Many, many years ago, when I was working as a news writer at KQV Radio, the all-news station in Pittsburgh (where Dave Land and I became friends) we got periodic phone calls from a woman we called The Martian Lady. One of those calls came shortly after the president had visited an island off the coast of South Carolina. Comparing pictures of him before and after the trip, she concluded that he was not the same person and informed me that the Russians had cloned the president.
I just read the following and I may have just become the Martian lady, because, well, who the heck is this guy calling himself the president, who said this: "People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," the president said. "I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought. This is not an issue of who's [a] patriot and who's not patriotic. It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq." On the other hand, the same guy seems to still inhabit the body of the Secretary of Defense: 'On CNN's "Late Edition," Rumsfeld called Murtha "a fine person," but added that "just as everyone can say what they want, we also have to think of what the words mean to the enemy."' I don't give a hoot what "the enemy" thinks of us. Our true enemies haven't earned the right to have their opinions respected. 'Rumsfeld went on to say that "very little support went to Jack Murtha" after the congressman spoke out last week. "The Democrats didn't step up and support it, and Republicans didn't step up and support it. I think it's important for our troops to know that."' And I suppose that it doesn't occur to Rumsfeld how extraordinarily depressing it is to a whole lot of our troops -- the ones who know the "mission" was based on false intelligence, and that there still is no strategy to win or to get out -- that so few of our leaders have been able to support our troops by acknowledging that their decision was wrong. *Any* decision to go to war, and most decisions not to go to war, are terrible to have to make. How much more awful to also realize that the choice was wrong... and how much more terrible to insist that the only way to honor the sacrifices is to keep making more sacrifices for the same cause. Oh, and John Murtha. Hero. Oorah. -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
