Muttering into the void.
Some highlights from the beginning of the week of the Republican covention:
A couple of essays regarding the incompetence and bias of the media, as well as their reliance on pre-determined storylines.
Transcripts of Rudy Giuliani‘s and John McCain‘s speeches. Notice how they’re focusing on the current war, not the one from 30 years ago. McCain: “Our choice wasn’t between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat.”
Arthur Chrenkoff‘s lates collection of good news from Iraq up.
Anybody notice a theme in these reports? Count the number of times you see the phrase “neglected under Saddam” or variants.
Another excellent essay by Krauthammer:
We are unlike Rome, unlike Britain and France and Spain and the other classical empires of modern times, in that we do not hunger for territory. The use of the word “empire” in the American context is ridiculous. It is absurd to apply the word to a people whose first instinct upon arriving on anyone’s soil is to demand an exit strategy. I can assure you that when the Romans went into Gaul and the British into India, they were not looking for exit strategies. They were looking for entry strategies.
Omar at Iraq the Model relates an extremely boring story about going to a restaurant chock-full of Iraqis enjoying their newfound freedom and prosperity.
You sit in a restaurant like this one and see families relaxing with their children playing and having fun late at night and you feel that there’s ‘something’ wrong in the way MSM is dealing with the Iraqi issue. I watch TV and I see hell breaking around me then I go outside and see enough normalcy AND progress to make me believe that the people in the media are not here to report how’s life going but rather they are here reporting pre-prepared stories and to be faced with something that contradicts the picture they have in their minds would be really annoying and will mean more hard work to try to find the truth or something close to it.
(MSM = “Mainstream Media”; seems to be the new buzzword)