Wednesday, February 4, 2004

Bush's Military Record

I may have one of the very few weblogs that ever links to both sides of a debate. If you're interested in this little argument over the National Guard Service (or lack, thereof) on the part of the current Oval Office occupant, here are two opposing views. Eric Boehlert over at Salon says that the evidence doesn't add up in Bush's favor. This article from the now-defunct George magazine says that it does. If Kerry's the nominee, we're going to hear a lot more about this.

• Posted at 9:09 PM · LINK

Loose Ends

I've had a nice e-mail exchange with Bill Stosin, the gent who used my posting here in a letter to the Washington Times. (It also made it into his hometown paper, The Daily Iowan. Here's a link to the page.)

No writer likes to see his work appear with someone else's name on it, but it's not like this is the first time this has happened to me. Or the worst. Anyway, I've decided to grant him retroactive permission for this one. If anyone else wants to crib something from this page, please write and ask. If it's for a good cause, I'll probably say yes.

Also, I should mention: I screwed up my mail server this afternoon so for about three hours, if you sent me an e-mail it did get to me but you received a "bounce" message that said it didn't. I am weeks behind on e-mail so the response may be the same as if I didn't receive it.

• Posted at 7:49 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here, in the interest of fairness, is the case against Bush as deserter. I don't know which argument is correct and I'm not sure that in politics it matters all that much. As with certain arguable accusations against Clinton and Gore, those who are already on the guy's side either won't believe the charge against their guy or won't acknowledge it, and those who were already against him take it as absolute fact. It all comes down to tarnishing the candidate's image a little with swing voters. Don't you wish this kind of thing could be resolved outside the arena of presidential politics?

• Posted at 11:55 AM · LINK

The Sincerest Form...

Received an e-mail this morning from Bill Stosine...or at least, someone purporting to be Bill Stosine. On the Internet, you never know. But I think it was him and he apologized. He said he hoped I wasn't angry about him lifting a few paragraphs from this page and sending them off to newspapers under his signature. (He says he sent fifty. Let's see if anyone besides the Washington Times runs it.)

This is one of those things I probably should be angry about but for some reason, I'm not. In an odd way, I'm flattered. I can't say I'll feel that way the next time it happens but this minor bit of theft struck me as more amusing than not. And I can't really explain why.

Actually, his apology was rather nicely worded. Hope he didn't steal it from someone else.

• Posted at 10:40 AM · LINK

This Just In...

From this morning's news reports...

Clark, the retired Army general, held a slight lead over Edwards in Oklahoma with all precincts reporting after Tuesday's vote. But the race was so close that no winner could be declared until the vote is certified by state elections board next week.

Hey, maybe the Supreme Court could step in again and declare Bush the winner.

• Posted at 9:29 AM · LINK

Déjà Vu

There's a letter in the "Letters to the Editor" section of today's Washington Times from someone named Bill Stosine of Iowa City, Iowa. Here it is in its entirety:

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Powell says: "I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show. ... Our nation's children, parents and citizens deserve better."

He's talking about the fleeting shot of one of Janet Jackson's breasts, but he could have been talking about the endless procession of ads for pills that induce erections.

However, the chances of Mr. Powell or anyone else in the Bush administration taking umbrage or action against a pharmaceutical company are about the same as the chances of me playing in next year's Super Bowl. And winning.

Mr. Powell wants communications conglomerates bigger and bigger and bigger — so CBS asking corporate brother MTV (they're both owned by giant media conglomerate Viacom) to produce the halftime show is what he gets.

Don't parts of this letter sound a little familiar?

• Posted at 3:06 AM · LINK