An aspect of Bush's relationship with Gonzales that I have seen precious little written about is the role Gonzales played to clean up Bush's youthful DWI when Bush first ran for Texas Governor against Anne Richards.

As a Texas resident of over 20 years, I can attest to a persistent rumor that Gonzales made the record of Bush's DWI go away so that it would not become an issue in the Governor campaign.

I believe it is for this service that Bush remains loyal to Gonzales.

Matt

I don't think loading the first few games of the college football season with cupcake opponents is corrupt or whatever because college football requires that any team hoping for a national championship be undefeated. Like it or not, college football is the only sport I can think of that essentially requires its champion to be undefeated. Every single game of the season must be won but college ball has no preseason. The cupcake filled non-conference early games are simply a way of providing a low risk preseason for the elite teams. I am fine with that.

I'm surprised Stephanie Zacharek didn't mention 24 Hour Party People. I know another letter mentions this movie but i just wanted to mention it again. Its good.

The more I read Camille Paglia the more I dislike her. But I'll admit she's one provocative little gadfly.

I hate the accusation that liberals/democrats don't understand the threat from radical jihadism. Apparently only Camille and Christopher Hitchens understand it.

Ok, I'll expose my ignorance of the threat by asking exactly how could a few determined guys take down western civilization? The former soviets must be doing a forehead slapping homer simpson "D'oh!" for having missed this secret vulnerability of the west. The soviets even had nukes and they couldnt do it. Neither could the Nazis. Neither could Imperial Japan. Neither can Hugo Chevez. But Bin Laden can. Does the secret involve taking out the google server? Does it involve installing Bush in the White house in 2000?

If its so easy to take down civilization why they havent they done it already? What are they waiting for?

If the threat is indeed to civilization itself, why aren't we simply incinerating the islamic world like we did to Japan and Germany with firebombing? Shouldn't we just be killing all of them? Paglia cries havok but refuses to let loose the dogs of war. For this reason I suspect that even she recognizes her own hyperbole in portraying the threat as existential to civilization.

I saw "We Own Night" two nights ago at a special screening at Austin's South Lamar Alamo Draft House Theater. I didn't like it. And reading this interview did not help. The analysis in the interview fails to address flaws in simple story telling. Spoiler alert - I am about to discuss specific plot elements.

First - Wahlberg's character bursts into his brother's club on a drug raid and humiliates the drug dealer in public. Later, all the cops seem surprised that Wahlbergs character is the target of revenge!

Second - The father (Robert Duval)is horrible and unlikeable. No one cares when is is killed. Also - you see the hit on the father coming from a mile away. (The car chase sequence, however, is outstanding and will probably justify seeing the movie for a lot of people.) Also, the police procedural dialog is trite and seems dumb in this age of 24/7 Law & Order reruns that have better procedural dialog than this movie. ("we gotta get him before the deal goes down"). The police seem dazzled by having access to someone with 'special knowledge" as if it never occurred to them to go under cover into the club scene. The police seem like alien visitors to earth who only know about the world through what people tell them - they seem to have no direct experience of life outside the police community.

Third - the drug scenes were not believable because we need to be shocked at the sheer quantity of drugs and we're not. We are never shown big ol' piles of drugs. I was expecting to see shipping containers full of coke. Only the dialog informs us that huge quantites of drugs are being moved. (The fur coat thing was just laughable. Gigantic market-shifting volumes of coke are coming in dissolved on fur coats. If the drug volume is so big, the fur coat volume would have to astronomical, no?)

Fourth - At the fur coat scene, Wahlberg announces the police raid with a megaphone giving the bad guys the chance to escape - which they do... out the back door! The police had not surrounded the place!!!!! WTF???

I could go on. The movie struck me as a simplistic post 9-11, cops are the thin blue line saving us from drug dealers/terrorists (all the same nowadays, apparently) even at the cost of their own souls (I supoose - although in this movie I didnt care if any of the cops or juaquin pheonix lost their souls. Their souls seemed vapid to me from the start.)

The movie struck me as a validation of Bush-era keep-america-safe-even-if-we-have-to-destroy-america-to-save-america mentality. if it is intended to be subtly subversive, it is way too subtle.

I do not consider myself a lazy film watcher. I do not like the director blaming the audience for not "getting" the movie he made. If he intended his movie to evoke a different reaction from what he got, then he failed as a story teller. Its not my fault.