How in the hell did Karen Hughes become an Undersecretary of State?
Could this work to turn around anti-American hostility? In the regional press, editorial skepticism, if not hostility, greeted Hughes’ first overseas trip in her new role. “The Arab world is tired of U.S. hurricanes,” said an editorial in Asharq, a Qatar daily. “It hopes that Hurricane Hughes will be the last one.”
That Michael Brown resume screening process is still working out a few kinks, I guess.
Update on the Delay indictment from Think Progress: Delay gave an interview with Fox News which was supposed to bolster his defense. However, if you listen to what he says, it makes a much better prosecution than defense. Take a look.
Perhaps it is the time difference, so that I am getting my news before people in The States, or maybe you have all been so quick to start your rejoicing that you have not had the time to post about it, but Tom “The Hammer” Delay has been formally indicted. I am not kidding, this is not a joke, and the best part is that he says that he is “temporarily” stepping down as the majority leader in the House of Representatives. Break out the bottles of champagne as the season of indictments begins. Oh, and if you are still skeptical, read all about it here.
It strikes me as plain silly to arrest Cindy Sheehan. Whether you agree with Cindy’s fight or not, her persistent voice was an embarrassment for the Bush administration both in and out of Crawford. It seems, though, her journey across the nation had lost the national media’s eye in light of Katrina and Rita. She protests peacefully and she is arrested? Bad move…
And, if you are wondering, Drudge is mocking her arrest by running a photo of her smiling…thanks Matt!
Robert Collier has an outstanding piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about the life and death(s) of Pat Tillman. It makes for a fascinating read–a story about a person much more complex than the media orginally depicted–and one more nuanced than I believed. Pat Tillman truly was a hero–but not for the reasons that Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration wanted us to believe.
As most people know, Tillman gave up a $3.6 million contract to enlist in the Army, because he “wanted to fight al Qaeda and help find Osama bin Laden.” What most people don’t know is that Tillman believed that the war in Iraq was not legitimate.
Spc. Russell Baer, a solider who was beside Tillman when he died, said:
“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”
And yet, the military lied–to Tillman’s family and the nation–to continue to justify the war on terror. Evidence was destroyed, testimony changed, lies told because the truth might just expose the absurdity of this war, and its limits. And Pat Tillman’s father doesn’t believe these decisions were low level. How could he? How could any of us, after the lies we have been told?
“The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons,” said the father, Patrick Tillman. “This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that (lower-ranking) people in the field do,” he said.
The real hero was the man who gave up his wealth and his family for what he believed in. The man who brought classic books and coffee for his squadmates, who encouraged a young solider to write poetry, who read Chomsky and questioned the war.
He was not the carricature the Adminstration wanted to present…or the person they vicariously pretend to be. We need more heroes.
American Progress hosted a press discussion with Joseph Hoar, head of the US Central Command after the first Iraq War. His assessment of the Bush Administration’s failures in Iraq is a stunning indictment of an Administration that is incompetently managing a war that should never have been fought:
I can’t begin without once more saying that this was the wrong war at the wrong time fought with incredible incompetence on the part of the civilian leadership. And despite this, that our armed forces continue to serve with courage and determination and in many cases great personal sacrifice.
I think for me it’s important to say that, up front, this thing was wrong from the beginning, and so as is often the case, it’s very hard to make it right once you start down the wrong road. I’m not at all optimistic about the outcome. I think part of the reason is that our leadership – civilian leadership has got it wrong.
Well, the problem always is that when you start out on the premise that you’re going to war for weapons of mass destruction and the linkage between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, which were completely false, it’s very difficult to carry this thing forward in a way that makes sense to the American people.
Now, the Congress and the press gave these people a bye, and it has now become clear to the American public that this thing was flawed right from the start.
And indicated that the Army is going to be facing a train wreck here next year when the Reserves and the National Guard guys have all got to go home. And so I suspect, having been in the recruiting business, that the pressure to make numbers in the Army to get the people into those organizations must be huge. And I don’t know how we’re going to do it.
Read the passage about Fallujah (too long to quote) if you want to understand the cynicism of this Administration–and its absolute inability to understand the sensibilities of the Muslim world.
Credit: Think Progress
