Friday, December 09, 2005

The Scarlet Letter   In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the telling letter was an "a", which stood for adultery.  In the President's new slogan, the telling thing is the lack of a letter "a", whose absence stood for years of aimlessness in Iraq.  The problem with the President's slogan, "Plan for Victory", is that without being prefaced by an "a", it makes the word "plan" a verb instead of a noun.  In other words, he announced last week that after well over two years in Iraq, the administration has only just begun looking into winning the war in Iraq.  This is very discouraging indeed, since nearly all Americans had imagined this administration wanted to win the war in Iraq before last week. But evidently not.  Because only last week did they begin to plan for victory.  Maybe in two or three more years they will have developed "A Plan For Victory". 7:37:33 PM    comment []

Secretary Rice Makes a Legalistic Defense of American Virtue   In Germany, Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice declared that the United States does not torture.  This follows the government line that torture is illegal, and whatever the government does is not illegal, therefore, if the government did it, it is not torture.  Q.E.D.  She also declared that we do not send people to other countries for the purpose of seeing them tortured.  Now, this might confuse the casual listener, but it's actually a piece of sophistry on the same high par with the declaration we do not torture.  We send them to foreign countries, in a process known as rendition, in order to get information.  As a result, they are tortured.  But the purpose of sending them abroad was to get information.  That these folks are tortured is merely a side (benefit?) effect, a (happy?) accident.  America is as pure as the driven snow, she seems to be saying, although oh! how we have drifted. 12:07:38 PM    comment []