Wednesday, November 19, 2003 :::
 
Thought for the Day...Links to Good Articles on Iraq...Great Writing About Life


Thought for the day:
Expect Der Ahnold to change his name. Or rather, to have his name changed for him, from "Schwarzenegger" to "Cagov." Not a Russian name, just headline-speak, as in "CA Gov proposed new cuts." A glance over a fellow standee's shoulder on the Metro this morning showed clearly that "Schwarzenegger" takes up a full quarter of the width of a page in the Washington Post. Presuming that, as with most governors, most of what he does will be newsworthy but not earthshaking, he will not be allowed to hog the headlines like that.

But The Really Big Guy seems to be off to a rousing start, and good luck to him. California surely needs it.

Iraq.

Better minds can say things better than this writter can, so he recommends this essay from The Weekly Standard, and, from this morning's Post, this essay by Elliot Cohen, whose strategic theories hold a lot of weight with this administration.

In catching up on friends' writing, A Mind That Suits notes that, on Nov.11, friend Eddie over at One Good Turn offered a very good analysis of the Kay Report and the 'Bush Lied' Lie.

Bush did not lie, of course, but he did go out on a limb in making the case for the war. A comment in the Weekly Standard seemed to me accurate: supporters are not so worried about the Kay Report because they believe in the whole package of reasons to go to war, as does this writer. If Bush handles the war correctly--a big if, but this writer is hopeful--then the little problems of no-nuke program and no actual weapons will go away. If things go sour, then they will come back in a big way. However, support for the war is razor thin, and as One Good Turn points out accurately, the Left keeps changing the goal posts. Which makes the silence (or complaisance) of conservative writers, and the Administration, on this issue even more troublesome. The case for war needs to be made over and over again, and it is not happening. Yes, now there is Fox, but that does not make up for ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, the NY Times, the ambiguously committed Washington Post...and on and on and on. The deck is still stacked, and it is up to our side to make sure it even gets shuffled.

Great Writing About Life...And finally, A Mind That Suits has for many years maintained that the pre-eminent social observer and prose stylist in journalism today is actually none other than Miss Manners. Indeed, it is her third person style that convinced A Mind That Suits that it leads to better writing than "I...I...I...I...," even when expressing opinions. Check out today's column by that accomplished master. The second item is funny, the first one touchingly beautiful...

Long, rough day ahead. Talk to you all tomorrow.


::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 9:42 AM


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What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.