Thursday, February 27, 2003

In the News.... * Richard Cohen's editorial in the Washington Post today is worth reading if you'd like more evidence of John Ashcroft's righteous bloodlust. There is a guy named Brian Regan who had a letter on his computer offering to help Saddam with a little spying. He never actually spied for Saddam, and in fact it seems to be in question whether or not Saddam even got the letter. He was convicted of attempted espionage, and Ashcroft demanded the death penalty. This is not murder, or even attempted murder, or even successful espionage. Attempted espionage. * I'm going to say something right now that is not very popular. The coverage of the Space Shuttle disaster needs to take a back seat to other events in the world. The New York Times no longer needs to make it a front page story. I don't mean to suggest that it wasn't a tragedy, or that it had no significance, or that NASA shouldn't be trying to figure out the cause of the accident.  What I mean is that it's now gone too far.  I mean, there's a story in the nether parts of the NYT about a nursing home fire in Hartford that killed ten people, more than the Shuttle.  There's a story buried in the international section about a helicopter crash in Columbia that killed 23.   I don't want to suggest that the only big stories should be ones where the most people die.  The Shuttle accident was a tragedy and a significant one.  But it's been several weeks now, and while the cause of the crash may be newsworthy, it ain't front page newsworthy any more.  * Bush is finally talking about the post-war world in Iraq.  It's about damned time.  Now if only we could get an honest assessment of the costs.  I'm increasingly pro-war IN SPITE OF the Bush Administration's "case" for war.  Apparently, the Administration is also beginning to say that we'll stay in Iraq for as long as necessary and "not a day longer."  Why imply that the occupation will be short-lived?  Either it will be short-lived, in which case we've botched the job a la Afghanistan, or it's going to be long-lived (as it should be) and Bush won't have prepared Americans for that.  They're blowing it either way.  * The White House, responding to a lot of criticism from Republican governors and Democrats in Washington, is admitting that there's not enough money in the counterterrorism budget.  What, they forgot?  4:46:07 PM    Let's hear it. []