Maybe it’s because I see the path of how WWII (even WWI) led to the world we have today (WWII — Cold War — Middle East — War on Terror). Maybe it’s the unprecedented Armageddon-like nature of WWII for entire continents. But I’m endlessly fascinated by WWII. More specifically, the European theater.

"Unprecedented" would be the word I could use in every sentence here. When, in the history of our world, had a group (six million, to be more accurate) of human beings been systematically collected, experimented on, and erased? When had every corner of the world been engaged in, and then forever geographically and ethnically altered by, a single war? The largest-scale war ever. Entire towns and villages were bombed to ashes. Europe was dragged from the old world to the new world. Some countries are still reeling, 60 years later, economically, emotionally, culturally. Others — such as England and France — are sound in the 21st century but still dealing with the influx of immigrants, as with Romania, which was just admitted into the European Union last year.

What effect could the American Baby Boom have had on the world population when Russia alone lost 25 million people in the war? I could write bits and pieces and speculate forever.
The War by Ken Burns is only told by the American perspective. It’s not even close to a definitive account. A documentary never can be — we would have to spend the rest of our lives watching. WWII documentaries and books are, at best, pieces of a giant historic puzzle that will never be completed. Considering the scope of the war and the people involved, The War would have to be much longer than it’s seven-part, 14-hour length. Burns acknowledges this:

The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting. This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war.

But it’s still worth 14 hours of your time.

•Did you know that American housewives were asked to save and turn in the fat they cooked bacon in to help the war effort? If you’re a nerd like me, you’ll want to know why: the nitroglycerin in the fat was used to make explosives. 

•The Allies expected the advance far into France a few days after landing on the beach at Normandy. It took them until July because of the unforgiving Normandy countryside. But when they rolled into Paris, every French woman kissed every soldier on both cheeks.

•The Americans could have a few hundred German soldiers surrounded, and they’d surrender. They could have a single Japanese soldier captured, and he’d fight everyone to the death. The Germans and Americans took a reprieve from bombing and shooting every afternoon to tend to their wounded and dead. The Japanese were relentless and non-stop.

•One soldier recounts his first bombing mission, and being physically sick after landing back at the base, knowing he had just killed people. Another recounts how instead of remorse (he was a Sunday school teacher and choir boy back at home), he felt pride and excitement after his first kill.

•Still another describes coming face to face with a German soldier, his hands in the air. The German reached into his coat, most likely to get a gun. The American knocks him out. Turns out, the German was reaching in to get a picture of his wife and children, a sign of his humanity, to say, I’m the enemy, but I’m a father and husband, I’m a man. "That’s war," the American soldier says.

The War is far from perfect, but it’s still worth your time. 

Jennifer Leblanc

Books turned into movies are train wrecks for me. I know it’ll be terrible, but I have to look anyway. With a couple of exceptions, movie versions of novels are usually insults to the original work, and those involved should be banned from the business (I’m looking at you, Possession cast and crew). But, knock me down, Perfume isn’t just acceptable — it’s the most perfect page-screen job ever.

Stanley Kubrick claimed the book was "unfilmable." Pfft — and Eyes Wide Shut was…

The filmmakers did not cut or change anything from the novel. They also did not dare to create their own original scenes. The script was 100 percent faithful. The images and scenes play to our senses — remember what wet rock or the juice of plums soaking into your skin smells like? Unfortunately, you also have to imagine the stench of a pre-sewer fish market in 18th-century Paris. The acting — Ben Whishaw owns the screen in what is mostly a silent performance.

What surprised me the most was how, aside from the replication of details and specific scenes, the filmmakers managed to keep the heart of the book intact. They weren’t just painting by numbers, they really understood the center of it: what does love smell like? Most book-to-movie versions are usually cold and empty scene-by-scene plays, or the filmmakers have their own ideas about characters’ goals and motivations or even about what the story itself should be. Perfume, as a movie, is that elusive, legendary thirteenth essence.

Ironically, just after seeing this movie, I opened a newspaper this morning to see an article about a Brown University psychologist’s new book about the effect smell has on men and women. In The Scent of Desire, Rachel Herz uses scientific studies to show the dominant role the sense of smell plays in attraction and reproduction. "For women, [smell] beats out all other physical characteristics; for men, all but appearance — and for both sexes, body odor comes perilously close to outscoring all non-physical characteristics as well." Apparently, it’s not in his kiss, it’s in his smell.

I don’t like book clubs. I don’t like Oprah. And I’m no fool — a month away from the film release of Love in the Time of Cholera, the big O chooses Marquez’s intoxicating tale as her new book club selection. Isn’t that a cheeky marketing ploy. No one else could get people to read in droves, and the film will surely get some nice time on her show. I won’t hold it against the film — especially as the under-rated John Leguizamo has a chance to show the world what he can do.

Make no mistake — my Perfume experience has not changed my cynical, expect-the-worst approach to books-turned-film. But you know I have to watch.

Jennifer Leblanc

My dirty little secret? I love women’s magazines. I can’t stand many of them for very long (I’m never going to be as severly lean and tan as they are in Self; Bitch is just too serious — and the defense of J.T. Leroy wasn’t necessary; and Cosmo — puh-leeze — quit regurgitating the same stale sex tips.

But my adoration for Glamour lasted longer than any of them. I really did buy it for the articles, not just pictures of cute shoes (although that goes a long way with me); not the Lifetime-television-type tales but the real articles about women’s health (which stated facts, not ideologies), politics, Marianne Pearl’s articles, and the fact that I could stand to look at their models without wanting to feed them. And the pictures of cute shoes.

Alas, the honeymoon is over. Espousing normal bodies and self-acceptance is wonderful, and they have more than practiced what they’ve been preaching. The diet-pill ads started to get to me first. Two full pages devoted to another phony miracle diet pill (which will probably kill you) completely negates the well-fed models and mentality. I have a ballpark idea of just how much ad revenue those ads brought in (two full pages in a glossy? $$$$$$), but you can’t have it both ways. I’m sure there are plenty of stinky little perfume pages to make up for those two pages.

What pushed me over the edge was last month’s issue (America Ferrara on the cover), which had an interview with Elizabeth Hasselbeck — not just an interview but an article featuring her as a champion of free speech in the fearsome face of Rosie O’Donnell. "How to Come Out On Top," reads the headline. In their eyes, the poor little blond is somehow victorious after losing her cool on live TV, taking on the big scary lesbian, and repeating her beliefs (not based on facts) about healthcare and the war. "I love having a debate with other women who are intelligent and passionate." If only Hasselbeck was intelligent. Then she wouldn’t believe that the morning-after pill should not be given to rape and incest victims, that it’s only okay for rich people to live together and have children out of wedlock, and despite the enormous humanitarian crisis of the disastrous Iraq war (based on lies about nonexistent chemical weapons), it is just.

"What are the big domestic issues for you?" they ask. "Education. Health care…It’s insane that mammograms and ultrasounds aren’t free to all women. I spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention about that." Well isn’t that special? Too bad she aligns herself with the party that could not care less about anyone’s health or well-being. You want women to have free mammograms and ultrasounds? Try Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide a variety  of low-cost or free health exams for women. Many clinics don’t event perform abortions —  they are simply about healthcare.

The Republicans are the wrong party to speak to about women’s healthcare. Under this administration, the FDA appointed a veterinarian as head of the Office of Women’s Health. That’s what we are to Republicans —  just a bunch of animals. 

That was enough. But Glamour kept going. In this month’s issue (Mariah Carey on the cover), there’s an interview with Jenna Bush (the one who was arrested twice on alcohol-related charges and who is engaged to a former Karl Rove staffer) and her "bff" —  a former Glamour staffer. Jenna has a new book out, called Ana’s story, about an unwed teenage mother with AIDS in Panama. You know, the country that Jenna’s grandfather bombed (thank you, Wonkette).

This is just too much for me. Other women’s magazines have bored me and irritated me, but none of them have ever outright pissed me off before. I cannot believe that a magazine that once received a "Champion of Choice" award from NARAL-NY would air-brush and sell one woman whose beliefs are in complete opposition to everything that Glamour used to be about, and another whose father has, and continues to, set back the healthcare, choices, and freedoms of both American women and women overseas by decades.

That’s just not my style.

Jennifer Leblanc

I don’t care if you make $12 million dollars a year. I don’t care how well you think you can hold your liquor. There is NO excuse for drunk driving, ever, under any circumstances. And wracking up four arrests for it (the first in 1989, second in 1993, third in 2004, and last week’s fourth, which also violated terms of parole from the third) is unacceptable.

There are no personal reasons for my strong feelings towards drunk drivers. I’ve never been personally affected by it — never been hit by one, never lost a loved one in that situation. Yet, like many things in this world, the careless drunken attitude of "What are the odds?" or "I’m fine enough to drive" triggers rage in my head and my heart. "What are the odds of my killing someone, or even a whole family, by driving drunk?" Does it matter what the odds are? How can you live with yourself if you can shrug off even the possibility of harming another human being? We’re talking about being arrogant enough to get behind the wheel drunk and possibly end another human life. Four times. Apparently Sutherland learned nothing from Prison Break actor Lane Garrison’s drunken involvement in the death of a teenager last year.

The understandable public boycott of Mel Gibson after his arrest was due to his anti-semitic outburst. Of course, hate is also unacceptable and hurtful. But sadly, there are no boycotts of Hollywood blondes, male or female,Kiefer or Paris, who prove their above-the-law mentality and lack of respect for others. We shun the drunk who rants against another religion but not the one who could crash into your car and kill you or your child. Instead, the public will continue to worship these ex-cons, watch their TV shows, buy their calendars, and emulate their appearances (consider this sickening post by a fan absolving Garrison of full responsibility). Personally, I’m ashamed to share the world with the likes of them.

Jennifer Leblanc

In news from my neck of the woods, regarding my alma mater:

"The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced a favorable settlement in its lawsuit against Rhode Island College for censoring a sign display supporting reproductive freedom that was sponsored by a student women’s rights group on campus. The signs were taken down after administrators received objections about them from a priest. The ACLU lawsuit, filed by volunteer attorney Jennifer Azevedo, had argued that the college violated the First Amendment rights of the student group, the Women’s Studies Organization (WSO) of RIC, and its three student officers. The highlight of the settlement is an award by RIC of $5,000 to the student group."

The signs read, "Keep your rosaries off our ovaries." The above mentioned priest told the college president, John Nazarian, who immediately had campus police remove the signs. Back when the lawsuit was filed, Nazarian shrugged off anti-free speech charges by claiming that despite RIC being a public college, "It it is not a government entity and that college President John Nazarian is not a government employee."

The ACLU’s response: "Rhode Island College’s position that its campus is a Constitution-free zone is shocking and preposterous, and will no doubt come as a surprise to the thousands of students and faculty members who thought they were attending or working at a public institution." 

Now that the courts have sided with the students and the ACLU, the college is claiming that this was never an issue of free speech. But if it was never a free speech matter, why claim the students had no free speech rights and that you had the authority to take down any ol’ sign?

As proud as I am of my school, and as many issues as I have with our tiniest-yet-most-corrupt state, I still love living in a "blue" state, where the rosaries are kept away from the ovaries and your hands are kept off my signs and my rights.

Jennifer Leblanc

From the always educational and entertaining blog of Maud Newton comes news of "Bipartisan legislation [to] keep library records private." It’s that pesky Patriot Act again, except when you tell librarians (becoming fiestier every year) to hand over the records and keep the mouth shut, they’ll do the exact opposite.

Finally, something Republicans and Democrats agree on.

From the PEN Center press release:

"National Security Letters are administrative subpoenas which are issued by FBI field agents with no judicial oversight and which give the government virtually unlimited access to electronic communications transactions records, including those of Internet service providers and public libraries. Recipients of NSLs are bound to perpetual silence by a gag order.

The bipartisan National Security Letter Reform Act of 2007, introduced by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), John Sununu (R-NH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ken Salazar (D-CO), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), is a response to a report by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice documenting widespread misuse of NSLs and to two federal court decisions striking down the NSL provisions of the Patriot Act as unconstitutional."

Show your support for the bill by writing to your local representative or senator.

Jennifer Leblanc

As we all know, the disastrous Duke case has been closed. The prosecutor, Mike Nifong, has apologized and served a day in prison. The accused players have moved on to different schools. The accuser — well, no one knows a thing about where she is or what she’s doing now. But the bloggers and journalists who reported on the case throughout its existence continue to do injustice to everyone involved in the case (including themselves) and unbiased reporting in general.

Two full-length books have been written about the case, now available through Amazon. I haven’t read either one, so the books themselves are not my concern. My first concern arose from a review of one of them, Until Proven Guilty by Stuart Taylor, Jr. and K.C. Johnson. Charlotte Allen of the Weekly Standard butchers the definition of a book review but intitally provides a thorough examination of what we know as fact about the case now. I was surprised by how much I didn’t know about the accuser, especially about Nifong: "The various prosecutorial outrages he committed…most egregiously, concealing from the defense lawyers (via deliberate omission from a May 12, 2006, lab report) the fact that a medical exam conducted on Mangum shortly after the supposed rape revealed the presence of DNA from at least four different men on her person and underwear, none of which, needless to say, matched that of anyone on the lacrosse team…Even while excoriating the team’s "stone wall of silence," Nifong refused to meet with lawyers for Seligmann offering the young man’s airtight alibi." 

Allen says very little about the book (the whole point of her piece). But it isn’t until the end that she shows an unpleasant side of herself that is unacceptable: "On the night of March 13-14, two players (none of them the three accused rapists) flung racial epithets at Mangum and Roberts, although in all fairness this was in response to a disparaging remark Roberts had made about the sexual inadequacies of ‘white boys.’"

So, it’s acceptable to use racial insults if others insult you first? If they insult your sexuality or abilities? Personally, I don’t believe this is ever, ever justified. And where’s the line? What comes after trading insults? Swinging fists? Race war? Allen fails to review a book or present a straight presentation of facts. She only succeeds in showing the cruel biases that everyone involved in or commenting on the case harbors.

On the other side of the coin, we have Samhita of Feministing. From day one, this blogger made it clear that she believed the lacrosse players were guilty. A year and a half later, the dust has settled, the facts laid bare, and Samhita doesn’t have the ovaries to stand up and say, "I was wrong."

(Side note: the threats Samhita has received are also unacceptable, but harrassment of female bloggers is a whole other long, many-layered post).

In response to the threats, she wrote, "You will not shame me…I still stand by what I say and have said." Unfortunately, what she said was that the lack of DNA evidence indicated a cover-up (ironically, the prosecution covered up evidence of innocence, not guilt) and that female lacrosse players were "stupid" to believe in their counterparts’ innocence. Now she says: "None of us actually know what happened that night. Sorry, unless you were there, you don’t know what happened." After repeatedly stating her belief that a crime did occur that night, she wants to use the Schrödinger’s card in response to overwhelming evidence that it did not.

In what was supposed to be her defense, she wrote at length about the state of race/class/the justice system/etc., to deflect from her own mis-bloggings. She writes that, sadly, many ignorant people now believe that "black strippers are lying whores," but her whole defense of herself is based on generalizations that rich boys are guilty and blacks are unfairly discriminated against in law. You cannot refer to a history of discrimination for one side when you yourself are guilty of it for the other. The true history of injustice committed by and endured by the races has nothing to do with the fact that her statements were wrong.

You will not shame Samhita — she already shamed herself, as did Duke, Nifong, the accuser, the media, and everyone who now wants to say they were right or refuse to admit they were wrong.

Jennifer Leblanc

I received a much-forwarded email last week that set off my BS radar:

In case you know someone young enough that uses birth control and for the younger ones.

PASS THIS ON EVEN IF YOU DO NOT USE IT.

Recently this past week, my cousin Nicole Dishuk (age 31…newly grad student with a doctoral degree about to start her new career as a doctor…) was flown into a nearby hospital because she passed out.

They found a blood clot in her neck and immediately took her by helicopter to the ER to operate. By the time they removed the right half of her skull to relieve the pressure on her brain, the clot had spread to her brain causing severe damage.

Since last Wednesday night, she was battling…they induced her into a coma to stop the blood flow. They operated 3 times.

Finally, they said there was nothing left that they could do. They found multiple clots in the left side of her brain…the swelling wouldn’t stop, and she was on life support.

She died at 4:30 yesterday. She leaves behind a husband and 2-year-old Brandon and 4-year-old Justin..The CAUSE of DEATH — they found it was a birth control she was taking that allows you to only have your period 3 times a year…They said it interrupts life’s menstrual cycle, and although it is FDA-approved, shouldn’t be. So to the women in my address book — I ask you to boycott this product and deal with your period once a month — so you can live the rest of the months that your life has in store for you.

*Please send this to every woman you know — you may save someone’s life…Remember, you have a CYCLE for a reason!

FYI…The name of this new birth control pill is Lybrel.

If you go to Lybrel.com, you will find at least 26 pages of information regarding this drug.  
The second birth control pill is, Seasonique. If you go to the website of Seasonique.com, you will find 43 pages of information regarding this drug.  

The warnings and side effects regarding both pills are horrible.

Please, please forward this information to as many daughters AND sons, co-workers, friends, and relatives. Several lives have already been changed.

Being cynical and smelling a rat, I immediatly started searching. The very first result on Google about Nicole Dishuk leads to a site about urban legends. Turns out, Nicole Dishuk did die a year ago — of a stroke. Any other details about the cause of her death have been sealed as confidential. But note how the email states, in bold letters, "CAUSE OF DEATH." She was on this type of birth control pill, but no one has said, let alone confirmed, that the pill caused or was related to her sad, untimely death.

Another misleading bit from the email is that it lists how many pages of info about each drug you’ll find on the site. Of course you will find info — you will find that from any pharmaceutical site — they are required to disclose all drug facts. It doesn’t say, however, that you’ll find 43 pages of info about how deadly it is. It just says 43 pages.

There are side effects (and even related deaths) for every single prescription drug on the market. So the next time you get one of these ominous, meant-to-scare email stories, think twice before you forward it.

In related news: Birth control pill may cut cancer risk (study)
LONDON (Reuters) — Taking the contraceptive pill does not increase a woman’s chance of developing cancer and could even reduce the risk of getting the killer disease, a major British medical study showed on Wednesday.

Thank you medical science.

And now I’d like to thank common sense in the legal system:

A doctor has no duty to tell a woman considering an abortion that her embryo is an "existing human being," a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, averting a trial over when human life begins. The decision, citing past rulings, said the court "will not place a duty on doctors when there is no consensus in the medical community or among the public" on when life begins. The 5-0 Supreme Court ruling reversed a unanimous ruling by a three-judge appeals panel.

"No concensus in the medical community…unanimous ruling…" If only facts and science were enough, as in other countries, for our politicians to leave our bodies and our rights alone. It would help if, also like other countries, we could keep religious extemists out of our courtrooms and hospitals.

Jennifer Leblanc

Every holiday season, there are calendars to be sold as presents full of the asinine things our president has said. We think they’re funny, doubt he said some things, and roll our eyes at others. Some of us have read quotes that infuriated us. But Bush’s remarks on Wednesday comparing Vietnam to Iraq topped them all in absurdity.

To begin, the brains behind this pathetic PR tactic: "Freedom’s Watch, a conservative group, plans to launch a $15 million advertising campaign in 20 states today. The group’s spokesman, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, says the goal is to tell people that the buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq is working" (USA Today). Now check out the Salon article about Fleischer and Freedom’s Watch: …"the manipulative style of the Freedom’s Watch ads — and the apparent decision to air them against wavering Republicans — signals desperation, not strength." The perfect description of Bush talking about Vietnam as if he’s turned his head to history, blocked his ears, and chanted, "I’m not listening, la la la la."

The highlights:

"Bush said that like World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq was an ‘ideological struggle’ as he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. ‘war on terror.’" (Yahoo News) 

"In a speech to army veterans in Kansas City, Mr. Bush invoked one of America’s biggest military disasters in suppport of keeping troops in Iraq…He said that there had been lots of critics of U.S. involvement in Vietnam at the time — mentioning, among others, Graham Greene and a Washington Post columnist — and implying that, with the benefit of hindsight, they were wrong, just as critics of the Iraq war will later be seen to be misguided." (The Guardian UK)

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left…Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms, like ‘boat people,’ ‘reeducation camps,’ and ‘killing fields.’" (Yahoo News)

Ironic how the war in Iraq has left us with a vocabulary that includes Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Now here is what the many prestigious historians and experts had to say: 

"Vietnam historian Stanley Karnow said Bush is reaching for historical analogies that don’t track. He said, ‘Vietnam was not a bunch of sectarian groups fighting each other,’ as in Iraq. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge toppled a U.S.-backed government." (USA Today)

"Robert Dallek, author of several celebrated biographies of recent U.S. presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, told the Los Angeles Times: ‘It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president.’

‘We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,’ he said.

‘What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,’ he continued. ‘We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.’

The New York Times also talked to Dallek, who pointed out that the slaughters of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia ‘was a consequence of our having gone into Cambodia and destabilized that country.’

…The Washington Post quoted Steven Smith, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations: ‘The president emphasized the violence in the wake of American withdrawal from Vietnam. But this happened because the United States left too late, not too early. It was the expansion of the war that opened the door to Pol Pot and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. The longer you stay the worse it gets.’" (Editor & Publisher)

"’It is undoubtedly true that America’s failure in Vietnam led to catastrophic consequences in the region, especially in Cambodia,’ said David Hendrickson, a specialist on the history of American foreign policy at Colorado College. ‘But there are a couple of further points that need weighing,’ he added. ‘One is that the Khmer Rouge would never have come to power in the absence of the war in Vietnam — this dark force arose out of the circumstances of the war, was in a deep sense created by the war. The same thing has happened in the Middle East today. Foreign occupation of Iraq has created far more terrorists than it has deterred.’" (International Herald Tribune)

"Historians have cited the U.S. intervention and bombing campaign (spanning 1965-1973) as a significant factor leading to increased support of the Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry. Historian Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen have used a combination of sophisticated satellite mapping, recently unclassified data about the extent of bombing activities, and peasant testimony to argue that there was a strong correlation between villages targeted by U.S. bombing and recruitment of peasants by the Khmer Rouge. Kiernan and Owen argue that ‘Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began.’ In his study of Pol Pot’s rise to power, Kiernan argues that ‘Pol Pot’s revolution would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilisation of Cambodia’ and that the U.S. carpet bombing ‘was probably the most significant factor in Pol Pot’s rise.’" (Wikipedia entry for Khmer Rouge) 

In an article in the Walrus Magazine, Kiernan and Taylor Owen wrote that recent evidence reveals that Cambodia was bombed by the U.S. far more heavily than previously believed. They conclude that ‘the impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide.’" (Wikpedia entry for Ben Kiernan)

Bush, Sr. in 1991 on invading Iraq: "Trying to eliminate Saddam…would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible…We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq…there was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that had hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." (Originally from the memoir, A World Transformed, by George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft. Quoted in What We’ve Lost by Graydon Carter)

And finally, in a video that surfaced this week on YouTube, Dick Cheney echoes the previous remarks exactly. He even uses the word "quagmire."

Usually our president’s silly remarks are spontaneous, unplanned. But this was a prepared speech. There had to be speech writers involved, drafts, and revisions. Wasn’t there anyone along the way, however lowly the positions, who read it and said, "Um, hold the phone"? Or have they all lost their minds along with their credibility?

Jennifer Leblanc

"President Bush vowed Wednesday to veto bipartisan legislation that would sharply increase funding for a popular health insurance program for poor children."

Well, isn’t that sweet?

The reason: "S-Chip covers children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to pay for private insurance. The bills would make an estimated 3.2 million additional children eligible for S-Chip. Bush says this expansion is a first step toward government-funded universal health coverage."

Well, we certainly don’t want that, now do we? We certainly don’t want America to have a better health care system than Peru? We don’t want to save lives and improve the health of our citizens like every other modern nation on Earth does. The health of children — pfft, who cares? Once it’s out of the womb (when we dote on it and talk about the culture of life, when we vow to do anything to protect it), it’s on its own.

I know it’s only by a single seat, but the Democrats do control the Senate. So how did a bill expanding the government’s power to listen to our phone calls without warrants get passed? Can anyone explain this to me?

Finally: "Legislation to shield reporters from being forced by prosecutors to reveal their sources was approved Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee." I’m happy, but I don’t even want to hear from Judy Miller about this, or ever again, really.

There’s never a dull week in America.

Jennifer Leblanc