….if one's knowledge of the war in Iraq were confined to the news pages of The New York Times, one would believe that we are (yet again) making Great Progress there, that things are going swimmingly well, and that Victory is right around the corner..

Why doesn’t the editorial board of the New York Times take their own reporters seriously? Here’s what they wrote today:

But Americans must be equally honest about the fact that keeping troops in Iraq will only make things worse. The nation needs a serious discussion, now, about how to accomplish a withdrawal and meet some of the big challenges that will arise.

Where do they come up with such outlandish ideas? Why don’t they believe Michael “victory is just around the corner” Gordon’s latest report from Iraq?

It’s as if they know their own reporters (at least certain ones) have become the “designated stenographers” for the latest propaganda out of Dick Cheney’s office. It’s almost as if the Times has cut a deal with the administration to continue to report Cheney’s latest talking points as “fact” in their news pages in return for continuing to be allowed to give a completely different viewpoint on their editorial page.

There is no way that today’s editorial could be written if the editorial board actually believed what Michael Gordon writes. That contradiction needs to be explored further.

Do they even expect us to believe reporting from Gordon anymore? Or, do they expect us oh-so-savvy readers to know that he’s just “Cheney’s mole in the liberal media.”

Worse still, it means that if the Government breaks the law in secret, it can be immune from being held accountable in a court because no one individual can ever prove that they were directly and uniquely harmed by the illegal conduct, and thus would lack standing to sue.

Whew. I do believe that Yossarian would let out a respectful whistle at the beauty of the Bush administration being rewarded (legally) for having broke the law.

From Catch 22:

Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he [Yossarian] observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

Eventually Yossarian learns there’s even more beauty to Catch-22 because it doesn’t actually exist. It’s power lies in the claim that it does and the world believes that it does in fact exist – which makes it so potent. And, since it doesn’t really exist, there’s no way it can be repealed.

Hmmmmm.

The day after the election the disappointment was palpable. It wasn't just a little mistake - Americans clearly liked and chose Dubya. End of story for them. They didn't know who we were anymore.

No, and neither did the people in Chicago, where the disappointment was also palpable. I remember meeting with friends after the election and it was like a funeral where we all discussed a close friend who had unexpectantly died and we were trying to make sense of it. Suddenly, we no longer recognized the America we grew up in, we weren’t sure who we were anymore, or what we stood for as a country.

I remember all the web pages on the internet where Americans said “Sorry” to the rest of the world – we wanted them to know that there were lots of Americans who were just as lost as they were in trying to figure out what the election meant about who America was and what it was becoming.

…public opinion of America has fundamentally changed over the last six years because our behavior in the world, our national character and our defining values have fundamentally changed…. If America's behavior hasn't changed profoundly, then what explains that shift?

Our behavior, character and values have been defined by the neo-conservatives for the last six years. Those values and character traits are fundamentally opposite of what America has always strived to be and that’s been reflected in our behavior and the open contempt with which we’ve shown the rest of the world.

In the Sinclair Lewis’ book It can’t happen here one of the characters (Sissy) says in exasperation of what was happening in America, “I don’t know what to think! Oh, damn!... Now it seems as if whatever’s right is wrong.”

That’s what the neo-cons have done to this country. Everything that was wrong – torture, genocide, contempt for the law and the Constitution etc. – is now, suddenly “right” or, at least, has become “American.”

That is what the world is responding to.

I think we’d be amazed at how the world would respond to a new American leader who openly and proudly condemned and repudiated the neo-con values and policies that have been in effect for the last 6 years. Our credibility wouldn’t be immediately restored, but the change in how the world views us would be dramatic.