Letters to the Editor
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"Those preferences -- all based in their own petty personal desires -- couldn't be more obvious in the media narrative spewing forth."
Just to illustrate that point Glenn here is part of a dissection of Scherer's love note to McCain, which I posted yesterday at Digby's.
"He was the brat who racked up demerits at the Naval Academy."
I had a friend who went to the Naval Academy. I and two other friends visited him there. He got demerits almost immediately upon our arrival for closing the door to his room while we were all inside. There is a strict code of conduct which is enforced through the demerit system and it is virtually impossible not to "rack up demerits", but imagine how you might be able to push it further than most when your daddy's an admiral.
"He was the hot dog pilot who went back to the skies weeks after almost dying in a fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal."
I don't know any specifics of this incident but common sense tells me that "the hot dog pilot" was cleared to return to duty just as regulations would mandate. This didn't happen during the Battle of Britain when there were only a relative handful of pilots who had to take to the air under any circumstances. And the implicatiion here that McCain was calling his own shots makes this part of the fantasy more hollywood than high school.
"His first wife was a model. His second wife was a rich girl, 17 years his junior."
His first wife stayed with him through his imprisonment in Vietnam.
He rewarded that loyalty by cheating on her and then divorcing her to marry the younger rich girl and then used her money to launch his political career.
"He kept himself together during years of North Vietnamese torture and solitary confinement."
One thing McCain has been a straight shooter about is that he 'broke' during his time as a P.O.W. That isn't a codsideration and shouldn't be in any evaluation of John McCain in any aspect of his life, but making the clain that "he kept himself together", when he admits and always has that he 'broke' is ridiculous. It would be hard to find two things more polar opposite than 'keeping together' and 'broke'.
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RMP, Ondo
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=34212
this story just in AFTER the "skirmish" with Iran.
CNN had posts up too, about the guys on the boats started dropping boxes overboard-so I'm wondering if these "Iranian fastboats" were military at all. Sounds like if you were just running goods-then you may drop your load-don't know why Iranian military would.
Also the above article is about an entirely new event, that the news is quick to say is not related to the skirmish in the Gulf-of 2 fighter planes that collided(they came from one of the carriers too.)
Again,hard time not seeeing these as related.
WH backing off thier claims-just issuing warning.
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this just in
David Gregory from NBC is on Hardball right now with a $400 haircut and a black turtle neck. If that's not celebrity, I don't know what is.
It's all corporate "blather of the moment."
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The Truth, Unvarnished
Glenn, thanks for being one of the few writers to cover this debacle of a Presidential campaign with some objectivity. It's completely obvious that the mainstream corporate media ignores John Edwards because of some combination of personal dislike and fears over his anti-corporation message. If only other national writers and so-called journalists would learn the meaning of "objective" just as this administration needs to learn the meaning of "habeas corpus."
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RMP
"The really sad thing is that many Americans will see these five small vessels as a serious threat to our enormous, in comparison, ships. So in that respect, it unfortunately, to some degree works."
We should be reminded that the USS Cole was badly damaged and may have been sunk had she been in open waters rather than a relatively calm setting when she was damaged by terrorists using what basically amounts to a rubber dinghy packed with explosives. It ain't always the size of the dog in the fight.
From a diplomatic standpoint, I can see why Bush might want to play with this type of thing immediately prior to a trip to the middle east. He can then exclaim how the mighty US Navy held off from destroying those tiny boats from Iran, even though the Iranians presented a danger to our vessles. OH!, how awfully nice and magnanimous the United States is when dealing with ragtag militants.
Of course, one could take the opposite approach and claim that the boats interfered with our legal right of passage just prior to a Presidential visit just to poke a stick toward Bush's eye (rather than in it) in an attempt to embarrass him (and us).
They don't need to do anything to allow Bush to embarass us. He does fine on his own.
Games.
Oh! I almost forgot.
How easy would it have been for the Republican Guard Yacht Club to do the same thing with a Super Tanker coming out of Iran? Were they sending a message?
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AP update on sea "threat" and F-18s colliding
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080107/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_navy_iran
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Don't Understand Primary Season
The primaries seem to be like watching a baseball game and predicting the winner after each early inning, then coming to an inevitable conclusion after the fourth that the games over. Who needs the rest of the innings when you "know" the winner by the fourth?
What if the primary results were withheld and then only announced after all states reported in. Then people would not have the luxury of putting their money on predicted winners or "front runners", they would have to place their money on the candidate they independently determined supported theirs and the nations best interests. Man that would suck. I guess.
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@Jebbie
He can then exclaim how the mighty US Navy held off from destroying those tiny boats from Iran, even though the Iranians presented a danger to our vessles. OH!, how awfully nice and magnanimous the United States is when dealing with ragtag militants.
Reminds me of little kids, one will get right up in the others space, and say "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" until the other socks him. Then when the fight gets broken up, he says "Bbut he hit me first!"
I mean, yes we have legitimate strategic interests in the area, but how would Americans react to, say, Chinese ships hovering outside our major ports at the same time their leadership threatens a pre-emptive war?