“…As I would learn upon reflection, war was inevitable given the course of action set from the beginning. President Bush has always been an instinctive leader, more than an intellectual leader.
“He is not one to delve deeply into all the policy options, including sitting around engaged in extended debate about them, before making a choice.
“Rather, he chooses based on his gut and his most deeply held convictions. Such was the case with Iraq.”
This is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. None of these people are evil; they just have a lot of power and poor judgement.
I just started it this afternoon. So far it's fascinating. Scott McClellan was the voice of the Bush administration for years; now he's one of its harshest critics.
Conservative pundits come in a limited variety of flavors: childish, such as Ann Coulter. Sentimental and wisful, like Peggy Noonan. Or Hannity, who wears his ignorance like a medal. On the fringes you have the blinding smarts of George Will and the unassailable pragmatism of Tony Blankley.
McClellan is not a pundit. He's a former fratboy, a fraternity president, in fact. He's been mired in a culture that considers intellectual achievement a source of shame, and he never mentions his academic credentials. His sources of inspiration are people he knows personally. He mentions time in college, but very little aside from an ugly hazing incident.
He speaks with a kind of Fox News shorthand, and that can be confusing. The word "authentic," for example, appears many times when he lauds men he admires. It can mean a manner of speaking, a way of working a room, or a style of dress (business suit and a cowboy hat is "authentic Texas style").
To me he comes across as sincerely bitter. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes we don't know we make them until years later. He describes the heady feeling the Bush administration gave its members early on: being a part of something huge, of what might have turned out to be the greatest administration in the history of the country. It seems bizarre now, but that's just how angry conservatives were with Clinton.
In this day and age, it's strange to look at Bush through the eyes of someone who found him admirable. I haven't reached the point in the book yet where things get ugly. McClellan's descriptions of the president do seem inspiring, a man genial enough to really be the "uniter, not a divider" that the Daily Show mocks so frequently.
Today I have successfully achieved the status of Dirty Old Man, earlier than expected. I have done this through the discovery of an excersize show on Fit TV called Shimmy.
It is written in Ecclesiastes, or in that song the Byrds do, that for everything there is a season. This is the season for dancers with big hips.
I remember this being HUGE when I was a kid. Nerds all read it and knew it. There were a lot of books (it turns out more than 150 titles have been released). It was a series of trilogies, a lengthy format designed to be as long and escapist as possible.
I didn't like the books, though I dutifully read the first three. The story hasn't stayed with me. I do remember the cover art: brooding handsome men and big-hair girls in armor. And that gold guy in the red robe.
So now there's a movie on pay-per-view. It has a cast of Names: Keifer Sutherland, Lucy Lawless, Michelle Trachtenberg.
It's not good. The animation isn't anywhere near what I expected; this is a low-budget production, but they went with traditional cel animation instead of toon shaded 3d. There are a few 3d creatures, but mostly this movie feels like a 1980's after-school show.
Actually it feels more like the Heavy Metal movie; it's PG-13. There are many stabbings and eviscerations. Also, there's an early sequence with a voluptuous barmaid ("Tika Weyland") where she jiggles her boobs around in her Renfair "wench" dress, blushes as she realizes she's doing it, then sashays off while the camera ogles her robust, poorly animated rump.
The movie has the same problems that the books do: too many characters and a bad plot. Also, let's face facts here and admit that names like Flint Fireforge, Sturm Brightblade and Tasslehoff Burrfoot don't help anything.
I like fantasy stories, but this movie is how people who DON'T like it must see the genre. Some of the female characters are introduced with lingering cleavage shots before the camera gives us a look at the girl's face. The monsters are quite stupid-looking, especially the orcs. The not-hobbit, Tasslehoff, is unsettling.
I'd say something about how legions of fans are crushed and disappointed by this, but the movie seems to have come and gone without anyone knowing about it. There are forums and sites like Rotten Tomatoes that have a few discussions about Dragonlance. Mostly, though, this didn't get released. It escaped.
