Too Much To Dream

I don't consider it praise, just an acknowledgement that there are still problems to address in Iraq, and we need to guard against them. Today's news is great, but it shouldn't distract us from the big picture.

And it's Olmsted, not Olmstead.

Hot damn on a cold rock!!!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!

I doubt anybody (well, anybody who's not an idiot) believes Saddam's capture means everything will be ice cream from now on. Nothing wrong with a little jubilation break.

(Fwiw, Andrew, I'm guilty of invariably misspelling your name in your url when I'm away from my own bookmarks. I do get it right on the second try.)

Moira, everyone does; I'm quite used to it. But every once in a while I leave a note, just as a kind of aside. I certainly don't take it personally. ;)

Andrea, check this out, you'll like it:
http://silentrunning.tv/archives/003441.php

Hooray! Hooray! Other than that, I'm speechless.

Andrew: spelling corrected. I don't know, I have some kind of mental block with your name.

Anyway, to get back to my point -- I guess what cheeses me off is that you highlight something Hesiod said, of all people. The guy is and has always been nasty. He's just a nothing; there are scores of other people who made the same point (more or less) than he did, and as Moira said, no one who isn't mentally impaired thinks this means a wrap party for all the troubles. In fact, if you had waited a bit you could have heard the cautionary statement from the president himself:

Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our armed forces and I congratulate them. I also have a message for all Americans: The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people, and they will be defeated.

Yehudit: hee hee. Did you follow the link to this site as well?

The fact that both Hesiod and Atrios are in high contention for lefty blog of the year means I can pretty much gloss over anything left-of-center. 'cept for those Libertarian-left blogs, which don't count as left, apparently.

Andrea, if I had a spare Toyota Corolla or something, I'd drop it in your paypal box. I just sold my third vehicle, but it was a '69 Ford F250 with a column shift and really, really old tires. Not exactly transportation, IOW.

Did you get your tag back? Those cost about $100 to replace, just in terms of registering a non-replacement vehicle. Best check that out, if you haven't already.

Andrea, I'm well aware of Hesiod's writing style, but I think that his point was valid. No one is praying harder than I am that Saddam's capture leads to the breakdown of the Ba'athists. But I'm a big believer in preparing for the worst. What can I say? I'm a bit of a pessimist, perhaps.

Well okay, and you're missing my point. I didn't say the observation wasn't valid -- I said that of all people, why choose Hesiod's utterance of it? I even provided you with the cautionary words of the president (aka, the guy Hesiod and his ilk are always trashing) even, just to show you that psycholeftybushhaters aren't the only ones being all cautious.

My point, reduced to its essentials, is: do not reward a dufus like Hesiod for the crumbs of seeming "common sense" they allow to escape every once in a blue moon. Because of creeps like Hesiod and Kos and Atrios it's become impossible for a sane person to identify himself as anything approaching a liberal without a issuing a dozen caveats to make sure to not be identified with the motley crew listed above.

"Cautionary," "cautious"... you get my drift. Eh, I'm not going to correct it. It's late.