Tag: Afghanistan

A roar of frustration

The coverage of Patrick Kennedy’s spot-on assault on the Washington press corps this moring was more bemused than substantive, as if his red-faced tirade was more interesting for being loud than being right.

But Kennedy was correct in his assessment of the misplaced priorities of the press corps — focusing on Massa ad nauseum (coverage of the Massa fiasco is warranted, but not to the extent that we’ve seen) at the expense of Afghanistan, worrying about the politics of healthcare at the expense of healthcare, ignoring the nearly every issue of real importance to focus on fluff and nonsense.

So, go get ’em Patrick.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Don’t buy war bonds

Sen. Ben Nelson, the conservative Democrat from Nebraska, is pushing the idea of funding the war in Afghanistan by selling government bonds — borrowing an idea that worked well during World War II.

But as this piece points out, the economy has changed, making the bond sale problematic.

More importantly, the Afghan and Iraq wars are not very popular; any funding mechanism based on a voluntary contribution is going to fail.

If we believe these wars are necessary — they aren’t, but if we want to fool ourselves into believing they are — we should be honest and pay for them out of our budget the way we pay for everything else.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.