"Can Terri Schindler-Schiavo Be Murdered By Judicial Fiat... In America?"

And, "What's Going On?"

Donald B. Hawthorne blogs a blockbuster again, yesterday.

Also, Mark Brumley asks some great questions over at Insight Scoop, today:

.... If a daughter were dying of cancer, her parents might consider all reasonable treatments and possibly some unreasonable ones. Having tried treaments A, B, C, and D, they might conclude that they've done all they can, as Bishop Lynch [of St. Petersburg] says. But Terri Schiavo is not slated to die from some disease or even from brain damage; she is slated to die from intentional starvation. How can Bishop Lynch suggest, as he seems to, that Terri Schiavo's parents simply accept that? Why does he think that giving in to the deliberate starvation of their child will bring them "peace"?

No doubt contrary to his intention, Bishop Lynch's recent statement seems only to have muddled the situation and left many people wondering what, exactly, he is trying to do.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/03/05 07:06:48 PM
Categorized as Terri Schindler Schiavo.

"And That's the Way It Was"

"... thought-hangover from 30 years ago..."

A great column today by Peggy Noonan at OpinionJournal:

.... I worked at CBS 20 years ago and what was true of us then is true now, and true of every other network newsroom: They key evening news coverage off the front page of the New York Times. In Ken Auletta's piece in The New Yorker this week on Dan Rather's goodbye he has Mr. Rather in a "Front Page" mode, briskly asking his executive producer what the lead will be that night. Iraq, he answers, and part of the package keys off today's Times report.

Why do they do this? Is it because the Times knows everything? No. And network producers know it doesn't know everything. But the bosses of the producers read the Times. And the owners of the network read the Times. And the subordinates of the producers read the Times. They do this because it's there. If it's in the Times, it's real. This is a thought-hangover from 30 years ago, but it lingers....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/03/05 06:47:09 PM
Categorized as Media.

Parameters: Commentary & Reply

Our friend Herb Ely has a letter in the Spring 2005 issue of Parameters, the US Army War College Quarterly.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/03/05 05:54:17 PM
Categorized as Political.

Coalition for Darfur

Bloggers Steve "Feddie" Dillard and Eugene Oregon start a new campaign.

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/03/05 05:42:22 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff & International.

"Dan Rather's Legacy of Outrageous Liberal Bias"

A compendium by the folks at Media Research Center.

Vide.

(Thanks, Deacon.)

P.S. My favorite:

"I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things." — Exchange on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor, May 15, 2001.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/03/05 07:32:17 AM
Categorized as Media.

"It's Scary for Democrats, I Have to Say"

That would be Nancy Soderberg, interviewed by (yes) Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central's Daily Show.

A transcript of what we may assume will have been Ms. Soderberg's last appearance on any stage with Mr. Stewart.

Courtesy of James Taranto, yesterday (brackets in original). Commentary would be almost superfluous.

Stewart: This book — it talks about the superpower myth of the United States. There is this idea, the United States is the sole superpower, and I guess the premise of the book is we cannot misuse that power — have to use it wisely, and not just punitively. Is that —

Soderberg: That's right. What I argue is that the Bush administration fell hostage to the superpower myth, believing that because we're the most powerful nation on earth, we were all-powerful, could bend the world to our will and not have to worry about the rest of the world. I think what they're finding in the second term is, it's a little bit harder than that, and reality has an annoying way of intruding.

Stewart: But what do you make of — here's my dilemma, if you will. I don't care for the way these guys conduct themselves — and this is just you and I talking, no cameras here [audience laughter]. But boy, when you see the Lebanese take to the streets and all that, and you go, "Oh my God, this is working," and I begin to wonder, is it — is the way that they handled it really — it's sort of like, "Uh, OK, my daddy hits me, but look how tough I'm getting." You know what I mean? Like, you don't like the method, but maybe — wrong analogy, is that, uh — ?

Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress. But as an American, you hope good things would happen. I think the way to look at it is, they can't credit for every good thing that happens, but they need to be able to manage it. I think what's happening in Lebanon is great, but it's not necessarily directly related to the fact that we went into Iraq militarily.

Stewart: Do you think that the people of Lebanon would have had, sort of, the courage of their conviction, having not seen — not only the invasion but the election which followed? It's almost as though that the Iraqi election has emboldened this crazy — something's going on over there. I'm smelling something.

Soderberg: I think partly what's going on is the country next door, Syria, has been controlling them for decades, and they [the Syrians] were dumb enough to blow up the former prime minister of Lebanon in Beirut, and they're — people are sort of sick of that, and saying, "Wait a minute, that's a stretch too far." So part of what's going on is they're just protesting that. But I think there is a wave of change going on, and if we can help ride it though the second term of the Bush administration, more power to them.

Stewart: Do you think they're the guys to — do they understand what they've unleashed? Because at a certain point, I almost feel like, if they had just come out at the very beginning and said, "Here's my plan: I'm going to invade Iraq. We'll get rid of a bad guy because that will drain the swamp" — if they hadn't done the whole "nuclear cloud," you know, if they hadn't scared the pants off of everybody, and just said straight up, honestly, what was going on, I think I'd almost — I'd have no cognitive dissonance, no mixed feelings.

Soderberg: The truth always helps in these things, I have to say. But I think that there is also going on in the Middle East peace process — they may well have a chance to do a historic deal with the Palestinians and the Israelis. These guys could really pull off a whole —

Stewart: This could be unbelievable!

Soderberg: — -series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which — it may well work. I think that, um, it's —

Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's —

Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

Stewart: He's gonna be a great — pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.

Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's — it is — I absolutely agree with you, this is — this is the most difficult thing for me to — because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.

Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had —

Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!

Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work. No, but I think, um, it's — you know, you have changes going on in Egypt; Saudi Arabia finally had a few votes, although women couldn't participate. What's going on here in — you know, Syria's been living in the 1960s since the 1960s — it's, part of this is —

Stewart: You mean free love and that kind of stuff? [audience laughter] Like, free love, drugs?

Soderberg: If you're a terrorist, yeah.

Stewart: They are Baathists, are they — it looks like, I gotta say, it's almost like we're not going to have to invade Iran and Syria. They're gonna invade themselves at a certain point, no? Or is that completely naive?

Soderberg: I think it's moving in the right direction. I'll have to give them credit for that. We'll see.

Stewart: Really? Hummus for everybody, for God's sakes.

There's always hope that this might not work?

[Follow-up: Soderberg Claims She Was Only Joking.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/03/05 07:12:40 AM
Categorized as International & Political.