George W. Bush Versus The Massive Swiss Army

There is a scary article by Ron Suskind in this week's New York Times Magazine, on Bush. A scary qoute-

In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''
The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.
A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ''You were right,'' he said, with bonhomie. ''Sweden does have an army.''

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Racist Red Sox

please, please, please, PLEASE, stop with talking about the Boston “curse.” You know the one about how the Red Sox have been cursed from winning a World Series because they traded Babe Ruth? Sure it’s a funny thing to put on a T-shirt, but it’s tired and, worse, glosses over the real reason the Red Sox haven’t won a World Series title since Woodrow Wilson was president: for much of the 20th Century, the Boston Red Sox were one of the most racist organizations in all of professional sports. They had an opportunity to sign Jackie Robinson but passed. They then had a chance to sign Willie Mays and passed, saying the game’s greatest all-around player wasn’t their type of player. In fact, the Red Sox were the last team to integrate their roster, grudgingly doing so in 1959, two years after Jackie Robinson retired. The end of it? Hardly. Between 1976, when free agency started in baseball, and 1992, the Red Sox signed no African-American free agents. Instead, for most of those years, they have cast their lot with big, slow white guys who could only score by hitting home runs. Curse? Karma.

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Divine Comedy

Divine Comedy

There are some beautiful paintings of The Divine Comedy here.

Barely Liberal

However, after Bush's attempt to tar him as a bleeding heart, I thought I had it wrong -- so I checked the website of the National Journal, the source cited by Bush as branding Kerry the No. 1 liberal of our time. As is his habit on so many things, Bush had the facts wrong. The career voting record of the "Massachusetts liberal" ranks him as only the 11th most liberal, behind current colleagues from Iowa, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Vermont and Maryland -- and his running mate is a miserable 27th.

Amen

My God. Still three weeks to go before this glut of shameless hypocrisy called Election 2004 is over, assuming – of course – that we don’t have another debacle that leaves the decision up to the Supreme Court. I’ve been around politics for nearly 40 years and thought I had seen and heard it all, but this campaign comes down to the nastiest, most issue-challenged contest of the past four-decades. On the surface, we should have substantial issues: an unpopular war where Americans die for a cause that’s not quite clear, an economy that can’t make up its mind if it wants to go up or down, millions of Americans without proper health care and a standard of living that can best be described as “nervous.” Instead, the issue comes down to a choice between two deeply-flawed candidates, neither of whom can claim the high ground on honesty, leadership or values. George W. Bush wouldn’t recognize the truth if it walked up and kicked him in the balls (assuming he has any) and John Kerry changes his stories so often it’s doubtful he even knows what’s truthful and what’s not.