I took time out from watching Miami vs. Pittsburgh to catch Kiki Couric doing the nightly news. I missed her the last two nights. Tonight, I made it to exactly eight minutes before switching back to the game in anger. I had no idea how bad the CBS Nightly News had gotten. It's been years since I watched any evening news show. The first two segments of Kiki's broadcast tonight were almost total fiction. It was laughable, except for the fact that many thousands of people were watching who had no idea they were being lied to.

I don't blame Kiki so much. She's more of a master of ceremonies for this contemporary version of the Liars Club. Besides her poor posture and crooked mouth (which I never noticed before), she did a serviceable job. I find her manner more pleasant than Dan Rather's, but that ass surely didn't set the bar too high for his successor.

Kiki's show started with Jim Axelrod asserting quite unequivocally that the latest tape from Bin Laden contradicts the President's message in his recent War On Terror speeches. Anyone with a brain can see that just the opposite is true. In fact, the al Qaeda video features terrorists that are now in U.S. custody, whose interrogation led to the arrests of further terrorists. Bin Laden's video not only disproves beyond any doubt the stupid "inside job" conspiracy theories, but it shows how we've made a big dent in al Qaeda's leadership.

The second segment promised to show how support for the Iraq War has fallen among conservatives of the Bible Belt. They then showed only three people, two of whom said that they support the war! [Actually, the third guy supports the war too! See update, infra.] Now, I'm not trying to claim that support for the war has not fallen. It obviously has, but this joke of a news segment proved nothing of the sort. The one guy who said he was going to vote for Democrats was cut off just as he was about to state the reason why. No doubt his reasons had more to do with immigration and runaway spending, but CBS didn't want their audience to know that.

In the next segment, both Kiki and the reporter blatantly repeated the lie that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent. I guess they believe that old totalitarian principle about repeating the big lie often enough. Then followed an interview with Armitage, which nearly made me keel over with disinterest. This story is so irrelevant, why doesn't CBS just move on dot org?

That was when I turned it off, and to my dismay learned that I had missed a touchdown.

Update: The guy who said he was voting democratic in the second segment I mentioned above was retired Colonel Jim Van Riper, USMC. The unedited interview is here. I was wrong about his reasons for planning to vote Democratic. But CBS, very sneakily, omitted from their televised soundbites any of Colonel Van Riper's very strong pro-Iraq War statements. His objection is not that we're in Iraq, he just wants to win and he doesn't think the administration is getting the job done.

While I think it's misguided to think a Democratic Congress will do anything but weaken America, I can totally understand Col. Van Riper's frustration. We all want to win. Does anybody really think that Bush's poll numbers would be where they are now if we had already succeeded in Iraq? For most Americans — and this is the dirty little secret CBS and the elite media don't want you to know — the issue is victory, not whether the war was legal or right or wrong or unilateral or any of the other Michael Moore objections. If we had won already, nobody would be complaining. Wanting to win is patriotic, as is frustration that we might not be winning.

Posted by: annika at 07:06 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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"Dems Celebrate End of Bush Security Measures"

Have you seen the America Weakly campaign ads?

If not, start here, with a satirical look at what a Democratic Congress will do to national security. Or maybe not so satirical.

A Democratic Congress will be bad, no question about it. They have no plan except opposition to Bush, and a desire to embarrass Republicans. Since they don't hold the executive branch, these goals will have to be furthered by de-funding, and endless investigations.

I think 9/11 might have been an unintended result of Ken Starr's crusade to nail the President on a "process crime." If so, what new tragedy might occur while President Bush is occupied by the latest round of political vendettas, investigations and impeachment proceedings?

Posted by: annika at 08:18 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment
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Today is the 67th anniversary of the beginning of World War Two in Europe. As you should remember, it began with the German invasion of Poland, which the Wehrmacht codenamed "Case White." (DANEgerus also reminds us that the Red Army invaded from the east sixteen days later.)

I think it's especially appropriate to pause today and think about that fateful moment in 1939, which led to the death of so many millions.

Many folks have noted that our situation now is not unlike the time before that first panzer crossed the Polish frontier. I'm one of them. I see the failure of our international institutions and the blindness of so many prominent figures and I think of the League of Nations, Chamberlain, Lindbergh, and Coughlin.

There is no cosmic law that says we can't re-ignite the horrors of World War Two for a new generation. The United States lost 293,000 brave men to the conflict, but almost zero civilians. We had it lucky. We were the saving heroes from across the water in that war. We won't be so lucky next time.

The bill from the last world war was staggering. Twenty-five million Soviet citizens, fourteen million Chinese, seven million Germans, six million Poles, two million Japanese, and on and on.

If you were a European Jew, a Philipino, a Chinese or Russian peasant, even a lowly German or Soviet conscript, your life was a hell in the 1940's. All because a handful of world leaders could not, or would not, stop the juggernaut of fascism.

The atrocities were so numerous, we've given them names: Bataan, Auschwitz, Malmedy, Nanking, Dachau, Katyn Forest, Lidice, Treblinka, the Burma Railway, and on and on.

We must also remember the unimaginably horrible deaths from new techniques of killing developed for the war by our side, and used at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Tokyo, and on and on.

There are those who say we are on the precipice of World War Three right now. Others say it started five years ago. I am not going to argue with either viewpoint. Nor will I end this post with a pollyannish "don't worry, our leaders have things under control."

Because even if we were blessed with the greatest of statesman, which we're not, I don't know that it will be possible to avoid another trial of war brought upon us by evil men.

Some people insist our current enemies are not dangerous, or if they are, they're not evil. I'm at a point now where I don't think that argument matters a whole lot. Our enemies have their own agenda, and they will settle the issue in their own time. And we will have to fight them whether we're ready or not.

I looked up at the sky last night and saw a fiery meteor burn across the horizon. It was scary, though I knew it was no bigger than a coin. It made me think about how wise we think we are, yet how much there is we don't know. I wonder if there are intelligent beings who have been watching us these past hundred years. How they must laugh at our folly.

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