bin Laden must be laughing

* athenae:

"Governing is a job. Is the job done? By the way, pardon me for disturbing the carefully choreographed and poll-tested We Love America fanvid, but somebody's out there who sent anthrax through the mail, walking around, and so is the guy responsible for the event that occasions this annual uptick in the sales of flags and bunting, so while I'm as down for a good concert of Kenny Chesney as the next girl, pardon me if I think somebody other than our national news outlets, much less our president, ought to handle whether or not we feel okay.

Once Osama's either behind bars or swinging from something, or buried alive, or some other horrible punishment due the evil fucker, then we can talk about how we're all dealing, and how the president's taking it, and he can calm the nation and reassure the nation and tuck the nation into bed with a glass of warm milk and a story from a board book with fuzzy covers.

Until then, maybe our TV brothers and sisters could refrain from suggesting that participation in symbolic gestures constitutes any kind of fulfillment of George W. Bush's job requirements, because it's just embarrassing."

* cannon:

"As we noted earlier, Pakistan now says -- according to no less a source than ABC News! -- that Osama is free to go about his business in that country as long as he leads a "peaceful life." Bush remains allied to and supportive of Pakistan, despite his vow to go after any country that harbors terrorists. (Pakistan also harbors A.Q. Khan.)

Am I one of those wild and irresponsible conspiracy theorists claiming that W has intentionally protected Osama Bin Laden? Perish the thought. I'm just asking a simple question: If Bush did have such intentions, what would he have done differently?"

* huffpo:

"Bin Laden might boast that he had achieved terrorism's equivalent of an atomic chain reaction: a self-regenerating cycle of outrage and foreign policy overkill, aided by anniversary journalism and fuelled by the grim scenarios of security lobbyists. He now had only to drop an occasional CD into the offices of al-Jazeera, and Washington and London quaked with fear. The authorities could be reduced to million-dollar hysterics by a phial of nail varnish, a copy of the Koran or a dark-skinned person displaying a watch and a mobile phone.
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The best way to commemorate 9/11 is with silence. Instead, bin Laden must be laughing."

* bill frist, MD:

"With all the information available about all the hateful efforts of the terrorists to strike America since the late 1980s -- easily available by one click on the Internet -- let's simmer down on the censorship calls and honor the memory of 9/11 by letting people see ABC's The Path to 9/11 and draw their own conclusions about the Islamofascist war against America."

* kathleen reardon:

"Conviction is critical in persuasion and negotiation. Yet the Democrats are constantly beginning their sentences with "I think," "We think, "We believe."
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Anyone who thinks the next election isn't about words but solely about ideas hasn't been paying attention. Ideas don't sell themselves. Not even the best ones."