Random, occasionally rambling thoughts with links to interesting, scandalous, or partisan news of the day.

Fair and Balanced

Dead Heroes
• Thomas Paine
• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin
  

Living Heroes
We owe the liberty and freedom we take for granted to the enlisted men and women in the armed forces. They sacrifice family, ease, and even life laboring in service to all of us. The least we can do for them is honor their devotion with dignified pay scales, decent education for themselves and their children, and reasonable compensation for service away from their families and death on the battlefield. Flag waving politicians who praise the troops on one hand and cut their pay and benefits with the other should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

Blogs I Read Often
• Talking Points Memo
• Atrios
• FireDogLake
• Brad DeLong
• The Daily Howler
• Daily Kos
• Glenn Greenwald
• MyDD
• The News Blog
• Oliver Willis
• Political Wire
• The Volokh Conspiracy
  

Former South African President Nelson Mandela slammed President Bush and his stance on Iraq, saying, "If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America." Speaking at the International Women's Forum, Mandela said, "One power with a president who has no foresight -- who cannot think properly -- is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

This is the sort of bombast "committed unspeakable atrocities" that makes people stop listening to the left. What about Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot? Kim Jong Il starving 2 million of his own people? Saddam gassing Kurdish villagers and continuing torture and rape as tools of population management? His entire point on Bush having no foresight is lost because of the ridiculousness of his previous statement. His use of the term holocaust for freeing the Iraqi people mirrors the European hand wringing post 9/11 about Bush lashing out. Instead Bush planned, waited, gathered allies, and struck carefully and with consideration for civilians. The result is a new Afghanistan with perhaps some hope of becoming a nation. Some hope that women will be treated with some modicum of fairness. Some chance that education will be available to everyone. Ask the Afghans if "unspeakable atrocities" applies better to Mullah Omar or Bush.
posted by Dave on 9:12 AM | 0 comments link

--------------------