BobHarris.com - Can you spot the real threat to national security?

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

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Can you spot the real threat to national security?

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Monday, 08 August 2005

Let's see... there's this guy.

Turns out Bush could have nailed him years ago.

According to the CIA field commander at Tora Bora, U.S. intelligence absolutely knew that Osama Bin Laden was not only present, but virtually trapped. All the CIA and Special Forces guys needed was additional conventional support to cut off his escape, and Bin Laden would have been arrested.

This was in December of 2001.

But Bush and Rumsfeld never sent the additional troops.

And then there's this woman.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan, a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.

She's holed up just down the road from Bush's ranch in Crawford. She's unarmed, nonviolent, and carrying little but questions. She simply agrees with the 61% of Americans who disapprove of Bush's handling of the war. All she's doing is demanding accountability from her elected president.

Ms. Sheehan is receiving a steady series of hassles and threats of arrest on constantly-changing terms.

Curious set of priorities, this.

For a man who talks so much about democracy and freedom, he certainly makes time for some unusual friends.

Those are the oil-rich dictators Abdullah, Nazarbayev, and Karimov. I didn't plan it this way, but the photos are proportioned roughly to the amount of oil they control.

Bush has no problem whatsoever making time for people who (respectively, and just for starters) jail free-speech advocates, persecute opponents, and even open fire on demonstrators.

Bush's attitude toward an American citizen exercising constitutional rights? We already know.

And so, I ask:

Osama Bin Laden or Cindy Sheehan:

Which one will George W. Bush have arrested first?