Soccer Dad

Watchers of weasles 11/01/2006

The Watcher of Weasels has this week's nominations up. Here are the Council nominations.

AbbaGav considers the depths to which the media sinks to make an issue of torture.

The question actually asked here is getting remarkably close to "have you stopped beating your wife" levels of unanswerability. Of course the Vice President went out of his way to make his answer clear. Could simple honesty and clarity be enough for the press and left-leaning organizations to understand? No I don't think so, and the administration didn't think so either. Which is why some further clarification was needed to make sure no one misrepresented Cheney's answer as being connected to the specific issue of "water boarding" which is apparently the torture du jour in some parts:

The American Future worries about the American present; specifically how to vote. On one hand the war in Iraq has not been prosecuted well, on the other, what message would he send as a voter if the Democrats win?

But the other members of the Axis of Evil—Iran and North Korea—are still out there, and they are more dangerous now than they were two years ago. Iran is closer to having the Bomb and North Korea has conducted a nuclear test. Because it has been mismanaged, the duration of the Iraq war has been far greater than was anticipated. As a result, our armed forces are stretched thin and, perhaps more importantly, the American people have little stomach for another military action, no matter how necessary it may become. Out of both military and political necessity, Bush the unilateralist has become Bush the multilateralist. Some might say he's become positively Clintonesque. As someone who doubts the efficacy of diplomacy not backed by the credible threat of force, this greatly concerns me.

Done with Mirrors follows up last week's post by the Glittering Eye on piracy, with a previous example of an American failure of nerve and the subsequent price paid. What's next if America's nerves fail now?

But the Marines' victory, when it came, was almost an embarrassment to the administration, since the diplomats were working things out smoothly with the tyrant, agreeing in principle, haggling over prices. They made sure Eaton and his followers never had a chance. The administration not only paid ransom, it accepted a treaty with a clause that set a going ransom rate for U.S. prisoners, thus encouraging the pirates to try to take more of them.

The Education Wonks write about the Florida Legislature's decision to reverse last year's legislation allowing students to brink knives to school and wonders

Just out of curiosity, I wonder what percentage of the Sunshine State's lawmakers send their own offspring to private schools?

Gates of Vienna considers a case of a husband accused of mutilation but suspects that something else is going on. One doubt:

I’ve looked at some of the blogosphere’s reaction to this trial, and it seems to be generally assumed that this is a case of Shar’ia law at work. However, there is no indication that this man is a Muslim; Ethiopia has a mixture of religions, and is about one-third Muslim.

The Glittering Eye considers the Hungarian revolution and the Beirut marine barracks bombing and the similar American response to each. (For some reason I can't copy and paste an excerpt.)

JoshuaPundit considers a parable of Rats in the Kitchen. Surrender is not an option.

Today marks the anniversary of two incidents that I think bear some reflection. It’s the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. It’s also the anniversary of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers were killed by a suicide bomber. If you’re not familiar with either or both incidents, I’m not going to bother recapping them here—go the links I’ve provided. The picture above is of a demonstration at the outset of the uprising which took place 50 years ago today.

Rhymes with Right thinks that the overreaching of the New Jersey Supreme Court in the matter of gay marriage has given the GOP an issue to run on.

Now the problem here should be obvious to anyone who isn't looking at the decision from a "results-oriented" perspective. The justices do not find a right to gay marriage in the state's Constitution -- and then go on to overturn the status quo anyway on vague theory taht "the status quo is intolerable". They order that the legislature act in 180 days to create gay marriage -- in fact, whetehr or not they do so in name. And the minority dissented not because of this radical judicial activism -- no, they don't feel the court was activist enough! they wanted teh court to create gay marriage and implement it through judicial fiat! In both cases, however, they ignore th specific policy decisions of the state legislature to NOT create gay marriage when they passed a domestic partnership law.

Right Wing Nuthouse criticizes George Allen's latest attack on James Webb. He'd rather see an eventual concilliation between those two candidates like a reconcilliation that took place over 200 years ago.

In the end, Jefferson and Adams healed the wounds from that campaign and, in the most remarkable of exchanges in the history of American letters, explored the philosophy and politics that made up the basis of the grand experiment in democracy in which they both played such a vital role. Their letters – affectionate, teasing at times, and thoughtful – prove that even the rankest of political enemies can find common ground if a modest effort is made.

Shrinkwrapped critiques "Flags of our Fathers". (for some reason I can't copy text from Shrinkwrapped either.)

Sundries Shack writes about John Kerry reporting for foot in mouth duty.

There’s just no way at all that a veteran who once accused his compatriots of war crimes before Congress would ever accuse them of being stupid. Oh no. That would be beyond the pale. And how dare those mean ol’ Republicans make up some controversy just because he offhandedly accused your friends and family of being undereducated dunderheads!

My contribution is The best hasbarah

Technorati tag: Technorati tag:Watcher's Council.

Posted by SoccerDad at November 1, 2006 6:04 AM