Short Cuts

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Finally, Somebody Says It: This is a question we hear muttered more and more often these days as we watch Ari Fleischer tolerate the ravings of a wire service scribbler way beyond her shelf-life (her "column" appears in two, count them two, newspapers). "Can't somebody do something to get rid of Helen Thomas?" Telling the truth about her out loud probably won't do it but the NYPost's John Podhoretz, speaking on a Stalinist stuffed Columbia U. panel yesterday, suggested that an old folks home was the answer. That got him called "a lout" by someone who writes for Playboy. How quaint. Some say "lout." We say "humane" and second John's suggestion.

Put On A Happy Face: A French tourist office reports that tourism is substantially down "since the Iraqi war." Let's see... the war started a week ago. Would it be pushing the point to suggest that tourism was down long before that for a more profound reason? Seems like the only reason to go to France now is to go to Normandy and say, "You were the best."

UN's Nervous Breakdown: There is something very "Mrs. Havisham" about the UN's Security Council meeting yesterday to condemn the military action in Iraq. One pictures these delusional old parties slumped in their moldering wedding finery waiting for their lover, Recognition, who never shows. Add to that a rather pathetic interview Fox News had with Hans Blix (does his manner of speaking only bother us?) as he looked straight into the camera and said 3000 Hazmat suits and syringes of poison antidotes lying about an Iraqi hospital were "certainly no smoking gun" and might have been a "ruse of war" to "trick" the enemy. It's hard to accept total rejection when the cobwebs are too thick. Maybe Hans and Helen Thomas could make a shuffleboard date?

Things We Shouldn't Know...but, we are glad we do. W mentioned them yesterday, the Boston Globe writes about them today and we probably shouldn't even know about these 10,000 amazing men. They are the combined units of SEALS, Delta Force, Green Berets and AF Search and Rescue warriors called Special Ops who have been slip sliding around Afghanistan and Iraq. This is an interesting piece and makes you wonder if those dolphins in Basra harbor aren't really SEALs in a really cool costume.

-Your Optimistic LComStaff