The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • I Was Going To Say

    damagesflaws.jpg

    All men should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

    —James Thurber

    We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

    —e.e. cummings

    If I die, survive me with such sheer force

    that you waken the furies of the pallid and the cold,

    from south to south lift your indelible eyes,

    from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth.

    I don’t want your laughter or your steps to waver,

    I don’t want my heritage of joy to die.

    Don’t call up my person. I am absent.

    Live in my absence as if in a house.

    Absence is a house so vast

    that inside you will pass through its walls

    and hang pictures on the air.

    Absence is a house so transparent

    that I, lifeless, will see you, living,

    and if you suffer, my love, I will die again.


    —Pablo Neruda, “Absence”

    Somewhere earlier in the afternoon there was a string of words that seemed almost like a revelation. That is now an old, painfully familiar story, and at the bottom of the day I can no longer recall those words, that revelation. I cannot even truly retrace my steps, or the journey (a laughable term in this instance, as in many instances) of the day behind me.

    I do remember thinking at some point, “Look at this fucking place,” referring, I think, to some typical stretch of over-developed suburbia. I also remember thinking, “Why doesn’t the President just decree that henceforth all American flags be displayed at permanent half-staff?”

    That wasn’t my revelation, but it does make real sense to me. It would be a rare and honest acknowledgment that this country is in a now constant state of mourning, and so lingering and pervasive is the sense of sorrow that most of us really could use such ubiquitous public reminders of the shame and grief we should be feeling.

    As I say, though, that wasn’t my revelation, and so qualifies as little more than a digression and a brief reprieve from my usual preoccupation with words that have gone missing.

  • Slicin' 'n Dicin' That Times Copy

    Great minds thinking alike, Pt. #38 … This “comment” came literally minutes after I read the piece in question.

    “Any thoughts on Kate Parry’s pretty extraordinary column on how Strib editors either:

    “A. Dumb down NYT stories for Strib readers, or
    “B. Improve NYT stories for Strib readers.

    “Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. But in general, watching Perry try to explain that cutting “12 inches” out of a story (god forbid, a story “run long,” as Parry puts it) is actually a good thing because it gets rid of all of that pesky “background and details.”

    “There’s been a lot of whining and crying about the Strib’s new owners and how they’re going to potentially gut the paper. Fair enough. But I don’t think that there’s been near enough whining and crying from readers and journalists-who-should-know-better about how current Strib staff (and I’m not just talking about high-ranking editors, either) are just as culpable in destroying its journalistic credibility, mainly via dumb acts like “improving” NYT stories.”

    I have no idea who the “commenter” is, but something tells me he/she has a working knowledge of the editing practices at America’s second-tier newspapers.

    Parry’s column, available here is fairly typical Company Ombudsman-speak. Everything the company does is reasonable and thorough and beyond reproach. All decisions are made with intention of providing better information to Star Tribune readers, everyone involved works extraordinarily hard, (editors in these reports are always “scrambling” over last minute shifts in news flow, etc.).

    But yeah, the idea of the hard-working Strib wire editors, (several of whom, like Parry, are Pioneer Press refugees), cleaning up, toning down, editing out and plugging in better copy than the New York Times original — especially on something like this US Attorneys scandal — smacks of the ever so slightly of professional hubris. (“Really. You know better?”)

    Not that the Times is all-knowing and infallible, mind you, (we all remember Judy Miller, right?), or that new, tastier items aren’t available from other sources. But 95 times out of 100, I’m just fine with reading THE ENTIRE Times reporting job on a story like this … which is why I have the Times’ lead stories e-mailed to me every morning, and why I buy the paper version two-three times a week. (I subscribe to the Wall St. Journal, because I really want to know when to roll my hedge fund winnings.) Speaking for myself, I don’t need the Strib’s truncated, re-arranged version of these stories at all. In most cases I’ve read it all the day before … in its’ entirety.

    But then, they’re not publishing the Star Tribune for me.

    What’s ironic here of course is that the Strib cuts and pastes dozens of New York Times stories a week because it long ago stopped pretending to regularly cover national and international events as part of its’ own personal mission. They’ve farmed out all that fundamental, big-story action.

    But then, because of its constricted newshole, it compounds the problem by retreating even further. By slicing and dicing the work of news organizations that are still devoting resources to national/international coverage the paper isn’t even providing the full-service of the best aggregator websites/internet competition.

    Put another way, this repackaging and compacting, (and based on experience I can assure you these stories rarely if ever INCREASE in length … shorter is always better), just gives voracious news consumers — once thought to be every paper’s most loyal customers — another reason to seek the original reporting at its’ source.

    But then, I suspect the Strib wire desk isn’t cutting this stuff up for its “voracious” readers, if you know what I mean. At the risk of sounding wholly elitist, there is a significant difference in the Times’ and Star Tribune’s view of their target audience.

  • The Three-Pointer: End of the Beginning

    Game #64, Road Game #32, Golden State 106, Minnesota 86

    1. Postponing the Obvious

    So, did you catch that playoff fever? Heading into last night’s Golden State game, the Wolves only had to defeat the Warriors and have the Clips lose on the road in Charlotte to sneak into that 8th playoff seed with just a titch over a month to go in the season. What did it matter that Minnesota was embarking on a five-game road trip, that they’d lost 12 of their past 13 away from Target Center, including eight in a row, and that the Warriors were undefeated in the four games in which they’d been both healthy and replenished by the talent they’d obtained in the Indiana steal?

    Naturally, it mattered a lot. The squad got waxed by 20, and it wasn’t that close. Hopefully you’ll notice there isn’t a lot of playoff talk in this forum. It seems more than a little tacky for a team that’s gone 8-20 and stubbornly refuses to see that their most effective lineups and player rotations in the present are precisely those that also best prepare them for the future. That message couldn’t have clearer in the Indiana win earlier this week. It is the focus of the franchise’s sudden media blitz to cajole people into buying season tickets for next year. And, for those with a little patience and foresight, it is actually a fairly exciting prospect–Randy Foye, Rashad McCants and Craig Smith are the answer now, as well as later.

    So what does Randy Wittman and the rest of the “braintrust” do as they head into the most crucial five-game stretch of their season? Why, they ride the guys whose attitudes and work ethics have been most questionable, the guys who have been chronic losers for most or all of their careers, the players who have already driven this squad into the latrine over the last two months. Oh, and by invoking this strategy, they double up on the toxicity by discouraging the talented kids who are the only things preventing a rush for the exits by the superstar and any basketball fan with half a brain in this town.

    Specifically, what else does Mark Blount need to do to demonstrate that he effectively checked out at the All Star break–take a whizz on the logo at center court? Blount had six turnovers in 16:39 last night, and was a -20 according to popcornmachine.net, meaning the Wolves played the Warriors even in the 31:21 Blount was on the bench. He has consistently sabotaged this team with his shoddy performances since the break, plays so soft that he emboldens opposing big men, makes decisions with the basketball and when to stay in the 3-second area that would be boneheaded for a rookie, let alone a supposed mature veteran, and carries himself with the mien of someone who refuses to let passion invigorate his game–unless there is some personal thing at stake, like his dislike of the Celtic franchise. Mark Madsen and Craig Smith are both woefully undersized, but so what? Both play bigger than Blount. Both play harder than Blount. And both earn way less than half of what Blount is making.

    Move on to Ricky Davis. Minus 29 in 33:17 of play. That means the Wolves outscored the Warriors by 9 in the 14:43 Davis sat his ass down. He was 3-14 from the field, but that’s forgiveable–does anyone doubt Davis wants the ball to go in when he shoots? No, what’s repugnant is watching Davis feign as if he is running at his man on defense, already too late to do anything about the wide open J because he didn’t exert the effort earlier. But as he is feigning the D, he is giving himself momentum to start running the other way, in hopes of leaking out for easy buckets. Indeed, most of the time Davis is ducking to avoid the foul as the man shoots. There were two places last night where the Wolves tossed this game–right at the onset, when the Wolves didn’t score a field goal for five minutes and fell behind 3-13, and during the third quarter when Golden State roared through a 16-4 run that put them up 72-50 less than halfway through the period. Davis and Blount were the chief culprits in the opening stasis and Davis’s pathetic defense was the primary catalyst in the third period meltdown, sparked by Stephen Jackson.

    It seems pointless (pardon the pun) to pick on Troy Hudson anymore. Suffice to say that he was -14 in 14:49, missed two-thirds of his shots, was not strong enough to guard Baron Davis and not quick enough to guard Monta Ellis. A couple of weeks ago he was suddenly inserted into the starting lineup to jolt the offense into productivity. Last night the Wolves committed a season-high 25 turnovers and scored just 86 against one of the worst, most permissive defensive teams in the league.

    If you think Blount, Davis, and Hudson can ever be vital parts of a team contending for a championship, Forbes Magazine has a subscription form they’d like you to fill out.

    2. Once More, With Feeling: The Kids Are Alright

    According to popcornmachine.net, Rashad McCants was a team-best +3 in 19:57 of play. He had trouble locating Mikel Pietrus, the super-athletic French import, during the second quarter, but otherwise McCants continues to demonstrate a refined grasp of how to play the game. Perhaps most impressive is his restraint–the McCants of last year would have turned 20-point deficits into 35 or 40 with terrible, selfish shot selection, indifferent defense, and a blame-oriented, dolorous attitude. This year, without his full complement of physical skills, he is defending better both on the ball and in zone and rotation situations, accepting the mundane aspects of running the offense with a dedication that improves its efficiency, boxing out and contesting for rebounds with an added vigor, and maintaining a mostly positive mindset amidst the blizzard of bullshit that has become the team’s normal operating procedure.

    Randy Foye shot just 3-9 FG but led the team with 20 points because he got to the line 14 times and sank every attempt. (Quick aside: When a free throw is called for after an opposing technical foul or defensive three-seconds call, it is time for Kevin Garnett to cede the role of free throw shooter to Foye and anyone else whose accuracy from the line is greater.) Foye also led the team in assists with 7 (more than a third of the squad’s 19) and committed just 3 turnovers (less than an eighth of the squad’s 25) in 33:11 of play. Right now if the situation was reversed and Foye was the vet and Troy Hudson and Mike James were the green rooks, and you knew the Wolves had to build for the future, you’d still probably counsel starting Foye and playing him the overwhelming majority of minutes, on the premise that the other two simply weren’t ready and might have their confidence shaken by chronic exposure to a game that overwhelms them.

    The notion that starting Foye would put too much pressure on him is obviously rendered moot by the fact that you already have started
    him. The notion that he can be more aggressive coming in with the second unit instead of the first ignores the obvious fact that a coach can actually advise a rookie point guard to be more aggressive anyway, and let the other starters adjust accordingly. The notion that Randy Foye or the Minnesota Timberwolves are benefitting in any way, shape, or form from waiting until the team is well behind before bringing him in, is, of course, ludicrous.

    In a perfect world, the 19:55 Craig Smith played last night is probably about right for his skill set and role. Smith is a change-of-pace, a mucker with a nice touch around the hoop, an unusual presence because of his ‘tweener size, enhancing the odds of mismatches for both sides. Unfortunately, with Mark Blount ratifying most every nasty thing his critics have ever tossed at him, Smith needs at least 30 minutes, or Mark Madsen needs 10-15 more than he’s currently getting. Because of the relative obscurity he will probably always have to endure because of his limited skills and smallish size, Smith will continue to be jobbed by officials (especially on charge versus blocking foul calls) his entire career. But right now he is the best offensive rebounder and second-best big man overall on this squad. Not bad for a second round draft pick.

    3. Pictures Telling A Thousand Words

    Kevin Garnett’s whole-hearted endorsement of Randy Wittman and his obvious enervation and distaste when Blount and Davis are doing their mail-it-in thang seem contradictory, given that Wittman is enabling the Boston duo. It is just more evidence that KG would make a lousy GM.

    But let’s not forget that the best Timberwolves player on the court last night by a country mile was Kevin Garnett, who was absolutely swarmed every time he touched the ball, was manhandled by players big and small, in large part because there is no quality Big who has his back, and who was absolutely spent late midway through the 4th quarter when he missed two free throws after making his first seven. After Wittman mercifully sat Garnett down in the last three minutes, his stone cold stare at the proceedings on the floor was equal parts fatigue, dillusionment, and ire. Then, just as Jim Petersen and Tom Hanneman were talking the woeful state of the team and how important this stretch of games were, there was a closeup of Hudson and Davis sitting next to each, both flashing big smiles.

  • Friday? Night? Close Enough

    twilightbowler-6.jpg

    But couldn’t it all have been

    a little nicer,

    as my mother’d say. Did it

    have to kill everything in sight,

    did right always have to be so wrong?

    I know this body is impatient.

    I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.

    Yet I loved, I love.

    I want no sentimentality.

    I want no more than home.

    —Robert Creeley, from “Goodbye”

    I cannot ask, cannot say, cannot bring myself to you, to this, to the world. I am not strong. I cannot find the lamp switch, cannot carry the light, cannot move it into all the dark places where it is needed. I cannot keep scattering bread crumbs.

    I cannot formulate questions; the words get all tangled up in my head, the important and necessary punctuation mark appears in all the wrong places. It keeps asserting itself –inserting itself– too early and often, impatient, whether in an attempt to keep it vague or simple I can’t say: What? Why? How? Yes? No?

    I have no control over the weather. It does whatever it wants to, entirely against my will. I have never been able to find this arrangement acceptable.

    I do not eat, do not allow myself to desire, refuse to acknowledge need. I hear, whether I like it or not, bongo drums, insistent, relentless. I hear the rising and falling of jets, a ceaseless torment, the sound of some freedom I don’t have.

    I wish this world trafficked in simple explanations, a foolish and naive wish if ever there was one.

    I heard a man say, “I fell into this racket a long time ago and I’ve been falling ever since,” a comment that has returned to me again and again over the last several days.

    My hands have become useless, can no longer reach, or have nothing in reach they wish to reach. My hands are done wishing.

    I do not know what I have become.

    “They’re bad and they’re good,” said Pod. “They’re honest and they’re artful –it’s just as it takes them at the moment. And animals, if they could talk, would say the same. Steer clear of them –that’s what I’ve always been told. No matter what they promise you. No good never really came to no one from any human bean.”

    –Mary Norton, The Borrowers

    deathhorse.jpg

  • Fair Enough, As Far As It Goes …

    Here is a comment from reader Dave on yesterday’s post about blogs leading the mainstream press to the US Attorney’s story …

    “Brian I agree with you that stories are missed by the mainstream press and also agree that this is a worthwhile topic for discussion. But you owe your readers a small disclosure on your source.

    “The Center for American Progress is a left-leaning group with seed money from George Soros. Of course any opinions from them will be anti-Bush and in complete agreement with the Dems.

    “I tend to be moderate, and have my own issues with the Bush administration. The danger of the blogsphere is exactly what you just did, you did not describe your source. You made is sound like fact when your source has their own bias.

    “I have no problem at all with your own left-leaning opinion and take on topics. I enjoy reading your thoughts. But do your readers a favor and give a little background on your sources.

    “What would be an interesting topic is the mix of politics and justice. We all know that presidents nominate supreme court justices based on their political leanings. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened with the Attorney General’s staff throughout history. That makes for an interesting discussion and debate.”

    First, let me say, Dave, that I appreciate the civil tone. It would be nice, not to mention more productive, if the various sides in ideological disputes could always interact like adults instead of barroom brawlers. So, thanks.

    But while, yes, I could (and maybe should) have identified Eric Alterman and the Center for American Progress as a “left of center columnist for a left of center think tank as well as the left of center magazine, The Nation”, and Josh Marshall’s “TPM Muckraker” as a “left of center news blog” and the Project for Excellence in Journalism as, “a non-partisan, non-ideological and non-political media research organization funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts”, I consciously short-circuited all the descriptors and qualifiers because my point was basically that a certain prominent blog, (Marshall’s TPM Muckraker), had persisted mightily, done its own reportorial footwork in places and succeeded in pushing the commercialized mainstream press to recognize and cover a story of far greater relevance than Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, etc.

    Now, okay, Dave, you got me on me, a proud liberal, patting fellow travellers like Alterman and Marshall on the back for their insights and hard work. “My team” scored. But for the record, back last spring when Michael Brodkorb of MinnesotaDemocratsExposed.com was dropping a series of “scoops” about Keith Ellison I … grudgingly … complimented him on his work. And that was to his face and on the public airwaves.

    Do I think this US Attorneys matter is a far bigger fish than Ellison’s parking tickets/messy paperwork? You bet I do. And I defy anyone to make the case it isn’t. Never the less, Brodkorb did the footwork, (or had it dropped on him … and that counts), and the mainstream press piled on afterwards. In the end the public decided, resoundingly, that they didn’t much give a damn about Ellison’s parking tickets. But they at least had information on which to base their judgment.

    I’ll grant you the obvious that Alterman and Marshall are no fans of the Bush administration. But neither are they particularly star struck by the big foot mainstream media. Pick three or four of their most recent columns or postings and decide how badly the allegedly liberally-biased press is under-performing in their estimation.

    More to the point, the fact that they are partisans, in the same way Brodkorb is a partisan, doesn’t automatically render their information inaccurate. What is true is true. Whether it is George Soros or Richard Scaife throwing money into the budget, all that should matter is whether the information is true. (I’ll take Soros’ record on that count over Scaife’s every day of the week.)

    I should add, that IMHO, the public’s ability to assess truth as it is presented by the mainstream press has been seriously clouded by hyper-partisan performers who incessantly accuse the NBCs and Star Tribunes of the world of sloppiness and “bias” while offering only the quintessence of commercialized, bowdlerized information themselves. By that of course I mean the crowd that will say anything and pander to any degree of ignorance to make another buck.

    Alterman and Marshall are not playing the Hugh Hewitt-Sean Hannity agitator-entertainer game. Facts are critical to their credibility, and part of being a discerning citizen/news consumer is developing the ability to concede a fact regardless of who provides it.

    As for the Supreme Court Justices point. Various anything-for-a-buck
    bloviators are trying to push the argument that “everyone replaces US Attorneys”. This is a conscious smokescreen. Aka: bullshit. As Marshall has been reporting for some time, and as the mainstream press is now confirming and adding to its reporting, the idea of flushing out eight US Attorneys in one fell swoop … in mid-administration … , (much less all 93), is completely and totally unprecedented. And that is a fact.

  • Test Run

    It has been called to my attention that another baseball season is almost upon us and it has been more than five months since I updated this site.

    Shame on me.

    Shame, shame, shame on me.

    Here I am, though, and here I will be –I swear on the Baseball Encyclopedia— on a regular basis throughout the season. I’m emboldened to make that claim because I now have Britt Robson to kick my ass when it needs kicking (which is, and will be, often), and also to bring a more level-headed approach to the proceedings when I get inordinately despondent or hysterical.

    I’m just now putting the finishing touches on some baseball stuff for our April issue (which will be in the racks on March 26th) but I’ve set the immodest goal of updating Warning Track Power every game day during the season.

    In the meantime I’ll be scrolling through spring training box scores, digging through a stack of annuals and season previews, and also browsing around for more blogs to add to the sidebar. If you have any suggestions, send them along.

    For now I’ll leave you with this: Sidney Ponson has long been one of my least favorite Major League players, and if his fat ass is in the starting rotation come April 2nd, I’m going to be in a very dark mood right out of the blocks.

  • Rediscover Your Love of Movies (And Go Bonkers!) At the Library This Saturday

    bonkers.gif

    There is nothing–I repeat, nothing!–more intriguing cinematically this weekend than the selection of children’s films at the Central Library. Oh, you can check out the movies you should have seen over the past few weeks, or haul your child to see Terabithia, which, for my money, ought to have left that mysterious book alone (and allowed our collective imaginations to outdo the ridiculous CGI). This Saturday’s showings are particularly fascinating: Folklore Restaurant, for ages 3 and up, and later, the manic Bonkers, which looks like oodles of fun.

    Ah, but you scoff, do you? Worldly sophisticate you are, why would you, childless you, take in morning movies amongst the kiddies? Or, cutting-edge parent that you might be, why waste time with a movie, especially ones with subtitles?

    Because here you will find a morning and afternoon of cinematic magic, that’s why. For the childless and jaded, I can think of no better opportunity for a person to reclaim their love of cinema by watching youngsters react to the beauty they witness on the silver screen. And with these Saturday screenings, you’re also watching movies made with, dare I say it, love–a love of storytelling, filmmaking, and a respect for the audience.

    At 10:15 you’ll see Folklore Restaurant, a lovely fairy tale, locally made, which is described as a “trio of fox tales from Native America, Finland, and Japan.” The director, Tomoko Oguchi, will be on hand to answer questions and perhaps give the enthralled some insight into her animation techniques (using washi, a Japanese paper). Screened with Folklore Restaurant will be a number of number of other shorts, including Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears.

    Around 1:00, we’ll get a sneak preview of the Childish Film Festival’s Dutch film Knetter (Bonkers). Here’s a film that kids can really sink their teeth into, and a have a blast besides. The story of a girl whose mother suffers from manic-depression (hence the name–she’s bonkers), this is a crazy-fun film that appears not to sugarcoat life. There’s a single mom with a mental illness, sexually active, the grandmother dies, the girl gets an elephant. In America, the subjects would be driven into our heads with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, or softened for the kiddies. Can’t have Mom with boyfriends, and discover the two of them (gasp) in bed. If you do, well, then the movie’s for adults–got to spare our young ones the grim nature of life. Hogwash, I say. Why is it that Europeans alone seem to understand that children can learn about the darkness of life from the art they participate in? It beats me, but the preview for Bonkers is one of the most loving, exciting, and hilarious shorts I’ve seen in ages. Parents: don’t deny your child this experience. If only this child of a single-mom with depression had this to latch on at an impressionable age, well, I’d have been a lot happier knowing there were others like me out there. Maybe I’d have even finagled an elephant as a pet!

    Both movies are being shown in the Pohlad Hall at the downtown library, the first at 10:15 (ages 3 and up) and the second at 1:00 (8 and up due to subtitles). Whole Foods Market’s providing the snacks. See you there!

    folklore.gif

  • Peer Gynt

    Tonight: Orchestra Hall, Peer Gynt, with performance enhancements provided by a troupe of physical theater-types. Rumor has it that the gray hairs have been complaining about all the “raunchy” material. But it’s Peer Gynt, so what do they expect?

  • The Rise of the Legitimate Blogosphere

    Eric Alterman offers a valuable, and as far as I can tell, entirely accurate timeline of reporting on the U.S. Attorneys scandal. His essential point being that this fascinating episode of ham-fisted politicizing would have been ignored, as so many other stories have been, were it not for REPORTING work done by prominent blogs, principally Josh Marshall’s TPM Muckraker.

    Reading this as I slog through the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s dispiriting 2007 State of the Press report, I’m reminded again of commercialized news’ numerous self-inflicted wounds. Forget Anna Nicole Smith — if you can — the sheer volume of inconsequential, excuse me, “repetitively inconsequential” news plugged into both newspapers and TV as a marketing strategy is a fundamental factor in the declining appeal of that style of mainstream journalism. Put another way, all of us so-called “busy news consumers” have less and less time for junk information and are hungrily searching for reliable sources of information that is relevant to something other than small talk with a barista. Hence the growth in public radio.

    There is no shortage of junk information. In modern American culture you acquire knowledge of Anna Nicole and Britney’s dysfunction by osmosis, like a virus. Its appearance in the mainstream press as anything other than an analysis of a cultural phenomenon is properly taken as signs of desperation and lack of imagination. And the influence of otherwise serious news venues decreases in moments when someone contrasts the sluggish response to something as valid, though complex, as the US Attorney’s story to what editors and news directors regarded instead as a more palatable mix of topics.

  • Why We Fight

    In the remarkable mini-series Band of Brothers, the story of one company of the 101st Airborne Division in World War II, episode nine is titled “Why We Fight”. The episode is about how the company discovered a German concentration camp. If it hadn’t been clear up to that point why the Americans were fighting the Germans, it certainly was made so by the sight of the camp and the realization that the local Germans had acquiesced to this horror just outside their town.

    This came to mind today with the revelation that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, had confessed to being the mastermind behind 9/11 and various other attacks and plots against the U.S. and other countries and leaders.

    Aside from having the effect of knocking the debacle at the Gonzales Justice Department off the front page for the moment, (one wonders if the release of the “confession” now was designed to do just that) it reminds us of why we fight, and the original rationale for war with Iraq.

    In case you need reminding, the Iraq war was fomented originally because the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld triumvirate cynically blamed Iraq for 9/11. Only after that was proved false did they move on to Weapons of Mass Destruction. When that proved to be false, they came up with other reasons–and we are now in a situation in which we are losing the war we should have been fighting in Afghanistan against the minions of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden because we are squandering our resources on the war in Iraq.

    So, perhaps this confession by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed can stand as the real “Why We Fight” reminder, and let us turn our attention where it belongs.