*Count me out of any complaints about there being a Flight 93 movie. I’m sick of being told how we can and can’t commemorate September 11. In World War II they didn’t flinch from making movies about the war that was on – go watch a movie like Mrs. Miniver, which won Best Picture in 1942 and took on the blitz while the bombs were still falling in England. The Flight 93 story has everything: real villains, real heroes, real tragedy, and the reality of why we fight and what the difference is between them and us. We need to have this movie.
*More on Iran another day, but I just gotta say, reviewing how bad our options are with regard to both Iran and North Korea: thank God we got rid of Saddam before he got that far down that road. In the meantime, compare this excellent Mark Steyn analysis of the Iranian situation and how it got this way (h/t Drezner) with this Michael Kinsley hand-wringer on the same question, and see if you can spot the difference. (Hint: Steyn says what he thinks we should do. Kinsley can’t).
*Stuart Buck asks a good question about the Iraqi mobile bio-not-weapons lab. (His source is his brother-in-law, for what that’s worth). And Ed Morrissey catches the Washington Post misleading readers on the subject.
*A Constitutional right to vagrancy: Such a very Ninth Circuit-y opinion from the Ninth Circuit, authored of course by a Clinton appointee.
*Speaking of which: I asked around my office and nobody wants to bet against the Supreme Court taking this case. Let’s see: Ninth Circuit? Check. War on Terror significance? Check. Campaign finance/First Amendment angle? Check. Dissent by heterodox group of judges including Kozinski and Reinhardt? Check. (UPDATE: More on the same).
*So, let me get this straight: Cindy Sheehan now thinks President Bush is spending too little time at the ranch? Go away, please. (UPDATE: Looks like the AP has changed the story at this link).
*Libertarian and reluctant 2004 Bush voter Megan McArdle notes three things the Bush Administration has gotten right without getting adequate credit:
The first is trade. The Bush administration’s committment to free trade has been downright inspiring. . . .
The second is education. . . . for the first time we are forcing educators to ask basic questions like “Can all our children read?” and we have stopped letting them segregate minorities into special education tracks that don’t count for evaluation purposes . . .
The third is foreign aid. . . . the Bush administration made countries comply with the conditions before they got any cash.
As usual, McArdle isn’t hesitant to criticize Bush, but she makes a good case that he’s been right on all three of these counts. Read the whole thing.
*Conservatives=racists? Jeff Goldstein has a lengthy take-down of this particular substitute for thought.
*Via RCP Blog, a profile of Caitlin Flanagan, who writes on what is, by far and away, the single most divisive topic you can raise in American society: the tradeoffs of mothers of small children working outside the home vs. staying home with the kids.
*Another battle over a Founding Father’s legacy, in this case Hamilton. My general view of the Founding Fathers is this: their virtues – foresight, wisdom, physical and moral courage, restraint in the exercise of power, leadership, stirring rhetoric, keen understanding of human nature – grow all the more impressive with time, and make all generations to come after them look small by contrast.
But their vices are another matter. Look carefully at any portrait of the Foudning Fathers and you will see among one or another of them envy, racism, extremes of ideology, partisanship, factionalism and incivility, libel, lust and licentiousness, venality, pride and ego, etc. While their virtues were all too rare, their vices were all too common and familiar (a fact that no doubt informed their generally dim view of human nature).
*Lawyers, watch where you post about your own firm’s cases on the internet. (via Bashman).
*First, shoot all the lawyers: unrest in Nepal.
*This is just a wild photo.
*Life on Planet Rickey.
*Charming portrait of Congressman Jim Moran, one of Holy Cross’ least admirable alumni.
Crank, I agree, the timing is right for the Flight 93 movie. However the trailer placement was questionable. I think some moviegoers, looking for some mindless entertainment, felt like the got the wind knocked out. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, but I understand why complaints about the promos were made.
OK nowhere in the article you posted does it say that sheehan held that opinion or made any quote supporting your blurb. wth?
kevin – I should have re-checked the link. It had a different story when I first read it.