I haven’t written much on this topic, mostly because what I have seen has been mainly speculation, innuendo, and wishful thinking upon the part of those supporting anything and everything related to the Bush administration and equally unrealistic speculation, innuendo, and wishful thinking by those opposing anything and everything related to the Bush administration.

However, things appear to be coming to a head and some reasonable conclusions are now possible.

For example, the author of Bloggledygook tries to make some kind of sense of the tale of Judith Miller as published in The New York Times, and his conclusion is that the two accounts, that of Miller and of The New York Times itself, can at best be described as “semantically null.”

The failure is not his analysis, which is quite good, the failure is that of The New York Times, in publishing the initial articles by Judith Miller that were blatantly biased in both cheerleading and advocating the case for the Iraq War, and in continuing to publish the subsequent rationalizations for the war when the original reasons were found to be false along with the additional tripe that Ms. Miller persisted in writing until her (perhaps fortunate) incarceration.

Do the math, folks…

Liberal bias?

Not always…

I have more than a few thoughts on the issue of the credibility (or lack thereof) remaining in the current Bush administration, but while I gather together my arguments and theories, you can read what Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice says is his view of the matter.

A wee bit exaggerated, perhaps?

A somewhat rambling post at Centerfield voices some of the thoughts I have had with respect to the prophecies of doom I have read in the past few years, especially in regards to the so-called “war on terror” (as I wrote earlier, a war on a tactic??? …be real, please).

Perhaps, one day, I will actually finish and publish the post I have in the works on this topic, something that has grown to 3000+ words that I doubt many would finish reading yet still does not encompass all of my thoughts.

Sigh… I think that I think too much.

In an interesting transformation, “Not Donnie” at Cadillac Tight has been writing a quasi-biography of the proprietor of that weblog, Donnie. The beginning is best described in the opening of the first post (NOTE: all the original formatting has been retained):

Goddamn, people. Look around this place, would you?

Here’s a 40+ (way fucking plus, mind you) gentleman, who has never worked in politics, pontificating his ass off, using web space he pays for himself to broadcast to the world at large his opinions on matters he really, in the end, knows dick about. Oh, wait, fuck me, this is a blog, right? I guess that’s supposed to excuse the wild assed opinions you see published here on an all too regular basis.

Well, excuse me if I don’t buy into that shit - Citizen’s press indeed. Christ.

Let me tell you a little story about a man who started a Weblog, OK?

I confess that I agree with the attitude shown by “Not Donnie” in terms of the contempt shown for us amateurs opining on everything under the sun and expecting to be taken seriously. This is exactly why I often wonder about my underlying reasons for continuing to post on politics and current events.

I have nothing to add other than it is an interesting read, to say the least, and I look forward to the next installment.

So, here are the links:

Part I

Part II

Part III

The apparent confusion over the vote in Iraq this weekend as noted by Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice reminds me of this quote:

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
   -Ben Hecht (1893 - 1964)

This is another case where we all need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and think, not simply react according to our political leanings.

The Commissar of The Politburo Diktat notes that Hugh Hewitt appears to be linking the “war on terror” to the Harriet Miers nomination for Associate Justice to the United States Supreme Court.

The Commissar poses the following, serious and not intended to be snarky question (his description, the emphasis is from the original post):

What, if any, policies of the President might Hugh Hewitt not support, if this rationale applies to the Miers’ nomination? Is there anything that the President could propose, anyone he could nominate, any action he might take that Hugh would not so justify?

Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid.

It would have been nice if some of the more rational folks within shouting distance of the right-wing had noticed this trend of linking everything to the grand “war on terror” (a war on a tactic??? get real…) before the President and his staff subjected us to the cascade of incompetence and idiocies perpetrated in the last 4 years.

Better late than never?

Not always, sometimes late is worse than never, but in this case, I hope that old saw is true.