowl licker.
I certainly don't look to Fox news, or its on-air "personalities," for truth or objectivity. But incoherence shouldn't be the norm even for Fox. Should it?
Come on, take a guess. A hint, it's really, really, really, really BIG. It's about money...
Like so many Republican officeholders who attained their office primarily by packaging themselves as "plain speakers," California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks not only plainly, but in simplistic terms that rely largely on stereotypes. Sort of like high school sophomores.
Phase II of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on intelligence on Iraq is out, issued on a Friday as is usual with reports you want to keep out of the news.
An editorial in the Hartford Courant notes that the National Review, the conservative biweekly, recently asked scholars, military experts and geopolitical strategists to reflect on Iraq. The Courant notes that the consensus was that the situation is bad and getting worse, despite the fact that most of the commentators come from "the hawks' aviary." Among the views:
I know we're supposed to be hating Iran right now, until the next change in the war schedule, but come on, it's the conservatives pushing that line and how can they hate a country whose president sounds so much like them?
Paul Weyrich, moralist supreme, has said so many frightening things about Christian conservative revolutions, tearing down modern institutions, and the like, that my hair curls whenever I actually hear the name.
After you basically call them traitors, you can't then expect them to cooperate with you.
Norm Ornstein, analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, addressing the likelihood that Congressional Democrats will be in a mood to cooperative with Republicans in the upcoming legislative session.
