Announcing the launch of StreamJackieGreene.com: (more…)

I thought I’d get back in the swing of things by writing about the newest additions to the Book Quotes and Passages Page. The big chunks are from James Agee, a brilliant author who wrote Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book about the Depression.

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“Journalism is true in the sense that everything is true to the state of being and to what conditioned and produced it: but that is about as far as its value goes. This is not to accuse or despise journalism for anything beyond its own complacent delusion, and its enormous power to poison the public with the same delusion, that it is telling the truth even of what it tells of.”
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Christopher Hitchens wrote a great piece in Slate this week on how the war in Iraq could of gone. His most important contribution is not an argument on why the war was justified, but a list of the detractor’s impact. And like most things I read, it triggered a rant.

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But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations’ secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.
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I don’t think anyone would argue that the current situation is unacceptable, that the Bush administration failed miserably, or that the mission is even close to being accomplished. Nevertheless, as far as the blame for all that goes, it’s not so cut and dried. Perhaps the current opposition has a short memory, but I recall protestors literally protecting enemy targets. Operation Human Shield? Sean Penn meeting with Saddam weeks before the invasion? Let’s not rewrite history here folks. (more…)

The Bush Administration might as well be over. I can’t even recall the last time I heard something positive about the White House, and it’s not an issue of a biased media. We have a president whose political skills are obsolete in this modern landscape. Five years of mistakes, missteps and malaise have taken their toll, to the point where we might as well pronounce this horse officially dead.

If there is a better example of troubles facing a modern politician than the Cheney shooting incident I don’t want to know about it. If there is a worse example of a way to respond to it, I pray to God I won’t ever know about it. Nobody can blame a guy for accidentally shooting his friend, but you can fault somebody for handling it so poorly. I didn’t even think it was possible to get crucified for something such as this, but I guess that’s what happens when you not only neglect to inform the media of a near vice-presidential manslaughter, but the commander-in-chief as well.

Republicans like to think they bring business logic to the government, but the fact that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan still has a job proves they’re full of it. The days of a press secretary being able to spin a story or shift the blame are long gone. The legions of fact checkers have expanded from the press corps to literally anyone with a computer. The RatherGate incident reflects the reality that faces politicians on a daily basis; the no-spin zone has expanded from O’Reilly’s TV show to the entire Internet; everyone’s a Jon Stewart as they laugh at the excuses.

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