war in iraq

That pesky liberal bias

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Despite the vacant language of McCain’s op-ed submission to the New York Times (in response to the one on Iraq policy by Obama published last week), and despite the very amicable language of the email explanation to the McCain campaign by the Times’ op-ed page editor, the bastion of US print reporting didn’t do itself any favors.

The tenets of American journalism dictate that information should be presented in a manner that allows readers to draw their own conclusions.  Granted, this is the op-ed page, which should retain every right to adhere to its own editorial process.

But by refusing to publish a McCain op-ed as it was first submitted, after letting Obama’s rip (presumably) unfettered, all the Times has done is thrown another gas can on the bonfire of liberal bias accusations.  The shrewder choice would have been to publish the op-ed and let everyone else, including their own columnists, take it apart one “victory” vaguery at a time.

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No misinterpreteting the silence on refugees

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

P+P contributor and Annenberg graduate Hanna Ingber Win continues her examination of the candidates and the Iraqi refugee situation for the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus.  This is her latest entry.

Every couple of weeks an email from Baghdad pops up in Iraq War veteran Joey Coon’s inbox at his home in Washington, D.C. It’s Coon’s 23-year-old Iraqi interpreter, nicknamed Dash, pleading for help to get out of Iraq and into the United States. Dash feels in constant grave danger that he and his family will be killed because of his work with American troops.

“People like Dash put their lives on the line to help keep people like me and my friends and fellow soldiers and Iraqi civilians safe,” said Coon. “It was a very admirable, heroic thing that he did, I think, and I do feel that both soldiers and the American people in general have a certain responsibility here.”

That responsibility, however, is one that is more or less being shirked off by the presidential campaigns. While both candidates hotly debate each other’s plans for withdrawing or maintaining troop levels in Iraq, virtually nothing is being said about the 4 million Iraqis who have been displaced by the war or about the tens of thousands of Iraqis like Dash who feel at immediate risk for having worked with the Americans. Even less is being said about how the incoming administration will deal with the humanitarian crisis still evolving.

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The empire strikes back

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008


Did you catch Countdown last night?

Clear blue skies in New York City today, about the first time we’ve seen the atmosphere in about two weeks, makes it especially easy to see through what many experts have been hawking as “news” lately.

Sen. Barack Obama is still for ending the Iraq war, despite week long statements from Sen. John McCain saying otherwise. His dual press conferences – the second one required because expert opinion had heads in the sand – did not change his basic principle: opposing an open-ended commitment of occupying and/or pacifying the Iraqi government.

What else has been brewing besides summer thunderstorms… ah yes – the economy. The job loss streak continued for the U.S. economy, with June being the sixth straight lousy month. Welcome graduates!

But that didn’t stop McCain from going to Colombia… to do what I’m not sure. Talking heads said it was news, but I don’t get it other than further proving McCain doesn’t know what’s going on. Ironically, the former POW was upstaged by a John Woo-style badass hostage rescue (ps – it’s coming out, first reported by Swiss radio, that the rescue actually might have been a cover up for ransom payments – McCain metaphor?).

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Small government

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

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Remember the Bush-Gore debate back in 1999 or so, where Bush decried “foreign entanglements” and liberal-minded “state-building enterprises,” saying they would bloat the federal budget and divert funds from Amuhrica? It’s gotta be on YouTube somewheres.

The facts of the Bush presidency have demonstrated there was no conviction in any of that blah blah. Today’s headlines speak to the reigning Republican ideology regarding government spending. Here is how Slate summarized those headline stories this morning.

On the one hand:
“The Washington Post leads with word that the Bush administration wants more money for the Iraq war and is planning to ask Congress for up to $50 billion next month…. The extra money for Iraq would be in addition to the approximately $460 billion in the defense budget and it will probably be added to the $147 billion supplemental bill to pay for Afghanistan and Iraq. The Post breaks it down: “the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week.”"

On the other hand:
“The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal’s world-wide newsbox lead with new census figures that show the number of people without health insurance increased by 2.2 million in 2006 to a grand total of 47 million. In terms of the overall population, 15.8 percent of people lacked insurance, which is the highest level since 1998. At a time when President Bush is in a fight with Congress over health insurance for children, the LAT points out that the number of uninsured children grew by 600,000.”

If by governance we mean running a state in the interests of the greatest number of its citizens, safe to say that this is some all-time bad governance. If by governance we mean making Halliburton stock valuable, then we got some damn-fine people running the show.

Larry Craig Congressional tip of the day: Always maintain a narrow stance in a public restroom and never play footsie with the undercover cop in the adjacent stall. Because that’s just lewd!

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