Month: January 2005

US gives up search for Iraq WMD, BBC News, January 12, 2005:

Intelligence officials have confirmed the US has stopped searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

President Discusses the Future of Iraq, the White House, February 26, 2003:

In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world — and we will not allow it. (Applause.) This same tyrant has close ties to terrorist organizations, and could supply them with the terrible means to strike this country — and America will not permit it. The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away. The danger must be confronted. We hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm, fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. (Applause.)

In today’s Washington Times (one of those “conservative” papers read so, so regularly around these parts each day, before we roll them up early in the afternoon to beat the heathens preparing our food), President Bush unloads on the paper’s editors and reporters about his true calling, espousing the usual rigmarole about “moral philosophy” this and “God’s will” that. In other words, American moralists have been graciously treated to yet another reminder of the man’s esteemed sense of nobility and right and wrong.
Anyway, amidst all the God-love, the story offers up this puzzlingly opaque gem of Bush’s legendary anti-logic:

“I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you’re not equally as patriotic if you’re not a religious person,” Mr. Bush said. “I’ve never said that. I’ve never acted like that. I think that’s just the way it is.”

It’s good to be good, but it’s better to be God, apparently. Or at least down with Him. Because, you know, He’s more important than laws, or history, or judicial precedents. Even if you’re not exactly saying that. Like, maybe, you’re just implying that. But, you know, you never did say any such thing.
Hey, come on now, why’s everyone getting all angry all of a sudden?

Credit Guy Womack (no relation) for even further lowering the bar on the bullshit we can expect from defense attorneys. As lawyer for Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader of the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, Womack yesterday offered a defense that managed to be at once offensive, incredible and troglodytic. From Reuters:

Outrage was registered in all the expected outposts, but what of the slander to cheerleaders? Surely the Pyramid Defense doesn’t do the spirit industry any favors. I contacted Sheila Noone, editor of American Cheerleader magazine, for her thoughts.

“Hundreds of people were kept from their homes Friday in Graniteville, S.C., because of chlorine gas that was released after a train crash early Thursday. Bulldozers began moving the derailed cars.”
–Cloud Rising From Train Wreck, Then Death and a Ghost Town, The New York Times, Jan. 8, 2005.
“Finally, after ‘a night of dream-lit snows,’ an ‘airborne toxic event’ originates in a rail accident at a nearby train yard. The dark billowing cloud is full of Nyodene D…”
–Summary of Don DeLillo’s White Noise.
Related: Don DeLillo and the Towers