He has re-signed with the Nets instead of going to the Spurs. Apparently, Alonzo Mourning’s intention to sign with the Nets was enough to keep him there.
But it doesn’t make sense. He’s only getting a few more million over six years to stay in New Jersey, and they don’t have a prayer of ever winning an NBA championship, unlike the Spurs.
In San Antonio, Kidd could help reel off two or three championships in a row, easily. What an idiot.
Dean may not quite be the anti-war candidate, after all. He wants more troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and favors sending troops to Liberia.
As Tom Palmer once told me, “Conservatives favor any war said to be in the national interest. Liberals favor any war not in the national interest.”
Troop morale is really low. Looks like the $4 billion a month price tag is not getting us anything but angry Iraqis.
An Iraqi police officer said it well in a Chicago Tribune story yesterday by E.A. Torriero and Laurie Georing:
“If the Americans want to take over our country, then they have to know what they are doing,” said police Lt. Col. Ehsam Kathom, who looks out his windshield through a bullet hole. “If not, they should give us good guns and let us do the job.”
I don’t think that’s a realistic option at this point, but it nicely illustrates the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
… is altogether amusing, but has yielded what must be one of the top quotes of the year, from Milwaukee Brewers manager Ned Yost (who must have done something terrible in a previous life to deserve that job):
“I just looked over and saw our weiners in a wad,” he said.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Justin Raimondo gets off a funny line in response to Rummy’s backpedaling. Rummy said:
The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light, through the prism of our experience on 9/11.
Raimondo responds, “9/11 must have ripped a hole in a space-time continuum, and repealed the laws of logic as well as those governing international relations.” It sure seems like Dubya & Co. believe that.
OK, so Dubya & Co. knew beforehand that their claim about Iraq’s buying uranium from Niger was bogus.
It’s part of a larger pattern of deception the administration engaged in in the leadup to the war. Does it matter?
Objectively, of course it does. But does it matter to the voters? Will this become WeaponsGate, or will it just slide off Dubya’s back like so many other things have?
I think it depends on how things go in Iraq. If, by this time next year, we’re still losing a soldier a day to Iraqi insurgents, Hussein’s still at large, no WMD have been found, and we’re not really any closer to some kind of peaceful democratic Iraqi state, then how we got into the war will become a matter of greater concern to the public.
From the beginning with Iraq, there was a debate about the war’s necessity. Dubya & Co. knew that Americans traditionally are very reticent to fight unnecessary wars. So they lied — about the Al Qaeda connection, about nukes, about WMD, about pretty much everything — to convince the booboisie the war was crucial to U.S. security.
The elites knew better. They knew it was an entirely optional war. Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of Hussein once and for all? Sure, why not. Let’s do it. What the heck?
Those against the war stood strong on the ground that every war is a gamble with fate and shouldn’t be fought unless absolutely necessary to avert greater tragedy. And on the basis of the evidence, such as it was, Iraq certainly didn’t meet that test.
Now it appears that the United States is, if not losing the gamble on Iraq, definitely stretching the odds. Our horse is struggling to place. Where that horse is down the stretch next year will determine to a great extent what role Iraq plays in the 2004 presidential election.
Who the Democrats nominate for president is also crucial. Though I sense that Kerry is calculating enough to turn against Dubya on Iraq if and when necessary for political advantage, it may take someone with Dean’s tenacity to really keep the issue in the forefront of the news and to really hammer home on Iraq if the bad news keeps rolling in.
The problem is Dean is already being brushed off by the news media as a hot head. So, if the one presidential candidate who’s been hardest on Dubya on Iraq and has momentum (unlike Graham and Kucinich) is already being tagged as a fringe character, what chance does the anti-war crowd really have to make some progress on the war front — to get out of Iraq and to bring the troops home?
The fourth estate won’t do it on its own — it just can’t keep up the pressure for that long. And with Republicans controlling Congress, any Congressional investigations will be scuttled at the president’s pleasure.
For all these reasons, I’m pessimistic that all the news of Dubya’s deception on Iraq will gain any traction, unless Iraq gets really bad and the Democratic candidate has not only the cojones to take on Dubya on foreign policy but also some measure of sympathy from the news media reporting on the race.
(Also posted to Stand Down: No War Blog.)
kboreilly.com 