And another thing. . . I’ve been arguing recently in class that the Iraq War doesn’t pass the laugh test as a pre-emptive war. A pre-emptive war, of course, requires the presence of an imminent threat, which even the administration has admitted never existed. A pre-emptive war happens when one state has knowledge of the […]
Month: October 2004
The hawk response to the Duelfer Report has been to emphasize Saddam’s intentions, rather than his capabilities. Because he intended to acquire WMD in the future, he remained a threat. The absur
Fascinating article in the NYT Week in Review about legal claims on arctic waters. It seems that Russia and Denmark have designs on claiming vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean because of legal and ge
With due respect to our own Scooter, if that goddamn talking baseball keeps showing up on Fox playoff telecasts, I will personally hunt down and kill Tim McCarver.
When Cheney mentioned El Salvador in the Vice Presidential debate last week, I was briefly reminded of something I had seen a couple of days before. Couldn’t put my finger on it, but Erik at Al
A former student actually paid attention to one of my 10 minute diversion/rants on the use of the term “identity politics.” I know because she kindly sent me a link to this excellent blog
Paperwight and Mark Kleiman are, of course, correct: the President’s bizarre invocation of Dred Scott is about abortion. Lest you think this is a reach, let’s turn it over to Nino, in his dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart (the case that struck down Nebraska’s D&E abortion statute for not having a health exemption): I am optimistic enough to believe […]
I’m not going to try to tell you that Jacques Derrida wasn’t an “abstruse theorist.” The appropriateness of this adjective would be a perfectly appropriate subject of debate, a
John Howard has won re-election! This means that Australia’s contingent will remain to fight for freedom, order, and the Anglo-Saxon way in Iraq! On bended knee, I thank God for the fierce figh
The best line of debate coverage, I must concede, is from Sully: Bush promised at one point that he’d be more “facile” in future. That’s going to be a hard promise to keep. One can’t listen to Bush without remembering any number of fine comedic moments: Lisa: “That’s specious reasoning.” Homer: “Thanks, honey!” Hank Kingsley (reading […]
I just hope Atrios is right. I think Kerry did what he needed to do, but as I said below he let too many distortions lay out there. It’s probably correct that responding to each one would be co
Bush throws out the distortions on the $87M vote and the “global test,” and Kerry ignores it. Jesus Christ. And now Bush is claiming, again, that inspections and sanctions didn’t wor