Week In Review: We're baaaack

Dangerous amounts of air blustering around at rapid speed. Destructive forces leading to desperate pleas.

Also, there were some weather stories this week.

In a week that started with Democratic presidential debate number 27, the repetition of old news was the order of the day. The first old chestnut was the blundering Mr. Magoos that lead America’s intelligence services. A heretofore secret internal CIA report from 2005 starkly illustrated the failures of our intelligence leaders in the lead up and aftermath of 9/11. The report says George Tenet, the former CIA director and darling of three presidents, never really got it together when it came to Al Qaeda and ignored need for a comprehensive intelligence plan to combat the terrorist threat. Tenet said the report is completely wrong, but it sounds like a slam-dunk to me.

Climate change also found its way into the headlines yet again this week. As the Southeast baked under record high temperatures, floods drowned the Midwest and the Category 5 Hurricane Dean slammed into the Caribbean and Mexico. Dean didn’t do as much damage as was originally expected, but it still found a way to clear out tourists and bring the space shuttle home early. Go buy a hand-crank radio and some Exxon stock – we’re going to have more weather like this before we ever start having less. 

Making the week’s most surprising encore onto the news stage was of course the Vietnam War. Remember it? It was endless conflict based on a lie that left America with nothing but thousands of dead soldiers and lost global credibility. President Bush finally admitted that the flawed logic behind that war was part of the flawed logic behind the current quagmire in Iraq. In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush said that the pullout of troops from the war he skipped shouldn’t be repeated in the country he skipped out on Osama to blow up. Yet again, he’s asking other people to keep dying pointlessly so he can save a little face. The ballsy part? He gave this speech before the room most likely to have people in it that would be dead if we never left Vietnam.

Finally, Sen. John Warner reprised the role of the hundreds of reports and experts he ignored in the run-up to Iraq and said basically that winning there is hopeless. Seems new, but it’s actually the oldest story in the book – politician jumps on the bandwagon just as soon as the tide turns.

- Evan