I Cogitate

Backward thinking
Zay N. Smith
Chicago Sun-Times
September 6, 2007

News Headline: "President Bush visits Iraq, ponders his legacy."

News Headline: "Cheney's legacy on the line."

News Headline: "Rice tries to reshape her legacy."

News Headline: "Cheney disagrees with McCain on Rumsfeld's legacy."

Let's hope we can get all these legacies sorted out soon, so our soldiers will know what they are fighting for...


 ...Nunsense

News Item: National Coalition of American Nuns calls for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

The Swift Boat Clergy for Truth will have something to say about this, as soon as they make it up.


That dog don't hunt

Whoopi Goldberg defending Michael Vick and his dog-fighting:

"He's from the South, from the Deep South. . . . This is part of his cultural upbringing."

Come to think of it, has there ever been a more eloquent defense of the Ku Klux Klan?
 

...Is he a uniter, too?

From a new Fred Thompson presidential campaign TV ad:

"We can't allow ourselves to become a weaker, less prosperous and more divided nation."

And isn't it time someone took on the candidates who keep telling us we need a weaker, less prosperous and more divided nation?
 

True or false?

Connie Bradley, a Maywood reader, regarding a news item that British educators have endorsed a series of Shakespeare comics for the classroom translating the original into language more accessible to today's students, suggests:

• • "This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man."

• • "Get real."


True or false?

President Bush to Deputy Australian Prime Minister Mark Vaile regarding Iraq:

"We're kicking ass."

And Osama bin Laden quietly smiles to himself, because it still isn't his.

Retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, on the likelihood of another major terrorist attack here:

"We have very strong indicators that al-Qaida is planning to attack the West."

Sorry to correct him. But they can't follow us home as long as we are fighting them over there so they won't be here.

The only other explanation is that we've been handed a bunch of slogans that amount to malarkey.

But who would do a thing like that?


D'oh!

R.N., a Barrington reader, regarding a news item that British educators have endorsed a series of Shakespeare comics for the classroom translating the original into language more accessible to today's students, suggests:

"Et tu, Brute!"

"Dude?"


Up and down under

News Headline: "Kangaroo injured in low-speed chase through Alps."

There is probably an interesting story behind that.


DOUBLE STANDARD

News Headline: "Congress expands spying, Bush's powers."

News Headline: "Federal ID plan raises privacy concerns."

News Headline: "Civil liberties at stake in fearful times."

News Headline: "Bush declares that 'free Iraq' is within reach."

The idea, evidently, is to have freedom over there so we don't have to have freedom over here.

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