" the sergeants and captains and so on – most of them acknowledge that something had gone wrong, that this was not going to be good. "
"Now, the last quote I read from American official said that it may be necessary to control what the Imams were saying in the mosques; well, this is preposterous."
you need to be in Baghdad to understand the degree to which there's been this slippage of ambition and slippage in the ideological war.

"Bush is in trouble," he said. This was neither a columnist nor a politician. It was my barber, Phil. And when Phil says that Bush is in trouble, he is.

Michael Moore, during an interview with Aaron Brown said: "Thanks for letting me be the first non-general on here for the last few days.''

So, not only did the White House and the Pentagon manage to march voters unto war with their false ad campaign of how they knew "for a fact'' about weapons of mass deception, they ensured that, with Big Media's full co-operation, the message was managed throughout the bloodletting. Last week Big Media got its reward: A loosening of the rules that keep them from growing bigger and richer.

the U.S. Department of Education plans to spend a half-million dollars - yes, a half-million dollars! - on a public relations campaign aimed at quieting the critics of No Child Left Behind.

The policy turnaround has been swift. In February this year the Foreign Affairs White Paper declared: "Australia cannot presume to fix the problems of the South Pacific countries. Australia is not a neo-colonial power. The island countries are independent sovereign states."

Consider the case of Westar Energy, whose chief executive was indicted for fraud. The subsequent investigation turned up e-mail in which executives described being solicited by Republican politicians for donations to groups linked to Mr. DeLay, in return for a legislative "seat at the table." The provision Westar wanted was duly inserted into an energy bill. (Republican leaders deny that there was any quid pro quo.)
A telling anecdote: When an employee tried to stop Mr. DeLay from smoking a cigar on government property, the majority leader shouted, "I am the federal government."
Mr. DeLay has said that he went into politics to promote a "biblical worldview," and that he pursued President Clinton because he didn't share that view. Where would this worldview be put into effect? How about the schools: after the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay called a press conference in which he attributed the tragedy to the fact that students are taught the theory of evolution.