Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 38 Editor's Choice: 7
-
There will be no report
[Read the article: Don't believe the surge hype]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's worse than you think, Joe.
First, we learned that the long-awaited "Petraeus Report" on the status of the Iraq occupation would be written, not by Gen. David Petraeus, but by Bush aides in the White House.
Now, in a truly astonishing turn of events, we learn that the report will not be written by White House aides. It will not be written at all.
The Washington Times is reporting that there will be no written report presented to congress on the status of the occupation. There will be charts and there will be oral testimony, but there will be no report.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070907/NATION04/109070053&template=nextpage
A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. "There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them by testimony," the officer said.
The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus' opening statement to Congress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use in explaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the past several months.
That testimony will follow the meeting of the president, Gen. Petraeus and Mr. Crocker at the White House.
Gen. Petraeus is expected to tell the president the surge is working but that more work is needed. He is not expected to recommend withdrawing significant numbers of U.S. troops, as the U.S. troop presence is still needed to bolster the slowly growing Iraqi security forces' capabilities.
The picture presented by Mr. Crocker will be critical of the new Iraqi government for not doing more to foster political stability.
There is no report.
After months of expectations, it comes to this. There will be no written report on the status of the occupation. The long-awaited Petraeus Report turns out to be nothing more than another repetition of the same old talking point - we're makin' progress.
The Magical Month of September was never anything more than another delaying tactic. Bush is laughing all the way to January 20, 2009.
Meanwhile, the Democrats in congress still can't summon the courage to bring this nightmare to an end.
-
Homicide: Life on the Street - Best. Show. Ever.
[Read the article: The best TV show of all time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And if anybody disagrees, the terrorists have already won.
-
These people are incredible
[Read the article: The expression "stuck pig" comes to mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It never fails to amaze me how the mere act of playing their own words back to conservatives is characterized as an act of violence.
All Media Matters did was transcribe a recording of Rush Limbaugh denouncing as "phony soldiers" military personnel who oppose Bush's strategy on the war.
All they did was play back a recording of Bill O'Reilly announcing his surprise that black people are, in fact, people.
For this, the group is lumped together with the worst villains that humanity has ever produced. O'Reilly calls them "Nazis." Limbaugh calls them "Stalinists." They compare Media Matters to the mafia and the Klan.
What whiners these "rugged individualists" are! They pose themselves as the toughest guys on the planet, yet run screaming from their own words.
It never occurs to them that their words, and the ideas driving them, might be the real problem.
-
The Republicans are doomed
[Read the article: What you missed while watching "Oprah"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]GOP strategists everywhere are drowning their sorrows in round after round of wood-alcohol cocktails.
-
Weak
[Read the article: An early departure for Hastert?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having the Republicans call you "weak" doesn't make you look weak.
Being weak makes you look weak.
What is it about this that the Democrats don't understand?
-
D'oh!
[Read the article: An early departure for Hastert?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I actually meant to post that "Weak" letter in the FISA capitulation item.
My bad.
-
He is da man
[Read the article: "Fool's Gold"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Donald Sutherland is usually the best thing in whatever movie he is in. In fact, he is often the only watchable thing in a lot of the movies he makes. Think of the big-screen version of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
Which is not to say that he fades into the background in first-rate projects with killer casts. Fox Movie Channel ran Robert Altman's MASH again this week. That was an example of how a great actor stands out in a great ensemble cast.
And I have to say, his cameo in JFK remains my favorite thing in that movie.
You can't keep a real star from shining.
-
O'Reilly is not wrong about torture and surveillance.
[Read the article: Bill O'Reilly's tortured logic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]O'Reilly is lying about torture and surveillance.
He and other advocates of torture and warrantless surveillance could be forgiven (to some degree) for simply not understanding these issues.
But, I simply do not believe that these people are this stupid. Don't get me wrong - they are stupid. I just don't think they are this stupid.
Listening to the president the last couple of days, I realized that he is so desperate to escape accountability for his decisions, that he is willing to look into a camera, and into the faces of journalists, and simply lie to them.
Just one example: Bush's insistence that without "liability protection," corporations will not be "willing" to provide information to the government during terrorism investigations. Can Bush possibly be ignorant of the fact that what these companies might be willing to do is irrelevant if they are served with a warrant for the information in question? Of course, he can't! He has to know this.
But he is willing to take the chance that nobody will challenge him on this obvious falsehood. The administration just does not want to work within the judicial system with regard to the surveillance of American citizens. So, Bush is lying in order to convince people that he shouldn't have to.
And his lapdogs in the right-wing media, aided and abetted by slothful reporters in the mainstream media, are helping him to get away with it.
-
Didn't The Onion used to be a satire site?
[Read the article: Winner of 2008 election accidentally leaked]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When did they start reporting real news?