I dug up Jon Stewart’s 1996 HBO special, and have snipped together the bits on America’s propensity to bomb things—particularly Iraq. It’s interesting for a bunch of reasons, and still pretty funny. Comments encouraged here.

See, this is why we can never have anything nice in this house.

The Dove of Peace should never have let him have those last five beers.

(From an idea by alert reader Dan.)

And I’m sure you’re hearing all about it in the US commercial media. Probably can’t even turn on the TV or the radio without seeing something about it. Ahem.

Sigh.

PS, added as an admittedly slightly crass but fully sincere afterthought: Come to think of it, picking up a copy of Who Hates Whom might not be a bad thing for the day. Can’t solve anything without trying to understand what we’re dealing with.

Whole reason I wrote the book, actually.

(Well, that, and the paycheck. But the other reason was bigger. You’d believe that if you saw the check.)

So the President, behaving a little bit more than usual, like we’d all interrupted him while he was watching his favorite cartoons on the DVR, stepped before the press conference microphone and after side-stepping most of the substantive issues like the Israeli raid on Syria in condescending and infuriating fashion, produced a big-wow political finish that indicates, certainly, that if it wasn’t already — the annual Republican witch-hunting season is underway.

“I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. Military.

“And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad.

“And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like Move-On-Dot-Org — or **more** afraid of irritating them, than they are of irritating the United States military.”

“That was a sorry deal.”

First off, it’s “Democrat-ic” party, sir.

You keep pretending you’re not a politician, so stop using words your party made up. Show a little respect.

Secondly, you could say this seriously after the advertising/mugging of Senator Max Cleland? After the swift-boating of John Kerry?

But most importantly… making that the last question?

So that there was no chance at a follow-up?

So nobody could point out — as Chris Matthews so incisively did, a week ago tonight — that you were the one who inappropriately interjected General Petraeus into the political dialogue of this nation in the first place!

Deliberately, premeditatedly, and virtually without precedent, you shanghaied a military man as your personal spokesman — and now you’re complaining about the outcome, and then running away from the microphone?

Eleven months ago the President’s own party — the Republican National Committee — introduced this very different kind of advertisement, just nineteen days before the mid-term elections.

Bin Laden.

And Zawahiri’s rumored quote of six years ago about having bought “suitcase bombs.”

All set against a ticking clock, and finally a blinding explosion… and the dire announcement:

“These are the stakes - vote, November 7th.”

That one was ok, Mr. Bush?

Terrorizing your own people in hopes of getting them to vote for your own party has never brought as much as a public comment from you?

The Republican Hamstringing of Captain Max Cleeland and lying about Lieutenant John Kerry met with your approval?

But a shot at General Petraeus — about whom you conveniently ignore it is you who reduced him from four-star hero to a political hack — that merits this pissy juvenile blast at the Democrats on national television?

Your hypocrisy is so vast, sir, that if we could somehow use it to fill the ranks in Iraq you could realize your dream — and keep us fighting there until the year 3000.

The line between the military and the civilian government is not to be crossed.

When Douglas MacArthur attempted to make policy for the United States in Korea half a century ago, President Truman moved quickly to fire him, even though Truman knew it meant his own political suicide, and the deification of a General who history suggests had begun to lose his mind.

When George McClellan tried to make policy for the Union in the Civil War, President Lincoln finally fired his chief General, even though he knew McClellan could galvanize political opposition - as he did… when McClellan ran as Lincoln’s presidential opponent in 1864 and nearly defeated our greatest president.

Even when the conduit flowed the other way and Senator Joseph McCarthy tried to smear the Army because it wouldn’t defer the service of one of McCarthy’s staff aides, the entire civilian and Defense Department structures — after four years of fearful servitude — rose up against McCarthy and said “enough” and buried him.

The list is not endless — but it is instructive.

Air Force General LeMay — who broke with Kennedy over the Cuban Missile Crisis — and was retired.

Army General Edwin Anderson Walker — who started passing out John Birch Society leaflets to his soldiers.

Marine General Smedley Butler — who revealed to Congress the makings of a plot to remove FDR as President — and for merely being approached by the plotters, was phased out of the military hierarchy.

These careers were ended because the line between the military and the civilian is… not… to… be… crossed!

Mr. Bush, you had no right to order General Petraeus to become your front man.

And he obviously should have refused that order and resigned rather than ruin his military career.

The upshot is — and contrary it is, to the MoveOn advertisement — he betrayed himself more than he did us.

But there has been in his actions a sort of reflexive courage, some twisted vision of duty at a time of crisis. That the man doesn’t understand that serving officers cannot double as serving political ops, is not so much his fault as it is your good, exploitable, fortune.

But Mr. Bush, you have hidden behind the General’s skirts, and today you have hidden behind the skirts of ‘the planted last question’ at a news conference, to indicate once again that your presidency has been about the tilted playing field, about no rules for your party in terms of character assassination and changing the fabric of our nation, and no right for your opponents or critics to as much as respond.

That, sir, is not only un-American — it is dictatorial.

And in pimping General David Petraeus, sir, in violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political, and to portray your party as the one associated with the military, and your opponents as the ones somehow antithetical to it.

You did it again today, sir, and you need to know how history will judge the line you just crossed.

It is a line — thankfully only the first of a series — that makes the military political, and the political, military.

It is a line which history shows is always the first one crossed when a democratic government in some other country has started down the long, slippery, suicidal slope towards a military junta.

Get back behind that line, Mr. Bush, before some of your supporters mistake your dangerous transgression, for a call to further politicize our military.

Good night, and good luck.

Video.

I hear a lot of talk on right wing talk radio about how great the economy is, and how it’s all thanks to George W. Bush. Well, here’s a little snapshot of the Bush economy:

One euro now buys $1.4065, the first time in the common European currency’s nine-year history that it has crossed the $1.40 mark. And one dollar now buys $1.0008 Canadian dollars, the first time that the two currencies have traded that closely since late 1976.

Three years ago the US dollar and the Euro were pretty much 1:1, and the Canadian dollar was worth something like seventy US cents. Heckuva job, Bushie.

Thomas Friedman, March 2007:

As for General Petraeus, I have no idea whether his military strategy is right, but at least he has one — and he has stated that by ‘’late summer'’ we should know if it’s working. As General Petraeus told the BBC last week, ‘’I have an obligation to the young men and women in uniform out here, that if I think it’s not going to happen, to tell them that it’s not going to happen, and there needs to be a change.'’

We need to root for General Petraeus to succeed, and hold him to those words if he doesn’t — not only for the sake of the soldiers on the ground, but also so that Mr. Bush is not allowed to drag the war out until the end of his term, and then leave it for his successor to unwind.

I eagerly await the next Thomas Friedman column, in which he holds General Petraeus to his words.

Via.

No wait, my mistake — this happened just a couple of towns over from where I live, here in the enlightened Northeast.

GUILFORD — The parents of a freshman student whose teacher resigned after he gave her a sexually explicit illustrated book said Wednesday their daughter has been the target of harassment from fellow students, and they want the school district to do more to clarify the issue with other parents.

The girl’s father, who asked that his family remain anonymous because it has already been the target of criticism, described the graphic novel that English teacher Nate Fisher gave the student as “borderline pornography.”

So at this point you’re thinking, this must be some kind of sleazy predator of a teacher, right? Well, not exactly.

The book, one of a series of comic book novels by Daniel Clowes, is called “Eightball #22.”

Yep. Daniel Clowes.

Maybe in the course of “clarifying the issue with other parents,” the school district could explain that this vile pornographer Clowes is also one of the most highly acclaimed practitioners of his craft alive today, a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the recipient of numerous Harvey Awards, and an Academy Award nominee, among other things.

What an obvious lowlife! No wonder that teacher lost his job. Next thing you know, he might have been teaching James Joyce, or Shakespeare. Have you seen the things those guys wrote about?

More here.

* * *

… adding, here’s a review of the book in question from Time magazine. Worst case scenario, leaving all snark aside, Clowes’ book might not have been an age-appropriate assignment — but for its psychological themes, not any perceived “pornographic” aspects. (Though I’m informed by a journalist friend that this issue of Eightball was recommended by the School Library Journal for grades 10 and up.) In any case, barring other information we don’t have yet, it is certainly not something a rookie teacher should lose his job, and possibly career, over. Let alone be prosecuted for. As a Publisher’s Weekly blogger notes:

As for whether the teacher in question can be prosecuted…well, Clowes’ new comic strip running in the NY Times and general reputation as a respected literary figure would certainly make any legal action very interesting. In fact, EIGHTBALL #22 was eventually collected by Random House as the grahpic novel ICE HAVEN, making prosecution seem crazy mad. But sadly, worse things have happened in these United States. If nothing else, this small town tale of a very protective father, a well liked teacher, and a girl harassed by her schoolmates could be something out of…A DANIEL CLOWES COMIC!

…also adding, just to be crystal clear: there is nothing remotely pornographic about the book this student was given. If you haven’t read it, don’t be misled by the sensationalistic description in the first link; the New Haven Register is not, let’s say politely, the New York Times. And anyway, as I say, one could describe most of the classics of Western literature, not to mention the Bible, in equally lurid terms. Eightball #22 (later compiled as “Ice Haven”) unquestionably contains mature themes, but to even use the word “pornography” in conjunction with it is an absurdity beyond my capacity to express.

(some editing for clarity…)

• Tom Engelhardt interviews James Carroll, author of House of War and co-creator of a new documentary, Constantine’s Sword.

• Peter Galbraith examines US-Iranian relations

Things are sure going great!

BAGHDAD (AP) — The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, amid mounting public outrage over the alleged killing of civilians by the U.S. Embassy’s security provider Blackwater USA.

The move came even as the Iraqi government appeared to back down from statements Monday that it had permanently revoked Blackwater’s license and would order its 1,000 personnel to leave the country — depriving American diplomats of security protection essential to operating in Baghdad.

“We are not intending to stop them and revoke their license indefinitely but we do need them to respect the law and the regulation here in Iraq,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told CNN.

The U.S. order confines most American officials to a 3.5-square-mile area in the center of the city, meaning they cannot visit U.S.-funded construction sites or Iraqi officials elsewhere in the country except by helicopter. The notice did not say when the suspension would expire.

Available next week, although you can pre-order right this second if you want to:

Who Hates Whom: Well Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, And Various Things Blowing Up — A Woefully Incomplete Guide™.

It’s exactly what it sounds like — a brief, pocket-sized paperback guide to about 35 of the world’s major conflict zones, complete with original maps, illustrations, and photographs. Frankly, if you’ve ever wished for a book that allows you to look up who’s who in Sudan in one trip to the can, here it is.

Is it any good? I have no idea, honestly. There were a kajillion compromises in getting this thing down to pocket size.* But I worked pretty hard on it, and so far, WHW has picked up some kind praise from John Hodgman of The Daily Show, Ken Jennings from Jeopardy!, comedian Emo Philips, and — of all things — Men’s Health magazine, which chose it as a “Must Have” in their September issue. (Will reading Who Hates Whom therefore give you tighter abs? Possibly.)

If you’ve enjoyed my chunks on this blog, last year’s Prisoner of Trebekistan, or your occasional visits over to Puduland, you might dig it. I hope you will.

*It’s not up yet, but I’ll have WhoHatesWhom.com at least partially up sometime next week with extras, deleted stuff, source notes, errata, etc.

Not remotely important, but the weirdness might make you smile.

Just learned that one of the world’s leading figures in forensic linguistics, a guy who has helped train investigators from the FBI, the NYPD, the Secret Service, and the ATF, a Fulbright Fellow and Phi Beta Kappa member, now a Hofstra professor of linguistics and Swahili…

… was also one of the founders of the rock group Sha Na Na.

So whatever it is you’re doing in life, if you’d rather switch gears, it just might be possible.