Someone pointed a camera at the White House lawn on Monday and caught some shaky video of the President playing with his dog. The dogs didn’t seem interested in playing. The President didn’t seem interested, either. He moved like a man waiting for terrible news. Hours later I was outside playing with Jasper, listening to Hugh Hewitt, waiting for the 7 PM speech. It’s warm now; there’s no excuse for just tossing the hedgehog six times and heading indoors. I batted the toy over and over again, paying no attention to anything but the slow crawl of time. Waiting for the clock to reach seven. Waiting. Jasper couldn’t believe his luck. Endless hedgehog fun. This was the best day ever.

Dogs and toddlers keep you sane at times like these. Peter Jennings has the opposite effect. Just walked past the TV, and saw an ABC News Special Report: When Diplomacy Fails.

Leaving aside the Fox-like nature of the title - tonight, after COPS, a full hour of When Diplomats Fail! - it reminds you that the definition of diplomacy is the achievement of consensus, regardless of what the parties are agreeing upon. The act of signing paper is more important than the text to which we affix our names. I remember as a child feeling a warm sense of relief when I saw officials inking treaties with that beetle-browed gouty hack Brezhnev - how could there ever be war? We’d signed papers in front of everyone. It’s as if the devotees of diplomacy think that international negotiations are like a mortgage closing. But if mortgage closings were like Security Council resolutions, we’d all be living on the lawn, waiting for the housing inspectors to verify that the previous owners not only didn’t fix the leaky gas line, they weren't still holed up in the attic with shotguns and canned food. I can see them through the window! They're still there! Well, send in some more inspectors. But I have the title, and the keys, and the movers are here with all my stuff. Let us not rush things; let the closing process run its course. But the movers will leave at the end of the day, and I'll still be stuck out here. There are still options yet unexplored; we are constructing a timetable that will let the previous occupants live in the storage closet for a month - Screw that! It's my house! I have the deed, right here, and my first payment is due in a week! We must not rush to evict. Remember, they have signed on to the house-transfer process, and we sincerly hope they live up to their obligations. Right. Fine. I'm calling the cops. No! That would destroy the legitimacy of Hank's Belgian Mortgage Collective! No one would get a mortgage from us again! For the sake of the international mortgage broker community, please consider sleeping on the lawn for 30 days.

Anyway. I’m working on a column tonight, so instead of blathering on here I’ll excerpt the blather from elsewhere. I always enjoy reading the political threads at Fark.com - gotta love the Fark, but when it comes to issues of geopolitical significance it’s just Metafilter for chronic masturbators. There are some lone sane sensible voices, but it's more fun to present these highlights. I'd fisk, but they come pre-fisked for your convenience:

Hi, sorry to keep posting this, but there are people who are going to die, justly or wrongly, in a war so that you can get fat on cheeseburgers and watch 'Friends'. that pisses me off.

_____

Now we have to attack! Because this proves Iraq is not cooperating with weapons inspectors . . . who aren't there.

_____


It really frightens me how greatly we are underestimating the Iraqi army in all of this.

_____


FROM: George_W_Snatch
Diplomacy is dead.

I killed it.

I'm good at killing things.
_____

What do you think of the UN's failure to enforce is resolutions regarding Israel and the USA's apparent blind spot regarding this?

_____


Previous post: The UN has failed to back up its own Resolutions, so now we're going to have to do it. The very, very least the UN can do is get out of the way and let us do their job for them.

It's not our right to decide what the UN should be doing.

Asshat.

_____

so were all dead by friday right?

_____


"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

--Nazi leader Herman Goering, at the Nuremburg Trials

Hmmm....something familiar about that situation and ours. No, wait...don't tell me...could it be...naw, our government wouldn't lie to us.

_____



The United States Government, bought and paid for, is doing what it has always done, consistently, since WWII. It is sending out armed forces to ensure we can maintain our grossly disproportionate control and consumption of the worlds resources. Democrat, republican--two sides of the same coin. Niether pary represents We the People. Someone pointed out that Saddam cut someones tongue out. And we inject poison into retarded men and into children when they break our laws. So what. That's not the point.


_____

I wonder if Bush will be high this speech like he was high during his last speech. Was he seriously coked up or what ?

_____

How about we establishy democracy here at home before spending billions and billions in a vain attempt to establish it in Iraq.

_____


Previous post from Lord_Dubu: They hit the Towers the first time, the U.S. did nothing. They hit the Cole. The U.S. did nothing. They hit embassies in Africa, The U.S. answered by doing nothing. They hit the towers, and the pentagon on the same day, planning on hitting the white house and who knows what else...

I'm sorry Lord_Dubu , but your writing stinks of racism.

_____

Bush will use tonight's broadcast to declare the American Empire.

Everyone else will be using tonight to cross Microsoft/General motors/General Electric / Intel / Exxon / Ford / IBM / Apple / Motorola / Coca Cola / HP / General Foods / Time Warner / Boeing / Lockheed Martin / McDonalds / Dupont / Merck / Caterpillar and other American products off of shopping lists everywhere . . . FOREVER

_____


I think that we all should be allowed to die for the country if we feel like it-- it's unnecessary killing for one's country that should be condemned.

Every soldier killing someone should have to have a damned Ph. D in international politics before he is qualified to judge that Bush knows what he is talking about when he tells him to kills someone. Otherwise, said soldier is part of the problem, not the solution.
_____


You guys better hope this war goes smoothly because there is gonna be some serious repurcussions for this little cabal of bushiates who are putting the world in such danger. I'm NOT talking assasination, I'm talking war-crimes trials for:

Don Rumsfeld a.k.a. "Rummy"/Skeletor
"Could I be a bigger" Dick? Cheney
Paul Wolfowitz
Richard Perle

and finally, the loser, whiny Mr. Bush

_____


You got it all wrong. I'm against the war because of our reasons for going into it. I know that Bush doesn't care about the people of Iraq at all...if he did, I'd be joining the military myself to go over there. This is about family grudges. This is a man who's family money was earned through Nazis.

______

As Twain might have said: a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has even logged on.