Your Choice: Laugh, Scream or Cry!
By SusanUnPC on October 7, 2007 at 2:08 PM in Iraq, Joseph Wilson
Sunday funnies — from Mike Soraghan for The Hill: “Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby to jail. ‘He was not terribly exercised about it’, Novak said. Instead, Wilson focused on not being portrayed as simply an opponent of the Iraq war. Wilson also stressed that his wife went by his last name, Wilson, rather than Plame, Novak said. …” (There’s more below the fold, but grab a hankie before you read the rest of Robert’s sad tale.)
This from McClatchy is a bona fide screamer! “The latest problem with the trouble-plagued new U.S. embassy complex in Iraq is that the sprinkler systems meant to contain a fire do not work, according to officials in Congress and the State Department. The previously undisclosed problem in the $592 million project was discovered several weeks ago when the fire-safety systems were tested and pipe joints burst. … In May, when kitchen facilities at a guard camp that is part of the embassy complex were tested, the electrical system malfunctioned and wires melted. A subsequent inquiry showed that First Kuwaiti had used counterfeit electrical wiring. …”
And here’s another howler from Glenn Kessler for the Washington Post via TalkLeft. Jerilyn writes:
Aside from the ridiculous cost and a State Department report saying the U.S. will pay an additional $144 million because the workmanship done so far is shoddy, can someone explain why the U.S. is building the largest U.S. embassy in the world in Iraq?
Jerilyn then quotes Kessler’s story:
The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million. The core project was supposed to have been completed by last month, but the timetable has slipped so much that the State Department has sought and received permission from the Iraqi government to allow about 2,000 non-Iraqi construction employees to stay in the country until March.
Paddy at Cliff Schecter’s blog has attached an apt video to the McClatchy story:
Back to Novak — CRY ME A RIVER!
Novak said his critics, including those in the press, have attacks his ethics, when in fact their quarrel was with his ideology.
“I was stunned by how little editorial support I received. I was under assault from editorial writers from across the country,” Novak said. “It is startling how little is known about this case by the people who are commenting on it.”
He said his case shows the need for a shield law like the one approved last week by a Senate committee. But he added, “Is it not hypocritical for my critics to support a law that would have saved me from three years of confrontation?”
You can read more blubbering, obfuscations, lies, — and, dare we say, self-serving bullshit?! — at The Hill.
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UPDATES for your amusement — and for those for whom these stories produce anxiety, all I can say is get a sense of humor! And, lastly, there’s a moment of sanity:
Glenn Beck to Muslim-American guest:
“How do we know the difference between you and those that are trying to kill us?” In Nov. 2006, Beck made a similar comment to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). “I have been nervous about this interview with you,” Beck said, “because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’”
(Remember when CNN Headline News had headline news stories?)
When they were sane — when torture wasn’t in the cards — “Fort Hunt’s Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII,” Washington Post, Oct 5, 2007:
Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.
“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.
…
Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army’s Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
“I feel like the military is using us to say, ‘We did spooky stuff then, so it’s okay to do it now,’ ” said Arno Mayer, 81, a professor of European history at Princeton University.
Truly remarkable. And all the moreso for me since I’ve been watching The War on PBS, and can only imagine the hostility and anger that every American soldier had to have against those in the German military.
by Ronald Scott
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