John Brown is too lazy to write a detailed post on a single topic... Dot-dot-dot ramblings ala King...

In honor of Larry King, still revered as the ultimate "lazy man's columnist", I'm going dot-dot-dot today...

Larry King is 124 years old and has a kid who's 9. That's weird enough. Even stranger? King is a volunteer little league coach for the munchkin. And he's one of those coaches. You know, the grown-ups who completely ruin it for the kids...

Maureen Dowd thinks Hillary is performing a vital function by being an asshole--training Barack Obama to handle future asshole onslaughts. Of course, Dowd dresses it up in opera analogies, but that's the gist of her column. Somehow, it's now okay to be a phony "blue-collar mama" and to be a political Monster if the insanity serves to forge a stronger opponent? Dowd has a problem with means/ends distinctions...

Everyone in the world seems to be experiencing shock and awe at the audacity of Iraq's newborn government. Apparently, its decision to do something on its own not only surprised its keepers (including John McCain), it also didn't work out all that well. Pro-occupation people: If you're gonna run this show, run it. Pro-pullout people: Consider what you'll get if the Iraqi's do "step up". It's gonna be messy either way...

Ted Turner says that we'll all be eating one another for dinner after global warming hoses the planet in 30 or 40 years. Not quite, Ted. Warming will cause a rapid ice age onset and Dennis Quaid will go rescue his kid. It will be creepy and dangerous, but no cannibalism. If the Quaid scenario doesn't kick in, I just pray that I don't get stuck eating the head of Ted Turner. The idea of picking his wiry white mustache hairs from between my teeth is disconcerting...

Linda Lutz-Rolon may be right. She might be wrong. I don't know. I do know that she is a serious ass-kicker. The American Airlines flight attendant received an award for her top-notch service, which included more than giving people 2 oz. of 7-up on top of 6 oz. of ice. Anyway, when she got the award--cameras rolling--she went apeshit on the airlines. This tale is so freaking fresh that I can't even find a good link for it yet. Linda=Guts...

The Kansas City Royals are undefeated. Yeah, they have 160 upcoming opportunities to lose. Nonetheless, having the Royals in 1st place for more than one day is a gift from God. Every season baseball fans invent bullshit scenarios in which their favorite teams win it all. Every season. Those hopes are usually dashed before the All-Star game. If you back the Royals, they're usually vanquished before May Day. Still, the wishful thinking continues year after year. In a culture of cynicism and pessimism, spring baseball is important. It's a reminder that we can be a little hopeful and optimistic. At least for a week or so. Today, Zack Greinke takes the hill against Jeremy Bonderman. The Royals hot opening cools. Then again, maybe not. I'm hopeful. It will be fun to watch the game in Detroit...

Unless Larry King shows up...

Oh, and I'm so sick of this Clinton vs. Richardson thing that I might vomit. Or write a long post about it later. I'll leave it up to you to discern whether there's really much of a difference there.




Technorati Tags: larry king, barack obama, hillary clinton, baseball, royals, greinke, tigers, american airlines, linda lutz-rolon, hope, ted turner, cannibalism, global warming, al gore, maureen dowd, Iraq, Del.icio.us Tags: larry king, barack obama, hillary clinton, baseball, royals, greinke, tigers, american airlines, linda lutz-rolon, hope, ted turner, cannibalism, global warming, al gore, maureen dowd, Iraq, Furl Tags: larry king, barack obama, hillary clinton, baseball, royals, greinke, tigers, american airlines, linda lutz-rolon, hope, ted turner, cannibalism, global warming, al gore, maureen dowd, Iraq,

Romney bitch-slaps McCain... Good for him...

Let it be known that John Brown is not a fan of Mitt Romney. That being said, I find John McCain's crock of shit misrepresentations of Romney's position on the war in Iraq a perfect example of all that is wrong about American political discourse and campaigning.

I recently explained my distaste for McCain's pre-Florida efforts to paint Romney as a "cutter and runner" who favored timetables for troop pullbacks. McCain, who loves to claim he's all about "straight talk" twisted words like pretzels in order to lock down a victory in the sunshine state. It was a repulsive bit of politicking that did absolutely nothing to explain, clarify, amplify or improve the Republican nomination process or the country. It was disgusting.

The Republican debate at the Reagan Library featured a prolonged exchange between Romney and McCain over the "timetable" argument.

Romney bitch-slapped McCain. Romney clarified his position, explained the context of the comments made over a year ago and even called McCain on the right-before-Florida timing of the attacks.

McCain's responses were weak and desperate. He refused to yield an inch and continued to repeat his accusations. Mitt Romney called his bullshit and lit into McCain, asking how Johnny Boy became the expert on Mitt's own positions.

I originally thought that this detour into nonsense on the part of the Straight Talk Express might come back to bite McCain's ass in a general election. Based on my viewing of the debate, his gamble with outright dishonesty is already haunting him. McCain looked silly. That silliness was exacerbated by his lack of grace, his non-sequitir comments about Romney's money and his unwillingness to back away from his own misstatements.

Way to squander your momentum, McCain.

Wrapping up the debate:

Winner: Romney
Loser: McCain
No change: Huckabee
No significance: Paul






Technorati Tags: debates, republicans, McCain, Romney, huckabee, Iraq, timetables Del.icio.us Tags: debates, republicans, McCain, Romney, huckabee, Iraq, timetables Furl Tags: debates, republicans, McCain, Romney, huckabee, Iraq, timetables

Saddam lied... Fear of Iran greater than fear of US... Bad strategy and its snowball effect...

George Piro, an Arabic-speaking FBI dude, will be the star of some must-see TV on Sunday. An interview with Piro will appear on CBS' venerable 60 Minutes and will create another wave of discussion about Iraq and our government's incorrectly-held belief that Saddam was sitting on a heap of WMDs.

The US government positioned Piro as an envoy with access to Bush. They made him Saddam's key contact after he was excised from the spider hole. Piro was Saddam's go-to guy for paper, pens, toiletries, etc. Eventually, Piro asked questions. Saddam provided answers.

Those discussions indicate that the US intelligence community and President George W. Bush's administration were completely faked out by Saddam. Saddam didn't have WMDs. He did, however, want the world to think he did. He incorrectly believed that the illusion of WMDs served as a shield against Iranian attack, Piro said.

That's why Saddam would unconvincingly deny possession of forbidden weapons while simultaneously being a pain in the ass for UN inspectors and others who wanted to validate his half-hearted assertion. Hussein was walking a pretty thin strategic line--trying to scare one batch of enemies enough to keep them at bay while simultaneously trying to appease other possible enemies to keep them from going ballistic, according to the FBI guy.

Saddam goofed. He managed to avoid any nastiness with the Iranians, but he failed to keep the US from invading.

Based on accounts of Piro's upcoming interview, Saddam admitted the strategic miscue. He also wrongly figured that if the US did take action, we'd just bomb the crap out of him for a few days again. He was ready to accept that fate. He wasn't ready for an all-out boots-on-the-ground war, though. Of course, that's what he got. Now he's dead.

He lost power, hid in a hole, grew crazy hair, had a wacky trial, heard about his kids being killed, and eventually suffered a humiliating death via the ol' neck-snap. His "strategy" turned out to be a Massive Error.

On the other hand, Bush and those who supported the invasion of Iraq screwed up just as badly. They fell for the line directed toward the Iranians instead of the one sent to Washington.

It seems almost unimaginable to me that the generally brilliant people in our intelligence community and the higher echelons of the executive branch were unable to discern which messages were posturing on the part of Hussein to stave off regional problems and which were not.

I find it much easier to believe that analysts and proponents of a military mission to Iraq didn't intentionally interpret some of Saddam's bullshit as proof of a legitimate threat, though. I think there were people who knew better than to believe some of the mixed message but decided to do so in order to create justification for the invasion.

I could be wrong, of course. Saddam might have been fibbing. Piro could be goofy, too. I don't know the guy or anything.

In the interests of being fair about the whole thing, it is worth mentioning that Piro will also state that Saddam did have the capabilities to create WMDs if he so desired. He had the infrastructure and engineers to get the job done if he felt like a little chem-bio warfare was necessary. I guess that's good news for those who refuse to believe that Bush & Co. couldn't have been THAT wrong...

My point here isn't to mock the Bush Administration. I could do that. In fact, I could probably do a helluva job. There's plenty of material with which to work. I can think of many errors in judgment and failures in execution. That really isn't the point, though...

The point is, if Piro is a straight-shooter, that Saddam's bluff for Iran ended up being a key part of why we were goaded into war. Those who like to yell "Bush lied" can refine their understanding of how he got the raw material to craft his story. Now we have our own little Iran problem brewing while we try to figure out how to handle an increasingly complicated situation in Iraq.

This mess stems from either (a) our inability to correctly interpret Saddam's motivations, situations and actual capacities or (b) our unwillingness to do so.

Either way, we sucked almost as bad as Saddam.

And I say WE for a reason. It's easy for those of us who generally vote with the Democrats to forget, but in the days after 9/11 and during the lead up to the war in Iraq, many of us (not me, but many) and most of the elected leadership were on board with the war. I know it stinks, but the decision to go in there was really about as bipartisan as anything to come from Washington in recent memory.

Blame whoever... I choose everyone. The world can be a complicated place. Sometimes you're stuck dealing with liars--our own liars and the ones on the other side. When things get muddled, your best hope is to find someone with the smarts and the guts to think harder, look more closely and stand up when it's not easy. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough people like that around when the war drums started beating, did we?



Technorati Tags: George Piro, Piro, Saddam, Saddam Hussein, George Bush, War, Iraq, Iran, WMDs, WMD, Politics, Del.icio.us Tags: George Piro, Piro, Saddam, Saddam Hussein, George Bush, War, Iraq, Iran, WMDs, WMD, Politics, Furl Tags: George Piro, Piro, Saddam, Saddam Hussein, George Bush, War, Iraq, Iran, WMDs, WMD, Politics,