Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings Earlier today, commenter NeilS asked about conservative reaction to Bush’s 9/11 address. He wondered if Bush’s “guaranteeing freedom and democracy for the Mideast” doesn’t “frighten them”. I may do a thorough round-up of conservative reaction to the address later today (to post either here or at The Reaction), but […]
Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings Google caved, but Wikipedia is standing up to the forces of totalitarianism, “[defying] the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries”. Of course, Google and Wikipedia aren’t the same thing. The one has shareholders, a share price, and market competitiveness to keep in mind. […]
Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings If you’re not quite aware of the extent of the damage the Bush Administration and its legal underpinners intend to inflict on the United States before they’re done, you ought to check out Glenn Greenwald‘s post from yesterday on former Justice Dept. official and current Berkeley law professor John […]
Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings Vice President Cheney claims that his job “is to think about the unthinkable, to focus upon what in fact the terrorists may have in store for us”. And what a good job he claims to have done. Five years after 9/11 and there hasn’t been another 9/11. Cheney credits […]
Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings I had intended last night to write some stirring response to the president’s 9/11 speech. But it was all so predictable, so divisive, so self-serving that, upon reflection, I just couldn’t see the point. What did he say that we hadn’t heard before, the eternal recurrence of the same […]
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is I’m taking an exceedingly rare day off and will be away from my desk. The good news is I’ve recruited The Reaction‘s Michael J.W. Stickings to, once again, help out in my absence. Stickings did a terrific job filling in for me in April […]
As much as it’s appropriate to use today to reflect on the last five years, it’s equally worthwhile to imagine what the last five years could have been like had our leadership had more noble, and less partisan, goals in mind. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter devoted his Newsweek column to an “alternate” history for the today. […]
I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of this Reuters picture. To be fair, based on the caption, the president was probably supposed to stand on the flag; it’s a carpet commemorating 9/11. Still, given this president and his record, it’s likely to be one of those images that sticks, don’t you think?
The Anbar province — one-third of Iraq — has been a nightmare for quite a while, but it’s reached the point in which one key Marine official quietly told his superiors the region is all but lost. The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that […]
At last Friday’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked Tony Snow about who will be with the president when he visited New York to honor the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Snow responded, “Staff, wife.” The reporter followed up by asking, “Was any thought ever given to a bipartisan delegation being with him?” Snow said […]