Zzzzz

Work is insane at the moment, and even if I wasn't exhausted when I get home of an evening, my mind's a blank anyway, so I hereby declare a hiatus. This blog is now officially moribund.

You could always go look at my crappy photos.

Getting Felt

Wow, that Peggy Noonan really is completely fecking insane:

Was Mr. Felt a hero? No one wants to be hard on an ailing 91-year-old man. Mr. Felt no doubt operated in some perceived jeopardy and judged himself brave. He had every right to disapprove of and wish to stop what he saw as new moves to politicize the FBI. But a hero would have come forward, resigned his position, declared his reasons, and exposed himself to public scrutiny. He would have taken the blows and the kudos. (Knowing both Nixon and the media, there would have been plenty of both.) Heroes pay the price. Mr. Felt simply leaked information gained from his position in government to damage those who were doing what he didn't want done. Then he retired with a government pension. This does not appear to have been heroism, and he appears to have known it. Thus, perhaps, the great silence.

...

Even if Mr. Felt had mixed motives, even if he did not choose the most courageous path in attempting to spread what he thought was the truth, his actions might be judged by their fruits. The Washington Post said yesterday that Mr. Felt's information allowed them to continue their probe. That probe brought down a president. Ben Stein is angry but not incorrect: What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness. What a terrible time. Is it terrible when an American president lies and surrounds himself by dirty tricksters? Yes, it is. How about the butchering of children in the South China Sea. Is that worse? Yes. Infinitely, unforgettably and forever.

I ask again, why can't Australian commentators be this entertainingly deranged?

Oh, and my apologies for the title. Did I mention I was ill?

Sickboy

Now I really do have a cold, so I'm going back to bed. But I note in passing that Andrew Bartlett's got a weblog. Pity he doesn't have a party, but I guess you can't have everything.

Oh dear. It seems a head full of phlegm brings out my mean side. How unfortunate. Go read him anyway.

Absurdity

Bush:

It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is.

I wonder if it's relevant whether or not they hated America before they were detained.

Note also the reference to material in the Al Qaeda Training Manual about "spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy". If Bush is alleging this is why released detainees have been making allegations of abuse he's either a) admitting the US has released AQ operatives without charge or b) a fecking idiot. Either the released detainees are AQ so they wouldn't have been released, or they're not AQ and therefore haven't been trained to make up stories. Rather an obvious bit of reasoning, I would have thought.

Edit: That's interesting. So taken was I with the stupidity of Bush's argument, I completely failed to notice his intriguing pronunciation of "dissemble".