the beautiful world inside your head

* athenae:

"Then there's the whole "fine literature" analogy, which has been my problem with Feith from the beginning. The dude simply does not get that life is not what you read in Freshman Comp. People don't act like that. Half of all novels ever written are idealized versions of some stuff that the author went through and wished had gone the way he wanted it to; expecting the world to be a Dickens novel with you as the plucky hero is like going into academia because you thought Dead Poets Society was a really good movie. It's sweet, but your awakening will be rude and swift, and being pissed off because it's not all "O captain my captain" is just wooden-head stupid.

In the next presidential administration, could we please get some people who've ... I don't know how to put this without offending everybody on earth, but some people who've worked someplace other than one foreign-policy institute after another? Think-tank jobs are great (anybody wants to give me one, call me) but this is what happens to you when you go straight from college to a place that doesn't require you to do anything but spin tales about the beautiful world inside your head."

Athenae is referring to this op-ed by feith in the wapo defending rumsfeld. the funniest thing about the op-ed is that it wasn't written till after Rummy was fired. (ok, so the comments at wapo are also funny)

* darksyde:

"If you are a small minnow or a medium sized fish with knowledge of the corruption past and present regarding any event pertaining to Iraq, your best bet is to consult a lawyer about coming forward. And you need to think about doing it quickly, because the big fish are almost certainly scheming and shredding and setting up to save their scaly hides by blaming the smaller marine denizens: like you."

* comin down w/ drifty:

"Dan Bartlett – whose dip switches are still stuck in “Lie Your Ass Off -- No One Will Notice” mode – clearly did not learn the most important lesson of Blue Tuesday: In this new political gravity well, Your Bullshit Don’t Fly No More."