Scary odds and ends

Charlie Savage’s article, Bush challenges hundreds of laws, on President Bush’s personal interpretations of the Constitution that appeared in the Boston Globe and which I linked for readers last week is being picked up by major media players and deserves another review for those who missed it.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

An editorial in today’s New York Times and Michael Kinsley’s op-ed in the Washington Post, Constitutional Cafeteria, cite savage’s piece and drive straight to the heart of this presidency. And it’s scary! Both of these are linked for horror fans:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/opinion/05fri1.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050401459.html

The reaction to Joe Biden’s call for a weak central government in Iraq has been very low key. Biden was a supporter of the war and continues his efforts to bail himself and Bush out of the fiasco. I saw him interviewed last evening and he couched his initial support for the war and for what ultimately went wrong on the `incompetency of the administration thing’ that I’ve railed at repeatedly in many postings. Never the less, I think it offers the only reasonable way out of the mess that we’re in, and clearly the administration is preparing to move in this direction.

David Broder's cloumn in today's Post attempts to put as nice a face as possible on the situation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050302201.html

While I hate to give Bush any points for this war, we must let him find a way out or we’ll be spewing blood and treasure for years to come. In the same posting that I initially used to cite Charlie Savage’s article, I linked readers to a hidden article in the Post that described preparations by the military for an outcome that is almost a carbon of that later proposed by Joe Biden. Here it is again so that you can make your own judgments:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042901142.html


I know this linking goes in lots of different ways, but these are complex subjects and we poor citizens must do our best to keep up with what our leaders are doing, especially when they are loath to have us see through the flimflam.

As you must know by now, Don Rumsfeld ran into the paths of several speeding cars yesterday. There were too many articles on the subject to post, but the bubble of his credibility has been burst. He is now a whining explainer of how he really didn’t lie about the weapons of mass destruction and the link between al Qaeda and Saddam. I’ve read reasonable opinions on the difference between lying and overly optimistic forecasting. It’s hard to feel sorry for such a hard ass old S.O.B. as Don and it really doesn’t make any difference; as I’ve said before Rumsfeld is damaged goods and has to go. The Decider will just have to accept Don’s next offer to fall on his sword.

Well, not the happiest of historical moments, eh?

Blog on!

Wild Bill