The main reason we have troops in Iraq (while Osama is two countries to the east)

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New Zogby poll:

Three-quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Snow White’s seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court justices…

[snip]
Asked what planet Superman was from, 60 per cent named the fictional planet Krypton, while only 37 per cent knew that Mercury was the planet closest to the sun.

Respondents are far more familiar with the Three Stooges – Larry, Curly and Moe – than the three branches of the US Government – judicial, executive and legislative.  Seventy-four per cent identified the former, while 42 per cent identified the latter.

Gaaah.

Actual praise for a TV anchor

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Chuck Roberts on CNN Headline News, interviewing Ned Lamont, just apologized for these comments by saying this:

You know, I owe you an apology.  Last week, I led into an interview with a guest analyst and really botched the set-up.  The guest had wanted to discuss the Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman statements suggesting that terror groups — Al Qaeda types, to use Cheney’s words — would be buoyed by your win, but I posed it badly, stupidly ad-libbing about "some saying Lamont is the Al-Qaeda candidate."  No one, in fact, used that construction.  Anyway, I wanted to correct the record, and I’m glad we had this chance to do it.  Now, let’s get to the insinuations that were lobbed…

After which the guy gave Lamont the chance to rebut Cheney and Lieberman.

Same reservations I always have about news media.  But for once, somebody did the right thing.  Cheers.

PS — Just back from Florida where I had limited access to the Internet, air conditioning, and my own common sense.  This worked out surprisingly well.  More as I unpack.

Why I was cheering for Lamont

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btw, I’d like to confirm that I was rooting for Lamont over Lieberman not because of the latter’s support for a war which has killed tens of thousands of innocents at a cost of hundreds of billions with the net effect of making us less safe while destroying our international reputation and destabilizing the entire mideast.

I mean, who in their right mind could oppose that?

No, precisely as the White House wants you to think, I was rooting against Lieberman only because I have a suicidal wish to die at the hands of fanatics, whose cause I may even secretly sympathize with, despite any liberal’s deep antipathy toward fundmentalism of every stripe.

In fact, 60% of the American people now have no interest in our security and are willing, nay, eager to die at the hands of terrorists.

So once again, the White House is making perfect sense.

Bush Administration Wants To Make Ordering Torture Retroactively Legal

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Didn’t see this on the front pages, what with all the Red Alert! happening the very day after it becomes clear that incumbent war supporters will be in grave danger unless the public is re-convinced on the war.

But this fine nugget was squeezed into page A21 in today’s L.A. Times (about one-fifth the size of the adjacent story on teenagers’ cell phone video preferences — this just in!) following up on this story in the Washington Post:

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.

[snip]
"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That’s why it’s so dangerous," said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Fidell said the initiative was "not just protection of political appointees but also CIA personnel who led interrogations."

Interrogation practices "follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration," said a fourth attorney, Scott Horton. "The administration is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act."

Nice.  You can just smell the democracy on these people.