Extra attention to a few Centrist blogs.
PatHMV at Stubborn Facts on “that wonderful Europe”: “Europeans (not all Europeans, just the most vocal) often waste no time detailing how much cooler, hipper, happier, and generally better they are than us crude Americans. We are “dumb” because we re-elected George Bush as President and we’re insensitive to the poor because we don’t route most of our money through government-run social programs. The truth, as usual, is not so stark.” Wonder what the ‘truth’ is? Go to Stubborn Facts.
Dick Polman explains why “the GOP can’t hide behind soldiers”: “the basic weakness of the Republican argument – better yet, its rank hypocrisy – is that its architects apparently don’t know, or choose not to remember, their own history. Because 11 years ago, when President Clinton was in the process of sending troops to Bosnia, and putting them in harm’s way, the House Republicans huddled in a party caucus and voted by nearly a 2-1 margin….to cut off funds for the troops. An action, by the way, that prompted some worried Republicans to warn that they might be undermining troop morale.”
Michael J. Totten links to a video 60 Minutes about Kurdistan: “If I could distill everything I heard, saw, and learned in the Kurdistan region of Iraq into a 12-minute video, it would look a lot like this. (Fourth video on the right.)
Click that link. Watch. This is marvelous work from 60 Minutes, some of the best mainstream media journalism I have seen out of the Middle East, the absolute antithesis of Diane Sawyer’s useless interview with Syria’s Bashar Assad last week.” I watched it and… it’s great. The Kurds have built themselves a good, stable countryregion. The Shia and Sunnis should look at the Kurds and learn from what they’re doing.
Should the Kurds have their own state? I’m divided. I understand and even support their wish, but it seems to me that an independent Kurdish nation would cause incredibly tensions, especially with Turkey (and the rest of Iraq by the way).
Nick Rivera on “toughness” (in response to a post I published): “Listening to our politicians debate foreign policy is like watching a bunch of middle-schoolers. The obnoxious bully who vows to meet his classmate in the park after school is “tough” while the quiet student who chooses to ignore that taunts of his obnoxious classmate is a “wimp.”
Toughness–just an ongoing excuse for the politicians and the media to avoid debating real issues.”
Heh.
P.S.
Centrist bloggers can always send me an e-mail with a link to a post they wrote. Don’t be shy, send ’em. Some bloggers do so and they get linked to.
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.