Category: Politics, Religion & Money

The lame-brained Republican political commentator David Brooks is always good at raising my blood pressure, which is sometimes too low anyway. Look at this idiotic comment he made on The News Hour:

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I’ll just tell you that, in private conversations months ago, Republican senators, senior Republican senators were anxious to move away from the White House, to move towards some sort of withdrawal. Now they’re not talking that way. They’re talking, “We’ve got to stick with the president.” And why? Two words: Harry Reid.

It’s because they detest the way he’s drawn the line. He’s drawn the line that said, “You’re either for a certain withdrawal right away, or starting with 120 days or whatever, or you’re with the president.” And they hate those two choices. And they’d rather not be in those choices, but Reid is the majority leader. He sets the parameters of the choices, and that’s the dilemma they’re in.

Sheesh. Always, always the Neocon supporters, mostly now reduced to being apologists due to the undeniably total failure of the Bush administration, still insist on constructing convoluted logic that blames Democrats for everything. Yeah, it’s Harry Reid’s fault that Republican politicians can’t distance themselves from Bush. Ridiculous.

At long last, the New York Times is saying what I said last year.

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

The full editorial, which I recommend highly reading carefully and more than once, is here.

This is e-mail I received from Mr. D. F. Rogers. It is posted here by permission.

The last of the Iwo Jima flag raisers has died. He was in the 1st group, of course, not the 2nd more famous group. He lived long enough to have his story told and to receive some credit for his participation. But that’s it, every day another wave washes away another group of WW II vets. [Link]

Charles W. Lindbergh (no relation to the Nazi sympathizer) is the guy standing behind the Marine in the foreground with the carbine. The guy in the cap, holding up the flag, is Hank Hansen, from Massachusetts. He was originally thought to have been in the famous Rosenthal pic and his mother was included in the activities back home during the bond tours, as shown in Flags Of Our Fathers. [Link]

They are also looking for the remains of the Marine who filmed the famous flag raising, standing right next to Joe Rosenthal. He was killed several days later and his remains were left in a cave that was sealed up by explosives. [Link]

There’s a signed lithograph available. [Link] The most poignant thing about this page is the photo of the men at the new WW II monument in Washington DC.

Over 60 years later, and the long shadows of WW II still remain, even as the people who lived and fought in that era fade away.