Truth And Consequences by Keith Olbermann

Interested in how many different ways one can call George W Bush a liar? Or maybe you miss Dennis Miller's rants and would like something similar to what he used to do only now it's called Special Comments instead of the rather mundane sounding "Rants". Toss in an author who thinks he's Edward R Murrow, and THIS may just be the book you're looking for.

It is not, however, the kind of book I was looking for, but I got it as a gift this past Christmas, so I took a couple deep breaths, prepared myself for the worst, and dove in. I should have grabbed a snorkel and a pair of flippers on the way to the first page. Along about the 5th of these Special Comments, I could have used the protection gear.

The first thing I noticed about Mr Olbermann was that he seems to think he's Edward R Murrow. His credits list among them the Edward R Murrow award for Mr Olbermann's coverage of 9/11. But that's not the only reason I think Mr Olbermann believes he's Mr Murrow. Using the same kind of tortured logic Mr Olbermann uses to explain President Bush in this book, I think it's safe to make the assumption about Mr Olbermann's identity crisis by noting in his acknowledgments that he hopes Mr Murrow would approve of his diatribe work. Add to that Mr Olbermann's coopting of Mr Murrow's sign-off line, and I think we've got a strong case for Murrow posing.

In the 5th Special Comment, Ed... Mr Olbermann is discussing his opinion that President Bush owes us an apology. The reason is because of a letter former Secretary of State Colin Powell sent to Senator John McCain in which Mr Powell stressed the dangers of the Bush Administration's detainee policies. Mr Olbermann goes on at some length about how President Bush, upon being questioned about the conclusions Mr Powell drew in his letter to Mr McCain, made the statement:

"It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."

.
Mr Olbermann then goes on to lift 4 words from President Bush's message and kicks them around in the dirt of his fertile mind for a while. Those 4 words? "It's unacceptable to think..."

Mr Olbermann disagrees with the sentiment that "it's unacceptable to think", and IF that's what President Bush had said, I'd have to agree. Of course it's acceptable to think. However, President Bush was not suggesting the citizens of the United States stop thinking. Mr Olbermann certainly knows that, and he's made a fool of himself for not only spinning this quote the way he wanted, but he also admitted that he lifted that phrase out of the context of the whole idea.

But that's not the only flaw in this argument. Mr Olbermann goes on to quote Thomas Jefferson:

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government."

These words were inserted into the Declaration of Independence, and according to Mr Olbermann were written by Thomas Jefferson. What I find interesting about this particular quote was how on earth Mr Olbermann knows what Mr Jefferson was thinking when he wrote them. Mr Jefferson was a strong proponent of slavery, and he made no secret of the fact that if any of the United States should disagree with the opinion of the whole (like if some states wanted to abolish slavery while others did not), those states should be able to cede from the Union. While it would be nice to believe that Mr Jefferson could see over two hundred years into the future and remind President Bush that he's only got the power those he governs grant him, the fact of the matter is that Mr Jefferson was probably referring to his own ideas on slavery and how he wanted no one state to dictate to another state what practices they may or may not employ. Which also brings up another interesting point... why on earth would Mr Olbermann choose to quote a slave holder to bolster his argument on any topic?

For the most part, Mr Olbermann's book can be dismissed as merely his opinion. Accept what you like of it; reject the parts you do not. In the general scheme of things, who really cares what Mr Olbermann has to say about anything?

However, since Mr Olbermann seems to be an authority on Truth, I would have to challenge this statement he makes in his Special Comment entitled: Bush and Cheney Should Resign.

Mr Olbermann quotes the actor and staunch conservative, John Wayne, as having said, "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." Mr Wayne was referring to Richard Nixon's loss to John F Kennedy in the Presidential election of 1960.

Mr Olberman goes on to say:

"Our generation's willingness to state, 'We didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a good job' was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most. And in circumstances more tragic than threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us." (Italics are mine.)

Okay, I want to know what century Mr Olbermann has been occupying these past 7 years, because it surely isn't the one where I've been living. From the day George W Bush was elected (YES! ELECTED!) POTUS, he has been maligned and dismissed as stupid, Hitleresque, cunning, money hungry, and (in case you missed it the first time) stupidly dimwitted. President Bush has been accused of stealing the 2000 election, and he's also been accused of having his minions somehow steal the 2004 election as well.

I'm not saying that President Bush doesn't deserve criticism. What I am saying, though, is puhleeeeze don't expect me to buy into the rubbish that he's had the full support of his country. The media, the cratz, the entertainment industry, and anyone with some kind of ax to grind has accused President Bush of being everything from the anti-Christ to Alfred E Newman's dumber twin. In fact, I've often wondered over these past 7 years if there was some kind of contest rewarding anyone who could come up with some new and interesting way to label President Bush a liar. I have no idea if a winner has been declared, but I do know that all the negative rhetoric became redundant 6 years and 9 months ago.

I have no idea why anyone thought it was necessary to publish Mr Olbermann's Special Comments. I, for one, will mourn the waste of all the trees it took to put this book on store and library shelves.

Imperial Life In The Emerald City

Imperial Life In The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, is subtitled Inside Iraq's Green Zone. It's the story of the Coalition Provisional Authority whose job was to get Baghdad and the entire region of Iraq back in working order after it had been bombed to smithereens, AND to construct a working democratic government. This was supposed to be accomplished in the shortest time possible since none of the people who went to Baghdad to help with this project had any intention of staying there for lengthy or indefinite periods of time.

One of the first things it is important to know about Iraq is that the Hussein government subsidized everything. The Iraqi people got their jobs, their monthly food rations, their cars, their electricity, their vegetable oil... virtually everything they needed from the government. When Baghdad was invaded and captured, not only was the infrastructure destroyed, but so were many of the records that kept track of the citizenry. Into this chaotic mess came the Coalition Provisional Authority to work their magic and put humpty and dumpty back together again with the grand finale being the statewide election. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense would have said, "You've Got To Be Kidding Me." Very few did, and those who may have uttered those words were considered non-team players.

It could easily be concluded that Imperial Life In The Emerald City is an expose of all the Bush Administration did wrong from the beginning of the occupation until the time Paul Bremer, the head of CPA, came back to the United States. I think Chandrasekaran does a better job than simply criticizing the Bush Team. I think he's more fair in his reporting of the facts than the criticism label implies.

Chandrasekaran was there and observed first hand what he writes about in his book. He certainly does note the stupidity and incompetence he observed within the CPA hierarchy, but he also takes the time to carefully note the work of those who tried to bring stability and resolution of problems to the area. It was a thankless and frustrating task. It was also an impossible one. You simply cannot bomb with shock and awe efficiency a city that houses the main workings of a country and then come in, dust off a few statues, hammer a few boards back together, get an electrician to solder back together a few severed wires, drop some chlorine into the water supply, and voila! Everything's right as rain again.

By the time we got to the elections in Iraq, President Bush was everywhere talking about how wonderful it was to have given the Iraqis their freedom. That's what Bush said they wanted: Freedom, and we gave it to them. They could finally freely vote for the candidate of their choice. That's what they wanted after all.

Well, that may very well be what the Iraqis had in mind when Hussein was removed from power, but during the months of the occupation what most Iraqis wanted was safety to leave their homes, electricity for more than a few hours per day, and jobs. The unemployment rate in Iraq was 40%, and it wasn't improving. Electricity was still sporadic. And you remember all that talk about oil that morons like Michael Moore said was the chief reason we invaded Iraq in the first place? Iraq was not pumping enough oil to provide the gasoline requirements for its own citizens' automobiles. Halliburton was bringing tanker trucks full of gasoline from Turkey and other nearby countries to satisfy the needs of the Iraqi people. The oil was supposed to be what financed the recovery of Iraq. It didn't begin to cover those costs much less provide greedy American businessmen with more Texas Tea dollars.

The reason I wanted to read this book was because I was tired of the finger pointing and name calling taking place among the Congress of the United States concerning the should we or shouldn't we have invaded Iraq question. It doesn't matter one little tiny iota what the answer to that question is. We did it, and now we have to do something about the consequences. I wanted facts about what we did/are doing. And I'm going to keep on reading books that will better inform me about this ongoing process because I want to know. I highly recommend this book to anyone else who feels the same way.

I'm including the following which was written by Joshua Paul, a CPA staffer, who did it as a joke. It made me laugh out loud, but at the same time it makes me shake my head in disgust because undoubtedly there's truth to it:

Question: Why did the Iraqi chicken cross the road?

CPA: The fact that the chicken crossed the road shows that decision-making authority has switched to the chicken in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on, the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

Halliburton: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost $326,004.

Shiite Cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed.

US Army Military Police: We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken-rights violations.

Peshmerga: The chicken crossed the road and will continue to cross the road to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in the future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a pastic bill.

Al-Jazeera: The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens.

CIA: We cannot confirm or deny any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident.

Translators: Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.