Antiwar.com Blog

There’s that old canard that no press is bad press. Certainly, with everything that’s been written about them over the past decade or so, the Serbs should know that’s a lie. But sometimes “good” press is excruciatingly bad press, too. Consider an October 6 editorial by the War Street Journal (subscribers click here, the rest you will have to trust me), extolling the virtues of “better friends to America than the French.”
Welcome to the Dark Side. Continue reading “War Street Journal: “Our Friends, the Serbs”?!”

Yep, The American Spectator is still rooting for Hillary to usurp Lucifer’s throne. Emmett Tyrrell is still cracking himself up. All is as it ever was, except for David Brock.

Oh, but wait– someone’s been purged. What happened to James Bovard’s article archives? Strange.

Follow-up to the Romanian Gypsy child bride brouhaha:

The Romanian child protection agency has forced Ana-Maria to separate from her 15-year-old husband and has required both children to live at home with their parents in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu.

The Romanians caved to the EU, in other words. Thank God this horrible scourge has been defeated! Of course, the marriage was not a legally-sanctioned one to begin with, but who cares? Just so long as American and Western European do-gooders earn another badge. Not that their meddling is likely to do the young lady much good:

Although [the bride’s father, who arranged the marriage] has nominally complied, there is considerable doubt over whether the government edict is being obeyed, because the two families are next-door neighbours and there is a gate that links their properties.

If you haven’t read my “Looking Behind Ha’aretz’s Liberal Image“, you may expect Israel’s “liberal newspaper” to stand up clear and loud against the recent Israeli aggressive escalation, in which Sharon, breaching a cease-fire that had lasted for some 20 years, sent his jets to bomb a target deep inside Syria.

Well, let’s see all what Ha’aretz actually had to say.

(1) Editorial, 7.10:

“The bone of contention is not Israel’s right to strike at those who operate against it under the cover of Assad. Israel has the right […]; but this does not testify to the wisdom of such moves. […] The Syrian president could, contrary to Israeli expectations, cause an additional escalation […] There is a need for tight control to prevent a move planned as minimalist from leading to a major escalation.”
-So now we know it: Sharon had the right to attack Syria, and his intentions were benevolently “minimalist”; at worst, if escalation occurs, it will be blamed on Syria.

(2) Columnist Amir Oren, 7.10, reiterates the same line in a nutshell, for readers who missed the point:

“Is that a shrewd plan, or a wild gamble? The answer depends upon Syria’s response.”

(3) From Gideon Samet’s column, 8.10 – a writer considered extremely dovish – the future historian would be able to assume that the attack was not uncontroversial in Israel:

“Criticism of the air force sortie into Syria behind the back of Bashar Assad was completely predictable”, Samet writes. He doesn’t even bother to reveal the arguments of that criticism. His own view is that “Syria deserved that little blow” – yes! – but he does warn, to maintain his critical image, that “The action in Syria may be a fragment of the regional strategy of a leader whose dangerous potential has been fulfilled on more than one occasion.”

-So here you have the entire spectrum that “liberal” Ha’aretz offers to its readers: Either you support Israel’s attack and warn (of) Assad; Or you support Israel’s attack and warn (of) Sharon. How did they say it in Latin? Tertium non datur – there is no third option.

From Reuters:

The White House on Tuesday ruled out three top aides as the source of a news leak identifying an undercover CIA officer whose husband was critical of Bush administration Iraq policy.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he had talked to each of the aides ahead of a 5 p.m. deadline on Tuesday for officials to turn over information in a Justice Department probe of the leak.

He left open the possibility the leaker would never be found. “I think all of us in this room know that it sometimes can be difficult to determine anonymous sources. But let me emphasize … no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States,” he said.

So the White House simply asked Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, and Elliot Abrams whether they committed a felony or not, they said “no,” and they’re cleared? And they mocked Hans Blix’s interrogatory methods in Iraq?

If you’re a Bush-supporter, that steady sucking sound you hear might be defecting libertarians. This article from The American Prospect should give Bushies the fear. It’s gonna be hard to win the next election with an even smaller second-place showing than they managed in the last one.