THIS MODERN WORLD

I met enough people at the Democratic convention who read this blog to feel fairly confident that there’s somebody reading this who knows somebody who knows somebody at an upper level in the Kerry campaign. So whoever you are — please, for the love of god, make them read this post. And be sure they follow the links.

Bob Harris, below:

Finally, no, of course this isn’t supposed to be more important than other issues like the War On Tara, “voting” machines which are anything but, the slow Guantanamization of American life, or the rest of our impending doom during the incompetent reign of a corrupt alcoholic chimpanzee who thinks he talks to God. September, as described below, is National Frighten The Children Just Before The Election month. That alone is way more a part of our future than whether or not Bush slugged a guy, drove drunk, dodged Vietnam, profited from insider trades, took sadistic delight in executing people, or ignored repeated warnings about Al-Qaeda until it was too goddam late.

Any number of conservatives who have emailed me instead of Bob:

Are you kidding? A rugby game? Ha ha ha! Is that the very worst you can come up with?

Well, no. And if you go a little slower, and maybe work on sounding out the syllables the way Hooked on Phonics taught you, you might have a better shot at understanding the actual meaning of the words Bob has written.

And that Bob is not Tom.

So. You think this…

“Cues from chatter” gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting Food and Drug Administration (news – web sites) Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Crawford said Wednesday that he had been briefed about al-Qaida plans uncovered during recent arrests and raids, but declined further comment about any possible threats.

“While we must assume that such a threat exists generally, we have no specific information now about any al-Qaida threats to our food or drug supply,” said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department.

Crawford said the possibility of such an attack was the most serious of his concerns about the increase in states and municipalities trying to import drugs from Canada to save money.

…has anything to do with this?

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Wednesday that President George W. Bush is standing in the way of bipartisan efforts in Congress to allow drug imports from Canada.

He compared the prices of popular drugs in the United States and Canada, noting they are close to more than twice as expensive in the United States. “George Bush stood right there and said: ‘Nope, we’re not going to help people to have lower cost drugs in America, we’re going to help the big drug companies get a great big windfall,” Kerry said, campaigning in Henderson, Nev.

Nah. Couldn’t be. That would be playing politics with terror — and Tom Ridge assured us the administration doesn’t do that!

…right before he said, “We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president’s leadership in the war against terror.”

…to my pal Bob Harris, who’s not only been keeping this site alive as I struggle through the Sisyphian task of re-creating my life in an entirely new setting — but actually making news while he’s at it. He broke the story of “Preparedness Month,” which is now getting wider media attention, and drew further attention to that telling photo of Bush playing rugby — and is credited for the latter in this Boston Herald article.

Rumor has it, we may be getting some firsthand reports from Athens out of our boy Bob, but that has yet to be confirmed.

The Washington Post acknowledges that it could have done better:

As violence continues in postwar Iraq and U.S. forces have yet to discover any WMDs, some critics say the media, including The Washington Post, failed the country by not reporting more skeptically on President Bush’s contentions during the run-up to war.

Follow the link; there’s a lot more. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, this pisses me off. I can’t even begin to tell you how many morons wrote me before the war and said, how can you possibly oppose this war? We KNOW Saddam has WMD’s! Let alone all the gloating triumphalism on Pulling-Down-the-Statue Day. They say the US is polarized like never before — well, I swear, sometimes it seems to me that the only real polarization is between smart people and stupid people. And by “stupid,” I don’t mean unintelligent — there are plenty of stupid people with advanced degrees and high paying jobs in this world. No, by “stupid,” I mean people who are apparently incapable of comprehending one of the basic truisms of human history: politicians do not always tell the truth. The smart people understood from the start that this war was predicated upon a pile of bullshit so deep, you’d need one of those special pressurized deep sea diving bells to find your way to the bottom. And as for the Post, and others who have subsequently figured out the difference between their own anus and a hole in the ground — well, don’t expect any accolades from me. I’d suggest they try to do better next time but I know they won’t. If, god forbid, Bush manages to secure a second term, and whips up another jingoistic pro-war frenzy to invade Iran or Syria or France or Canada, you can just damn well bet all these self-flagellating media types will be right there at the forefront, waving their little flags and dutilfully fulfilling their function as stenographers to power, desperately afraid of being labeled “unpatriotic” by a handful of fringe lunatics who not only don’t deserve the attention they get, but in a sane world, would not deserve to be pissed upon if they were on fire.

Oh, by the way, here’s the kicker:

“Do I feel we owe our readers an apology? I don’t think so.”