Absent without permission.
 

OK, I'm on it. I'm worried about the left.

What y'all said before. I am well and truly sorry that I didn't STP.

Can I boycott a (hypothetical) Susan Sarandon movie because I know she'll use her money for propaganda I feel is harmful? Boycott are okay- I just don't know that congress should be leading them.

Absent without permission.
 

Took me a second, but I got that.

You have my permission to do so. Heck, I've been boycotting the Plaza on my visits to TCOTU because I disapprove of "The Apprentice."

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

I haven't been following the story very carefully, but Steve Clemons has some interesting speculation that a high-ranking administration official may be helping Fitzgerald's investigation.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

""Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak."

It's been my experience that someone who starts such a sentence with the word "clearly" is, at least, suspect, especially when (1) no other evidence seems to support this, and (2) Woodward now seems to directly contradict it.

Then you add this:

""On September 28, 2003, Washington Post writers Dana Priest and Mike Allen clearly note the existence of a source with knowledge about the outing campaign conducted as "a vendetta" against Joe Wilson by senior officials in the Bush White House.

This source clearly had concerns about the behavior of these officials, and to some degree, this Washington Post source appears to be a key "counter-leaker" in the Valerie Plame investigation, i.e. someone attempting to make sure that the real story about the Plame leak and reasons for it were told."

and it makes me think we've got a whole new set of agendas being voiced here. Sounds more like a Kos-inspired set of Christmas wishes than news. Or fact.

I would take it with a large grain of salt.

Deserving of a read . . . (Or; Why I like Lileks, part 851)
 

"I never “got into” Vonnegut, or “dug” his work like my “buds,” several of whom pronounced his work as “intense,” so I am not particularly bothered to find he applauds suicide bombers, and thinks they experience “an amazing high.” In the literal sense, perhaps; it’s possible that skull fragments may reach the third floor before they carom off a balcony and patter back to earth.

I should note that Mr. Vonnegut’s comments, reported in the Australian, were made while touring to promote a collection of anti-Bush essays, and as such all attempts to refute them is intended to suppress his freedom of speech. It goes without saying he will be spending his senior years naked in a cell, fighting rats for a scrap of bread, writing brave quatrains on the wall with a shoelace-tip dipped in rat’s blood, awakened daily at 4 AM with bright lights and the national anthem. Such is life in Chimpsuit McHallihitler’s America. But I press on; this dissent isn’t going to suppress itself. "

. . . .

"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."

Personally, I think it’s a worse thing to deprive someone of their own self-life. While I grant that people who go to a wedding party in a Jordon hotel are just asking for it (Insert obligatory come-back about the US mistakenly bombing a northern Iraqi wedding party here) you have to admit that it’s better to be alive, even if you have to deal with VOA satellite transmissions telling you your race is nothing – so worthless, in fact, that it deserves a democracy like Iowans and Britons and Japanese. Oh, we could just nuke your cities and take your oil, but we hate you so much we’re going to stay here and bleed and force your warring factions to hold subcommittee meetings on the constitutional process. It's bored our people to tears; now it's your turn."

. . . .

Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."

Mr. Vonnegut – again, a patriot whose dissent is being cruelly ground into the nurturing earth before your eyes – seems to think that suicide bombings literally happen in a vacuum, an unpopulated space where the bombers just pop like soap bubbles. It may be painless for them – alas – but it is not painless for the victims. You’d think such an obvious observation would go without saying, but we are dealing with an intellectual. What Vonnegut calls brave – blowing yourself up so you can fly up to the great Bunny Ranch in the sky and rut with fragrant houris blessed with self-regenerating hymens – does not exactly compare to the bravery required of the survivors.

Anticipating murder for the glory of God must be an amazing high. Most people understand the emotional motivation that animates these people, but don’t spend much time on it, anymore than they wonder about the joy a child rapist feels when he has the kid in the woods. It’s one thing to consider it; it’s another to luxuriate in your considerations. An amazing high. "





More . . .

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

(1) What I thought was interesting was not the possible veracity of that which was posted in the Washington Post years ago, but the notion that Fitzgerald is getting inside help.

(2) Yes, the inside help may have some other agenda.

(3) We know from Mark Felt's role in Watergate that sometime the pursuit of such agendas serves the public interest.



eta: I've never been able to read Vonnegut.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

That would be kind of fascinating in its own right, but I would think that being the traitor within the Bush admin isn't the best way to fund your long-term retirement.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

Oh please. There are a million different factions in the world. And if someone is pretty near the end of their career, and has the bucks, they can leak shit about the leaks purely for the personal satisfaction. For instance, I gotta believe that a lot of principled Rs hate, HATE, HATE Karl Rove. Like, Lindsay Graham and John McCain. Not that I'm suggesting they are the leakers, but Rove is a disgusting slimy turd who is exquisitely hateable. And who couldn't kinda despise a guy who still goes by "Scooter" even though he passed 50 a long time ago? Fibby McLibby.


edited again to point out I changed my avatar, if only temporarily, kinda for Hank.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

You wouldn't be so quick to be hateful if you knew that, IRL, I go by "Binky", would you?

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

I would be twice as hateful, Skippy.

Deserving of a read . . . (Or; Why I like Lileks, part 851)
 

I don't have the full context here, so it's hard to draw any hard conclusions, but I will note that Vonnegut has in the past been the author of many peices that were satire in the true Swiftian sense.

In any event, the bit about depriving suicide bombers of their self-respect is obviously satire, intentional or not.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

I have a hard time buying this. If you were really a Binky, you would hold a high enough rank in the Administration that you would have self-outed long ago.