At first, a good list. The question is whether we have willing sellers and whether we have enough cash. But it is worth making the effort.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
Stresses and strains — the troops on overload
Here is an outstanding story from Salon on the ingredients that, when stirred together, may have resulted in the massacre at Haditha.
The mirage of Zarqawi
Way too much of the coverage of the assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has taken the form of what might best be called military envy or some kind — stories focusing on the technical aspects of the assault that seem to revel in its violent details and not on what Zarqawi’s death means.
Luckily, we can turn to commentary from folks like Eric Alterman, who writes that the administration probably could have had him four years ago but that would have interfered with the justification for Bush’s war.
Citing several published sources, Alterman offers this final bit of analysis:
Bush didn’t go after Zarqawi because he was useful in developing an argument for war—even though that argument was based on lies. Tens of thousands have died, trillions of dollars have been wasted and who knows how many terrorists have been created as a result of his all-but-criminal negligence. Read all about it here.
Stan Goff on The Huntington Post puts in words something I’d always thought — that the administration blows these supposed terrorist leaders into terrorist legends with the idea that they can then use them to craft the story line they want to tell, that
the war is about terrorism, after all, and we are the good guys; the lives lost will not be in vain, and we will really “turn the corner” this time… the Iraqis and the world will see that we are a benign and beneficial nation.
But this time, he writes, with things going so badly on all fronts in the war and at home, as well, the bump in the polls is likely to be short, the benefit to the president’s poll numbers ephemeral.
(T)he attention-deficit disorder of the media and a society inebriated on the instant gratification of the consumer bacchanalia will watch this triumphalism fade, in days, not weeks, and the grating realities of our culture’s meaningless drudgery and vacuous need to be entertained, the steadily mounting casualties, rising gas prices, the Haditha massacres… all of it, will return. When it does, the draught will be that much more bitter. The war will continue. The blood will spill. Even fewer people will retain the capacity to fall, yet again, for the old Turning-the-Corner parlor trick.
In the end, he writes,
“They won’t have Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh to kick around any more,” to coin a phrase. No they won’t; and it will be their loss. Zarqawi will be sorely missed in Washington.
Failed amendment will be back
Anyone who thinks today’s U.S. Senate vote on a proposed constitutional amendment is the last word on the issue is sadly mistaken.
Cultural conservatives are prepared to go to the mat on this, while the GOP leadership sees it as a way to distract its conservative base from the Bush administration’s incompetence in Iraq and failed economic policies at home.
So, while the amendment is dead in the Senate for the rest of the year, it will make an appearance in the House and in an array of election races through November. Ugh.
Seven Republican moderates, by the way, who have been holding the president’s bag — in confirming Judge Alito, for instance — showed a bit of spine today, which could/should be seen as good news, though they remain unreliable and far from independent.
Let the race begin
Well, it’s finally over, this ugly, dirty little campaign.
Some quick thoughts:
I knew it was going to be close when I saw that there were at least as many Debra Johnson for mayor signs on local lawns as there were Frank Gambatese signs.
And I knew it would be ugly when Ms. Johnson came to us to explain her work problems, an obvious attempt to get in front of an issue that was likely to dog her campaign. Having watched campaigning around here for 16 years, I knew the Democrats would use whatever they could to maintain the status quo (this is something that both parties have engaged in over the years).
And I knew that we’d all breath a sigh of relief when it was over. It is over — whew.
Hank Kalet 