Monday, December 26, 2005

12:00 PM PT

Shorter Pope Benedict XVI: Christmas message Buy my product or you are DOOMED!

Friday, December 23, 2005

1:00 PM PT

	Shorter Charles Krauthammer: Impeachment Nonsense Bush is not a crook.
Must See Also: Brad DeLong's definitive once and future Krauthammer. Plus, braying herd-like demagoguery, animus, ignorance and partisanship - make that brazen and reckless partisanship - at Elementropy.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

2:30 PM PT

Shorter Jonah Goldberg: Firebrand? He's nuts and he's after nukes A religion-soused lout who believes that starting unprovoked wars will hasten the coming of his messiah of choice should not be allowed anywhere near nuclear weapons.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

2:30 PM PT

Shorter Max Boot: 'Plame Platoon' is AWOL on new leaks Our enemies may have suspected that their communications were being monitored but would never have guessed they could be subject to warrantless eavesdropping until they read about it in the New York Times.

Plus: Are things getting to you, Max? Mr. Boot is galled, galled I tell you, by press accounts of presidential criminality which do not end with a solemn remembrance to 9/11 and how one successful demonstration attack by nineteen guys with screwdrivers changed everything in ways amazingly favorable to the sort of people who profit from war and turmoil. His narrative is going all limp on him. Must be frustrating. So call it Boot's Variant to Cheney's Rule: the escalation of splenetic attacks can only be interpreted as an indication of increasing desperation on the part of the writer. Which coincidentally validates Fudd's Law - if you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Given the degree of mooring between Mr. Boot's rhetoric and reality, it may not take much pushing at all. At which point Teslacle's Deviant could come into play...

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

6:15 PM PT

Shorter John Yoo: A president can pull the trigger A President can declare war at will after which there is no limit to what he can do because, you see, there's a war on.

Monday, December 19, 2005

9:15 PM PT

	Shorter Niall Ferguson: History, democracy and Iraq One possible outcome of Mr. Bush's Iraq project may be the demise of neoconservative theory, in which case you will find me dancing on its grave.
No, really. Read all the way to the end for the money line (and a max dire prediction to boot).

Thursday, December 15, 2005

5:15 PM PT

Shorter George F. Will: Our Fake Drilling Debate Liberals want to take your individual autonomy away.
See also: Retardo Montalban also limns Will's point at elementropy, and Terry has the long of it at Nitpicker.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

8:30 PM PT

Shorter David Ignatius: Breaking The Assassins The people of the Middle East have for too long been under the sway of corrupt power-mad murderers and torturers, and now George W. Bush is come to redeem them.

12:30 PM PT

Shorter Max Boot: Hate torture? Consider boot camp Spending a night shackled upside-down naked in a freezing cold cell being repeatedly doused with ice water will feel like a walk in the park after you get through this column.
See also: Kevin Drum sorely maligns all cretins by association.

Tuesnday, December 13, 2005

3:30 PM PT

Shorter Richard Cohen: Hollywood's Crude Cliches Messrs. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are actually idealists at heart, so liberals who defend them are not really sellouts.

See also: Claudia Long. P.S. In case you were wondering who Deborah Howell was referring to when she wrote: Some Post reporters don't appreciate that links are put on the Web site to what bloggers are saying about this or that story -- especially when the bloggers are highly negative. ... a clue may be gleaned from today's Post postings in which George Will, E. J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson and even guest Op-Edders Felix G. Rohatyn and Warren Rudman all have "Who's Blogging" sections. Can you guess who doesn't? Correction: It seems Richard Cohen's column does have a "Who's Blogging" section after all, when viewed in MSIE. That section does not show up in FireFox. So never mind the P.S. part, and thanks to Roxanne for the catch.

Monday, December 12, 2005

1:30 PM PT

Shorter Niall Ferguson: The play's his thing, not history The plain and indisputable factual truth is that to murder millions is purely evil but to murder mere thousands is something completely different.

Plus: Please answer the question, Professor Ferguson. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Harold Pinter asked: How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? Today Mr. Bush himself assessed the number of Iraqis killed as a direct result of his unprovoked war on that country at 30,000. He also confessed that even knowledge certain that Iraq possessed no banned weaponry would not have stopped him from invading that country, because his real purpose was to impose his preferred governing ideology on it. So, Professor Ferguson, does Mr. Bush now appear to qualify as a war criminal? If not, then how many people does one have to kill in wars of aggression in order to meet your exacting criteria? Update. See also: an analysis of Niall Ferguson's argument, such as it is, at Joe's Blog.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

4:45 PM PT

Shorter Dennis Prager: Religious zealots, arranged right to left It seems the leftist infestation is actually something of a Jewish problem.

2:30 PM PT

Shorter Condoleezza Rice: The Promise of Democratic Peace We knew exactly what we were doing when we invaded Iraq, are quite satisfied with the results so far and plan to stay the course in order to bring about of more of the same.

Plus: Brave New Wordcraft. In this 1665-word article, which reads like an oratorical crossing of Peggy Noonan with Karen Hughes, the word "statecraft" appears nine times but the word "oil" not once. This typical passage is revealing of the underlying mindset, or at least the marketing message: ... our statecraft will succeed not simply because it is optimistic and idealistic but also because it is premised on sound strategic logic and a proper understanding of the new realities we face. It must be bracing to think oneself at once so noble and so wise.

Friday, December 9, 2005

1:30 PM PT

	Shorter Charles Krauthammer: Man for a Glass Booth We have allowed Saddam Hussein to make a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of the sham of a trial which we are currently conducting for him in Baghdad.
See also: Roger Ailes. And if you haven't yet, Bananas. See also II: elementropy and Canadian Cynic.