The More You Know
Steve Gimbel checked in to a Majikthise discussion prompted by Lindsay Beyerstein's post about his book (The Grateful Dead and Philosophy), and left a comment about a conversation he once had with one of the Grateful Dead songwriters, John Perry Barlow. It turns out the Wyoming native was one of Dick Cheney's campaign managers(!) in 1978, back when they seemed to have more of a libertarian streak in common. Gimbel:

I asked him about Cheney personally and whether the caricature of him as Darth Vader was undeserved in reality. His response was that Cheney was the single smartest man he'd ever met, but lacked any sense of empathy. He was willing to argue any point, Barlow said, but the minute your argument dealt with anything humane, he would get a confused look on his face. Human suffering simply was not a real fact in the world.

Thanks John! That was a lot more helpful than a simple "no." It does raise a couple of followup questions for me:

1. Doesn't that suggest we're working with a pretty limited definition of "smart?"
2. What's the definition of sociopath again?

Regardless: huh -- smartest man he'd ever met. Opinions differ, I guess. It may be true, or it may once have been true, but honestly, I'd be surprised.


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NOTE: "campaign manager" link to a Reason article by Brian Doherty, via Wikipedia. Other links go directly to Wikipedia or to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), of which Barlow is a board member.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:30:00 PM -- |    

 
It'd be like having a beer with a pile of rocks
Ladies and gemmun, the President of the United States:

Transcript here, including Bush's fumbling reaction to a question about the Iraq-Viet Nam comparison, around 2:45 into the clip. "Death is terrible." I've made plenty of mistakes, but I did at least manage to never, ever vote for this nincompoop.

Video via Atrios ("Eschaton"), transcript via Steve Benen ("The Carpetbagger"), who also links to reactions by Joe Klein, digby ("Hullabaloo") and Anonymous Liberal. Benen concludes:

Watch the clip and tell me Americans should have confidence in this man’s intelligence. I dare you.

We don't care about that, we just want to have a beer with him. We like beer. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Meanwhile...
Bombers Defy Security Push, Killing at Least 158 in Baghdad (Karen Brulliard,* Washington Post, 4/18/07, with somebody using a bad number in the headline to hide a worse one in the article) --

Across Iraq, at least 10 other people were killed in bombings and shootings, and 58 bullet-riddled corpses were found, police and news services reported, bringing the day's death toll to nearly 230.

Bomber Gets by Baghdad Security; 12 Dead (Lauren Frayer, AP, 4/19/07) --

A suicide bomber breached Baghdad's heavy security presence again Thursday, killing a dozen people in a mostly Shiite district a day after more than 230 people died in one of the war's deadliest episodes of violence.

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,311 (AP, 4/18/07) --

As of Wednesday, April 18, 2007, at least 3,311 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,691 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

Sadr ministers quit Iraq government over U.S. troops (Ross Colvin and Yara Bayoumy, Reuters, 4/16/07) --

Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his ministers to quit Iraq's coalition government on Monday in protest at Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's refusal to set a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw.

Qaeda group says Iraq a "university of terror" (Firouz Sedarat, Reuters, 4/17/07) --

The head of an al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said the country had become a "university of terrorism," producing highly qualified warriors, since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Baghdadi added that he opposed fighting between insurgent groups, and pledged to work to prevent such bloodshed, leading to a kind of rapprochement:

Ibrahim al-Shemmari, the spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, welcomed Baghdadi's remarks.

"If they want to ... preserve the blood of Sunnis, we would be the happiest people to hear this talk," he told Al Jazeera television in a telephone interview. "We want to point out weapons at our enemies' chests and not at each other."

One would think news like this might stiffen Democrats' resolve to set a timetable for getting us the hell out of Iraq. But one would apparently be wrong -- though it's at least heartening to see no Democrat is willing to go on record about that in this article:

Democrats Would Make Iraq Timetable in Bill 'Advisory' (Peter Baker and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, 4/19/07 ... page A18) --

Congressional Democratic leaders are moving to make their proposed timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq "advisory" as they seek to reconcile two versions of war spending legislation into a single bill that they plan to pass next week, according to several House members. [...]

Bush has vowed to veto legislation with timetables in it, calling it a schedule of surrender, but Democrats hope to show that they are being flexible and the president rigid by softening the terms. The compromises may cost Democrats votes among antiwar liberals, but they hope to pick up some Republicans.

Which "Democrats" are we talking about here? Anyone who won an election last November? Is that just a joke at this point? Cho Seung Hui's rampage at Virginia Tech may have collateral effects beyond his wildest dreams. That's because it may have served as a media smokescreen, allowing Congressional leadership to quietly drop strict timetables on our military presence in Iraq.


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* Special correspondents Salih Dehema, Naseer Mehdawi, Naseer Nouri and Waleed Saffar in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed as well, as did Thomas Ricks in Washington and Ann Scott Tyson in Tel Aviv.
EDIT, 4/19: not a "sectarian" rapprochement, the latter group is Sunni as well. Writing for American Prospect, Marc Lynch says the turn of many Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders against Al Qaeda actually undermines arguments for continued US presence in Iraq, let alone escalation -- since it makes clear that Iraq is unlikely to be an Al Qaeda haven after we leave. Lynch adds, "These insurgent factions have said that they would talk to the United States on the condition that it commit to withdrawing."

UPDATE, 4/20:While the NY Times' Jeff Zeleny leads with Reid's comments that "this war is lost," he reports further into the 4/20 story:

House Democratic leaders have convened meetings throughout the week with their members, urging them to accept a compromise calling for a goal, as the Senate has done, not a mandatory deadline. “The president is going to veto it anyway, so what difference does it make?” said Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia. “This bill is a shell of itself. It’s not worth fighting over.”

Time for me to call my representative, I guess -- Chris Van Hollen, D-MD-8, DCCC chair; (202) 225-5341, DC; (301) 424-3501, Rockville. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:45:00 PM -- |    

 
Let's make sure we learn nothing from Blacksburg
The odds are that absolutely nothing will result from the Virginia Tech tragedy, except maybe some backbiting about when to sound the alarms on a college campus when a shooting happens. Yet if Cho Seung Hui had known Virginia Tech could successfully "lock down" its campus at the first sign of trouble, he'd have just attacked Norris Hall first -- or picked some other place off campus to launch his sick bid for glory.

I'm guessing the gun culture and lobby is too entrenched to allow even mildly stricter standards for gun buyers and owners. Do the mentally ill have a right to own guns? Do the rest of us have a right to know they can't? The sane answers are no, and yes - even within the strict parameters of the Constitution, since Cho was not part of a "well regulated militia" by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, we can count on that being ignored in whatever limp debate about gun control our curiously incompetent culture conducts in the weeks and months to come. Yet we'll go on being shocked into numbness every few years as some new massacre eclipses the old one: University of Texas, Columbine, West Nickel Mines, Blacksburg.

So be it, then. These massacres are therefore inevitable tragedies, and "second half of the Second Amendment" zealots effectively want it that way -- as Glenn Reynolds' bizarre prescription of more guns on campus vividly demonstrates. But a word to Reynolds, the NRA, and their allies: please, please, please spare me your "this is awful" comments next time. You own the political landscape on this; now own the results. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
All aboard the Spirit of Strom Thurmond
Your surreal vice president at work and play:

Airstream’s appeal seems to have few limits, and indeed a powerful world traveler recently provided proof of its persistent appeal. On a trip to Asia in February, Vice President Dick Cheney traveled in an Airstream — inside an airplane.

Mark Silva, chief of the Washington bureau of The Chicago Tribune, accompanied the vice president as the press corps’ pool print reporter. The group flew on a huge gray C-17 cargo plane that the Air Force calls the Spirit of Strom Thurmond, in honor of the late senator. Mr. Silva said that when he boarded he noted the familiar outline of the Airstream roof inside the vast fuselage.

From "AirStream: The Concept Travels well" (Phil Patton, NY Times), via Sifu Tweety ("The Poor Man"), who adds:

What? That’s how he travels? Seriously, is Cheney trying to make himself into a cartoon supervillian? He’s like a white trash Dr. No; would it be surprising at this point if his team of doctors turned out to be sexy martial artists or dwarfs?

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:20:00 AM -- |