Another inconvenient truth

"We are an America in need of Adderall. We have a hard time focusing on heady issues for long stretches. We prefer little candy-coated news nuggets to issues of substance — picking Chiclets over chowder every time." (Charles Blow, New York Times, "The Bin Laden Bounce")

Pawlenty: I support torture

TORTURE means inflicting severe pain, agony or anguish (physical or mental) to force information or confession. "Waterboarding" is an interrogation technique designed to cause the sensation of drowning (a captive is immobilized and water is poured over his or her face). It was used by the Gestapo as a form of torture during WWII. President Bush authorized waterboarding after 9/11 as part of a suite of enhanced interrogation techniques for use against captured terrorists. President Obama outlawed it in Jan. 2009 citing US law and the Geneva Convention (Common Law 3, which bans "cruel treatment" and torture of any kind). Two years ago, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that waterboarding not only damages the victim "but to our values more broadly." However, during a Republican presidential candidate debate yesterday, Pawlenty said: “I support the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in limited circumstances." TPaw's pandering is pathetic. But his stated support for the use of torture is frightening. Is this really what the GOP has come to?

History turns a page

"For all Americans born in this century, there will be nothing unique or strange or interesting about having a black president. It will be normal." (Anonymous reader, The Daily Beast)

How Obama plays Poker

"Obama is said to be a strong player in the tight-aggressive style, which means that he doesn't play a lot of hands or bluff much; but that when the potential return justifies the risk, he isn't scared to push all his chips in." Killing bin Laden is but the latest example. (Matthew Norman, The Independent)

Manufactured controversies

DO YOU know anyone who is unhappy that bin Laden is sleeping with the fishes in the Arabian Sea? Me neither. Put another way, do you know anyone who is in the throes of religious or moral angst for feeling joy over his death? Me neither. Do you know anyone who really has a problem with the slogan “Bin Laden: Dead or Alive but Preferably Dead?” Me neither. Do you know anyone who gives a damn that bin Laden wasn’t armed when SEAL Team Six took him out? Me neither. Do you know anyone who has sunk into a deep depression over the fact that some Americans chose to celebrate bin Laden’s demise by boisterously chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” in the streets Sunday night? Me neither. Though we don’t have photographic “proof,” do you know anyone who doesn’t believe bin Laden is dead? Me neither. So, why have much of the media latched onto these narratives as if there is controversy? Answer: They can’t help themselves.

The Old Man and the Sea

A passage from Hemingway's famous story: "He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy." (On this day in 1953, Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for "The Old Man and the Sea.")

Art of the short story

"A few things I have found to be true. If you leave out important things or events that you know about, the story is strengthened. If you leave or skip something because you do not know it, the story will be worthless. The test of any story is how very good the stuff that you, not your editors, omit." (Ernest Hemingway)

Cool Hand Barack

Maureen Dowd routinely drives me crazy when she ventures into foreign policy, an area she knows little about. But, damn, the lady can wield a witty pen:

No wonder the president’s top generals call him “a Cool Hand Luke." After giving the order for members of a Navy Seals team to execute a fantastically daring plan to, let’s be honest, execute Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama put on a tuxedo and gave a comedy speech Saturday night in a Washington ballroom of tippling journalists and Hollywood stars.

If we could have seen everything unfolding in real time, it would have had the same dramatic effect as the intercutting in the president’s favorite movie, “The Godfather,” when Michael Corleone calmly acts as godfather at his nephew’s baptism at church, even as his lieutenants carry out the gory hits he has ordered on rival mobsters.

Just substitute “Leave the copter, take the corpse” for “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”

Ha! Well played, madam. Well played.

Memo to liberals

"There is a danger of changing too much in the search for perfection." (Agnetha Faltskog)

Memo to conservatives

"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery." (Harold Wilson, British Labour politician)

Why art matters

"Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history." (Plato)

No, he's not Carter

"It’s official: Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter," writes William J. Dobson for The New Republic. "After the first year of his presidency, it was popular to call Obama the new Jimmy Carter ... [b]ut in one fell swoop, President Obama has done more to exorcise the demons of Democratic foreign policy error and mishap than anyone in the last three decades. This was not Operation Eagle Claw over Iran. This was not the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. This was not another Black Hawk Down. [...] The mission could have gone wrong, but it didn't. It was judiciously planned. Obama's helicopters flew straight, and, when they encountered unexpected adversity -- one of the helicopters engines stalled -- they had a contingency plan to see the mission through successfully. The desire of a president to move decisively, combined with the patience to see to the details: Who is going to call Obama the aloof, contemplative professor now? The comparison to Carter died in Pakistan along with bin Laden."

One-man show

"What had begun with some of the most spectacular and terrifying images of destruction ever captured on film ended with a lone man speaking against the backdrop of a long and empty hallway. To assert order and reclaim the power of the state, [President] Obama had to embody it in a way that recalled the regal precedents on which the American presidency is based. A primitive story line required a primitive ending, one great man taking down another." (Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, "Bin Laden’s impact on U.S. culture")

Badasses, Incorporated

We'll probably never learn the identity of the "shooter" who double-tapped Osama bin Laden. But that's how members of SEAL Team Six roll. "These truly are the silent squirrels -- never getting public credit and not caring one whit," remarked Marc Ambinder of the National Journal. However, based on interviews with formal Navy SEALs, the Washington Post provided some clues about the archetype. He is likely between the ages of 26 and 33, a former high school or college athlete, a positive thinker, and someone who “flunked vacation and flunked relaxing.” And, ladies take note, they are perfect physical specimens: “He’ll be ripped. He’s got a lot of upper-body strength. Long arms. Thin waist. Flat tummy.”

Quote of the Day

“While some Republicans were talking about Obama’s birth certificate, Obama was preparing bin Laden’s death certificate.” (Peter King [R-NY], Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security)

Don't Tread on Me

BEHOLD the look on Mr. Obama's face as he watched the real-time video feed of yesterday's mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House (May 1, 2011). That's called a presidential "game face." I suspect the late Osama bin Laden probably had a minute or two left to live at that point. Wow. See the full photo here.

Is al Qaeda done?

Fareed Zakaria thinks this is the end of Al Qaeda: "In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a number of people are saying that this does not mean that al Qaeda has been destroyed. ... But the truth is this is a huge, devastating blow to al Qaeda, which had already been crippled by the Arab Spring. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the end of al Qaeda in any meaningful sense of the word. ... With the death of bin Laden, the central organizing ideology that presented an existential seduction to the Muslim world and an existential threat to the Western world is damaged beyond repair. We’re left with free-lance terrorists who will, of course, be able to inflict some harm. But the Somali pirates are able to inflict harm on civilians, and that doesn’t turn them into an existential threat to the Western world. That existential threat is gone."

Always the weak horse

On Osama bin Laden: "In his cracked vision, America was the weak nag, and Al Qaeda the strong destrier. But the last 10 years have taught us differently: In life as well as death, Osama bin Laden was always the weak horse." (Ross Douthat, New York Times)

Shaken, not stirred

"This has the feel of the kind of operation John Kennedy would have loved to have pulled off - and had a martini after. Here's hoping the president enjoys at least one Martini and one cigarette." (Andrew Sullivan)

History's irony

Today in history: The eighth anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech (2003). To the day. The 66th anniversary of the announcement of the death of Adolph Hitler (1945). To the day. Amazing. (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

The past is prologue

"If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." (Barack Obama, 2008)

Photo of the day

I don't need no stinkin' judgment

Upon arriving at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Donald Trump made a bold prediction to ABC News: Obama won't joke about me. "I wouldn't think [Obama] would address me" during his speech, Trump said. Mr. Obama opened up with both barrels on Mr. Trump, of course. And it was as predictable as this morning's sunrise. If Trump didn't see that coming, it's a wonder he can cross a New York City street by himself and live to tell the tale. Wow.

Best joke from last night

"[Trump has] said he's got a great relationship with ‘the blacks.’ Unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he's mistaken." (Seth Meyers, White House Correspondents’ Dinner)

Baked Trump Fillet

Yes, revenge is a dish best served cold. But it tastes so much better when garnished with sardonic laughter. Last night, Donald Trump got served by the comedic tag-team of Barack Obama and Seth Meyers at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. The Donald endured volley after volley of jokes about his carnival barker ways. “Donald Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising, because I just assumed that he was running as a joke,” said Meyers devilishly. Trump, the ex-captain of industry famous for running businesses aground, sat stone-faced as the rigging, sails and masts of his reputation fell about him. Why Trump accepted the invite at all is a mystery. Some were amazed at his courage. I marveled at his spectacular poor judgment. His appearance was as smart as a First Century Christian showing up at the Colosseum voluntarily. In any event, the evening was glorious. Seeing Trump filleted like a mackerel and literally laughed out of DC was good for the soul.