I have to go make some binders now, but incidentally: France and Germany say, "Hey, remember Israel?" Bush will presumably put his hand exaggeratedly to his ear and reply, "What's that? I thought I heard something. Was that the wind? Or was it those two certain countries I used to be friends with?" He will then smile smugly and go play catch with Donald Rumsfeld.

NYT roundup:

Fareed Zakaria's new book apparently makes the blindingly obvious (but sadly misunderstood) point that the reasons so many post-Cold War democracies have "failed" is because an election does not democracy make; a Constitutional democracy is incomplete with "the rule of law, the rights of free speech and religion and the protection of minorities." Hopefully everyone will learn this lesson, finally.

Maureen Dowd talks about the increasing signs of perpetual war. The Times's David Sanger reported that when a Bush aide stepped into the Oval Office recently to tell the president that the hard-boiled Rummy had also been shaking a fist at Syria, Mr. Bush smiled and said one word: "Good." Eek, I just got a chill.

And finally, a remarkably well-written Reuters piece entitled Arabs Watch Hussein's Demise in Disbelief that covers a lot of ground, like about how it would have been better for America if they had gotten Sadaam to surrender instead of killing him, and how "many Arabs liken the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip." Ooh, there's that chill again. The closing bit is classic:

Fahd Saleh of Saudi Arabia expressed equal dislike for President Bush and Saddam. "Saddam is a terrorist but he's not alone. Bush too is a terrorist but Saddam is weak and Bush is strong. That's why he has won, because no one opposes a strong person," said the 33-year-old Saudi government employee. "How wonderful the world would be without Saddam and without Bush!''

posted by Mike B. at 2:55 PM 0 comments