The word 'weapons' is lacking in this post.

This seems pretty outrageous.

What it seems is par for the course. Remember, Bush and Cheney insisted the UN weapons inspectors leave Iraq because they were proving the dreaded WMD weren't there and were about to fuck up their splendid little war.

In a fair world, most of the top of this administration would be hanged and left for the carrion-eaters. Sadly, we do not live in a fair world and they will just earn barrels of cash on the lecture circuit and peddling ghost-written memoirs.

I'll go read Drum (if I must) and Yglesias, but is "This" supposed to include a link?

This would have been useful to know about over Thanksgiving, when I spent a good chunk of the evening arguing with my uncle about the wisdom of attacking Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. He thought it was a swell idea.

Not that it would have done much good, since he mentioned the situation with North Korea as an example of the futility of negotiations, evidence be damned.

2: That is to say, elect me president and I'll do my level best to have Bush and Cheney hanged and left for the carrion-eaters.

5- That comment will be held against you if you ever did run for president as proof of your scheming to get power- I bet your wrote something in kindergarten about how you'd like to be president some day.

Jesus. They just lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. On the other hand, I am much less afraid that we're going to start bombing Iran now.

My favorite is Victor Davis Hanson:

The latest news from Iran about the supposed abandonment in 2003 of the effort to produce a Bomb -- if even remotely accurate -- presents somewhat of a dilemma for liberal Democrats.

Yes, quite the "somewhat of a" dilemma.

5: That's really way too good for them. You'd want to get the carrion-eaters in on the action while they're still around to enjoy the attention. Maybe gut-shoot them and dump them in the desert.

(Only with due process of law, of course. If we have to amend the Constitution to establish a one-time-only exception to the cruel and unusual punishment bit, so be it.)

Looks like the intelligence community is bailing out on the administration's military adventurism this time around. Would've been nice to see this, say, back in 2003 or 2005. Just sayin.

8: Link? I can't wait to see this twisted logic.

In a fair world, most of the top of this administration would be hanged and left for the carrion-eaters

But will we be prepared to dig up the bodies of the Constitution-icides if need be, and hang them for the carrion-eaters?

My favorite wingnut reaction is Cliff May:

the purpose of this NIE is to prevent Bush from using military force during the remainder of his term to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Or is it just the predictable line that Iran stopped their program because of Bush's brilliant Iraq invasion?

Christ, let's not have another thread where we fantasize about what we'd do to our political adversaries. I find it unpleasantly reminiscent of eighth grade discussions of Jason and Freddy slasher movies.

In a fair world, Flippanter would be pushed out of a helicopter into a volcano.

oudemia, I should have said this in the other thread, but I do remember seeing someone badmouth CS once. It was Victor Davis Hanson in that godawful book he wrote about how Classicists don't live like the Greeks. I would have been sympathetic to some of its claims on an emotional level, but that bit made me know that it was full of shit. His co-author John He/ath seemed soemwhat more sane and replied politely when I e-mailed him.

I'm quite sympathetic to the spirit of some of their criticisms about excessive professionalization, and I've enjoyed a lot of the articles Arrowsmith wrote and some of the articles in the old Arion even if the neo-conservatives of the New Criterion did love him.

14: I don't have the stomach to link to him, but yes, basically.

Let's a separate thread devoted entirely to pathetic fantasies. I say stake them out in the hot sun, covered with honey, on top of fire ant anthills. Impalement would also be good.

15: I'm mostly sympathetic to that point of view, but extremely powerful, extremely vicious people who will never have to personally account for the enormous harm they've done bring out what's left of the medieval in me.

I read 10 as agreement with Cliff May in 13. I agree with 10 and with Cliff May.

a separate thread devoted entirely to pathetic fantasies

Haven't we had enough ogged dating threads recently?

To amplify 21, what I mean is that the only hope of avoiding a war with Iran was that the professionals - military and intelligence, in particular - would stand up to stop it. I think that's what's happening here. I think the release of this report is huge good news.

However, you don't agree with Cliff May in his intense disappointment that the bombing of Iran will not take place.

How can a loving God permit Apostropher not to be immured like Fortunato with only rats and cobwebs for company?

24: That's right - I was only agreeing with the blockquote, and in particular only with the part discussing the motives behind the release of the report - I think he got that exactly right.

21: 10 is only agreement with Cliff May in 13 if you add the word "nonexistent" between "Iran's" and "nuclear weapons program."

huge good news.

What would otherwise be known as an absence of more horrible bad news, or a state of normalicy in f. pol. circles.

how the something have fallen.

27: Or, instead of "nonexistent" I suppose "moribund" could also be inserted. I'm not picky.

In a fair world, Flippanter would be pushed out of a helicopter intoonto a volcano. Then he'd roll down the side of the volcano into some cacti. Then the volcano would erupt on him.

And then the Roadrunner would beep-beep and motor off into the desert.

state of normalicy

Well, no, not that huge, of course.

17: Well, VDH would. I really, really loathed that book, mostly because everyone I admire in the field had "killed Homer," which is absurd. Every young feminist scholar was basically condemned tout court for not "loving" the Greeks like their daddies or something. Ugh. I do "love" them, in the sense that I find them endlessly, bottomlessly fascinating and weird. But not enough to go lock myself in the thalamos. CS had too much intellectual curiosity for their taste, daring to write about, say, Euripides and psychoanalysis at the same time. Although I have zero brief with the sort of professionalism they decried.

To be fair, I haven't been at a talk in two or three years now where a speaker put a smake on VDH, though.

Wait! I should want to bomb Iran because Pericles would have wanted me to want to! Stupid Persians.

25: WHERE'S YOUR MESSIAH NOW!?

I haven't been at a talk in two or three years now where a speaker put a smake on VDH

Is this a word I don't know or did somebody put a snake on VDH? Because that would be funny.

I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking classics professor!

How can a loving God permit Apostropher not to be immured like Fortunato with only rats and cobwebs for company?

Hey, have you heard? Flip is bringing a whole effin' *cask* of sherry to the DC meetup? He might be needing some help to lug it up from the basement, though.

Although I have zero brief with the sort of professionalism they decried.

Right, that's the only thing that I agree with them about, but Arrowsmith was smarter and a more astute literary critic who said the same thing better. So no need for VDH.

(Samuel Eliot Morrison was a sailor, so he spent some time recreating one of the voyages. I thought that learning all of the vocabulary about ships and rowing woudl have been a lot less boring, if we could have built a boat and tried to row it. Otherwise, I don't much want to live like a Greek.)

Wait! I should want to bomb Iran because Pericles would have wanted me to want to! Stupid Persians.

Come on. You know that they're all wearing perfume and are effete softies anyway!

sMake -- goofy way of saying "smack down." There is little love for VDH in the profession right now, I think.

"The Persians" by Aeschylus is extremely affecting, really. I get to teach it next semester, which is exciting. Of course, I also assign a chunk of Said with it, so pretty much that is some Homer murderation right there.

VDH is all wrong about the American military. He fetishized the hoplite infantry in shoulder-to-shoulder man-to-man combat, in contrast to hit-and-run cavalry armies and archers and peltists who killed safely from a distance. The Mongol cavalry archers were the antithesis of his fantasy hoplites, but the American military resembles the Mongol military more, depending heavily as it does on safe, long-distance killing (artillery, bombs, and rockets) and also on mobility and deception. VDH's fetish warfare ended with WWI.

UGH -- and 33 should be "didn't" put a [smack down] on . . .

Can you recommend a good translation of The Persians? (And with that I'll stop the Classics hijack.)

Hugh Kenner claimed that Homer is colloquial storytelling and that many passages are meant to be funny. He thinks that the high Victorian translations were all worng.

34: Downstairs, actually. Let me show you the way.

43: Which reminds me, why doesn't Odysseus make more jokes? Wouldn't a lot the events of the Iliey and the Odyssiad be sort of comic to the slyest fox around, in a sort of "tragedy to those who feel, comedy to those who think" way?

"The Persians" by Aeschylus is extremely affecting, really.

A production of this in the Heiner Müller translation was named last season's best new show in the German-speaking theater world by Theater heute. I saw it last August and it rocked my world.

Oops, 45 before I saw 42. I wasn't suggesting that you read it in German, BG! HM's version is masterful (how does he make words so violent?), though I have no idea how it compares to the original.

44: Take my crew, ........ please!

42: I'm going to use the OUP "New Translations" one this term, but shhhhhh! I haven't really looked at it yet! I love the Chicago translations, but at this point their language isn't connecting at all with my students. So either!

Downstairs, actually. Let me show you the way.

Wait, last time this was a trick.

This time it isn't!

Okay then!

Last time, "this time it isn't" was a trick.

Goddammit, I fall for that one EVERY TIME.

Damn it, w-lfs-n, quit immurement-blocking me.

Surprisingly, I'd like to address the nominal topic of this thread. Drum says he's never bought the "incompetence dodge," by which he appears to mean that he thinks a real case can be made that the war only failed due to incompetence and therefore incompetence claims aren't just a dodge. For that to be correct, as far as I understand the argument Yglesias and Rosenfeld made back in their original article, a causal story has to be told about the Iraq war under competent leadership could have fulfilled its strategic aims. These aims were 1) preventing Saddam Hussein from using or giving to terrorists weapons of mass destruction he didn't have, and especially nuclear weapons he didn't have and wasn't developing and 2) to create a liberal democracy in the middle east as a shining example to other countries in the region and thereby make oil supplies more secure and reduce the risks of future terrorist attacks. Obviously, nothing in Drum's post is about how 1) could have been achieved had the war been managed competently. As for 2), Drum's claim is that if a bunch of other things had been done properly Iran might have successfully pressured Shia leadership into forming a liberal democracy in a form acceptable to Kurds and Sunnis. But this doesn't sound like something that would require merely competent leadership, but rather fantastically lucky and damn-near omniscient leadership, and a pony. Am I missing something in his argument?

I think he's defining success down (unintentionally); a better job might have produced a coherent state under a strongman we liked better than Saddam, rather than a liberal democracy. Such a reasonably peaceable dictatorship -- something no worse, or not grossly worse, for its citizens than pre-war Iraq, would look like a huge victory now, and might possibly have been in reach if the war had been handled better. Of course, saying "We spent hundreds of millions of dollars and killed tens of thousands of people [in this fantasy, we did a better job, so many fewer people died] to make things not much worse for the people of Iraq!" doesn't sound all that great ex ante.

I don't think Drum is defining success down so much as not defining it at all. I read him just to be making the claim that Bush has done SO MANY very critical things SO VERY incompetently that surely doing those things differently and better would have to have made SOMETHING about the outcome better. And that's a very tempting argument. It's hard to see someone completely fuck up every last damn thing and not think that somehow those fuckups haven't fed into the failure of the project as a whole.

Yglesias says no, once we invaded the project was already doomed--there's nothing a competent adminstration could have done to get a better end result.

I'm really not sure which side convices me. Certainly if you define "success" in any reasonable and meaningful way, there was probably no way to achieve it. On the other hand surely the fuckups have made things worse. Surely.

57 has to be correct, because it has been proven again and again that however bad it is, it can always get worse.

I'd say a reasonable way to define success would be turning a profit on the war as a whole -- when you add up the costs, financial, diplomatic, and human, and the benefits, national security, humanitarian for the people of Iraq, whatever else, if the benefits reasonably accounted for outweighed the costs, the war would have been a success. That sounds like a fantasy -- we could have been as competent as we liked, and the war would still have done much more harm than good. But a more competent execution might have done much, much less harm than we actually did, and I think that's what Drum is thinking of.

What really pisses me off about this NIE is how surprised all of the professional journalists are.

I think they're mostly surprised that it ever saw the light of day. But beyond that, yeah me too.

56: Jeez, LB, glass half empty much?
60: Seconded.

"Nie" is Polish for "no", you will all be fascinated to learn.

So what happened? Do we agree with 23 that the intelligence folks actually defied Cheney? Or do we think there's some nefarious reason that Cheney gave them permission to tell the truth?

when you add up the costs, financial, diplomatic, and human, and the benefits, national security, humanitarian for the people of Iraq, whatever else

That shouldn't be difficult to reduce to a numerical sum at all.

Oh, I wouldn't dream of saying that you could do it precisely or non-controversially, but you can organize your thoughts that way. ("Human and financial costs? A shitload. Benefits even if the war were competently run? Somewhere between minimal and none. Success? No.")

64: Elaborating on SP's comment above, Cliff May (!!) over at The Corner cites an "Agency" friend who claims:

This assessment was strongly influenced by two hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials who oversaw it, both former State officials who fought tooth and nail against Bush WMD policies, especially Iran.

64: Seems like the intelligence folks pretty much have to have defied Cheney for the thing to have gotten finalized that way. How it then got publicly released is another question. One would like to hope that a committee chair or some such person told them that if they didn't release it he/she would, but I don't know whether that's realistic.

67: Just how stupid do these people think we are? And just how stupid do they have to be to think that?

On the plus side, for whatever reason it was released, war on Iran looks less likely. I wonder if this hurts Giuliani particularly.

Just how stupid do these people think we are?

Remember, the target audience here is regular readers of The Corner, so adjust your estimates accordingly.

(Samuel Eliot Morrison was a sailor, so he spent some time recreating one of the voyages. I thought that learning all of the vocabulary about ships and rowing woudl have been a lot less boring, if we could have built a boat and tried to row it. Otherwise, I don't much want to live like a Greek.)

I appreciate the bravado in T.E. Lawrence's comment about translating the Odyssey (though I haven't read his translation).

For years we were digging up a city of roughtly the Odysseus period. I have handled the weapons, armour, utensils of those times, explored their houses, planned their cities. I have hunted wild boars and watched wild lions, sailed the Aegean (and sailed ships) bent bows, lived with pastoral peoples, woven textiles, built boats and killed many men. So I have odd knowledges that qualify me to understand the Odyssey, and odd experiences that interpret it to me.

What I like about the quotation in 67 is that my own thought is, "yeah, that's probably true," but to me "hyper-partisan anti-Bush [intelligence] official" just means "honest."

72: That is pretty badass, but what did Lawrence have to say about the NIE?

73: I'm with B, with "hyper-partisan anti-Bush" being to May's mind exactly the same as "against Bush WMD policies."

Just how stupid do these people think we are? And just how stupid do they have to be to think that?

Some of the fringe wingers start drinking their own Kool Aid, but for a lot of people it's strictly in your face: "What are you going to do about it?" Bush always has that medicine show preacher look on his face when he talks to The People -- "I can't believe that these morons haven't figured me out yet". Every time he delivers a line, he pauses and looks to see whether it registered.

They know that a lot of us have figured them out, but they don't need us and they enjoyed pissing us off.

Every time he delivers a line, he pauses and looks to see whether it registered.

W is an exceptionally bad speaker, but I think that many politicians have this problem, the pause occurring at line or chunk breaks in the rolling teleprompter text.

What really pisses me off about this NIE is how surprised all of the professional journalists are.

And they're going to be surprised at the next turn too, because they make it their business not to connect the dots with respect to Cheney's motives. Why does Cheney say the Iranians are determined to have a nuclear weapon when he's known all this for a year? Well, it must be because opinions differ the analysts have been wrong before we don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Plus Arabs always lie, and some of our agents are Arabs. You can't report that in the press, though, it would expose our intelligence assets!

You fools! Master Cheney had to keep up the "Bomb Iran" rhetoric so that those wily Persians wouldn't figure out that we knew that they had stopped their nefarious nuclear plans. Just ask Vizzini on why one must out think your opponent when death is on the line!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/

Plus Arabs always lie, and some of our agents are Arabs.

I assume that the Persians are even more mendacious?

Fuck it, they're all Islamofascists now.

Don't be cute, JM. Do you think an administration that was long unaware of the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam has any appreciation for the Arab/Persian distinction?

I don't know if you can say the "administration" was unaware. Bush certainly was, but a lot of imperialists know a lot about the subject of their imperial dreams.

82. I would concur with Ned. Since at least Beirut 1983 People Whose Job It Is to Know have thought that the Shia were the crazy fuckers. Too bad Bin Laden is Sunni.

I doubt he understood the distinction, but he did use the terms Shia and Sunni in two 2002 speeches.

76 was beautiful. Bush has always been an obvious liar and asshole, daring people to call him on it. "Watcha gonna do about it?"

And this NIE release does not make me feel safer.
Nor did the Annapolis charade, which I think was Saudi PR or a concession made to SA in exchange for...

I think we should move on and talk about the ecky- ecky- ecky- ecky- pikang- zoop- boing- goodem- zoo- owli- zhiv.

87. Only if you have a shubbery. (a Bush joke, get it?)

Tell ya what, when Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis tells me Iran ain't gonna go down, I'll believe him. Now he really hasn't said it will happen, but he hasn't said it won't.

He has said stuff like:"If Bush orders the attack, don't think for a second the military will mutiny. They will follow the orders."

Bob, we are such a long way from mutiny I'm surprised you would even bring it up. Everybody still in has either joined knowing about the war or re-upped.

And this NIE release does not make me feel safer.
Nor did the Annapolis charade, which I think was Saudi PR or a concession made to SA in exchange for...

About the Annapolis charade, I've heard a good deal of speculation that it was at least in part a cover for non-Iranian regional powers to get together. Now, seriously, if Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program and hasn't had one for four years, what's all this Iranian Hegemon Rising talk?

Christ, the entire world is run by lunatics.

Christ, the entire world is run by lunatics

Well you can't get the job if your sane. Nor would you want it.

TLL

YOU SHOULD REALLY PUT THE THING YOUR QUOTING IN QUOTES OR ITALICS OR SOMETHING

I know, Grandma but I keep forgetting how to do that. Plus I am old and lazy and unwilling to learn. I figure it is part of my distinctive charm.

<i>italicized text</i>
or
<blockquote>blockquoted text</blockquote>

Or push shift plus the little thing on your keyboard that looks like quotation marks.

Plus I am old and lazy and unwilling to learn

Too much like work

But it looks so pretty, and it was comprehensible on a first reading!

what's all this Iranian Hegemon Rising talk?

Perhaps the perennial Bushes-do-whatever-Saudis-tell-them?

And this NIE release does not make me feel safer.

bob, at the risk of seeming naive, I really think this is a genuinely awesome bit of news - not the news of Iran's non-program, but the fact that the NIE was released.

In seven years, in an administration that runs on politics, the only serious political PR blows against Bush have been struck by Establishment types - especially Establishment types that have served in Republican administrations. You got your Richard Clarkes and your Joe Wilsons and your Paul O'Neills and your John DiIulos - the list goes on. You've got your John Ashcroft for Chrissakes. Solid citizens, not dirty hippies like Waxman or Feingold.

This is more of the same. Cheney wants to invade, and absent something happening, the media was ready to fall in line again. Cheney's enemies - that is, conservative American patriots - have defied him here. That's mutiny, and it's important.

98.---I can believe that's why Bush could be convinced to pretend to care about Israel/Palestine. But the Saudis themselves seem to have gotten antsy about the Iranian Hegemon Rising shit. God only knows what they really wanted those planes for; perhaps a royal prince was in danger of getting bored.

I had always thought that the Saudis had superior intelligence sources than we did, given that they were in bed with absolutely everybody, but is it possible that they could have been in the dark about the Iranian nuclear thing and that the administration released the NIE to assuage them ahead of some diplomatic skullduggery?

I mean, I assume that the Palestinians are going to get jacked again, and Saudi Arabia has announced that peace there is a high priority for them (and I even believe it this time).

99: None of those were serious blows. Considering what they're doing, the Bush team has had a charmed life.

But the Saudis themselves seem to have gotten antsy about the Iranian Hegemon Rising shit.

Iran is a big, powerful, and apostate power next door. Seems like a standard response.

Not really all that powerful though, wouldn't you say? Their air force is shit, and their economy's in shambles. If lunatics stopped threatening them with invasion, the ordinary Iranian people would likely lose all interest in bristling nationalistically and get down to the serious business of making their government accept women in makeup and men with goofy hairdos.

101: No real disagreement, but I think there's a real question as to how appalling things might have gotten had, say, Ashcroft bought in 100%. I think the NIE is a real blow to the nuts who want to bomb Iran (that is to say, the administration). It will be significantly more difficult to make this happen, now.

It's a shame we don't have a functional media in this country. I have to believe there was a time when a stock villain like Cheney would be vilified in the media for lying to the public in an effort to foment war a second time.

99:I find (believe feel?) Bush/Cheney unpredictable, don't have a sense for what really motivates them or what really constrains them, and don't really trust most other people's analyses.

The desired (if it really was desired) attack on Iran was never about the nukes. Do Bush & Cheney feel they need permission from the State Dept or CIA to send a B2 toward Teheran? Maybe they do, I don't know.

You are right that most people are reassured by recent events and indicators and trends. Feel totally free to join them, you are probably right.

I am not necessarily even paranoid or pessimistic, just radically skeptical & perpetually confused.

I also have to admit that it would be an unusually unilateral and provocative move for Bush to make in the face of so much opposition, with such horrendous consequences. They have acted more politic than that in the past.

But if I were they, I would do it. In the spring/summer after the primaries and the Dems were committed to a candidate. I feel Hillary and maybe the other two think it will happen. Iran will retaliate, the DC Elite will go to war, and the Democratic Party will implode while Republicans will unify.

Or maybe I am crazier than Bush.

Look, the Dems have a problem on National Security, and it is not just Republican sliming and misperceptions. A lot of us Dems are just vigorously anti-war, and if HRC wants a draft to occupy Teheran I cannot vote for her. But if Obama, after the carrier is sunk, says he will bring the boys home, essentially surrendering, I would vote for him, but he will not be President.

An attack on Iran demoralizes and splits the opposition for a generation. How can Bush not do it?

What it seems is par for the course.

Jack Goldsmith on David Addington on the administration's general strategy: "We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." --("The man behind the torture." David Cole. NYRB. 6 Dec. '07.)

Here, I pretty much agree with McManus: the only thing these fuckers understand--have ever understood is force. Piano wire is too good for them.

Drum's a nice guy, I'm sure, but I remember when he still wasn't willing to discount the stories of the Iraqi nuclear stockpile.

Every young feminist scholar was basically condemned tout court for not "loving" the Greeks

Mmmm, Greeks.

103: I have no clue, but Mr. B. always tells anecdotes of jailed officers who'd supported the Shah begging to be let out of jail so they could defend Khomeni's Iran. I think his point is that regardless of how weak their military seems, they're not a country you want to mess with.

Yeah, but Iraq tried to invaded them, see. Given what the Mongols did to Persia, people feel very strongly about not letting anyone invade.

ogged, may i ask you a personal question if you excuse my english?
which emotional side do you take in this kind of situations, pro-iranian or pro-american?
i understood that anti-bush
aside from that, i was trying to read comments and archive at the reading group and couldn't
are you all like a kind of secret society or what?
like creme of cremes of the white supremacists, jewish aryan democrats with a slight pro-german flavour somethin?
sure, just kidding, but still i am puzzledm should read the blog archives, but have no much time
i am reading the blog like about two weeks now and still can't figure out who is who, f.e ogged is a sweet sick iranian guy with a lot of gfs, ben w-lfs-n's image is a genius level educated black american (music), lizard breath and bitch phd - same person, heebie-geebie - a sorority girl, teofilo - a nice jewish young man, bellelettre - an asian american, knecht ruprecht - a german with a wife, a white bear - a white woman prof prone to hysteria, bobmcmanus - a revolutionary, many wasp guys with different names, other people are pretty much a homogenous mass, my apologies in advance
just trying to figure out should i continue to waste time reading unfogged for my further englightenment
assuming that all of you are unique, fun, intelligent, curious, open-minded, tolerant existentialist humans
or reading about anal hair waxing should be the last drop of patience for me at the intellectual white supremacists' site

ogged is a sweet sick iranian guy with a lot of gfs

Are you sure you've been reading this blog?

Given what the Mongols did to PersiaBaghdad, people feel very strongly about not letting anyone invade.

They say Sammy Davis Jr. was also a genius.

No, no, it's LeBlanc I'm mind-melded with. LB has one more kid than I do and is less prone to swearing.

Yeah, LB's the slutty one.

Sammy Davis and the Rat Pack pretty much are the apotheosis of hip, too, aren't they?

just trying to figure out should i continue to waste time reading unfogged for my further englightenment

Yes.

That's it! LB is Joey Heatherton to Ben's Sammy Davis. Which makes Ogged, I dunno, Dean Martin, I guess.

are you all like a kind of secret society or what?

Well shit. Now we have to kill the motherfucker.

Is "Lambent Cactus" the result of some transformations of "lambda calculus"?

Not consciously. But I couldn't tell you whether that's equivalent to the truth.

119: As long as I don't get stuck being Jerry Lewis.

No, no, it's LeBlanc I'm mind-melded with. LB has one more kid than I do and is less prone to swearing.

I think so too.

this is fun -- although it's true, the men all blend together

w-lfs-n - self-loathing hipster
DS - self-confident hipster
nattargchm - emissary from a more rational and livable world
Martin Wisse - radical leftist
minneapolitan - radical leftist
Frowner - radical leftist who is reasonable and convinces others to her point of view
mleblanc - radical feminist
Lizardbreath - rational feminist lawyer woman who puts things into words that others could not figure out how to say
Cala - like Lizardbreath but not a lawyer
Belle Lettre - fun-loving lawyer woman
Di Kotimy - fun-loving lawyer woman with kids
asilon - fun-loving British lawyer woman with kids
parsimon - woman with sympathy for traditional customs
Invisible Adjunct - married woman with sympathy for traditional customs
wrenae - happy single woman with sympathy for traditional customs
oudemia - fun-loving academic woman
redfoxtailshrub - fun-loving academic nerd woman
snarkout - elite internet nerd
strasmangelo - irritable but passionate
HamLove - polyamorous futurist of some sort
Biohazard/Idon't pay - very thoughtful men with a lot of life experience
SCMt / Charley Carp / gswift / Brock Landers - temperamentally conservative by nature
Jesus McQueen/KnechtRuprecht - funny anecdotes
Tassled Leech / GaijinBiker - thoughtful conservatives
SifuTweety - millionaire computer hacker
Michael Schneider - says weird things
James Shearer - says weird Republican things
Katherine - extremely intelligent and principled lawyer

etcetera

on the other hand, aren't we all fun-loving?

All this talk of fun without consideration for the consequences will be the destruction of all that is worth protecting.

Any fulfillment obtained at the expense of normality is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness.

I must have written that list because I'm not on it.

That motherfucker! I demand my own thumbnail sketch cliche!

lizard breath and bitch phd - same person, heebie-geebie - a sorority girl

Now that's funny.

127: Me, too.

I'm not a fucking hipster. No, not in that sense either.

Emerson: only pretends to be crotchety.

You are black, though.

One thing I agree completely with Bob about this: I find (believe feel?) Bush/Cheney unpredictable, don't have a sense for what really motivates them or what really constrains them, and don't really trust most other people's analyses.

I mean, okay, there's basic stuff you can say about each, the undeserving heir to power who may or may not realize how much everything he has comes from being bailed out and the disconnected-from-humanity seeker after a particular vision of absolute authority. But neither my personal experience of the world, my academic studies, nor my autodidactic follow-ups leave me feeling like I understand either anything like well enough to (for instance) reliably predict their actions. Nor do I see signs that many, if any, other critics are any better off about this. They're mysterious to me in ways that (to grab a few names at not random) James Dobson, Victor Davis Hanson, and Steven den Beste are not. This is a big part of why I get so on edge whenever I start looking at news details.

that's enough cliches for me, someone else can do it

I can't predict their initiatives or their tactics, but their overall intentions seem clear enough. Adventurist militarism to the point of imperialism, anti-democratic authoritarianism, a hierarchy of wealth, cronyism, personal aggrandizement. They don't care about the wedge issues and they're not little-government conservatives. Where's the mystery?

Naomi Klein thinks that they're deliberately provoking a fiscal crisis down the road which will be used to justify the use of all the authoritarian measures which they've already written into law and precedent.

127, 129: Or me. Perhaps Emerson, Gonerill, and I are the same person.

107 is so puzzling because while it has the implication that the author holds reasonable political views given the world as it is, it also implies that the author holds crazy-republican views of what constitutes the world. in that claustrofuck world, the republican policies might be good things; they're dumb because the world isn't like that.

133: you can understand a Stephen den Beste because he actually writes about what he wants to happen, whereas a Dick Cheney just acts.

Those who can, etc.

But as to their motivations, what Emerson said. They don't believe in democracy unless it confirms the results they want, do believe in might makes right and that America's military might is there to be used by them to make the world safe for their friends. They don't really care about the consequences of their actions, as long as it doesn't influence them or their careers and you should always follow the money. Also, don't assume there's a fully worked out masterplan behind all this; Greg Palast at least believes some of the radical swings in Bush administration policy on Iraq has been the result of a powerstruggle between the neocons and the socalled Houston crowd of oil cronies.

If I don't start getting on some lists, I'm gonna start burning some shit down.

If Klein is right, then the Republicans have fucked themselves. The right has been able to take advantage of fiscal crises in other countries because the US has been writing the checks. They undermine that, they lose everything.

re: 42

Hugh Kenner claimed that Homer is colloquial storytelling and that many passages are meant to be funny. He thinks that the high Victorian translations were all worng.

I don't know about Homer but that's certainly true of high Victorian translations of the Norse sagas.

I remember translating a (simple) passage from Hrolf's Saga Kraka for an Old Norse class, and then comparing my literal translation with some 19th century translation. Mine read something like, "And then he went there to the town, in the evening" and the high Victorian one went "verily, and with mighty purpose and forethought, he journeyed far-seeingly, valiantly and with strong limbs to that dark place, wherein dwelt men'. I exaggerate slightly, but not much.

re: 140

The powerful/wealthy generally do well in all crises, even domestic ones. It's the 'Dominican' model.

137:There are some assumptions in 107.

1) That Iran would quickly & successfully retaliate to an American attack, inflicting significant American casualties. Several hundred to thousands.
Best for me would be no attack; 2nd best would a small attack with no Iranian answer, save protest to the UN etc. Iran is smart enough, but is a proud democracy. I don't know, it is an asumption.

2) Given that Iran counterattacks, how many Senators & pundits can say:"We started it, and those dead Americans are George Bush's fault." More than could say it about 9/11, maybe a lot even in an election year, but not enough to stop the war.

3) Having lived thru 1968 and 1972, adding the Repub base to "rally around" numbers, I see a very unpopular war that can't be stopped. 30 per cent approval, another 20-30 per reluctant
acquiescence. Maybe 30 percent of America in the streets protesting, 20-30 Senarors screaming for impeachment. Not enough. Is it all good for Republicans? In a country so divided & chaotic the faction with the most fervent base and control of the power institutions will have some advantage. You don't need strong majorities in crisis conditions.

Too long & all guesses. And I think you are guessing about what the "Republican view" is. Cheney does not see the world as Limbaugh describes it. Or hell, maybe they are both liars.

Remember, fucking Kerensky thought he could continue the war. Kerensky was wrong, but I am not seeing a Lenin around these parts.

There will be no war with Iran.

Oh yes: "Nie! Nie! We're the Knights Who Say NIE!"

re: 146

Isn't there some law somewhere that makes Monty Python quoting punishable by extreme physical sanction? Along the lines of that 'shooting Welshman in Chester on Sundays' thing.

140: Klein's scenario involves an eventual emergency-powers government in the U.S. , comparable to the ones similiar crises have brought about elsewhere. No more republicans, no more Democrats, just Americans and their wise unelected governors.

147. Yes. People who quote Monty Python are sentenced to be hanged by the neck until they cheer up.

No one expects quotes from Monthy Python.

148 is from one of the deleted scenes from The Meaning of Life. Then Klein was hit on the head with a giant hammer.

w-lfs-n - self-loathing hipster

Not self-loathing enough.

127, 129: Or me. Perhaps Emerson, Gonerill, and I are the same person.

And ogged even more so, as even you dropped him.

Not self-loathing enough.

See 130.

Naomi Klein thinks that they're deliberately provoking a fiscal crisis down the road

It seems clear that they are doing so. They can't actually believe that the government has no choice but to be as incompetent as they're making it act like it is.

which will be used to justify the use of all the authoritarian measures which they've already written into law and precedent.

That would be why they would do such a thing, yes.

147: Isn't there some law somewhere that makes Monty Python quoting punishable by extreme physical sanction?

Possibly. But in it does bring to mind one of the best uses of Monty Python references in an otherwise serious article, which is also tangentially relevant to the broader themes of governance in this thread. Kim Lane Scheppele's When the Law Doesn't Count: The Rule of Law and Election 2000 uses The Knights Who Said NI! as metaphor for Bush v Gore to illustrate various ways in which it violated "rule of law" principles. Along the way she gives some of the reasons why Germany and ex-Soviet Bloc countries (who have what she calls "post-horror" constitutions) have explicit "rule of law" clauses in their constitutions.

Did anyone hear the Bush press conference? Even by Bush standards it was incoherent. He rambled on about a lot of things and managed to say something nasty about a reporter, but as far as Iran is concerned he seemed to deny the importance of the NIE. He kept saying, "We know that Iran is trying to enrich uranium, and that's a crucial step in building a bomb."

I predict that if that comes, our "wise unelected governors" will be closer to Hugo Chavez than to George Bush.

Larry Johnson on the NIE.