Monday, January 28, 2008

They Need to be Stopped

It pains me to realize that we have over 10 months of this to look forward to:

So President Bush has delivered his last State of the Union. And what everyone in the House press gallery is talking about isn't the speech. Rather, it's the snub.

Sen. Barack Obama refused to make himself available to greet Sen. Hillary Clinton before the speech.

When members of the Senate entered the chamber, Obama came in before Clinton. He went out of his way to greet as many House members as possible and walked halfway across the chamber to greet members of the Supreme Court, the president's cabinet, the military joint chiefs.

That made what happened next even more striking. Obama returned to stand by his seat next to Sen. Edward Kennedy who endorsed Obama today in a widely watched event that reverberated across the political world.

As Clinton approached, Kennedy made sure to make eye contact and indicated he wanted to shake her hand. Clinton leaned towards Kennedy over a row of seats and Kennedy leaned in towards her. They shook hands.

Obama stood icily staring at Clinton during this, then turned his back and stepped a few feet away. Kennedy may've wanted to make peace with Clinton but Obama clearly wanted no part of that.

The sense in the press gallery was that Obama didn't cover himself in glory. Someone even used the word "childish." (Not this writer.) Judging by how much conversation there was about this brush off in the press gallery, Americans will be hearing a lot more about this tomorrow and in coming days.

I am not sure if this happened or not and I don't give a flying f#%k if it did. Do you want to know why? Because I am an adult and realize that in real life these things happen. I realize that in politics not everything can be gumdrop ponies and ice cream castles. Unfortunately, the press corps would rather act like a bunch of chattering school girls and gossip then actually give us something of substance.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Who did what to who?

From the write up for 60 Minutes tonight-
For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking. But you are going to hear more than has ever been revealed before.

After his capture, Saddam met every day with one man, an American he knew as "Mr. George." George is FBI agent George Piro, who was the front man for a team of FBI and CIA analysts who were trying to answer some of the great mysteries of recent history. What happened to the weapons of mass destruction? Was Saddam in league with al Qaeda? Why did he choose war with the United States?

There is no doubting Saddam's general horribleness, but did he really draw us into war the second time? I thought there was a general consensus that this was a war of choice for the Bush administration. It kind of scares me to see this framed as Saddam's choice.