Colbert, on the official “end” of the Iraq War: “Let’s give credit where credit is due — to George W. Bush. After all, if this man hadn’t led us into war, it certainly wouldn’t be over now!” Watch.
Presidents who are hamstrung at home have often plunged into work overseas, where a president’s power is robust regardless of the situation in Congress. So the news today that Secretary Clinton has gotten the Israelis and Palestinians back to direct negotiations for the first time in almost two years makes me wonder whether this might be focus of renewed effort on President Obama’s part after what looks to be a pretty brutal mid-term election.
On the other hand, if Prime Minister Netanyahu remains in power, I would figure he’ll resist American pressure like crazy since he’ll be waiting and hoping that a new and more anti-Peace Process president succeeds Obama in 2013.
Few issues matter more to me than this one. And no matter what goes wrong — and something usually does — I’m never really able to give into the pessimism that many do since I think that both parties will always and inevitably (eventually) have to come to the same pretty straightforward and unavoidable solution. On the other hand, it’s getting pretty hard to have any confidence that any of these particular initiatives — will get us anywhere we haven’t been before.
If you can’t count on the ADL to step up, maybe call the Fire Department. A Florida church’s plans to celebrate 9/11 with a mass Koran-burning have been negged by the local fire department.
No one gave Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) much of a chance of winning reelection this year, but I didn’t expect her to be getting blown out of the water this badly less than three months before the election: Read More
Jon Stewart asks the only logical question: “Is Fox News a terrorist command center?” Watch.
We try not to get caught up knocking down every single doozie and bamboozlement that comes out of Fox News and associated outlets in the on-going story of persecuted Christians suffering in the face of the encroaching Muslim horde. But this one seemed like it was worth getting into. Have you heard the one about how New York City is rolling out the welcome mat for the Muslim Cordoba House project but still won’t allow a Greek Orthodox Church to be rebuilt on the edge of Ground Zero? Turns out it’s a wee bit more complicated than that.
I have a favor to ask. I’m looking for a good history of the 9/11 attacks. What’s the best one around?
I ask because I was just online and had to look up a detail about the attacks. So I went to the Wikipedia page on the attacks. And as they often are, you have this big, systematic, fairly dispassionate account with just a mass of details. And even though I remember the attacks, did a fair amount of reporting on them in the days, months and years after and have been, in various ways, writing and thinking about them for years, I realized that enough time has now gone by (about 9 years) that it’s becoming recognizable to me as history. And I wanted to read it all together again, as history.
Now, there are a slew of books on the attacks. Plenty of the ‘radical Islam is going to kill us all’ variety; and others of the ‘it’s all George Bush’s fault’ variety. Then there are first person accounts, tell-alls. But none of those are what I’m interested in. I’m looking for a good factually-grounded narrative history of the attacks, their background, execution and probably something on the aftermath as well. As much as is possible in these matters I’m not looking for one with an overly strong thesis, especially not a political one. I’m looking for a good narrative description of what happened.
I’ve probably seen a dozen of these books come across my desk as review copies or at book stores or in reviews over the years. But I can’t recall a lot of specific ones now and I never new which were the best. So, again, a favor. Which should I pick up?
Yesterday I asked you to recommend the best book on the 9/11 attacks, looking for works of serious narrative non-fiction, as free of polemical approach as is possible in such things. And I must say the results were fascinating on several levels. First, thanks to everyone who has written in. We got a lot of responses. And I was only able to respond to a few. But I read every one. And your time and effort are really appreciated.
What struck me most is how few books were recommended. The vast majority, really the overwhelming majority of you, recommended one of two books, and one of these might not even meet some people’s definition of a book. The two were Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower and the 9/11 Commission Report. Read More