We don’t like our evil to be banal. Ten years after Columbine, it only now may be sinking in that the psychopathic killers were not jock-hating dorks from a “Trench Coat Mafia,” or, as ABC News maintained at the time, “part of a dark, underground national phenomenon known as the Gothic movement.” In the new best seller “Columbine,” the journalist Dave Cullen reaffirms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were instead ordinary American teenagers who worked at the local pizza joint, loved their parents and were popular among their classmates.
On Tuesday, it will be five years since Americans first confronted the photographs from Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes II.” Here, too, we want to cling to myths that quarantine the evil. If our country committed torture, surely it did so to prevent Armageddon, in a patriotic ticking-time-bomb scenario out of “24.” If anyone deserves blame, it was only those identified by President Bush as “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”: promiscuous, sinister-looking lowlifes like Lynddie England, Charles Graner and the other grunts who were held accountable while the top command got a pass. Read the rest of this entry »
In mid-1960s Britain, the New Christy Minstrels had a huge hit with “Three Wheels on My Wagon”, a song about a US pioneer family attacked by Cherokee Indians. As each verse begins, another wheel on the wagon goes missing. By the last verse, all the wheels are off the wagon, which is forced to stop. Regardless, the pioneers face death while “still singing a happy song”.
What if one substituted the Obama family for the pioneers and the Washington press corps for the Cherokees? Last week was a public relations disaster for Obama. The faux pas on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno about bowling and Special Olympians might appear small beer, even if it raises the uncomfortable question: could it be that Obama has a discriminatory bone in his body?
More significant is the furour over the bonuses for executives at the troubled financial company AIG. Read the rest of this entry »
Frustratingly, CBS News has not yet posted a transcript of last night’s broadcast interview with President Obama. However, it has posted a lengthy summary, which we’ve posted below the two-part video. Unsurprisingly, the discussion was dominated by the US economy; however, in the second half (before puff-piece questioning about Obama’s daily routine, life in the White House, etc.), the conversation moved to Afghanistan. We’ll have more on that later today, but you might also enjoy the President’s point-scoring against former Vice President Dick Cheney:
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Frank Rich in The New York Times
So what is the Obama Administration’s new approach to American intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
In mid-1960s Britain, the New Christy Minstrels had a huge hit with “Three Wheels on My Wagon”, a song about a US pioneer family attacked by Cherokee Indians. As each verse begins, another wheel on the wagon goes missing. By the last verse, all the wheels are off the wagon, which is forced to stop. Regardless, the pioneers face death while “still singing a happy song”.
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