Jeff Danziger: tamiflu-rumsfeld
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This Modern World: America, a brief parable
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Mike Peters: cheney – ways to interrogate
IN RUN-UP TO WAR, BUSH CONSIDERED BOMBING NPR
British PM Blair Talked Him Down, New Report Says
A new report published today indicates that President George W. Bush briefly contemplated bombing National Public Radio in the run-up to the Iraq war but was ultimately talked out of it by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
According to the report, Mr. Blair had just convinced Mr. Bush not to bomb the Arabic-language television network al-Jazeera when the president suddenly shifted gears, turning his sights on the left-leaning NPR.
“Those clowns at NPR have been tearing me a new one, Tony,” the president reportedly said. “Well, that’s nothing a good old daisy cutter wouldn’t fix.”
Mr. Blair reportedly raised strong objections to Mr. Bush’s plan to bomb NPR, after which the president said, “All right already – I’ll just cut their funding instead.”
According to a source quoted in the report, the president had drawn up an elaborate plan that involved bombing several prominent media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Charlie Rose Show.
“The only thing left standing was Fox News,” the source is quoted as saying.
Mr. Bush was eventually talked out of bombing The Washington Post when a top aide reminded him, “If we take out the Post, we won’t have any way to leak things to Bob Woodward.”
As for bombing The New York Times, Mr. Bush ultimately backed down from his plan but suggested launching a smart bomb to take out the Op-Ed page.
Elsewhere, calling it a “rookie mistake,” Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) apologized today for taking to the floor of the House and stridently demanding that Hawaii be named a state.
Borowitzreport.com
The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, yet the call by Democratic Congresman John Murtha for troop withdrawal prompted a firestorm of attacks from Republicans, who called the decorated Vietnam veteran a “coward” and compared him to leftist filmmaker Michael Moore. Murtha called the war “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.” He recalled the situation in Vietnam when White House officials said major military tasks would be over by the end of 1965. Instead, there were 2,263 American fatalities by the end of 1965, and more than 55,000 after that date. “I’m trying to prevent another Vietnam,” Murtha said.
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From: Poacnewsletter
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The Economist: “Far from reforming Medicare to cope with an aging population, the drug benefit adds to the fiscal burden,” an Economist editorial states. The “fiendishly complicated system” has created “[c]onfusion and frustration” in the first days of enrollment, the editorial adds. It concludes, “The loopy days where Congress could push through such budget-busters as the Medicare drug benefit are over” (The Economist, 11/19).
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Robert Kuttner, Boston Globe: “Once, decent employers provided health insurance as a fringe benefit,” but that benefit is now “unraveling,” Kuttner, co-editor of the American Prospect, writes in a Globe opinion piece. Kuttner continues, “There is no hotter political issue, nor one that strikes closer to home” than a national health insurance system, but even “if Americans overwhelmingly want” such a system, the “huge reasons” preventing it include political, fiscal and jurisdictional issues. Kuttner says that the “best first step would be public, universal coverage for everyone under age 25, a group relatively cheap to insure,” and that move also would “accustom working-age Americans to the value of a universal system.” Kuttner concludes, “And if it works for our kids and our parents, why not for everyone?” (Kuttner, Boston Globe, 11/26).
