Thursday, March 27, 2003

Political Notes --I can't believe that I'm doing this, but I'm actually going to recommend an article by Pat Buchanan.  Oh, it hurts deep, deep inside to type that--my fingers are actually seizing up.  http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html American Conservative is Pat's new magazine, and this article is about the power of the pro-Israel lobby and pro-Israel foreign policy wonks in Washington.  It's compelling stuff, and Pat has done a fine job of putting together a lot of facts and figures and quotes.  I agree with his opinion on this, which ultimately boils down to the claim that Israel and the U.S. should be friends, but that doesn't mean that we always share the same interests, or that we should be shaping our foreign policy in a critical part of the world around what Israel wants.  Pat also nicely deals with the ad hominem attack of "Anti-Semitism" which is cavalierly tossed around by Israel supporters.  Don't get me wrong--I'm not going to be voting for Pat Buchanan.  But this is worth reading. In the same vein, looking around at the limited articles that are available for free at American Conservative has reminded that there is a pretty massive distinction between those who are truly politically conservative and the Republican Party, and that I have a heck of a lot more tolerance for the former, even if I profoundly disagree with much of what conservatism stands for.  The GOP can go straight to hell, though. --Looks like the story about an uprising in Basra turned out to be somewhere between "overblown" and "totally bogus".  I have no faith at all in the crap I see in the news regarding the war, particularly if it's on TV.  I'm increasingly of the opinion that televised media is utterly unreliable--all the news channels (though Fox is BY FAR the worst about this) take rumors and turn them into "Breaking Stories!" or "Fox News Alerts!" or whatever else with seemingly little attempt to check the veracity of the claims made.  This is obviously a problem with print media as well, but given the perceived importance of getting a five minute head start over the other news channels, it's far worse on television.  Other people have written a lot more about this--the declaration of Bush as victor in the 2000 election as the ultimate example--so I'll spare you my layman's analysis for now.  But suffice it to say that I'm sick of it, and that when you throw in the Pentagon, who rightly or wrongly can never be trusted ("The Patriot Missile works every time!") and the Iraqi Information Ministry ("God has spoken to Saddam personally, and he will kill all Americans, and there have been no Iraqi soldiers killed or captured but the US has killed 7500 civilians today") you have a recipe for lies all around. --Does the Bush Administration have no shame whatsoever?  Corporate corruption has riddled the Administration for two years, but now Halliburton gets the firefighting contract, and all of this stuff is coming out about Richard Perle using his position as head of the Defense Policy Board to secure contracts that he has a financial interest in.  A couple of weeks ago, after Seymore Hersh broke the story in the New Yorker, Perle called Hersh a terrorist on Wolf Blitzer's show.  What an asshole.  In other news, I've got some comments about tonights games on March Madness Hyperbole. 2:12:26 PM    Let's hear it. []