Planet Abell

W hat's fascinating about the Scott McClellan stuff? I'm not sure. After about a week of digestion I'm left with the impression that he's a pitiable child who has come to the embarrassing realization that he was the last to know what was going on at home. Of course this is no trite family matter since his home was a White House which intimidated press, pundits and most nay-sayers into believing (or at least not questioning) the premise that going to war with Iraq was a strategic necessity. This is not to say that I agree with any of the hand-wringing Republicans who are "puzzled" and say don't recognize the Scott they know. These non-denials are trivial truths, since they tell us nothing. Of course they are puzzled. Of course they don't recognize him. Scott was a puppy, happy to be petted and fed and stroked as and when master so deigned. That he's now trying to be Cujo -- or at least Underdog -- is puzzling and not like him at all. McClellan was a...

S ome short clips since I’ve been away for so long, hunkered down on a project. With the WGA writer’s strike these ought to be salad days for people who think they’re funny, but, as the writers would concur, making money is job one: So glad Mitt Romney accepts Jesus and that the unchristian Christians from one end of a tiny spectrum may be appeased by the unchristian Christians from the other. Still waiting for the day that an atheist can run for anything or for a single candidate to have the courage to say faith informs no life decisions except whether to sleep in on Sunday. Disgusted by Romney's declaration: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Actually, freedom only teaches us to tolerate religion so that our private behaviors may be tolerated in turn, as we should other private behaviors we may personally disapprove of, like a gay lifestyle, abortion ... oh. There is nothing to the argument that only religious people possess the values to govern...

E ven if there weren't so few platitudes left in the White House manual to engulf and devour public opinion on the Iraq War, a comparison -- any comparison -- by President Bush to Vietnam would seem loopy. Especially since Bush himself rejected that comparison not so long ago. Especially since books about the Vietnam War have titles like " The Making of a Quagmire ." Especially since, in a mere couple of generations, the country from which we cut and ran and left to be overrun by our enemy has emerged as a stable nation and trusted trading partner. Especially since when we stopped fighting over there the only people who followed us here were peace-seeking war refugees who have coalesced into one of the most quickly assimilated ethnic groups in this nation's history. Especially since someone so well versed in history might be expected not to start a war that could be compared to Vietnam. There is nothing left except desperate, mangled Vietnam War history lessons and h...

W hat makes the commutation of "Scooter" Libby's sentence so appalling is that it perpetuates the appearance at least of a conspiracy that now reaches the Oval Office. Even the mother of all presidential interventions, Ford's pardon of Nixon, bears up better: at least it helped to expedite a national healing process. A Bad Boy, But A Good Boy Yes, President Bush said in his statement that Libby had been a bad boy and had to be punished, and the fine and probation Is this proof that the Bush White House has devolved into a collection of dead- enders , slogging through their last throes? were left untouched. But Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff is family. He was a part of a what looks very much like a big effort to spread the administration's war propaganda by attacking critics with smears and dirty tricks. Political crimes are particularly heinous because they are about stealing power. They are ideological and self-justifying. By ensuring tha...

I'm getting more confused every day about what a way out of Iraq will look like. Is it any wonder? The president continues to say it is a vital national interest to engage Al-Queda in the chosen land of Iraq. We'll leave if Iraq asks us to, consequences notwithstanding. That's called respecting a sovereign state. We won't leave if Congress asks us to, consequences notwithstanding. That's called surrender. The administration is pinning its current hopes on the success of what it calls a "surge." This allegedly temporary increase in troop strength and activity is supposed to stabilize Baghdad enough to give the political processes a chance to work. The argument against a timetable is that it gives the enemy a date certain around which to plan. And the enemy wins either way: by increasing their activity now, they give ammunition to those who would call the "surge" a failure, and by retreating to fight again when the "surge" is over they ...