Saving Jessica Lynch

Ok, I watched it. I normally steer clear of all made for TV movies, but I was a sucker for the hype. I also caught 60 Minutes earlier tonight which had an interview with Pfc. Patrick Miller who was part of the 507th Maintenance Company. According to the story from 60 Minutes Miller was the hero of the day, saving Lynch's and several other's lives through his actions. The movie did not reflect his statements on what happened when they were captured. His story sounds much more dramatic and heroic than was portrayed in the movie. I wonder where the outrage is with this TV movie's failure to depict "reality." If it is good for the "Gipper" isn't it good for a real war hero?

Blackwell is Annoying Me

I am going nuts with the intrusive advertisement from Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on the Websites for the Enquirer and the Post. The ad is for Blackwell's politcal movement to repeal the recent Ohio Sales Tax increase.

Here are some simple facts people should keep in mind when viewing this.

1. Ken Blackwell is a Republican.
2. The Republican's control the entire Ohio State Government, both houses of the Assembly and the Governorship.
3. The Republican controlled Assembly and the Republican Governor controlled the process to raise the sales tax.
4. Ken Blackwell is positioning himself to run for Governor in few years. He will face GOP competition for the nomination so he is getting his name out there early, without declaring for office.

The advertisement is so annoying because it plays an audio and video message whenever you load up a section page from either newspaper site. I don't fault ads, the paper needs them, but I really don't like having to hear it every time I load their site. I would prefer the ad to not run automatically.

You Say Tomato, I say...

Josh Marshall has released his winners for the "imminent threat contest" where he sought quotes from the Bush Administration and their Hawk supporters. Josh sums up the problem with the "imminent threat" debate with this paragraph:

Yet, as I said in The Hill on Wednesday, their argument is really just a “crafty verbal dodge — sort of like ‘I didn’t accuse you of eating the cake. All I said was that you sliced it up and put it in your mouth.’”

Yep, he didn't say those words, "imminent threat." Bush sold the war on that basis of the claim that there was an impending threat from Iraq that could strike us at any moment. Now, that is imminent in my book.

The battle of exact words is not really the meat of this criticism. Bush's problem is that he believed we faced danger from Iraq's WMD. Now when I say danger, I mean that the WMD could be used on the USA at some point in the not to distant future, from the next five minutes to the next few years. Now, in reality we did not face any more danger from Iraq's WMD than we did from our own WMD. The question left unanswered is did Bush know this. What information did he base his conclusion that we were in danger from Iraq's WMD? From what is being reported the only verified information that Iraq even possessed any WMD was that there was not a complete accounting of the WMD Iraq claimed to have after Gulf War I. So an incomplete accounting is the basis of the threat? This is where Bush mislead the public. He and members of his administration regularly said that Iraq possessed WMD. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld even stated we know were they were. I think it is clear that no one in the administration knew where the weapons where, because they had no good evidence that Iraq still had any.

This reality brings on one of two probable conclusions. 1. Bush or those advising him knew all along that the WMD posed no significant threat to the USA, but used the fear of WMD to sell the war. 2. Bush got really really bad intelligence.

Bush I think in the campaign to justify his war will claim #2 and blame the CIA. That I think is evidence of poor character. Bush is the boss, and should take the heat for the people he leads.

I don’t know if #1 is valid, but I think that at least to a degree that it occurred. I think that people in the administration knew that WMD was not a significant threat to the USA, but they knew they could use the fear to bring along enough people to bring out the war they wanted. Now, the debate of why they wanted the war is a different question that has varied and unknown motivations that I don’t have enough information from which to draw a valid conclusion.

I believe the validity of the criticism lies in what is clear a fact to me, Bush mislead the country on the level of the threat of WMD. Everyday that we don’t find actual usable weapons of mass destruction in Iraq shows that either they are now in the hands of those we fear would get them if we did not go to war, or that none exists. If none exist, I just don’t see how anyone can claim Bush is not a deceptive person, who did one of the worst things a President can do, provide misleading or false reasons for going to war.

Dictionary Use

I had to dig out the dictionary to understand the title of Maggie Downs' column this week. I usually can get most words I don't know from their context, but I don't know what I was thinking today. The word I did not know, "aural", means "of or relating to the ear or to the sense of hearing" which makes perfect sense in the context now that I know what the word means. I guess using "sex" in the title of a Enquirer column just threw me for a loop. I am surprised that Peter Bronson has not resigned for this obviously "perverse" allusion. Phil Burress will soon be getting a hundred phone calls about the "porn filled pages" of the Enquirer. "It's that Maggie Downs again, Phil," Betty Cornblough might say to Phil Burress of the CCV, "She printed that Flynt kid's story and now she has mentioned the word 'sex' in the title of her column. How can we stop this?"

Ok, Ok, Ok I jest. I am just trying to figure out a good way for not knowing what a word meant. I am attempting to use the Chewbacca defense, but I am failing, and failing big. Breaking out the dictionary feels like admiting you don't know something, and for know-it-all writers like myself, that can be a slight ego deflator.

Hackery Thine Name Be True

I did not know Peter Bronson could really go this low. He manages to bring Bill Clinton into a column about local politics. Why does Peter at least come up with new lexicon. "Clintonesque sex scandal" is rather trite. Nixonian has had time to work up to a word that has real meaning. Clintonesque is forced. Peter is projecting his hate again. The Clenis™ is something that I think Peter will never stop pursuing. His "Quest" taints his columns far more than his ideological bent. It is almost a sickness. I wonder if any shrinks have written papers on it?

Two Roads Diverge, But Are Not Enough

Most of what I blog about tends to be criticism. I will sometimes point out interesting writing from another blogger, or an interesting newspaper article. Everything else is rebuttal. I find that I tend to not want to comment on things I was entertained by. Things that make me think are much easier to discuss than items that were just humorous, without any political or social overtones. Now that the local political season has ended, I will try to write about other topics. I have to admit that I have had enough of following the elections. The blog will not be void of politics, but I will try and mix it up a bit, break in new ideas, and challenge myself to write better. If I go off on a few limbs in the coming weeks, then I apologize ahead of time.

Election Roundup

A summary listing of who is saying what about last night's election:

XRay Magazine's Final Field Report and Final Vote Summary.
Wes Flinn Comments
Plus a ton of stuff at the Post and the Enquirer.