Sunday's Best Ink
The Two-Star Rebel: John Batiste's Defection
Greg Jaffe/Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2006
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Six days after he called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to leave his post, retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste faced a crushing moment of doubt.Earlier that morning, Mr. Rumsfeld had brushed off Gen. Batiste and other critics as inflexible bureaucrats, uncomfortable with change. A few hours later, President Bush vowed to stand by his secretary. Read the rest…
Heart of Darkness: Where Is Guantánamo?
Amy Kaplan/American Quarterly, September 2005
In January 2002, the first shackled and hooded men from Afghanistan were incarcerated behind barbed wire at the U.S. Naval Station, Guantónamo Bay, Cuba. In April 2004, when the case challenging the legality of their detention was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Guantánamo still appeared to many as a strange aberration, as an "animal," with "no other like it," as Justice Ginsburg stated. Descriptions of Guantánamo as a lawless zone enhanced this image of its exceptional status: a legal black hole, a legal limbo, a prison beyond the law, a "permanent United States penal colony floating in another world." Read the rest…
MSM S&M: Stephen Colbert's Snipers
James Wood/The New Republic, May 22, 2006
Was Stephen Colbert funny? No, he was not being funny. He was being ironic, satirical, brutal. Don't you get it? These issues are just too painful for humor. Since Colbert's 20-minute routine at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner two weeks ago, the question has been asked and answered thus in the blogosphere, that underground realm of steaming ressentiment not exactly famous for the refinement of its irony, where the president is the "chimp," Laura is "his bitch wife," and the press is "the MSM." Read the rest…
Greg Jaffe/Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2006
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Six days after he called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to leave his post, retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste faced a crushing moment of doubt.Earlier that morning, Mr. Rumsfeld had brushed off Gen. Batiste and other critics as inflexible bureaucrats, uncomfortable with change. A few hours later, President Bush vowed to stand by his secretary. Read the rest…
Heart of Darkness: Where Is Guantánamo?
Amy Kaplan/American Quarterly, September 2005
In January 2002, the first shackled and hooded men from Afghanistan were incarcerated behind barbed wire at the U.S. Naval Station, Guantónamo Bay, Cuba. In April 2004, when the case challenging the legality of their detention was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Guantánamo still appeared to many as a strange aberration, as an "animal," with "no other like it," as Justice Ginsburg stated. Descriptions of Guantánamo as a lawless zone enhanced this image of its exceptional status: a legal black hole, a legal limbo, a prison beyond the law, a "permanent United States penal colony floating in another world." Read the rest…
MSM S&M: Stephen Colbert's Snipers
James Wood/The New Republic, May 22, 2006
Was Stephen Colbert funny? No, he was not being funny. He was being ironic, satirical, brutal. Don't you get it? These issues are just too painful for humor. Since Colbert's 20-minute routine at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner two weeks ago, the question has been asked and answered thus in the blogosphere, that underground realm of steaming ressentiment not exactly famous for the refinement of its irony, where the president is the "chimp," Laura is "his bitch wife," and the press is "the MSM." Read the rest…
posted by Pierre Tristam at Sunday, May 14, 2006
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