Fulfilling Contractual Obligations
Sunday, August 31, 2003 | 0 Comments
As a Knoxville resident and UT employee/student, I'm required to make the following statement. (It's actually a bylaw of the state constitution — listed right there under the mandatory regressive tax structure and last-in-the-nation per/pupil spending.)
It's football time in Tennessee!
What can I say? A friend offered a free ticket, and I was more than willing to take him up on the offer. UT won easily, beating Fresno State 24-6 and proving once again that the Volunteers are the most boring football team in the country. I was at Florida State during the Charlie Ward, Warrick Dunn years, when it was not unusual to see my team outscore its opponent by six or seven touchdowns. I remember sitting in the stands at one game, rooting not for a victory over the then-lowly Maryland Terrapins — the victory was inevitable, after all — but rooting for 1,000 yards of total offense. As I recall, we fell only about 200 yards short that day.
You can call it running up the score, you can call it show-boating and unsportsmanlike, but here's the thing: When, later in the season, FSU needed to put together a quick drive down the field — for instance in the Orange Bowl, when Nebraska took a 16-15 lead with two minutes left to play — that offense knew how to score because they had done it a lot that season. They were confident, they were sharp, and they won the national championship (finally).
I just don't get the Fulmer/Sanders offense at UT. Against a clearly outmatched opponent, they put up only 24 points and seemed to spend the last three quarters waiting for the game to end. Fulmer's apologists call it "classic, conservative, hard-nosed football." I call it boring, counter-productive, and just a little bit embarassing. The only reason, as far as I can tell, to put a Fresno State or a Marshall (next week) on your schedule is to give your offense an opportunity to learn how to score — to turn a game day into a practice session. Yesterday was another wasted opportunity.
Oh yeah, and UT's defense was amazing. By my count, they allowed only one first down in the first three quarters, and it came on a circus-act catch from one of Fresno State's receivers. Simon, Peace, and Burnett are about as impressive as a trio of linebackers will get this season.
The highlight of the game for me actually came up in the stands. Because my friend had gotten our tickets via his job in the athletic tutoring center, we were surrounded by other folks who were at the game compliments of the team, including several families of players. Sitting right in front of us was a proud father, mother, and sister, who floated above their seats for several seconds when their son/brother, a freshman, stepped onto the field for his first (and only, so far) play. Pretty cool. You've just got to love college football.
Song of the Moment
Sunday, August 31, 2003 | 0 Comments
I can't believe I've been doing this "Song of the Moment" thing for several months now and this is the first time I've dipped into Bruce Cockburn's The Charity of Night. "Get Up Jonah" includes my all-time favorite opening lyric:
I woke up this morning thinking about Turkish drummers.
It didn't take long.
I don't know much about Turkish drummers.
Dreaming of a 28 Hour Day
Wednesday, August 27, 2003 | 0 Comments
I hadn't planned to take a four day break from blogging, but life — as it's wont to do — keeps getting in the way. And by "life" I mostly mean Sobig viruses, network flubs, and frustrated faculty, all of which have conspired this week to make my day job unusually exhausting. Well, there's that and the freelance writing projects, reading assignments, and Jack, the four-week old kitten we're fostering, whose cuteness doesn't quite make up for his refusal to be weaned or his tendency to pee on walls, clothes, carpets, towels, blankets, couches, and people.
Universities Left Behind. The Times published two interesting pieces yesterday. In the first, "Bush 'Compassion' Agenda: A Liability in '04?" Elisabeth Bumiller argues that Bush's broken promises might just catch up with him. The pattern should be familiar by now: Bush stands before a supportive crowd, drapes himself in the simple symbols of patriotism and Christian charity, then stumps for legislation that, if enacted, would demonstrate his "compassion." But, of course, he never gets around to the actual politicking necessary to see that legislation through Congress. Instead, we're left with frustrated people like Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal and a former Bush supporter.
Mr. Wallis said Mr. Bush had told him as president-elect that "I don't understand how poor people think," and appealed to him for help by calling himself "a white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to." Now, Mr. Wallis said, "his policy has not come even close to matching his words."
Add to that such highly-touted planks as AIDS funding, faith-based initiatives, child tax credits, and his No Child Left Behind act, and you get a whole mess of sound and fury but nothing much of significance. Well, that's not entirely true. You also get great sound bites and photo-ops.
Only tangentially related is "Universities in Decline" from the Times editors. It's a simple, four-paragraph statement of a disturbing fact: "Public colleges and universities, which grant more than three-quarters of this country's degrees, have been steadily undermined by state budget cuts and a mood of legislative indifference." No kidding. Last summer, thousands of my colleagues and I were deemed "non-essential" employees and given a week off when the Tennessee legislature was unable to balance its budget. (Unable, even, after reallocating its tobacco settlement money.) During my five years in Knoxville, three tuition hikes have placed a greater and greater burden on students, who are receiving fewer and fewer services in return. It's sad.
And only tangentially related to that is this bit from the latest issue of Harper's. A co-worker transcribed and forwarded this to me, and I'm now very curious to read the whole piece, "What's Wrong with Public Education":
Public education is not intended to help the individual but to create a populace that is easy to control, says John Taylor Gatto, the author of four books on education and a former New York State and New York City teacher of the year. The real purpose of mandatory public education, he says, is to train young people to be reflexively obedient to authority and to fill social roles that benefit government and commerce. "It is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform," he writes.
The problem is not that public education is failing to reach its goals, but that it is succeeding in producing a culture of childishness and consumption, he says. "If we wanted to, we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids 'take' an education rather than merely 'receive' a schooling," he writes.
Perhaps if President Bush had, at some point, learned to "take" his education he would better understand the consequences of his actions (including his frustrating refusals to act).
And Some Final Thoughts. From June Chittister's The Rule of St. Benedict: Insight for the Ages:
A Zen story tells of two monks walking down a muddy, rain-logged road on the way back to their monastery after a morning of begging who saw a beautiful young girl standing beside a large deep puddle unable to get across without ruining her clothes. The first monk, seeing the situation, offered to carry the girl to the other side, though monks had nothing whatsoever to do with women. The second monk was astonished by the act but said nothing about it for hours. Finally, at the end of the day, he said to his companion, "I want to talk to you about that girl." And the first monk said, "Dear brother, are you still carrying that girl. I put her down hours ago."
The things we ruminate on, the things we insist on carrying in our minds and heart, the things we refuse to put down, the Rule warns us, are really the things that poison us and erode our souls. We dull our senses with television and wonder why we cannot see the beauty that is around us. We hold on to things outside of us instead of concentrating on what is within that keeps us noisy and agitated. We run from experience to experience like children in a candy store and wonder how serenity has eluded us. It is walking through life with a relaxed grasp and a focused eye that gets us to where we're going. Dwelling on unessentials and, worse, filling the minds of others with them distracts from the great theme of our lives. We must learn to distinguish between what is real and what is not.
Song of the Moment
Friday, August 22, 2003 | 0 Comments
Even before Jeff Buckley drowned at 30, his voice was thick with melancholy and tragedy. Grace is without question one of the finest albums of the 90s, and "Dream Brother," the disc's closer, is proof. Amazing.
New to Long Pauses?
Thursday, August 21, 2003 | 0 Comments
A hearty welcome to all new visitors here at Long Pauses. My traffic spiked a few days ago thanks to a link from South Knox Bubba, who officially announced my enlistment in the Rocky Top Brigade. More on this tomorrow.
Now to a more pressing concern. To anyone who may have heard me on the radio this afternoon, let me apologize: I can't believe that, when asked in the final seconds leading up to a commercial break to recommend a single film to listeners, I spat out Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane! I don't even like Citizen Kane. I mean, it's an important film — a great film, even — but it's not a film that I've ever particularly enjoyed. Given a few minutes to think about it, I can now confidently say: If you want to experience Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in a single film, get yourself a copy of Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. It's available on a fantastic DVD from Criterion, and it can also be rented on VHS from the downtown Knox County library. Some other sources for film recommendations:
- Sight and Sound's Critics Poll
- The American Film Institute
- Send me an email, tell me what you're looking for, and I'll gladly make some suggestions.
Also, if you're at all interested in the topic of my and T.M.'s discussion today, read this article that I wrote for Findings. It fleshes out many of the issues that we rambled through today.
Oh yeah, and a word of warning: this is my blog page, where I rant on a variety of subjects, including politics. Politics is always a sensitive subject, but even more so given recent circumstances. Be prepared to be offended by some/much of what I say. I also like to write about films and books. To learn more about me read the, um, about page, and to get a better sense of the purpose of Long Pauses, read my responses to the two books that most inspired it: Thomas Merton's life-altering New Seeds of Contemplation and Andrei Tarkovsky's Sculpting in Time. The Denise Levertov poem that I mentioned on-air can be found here.
F--- Off, Old Europe
Thursday, August 14, 2003 | 0 Comments
The arrogance of this bunch is just staggering. Tell me — is there any legitimate justification for our continued snubbing of the U.N.? I mean, other than a general, "nobody's gonna tell me what to do" stupidity?
"The administration is not willing to confront going to the Security Council and saying, 'We really need to make Iraq an international operation,' " said an administration official. "You can make a case that it would be better to do that, but right now the situation in Iraq is not that dire."
I really wish Bush would just come out and tell the truth: "Of course we knew there weren't any WMD. Of course we knew that democracy in Iraq was a pipedream. Don't you get it yet? We want 100,000+ heavily-armed American troops stationed smack dab in the center of the Middle East. And for as long as (is politically) possible. It's the only way we can show 'em who's boss."
Another Really Short Take. After more than a year of waiting, I was finally able to see Sokurov's Russian Ark today. What a beautiful, beautiful film. I knew that I would be impressed by the craft of it all, but I hadn't expected to be greeted by such a compelling narrative. The last twenty minutes are the best cinema I've seen all year. So much history and tragedy and nostalgia and sorrow — and all from a ballroom dance sequence, a steadicam shot through a sea of self-conscious extras, and Sergei Dreiden's remarkable face. I doubt I'll see a better film in 2003.
Summer Vacation. I'll be gone for the next few days. Updates will likely return on the 21st.
Grief Sucks
Wednesday, August 13, 2003 | 0 Comments
In the last week, several friends have been forced, suddenly — and even if it's expected, it's still always suddenly — to deal with death. Here's the thing, though: there's really nothing you can say to someone in that situation — nothing, at least, that doesn't come off as cliched or awkward or reeking of empty social ritual. You say "I'm so sorry" or "I've been there" or (if it's your thing) "I'm praying for you." And you mean it. You really do. And, sure, it helps. Of course it helps. It's certainly better than not saying anything. But the other person — the person who is really suffering — is still left with that overwhelming, inarticulate grief. And there's really nothing you can do about that either. Which also sucks.
I happen to be reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies this week (which, coincidentally, should really be read by everyone, but especially by Christians who read this blog and worry about my soul because I've obviously become too liberal). A friend gave us this book a few weeks ago, and I'm now glad that I put off reading it for a while because doing so allowed me to read Lamott's essay, "Ladders," this week. This particular week. So this blurb is for my friends, who I hope will appreciate it.
Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible. You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people; shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession. Martyrdom can't be beat. While too much exercise works for many people, it doesn't work for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering.
But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination.
Gorgeous, isn't it? You may remember that I recently became obsessed with Six Feet Under, watching the first season on DVD over the course of two weeks or so. If you don't know this already, the show is set in a family-run funeral home, and so death is obviously one of its more prominent concerns. In the last episode, a young woman who has served as comic relief throughout the season loses her aunt — the only person in the world who really loves her — to a freak accident, and she's left absolutely paralyzed with grief. Finally, she asks Nate, the prodigal son returned to join the family trade, the question that has lingered over so much of the season: "Why do people have to die?" The whole season builds to that moment. And Nate's response? "To make life important."
I know what you're thinking. How Hallmark card, right? Sure. It is. And it rubs against the grain of so many of my core beliefs. But there's also something unmistakably comforting and — I'm not sure yet why I'm drawn to this word — holy there. Can't explain it. Maybe I'll just go watch What Time Is It There? again.
I really am so sorry, friends, and I really am praying for you.
What Am I Doing Here?
Tuesday, August 12, 2003 | 0 Comments
I found today's featured link while digging around the homepage of Dr. David Reidy, a member of UT's philosophy department. If all goes according to plan, I hope to sit in on his political philosophy seminar this fall — a course on John Rawls and His Critics. If things don't go according to plan, I'll just crib his reading list and learn something about liberalism on my own.
But back to today's featured link . . .
I was thrilled to find on Dr. Reidy's site a link to Tony Kushner's May 26, 2002 commencement address at Vassar, which I'd never read before. His speech is built upon the simplest of conceits, and one that I'm sure must have plagued every speaker who has ever faced the task of sitting down behind a computer or over a pad of paper and writing words that will inspire, amuse, and inform college graduates (and their debt-ridden families) on this strangely ceremonial day. His conceit? Why Me? and What am I doing here?
As usual, Kushner is worth reading if for no other reason than the awesome playfulness of his language. Here, in one of the address's many rambling, paragraph-long sentences, he gets really damn close to describing that confusing mess, life:
You could ask your parents WHY ME, if in asking you mean how did I come to be like this; they, after all, made you, at least some of you, no one will ask them to take responsibility for the whole of you, but if in asking WHY ME you are inquiring after the specifics of your specificity, WHY AM I ME AND NOT SOMEONE ELSE, you could begin by looking into your origins; some of the answers can be found in your home, and by setting the answers you glean through observation, coercion and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a dialectical spin with the facts of your place in history, in time, your place in the world at large, in the culture which is your larger context, in the ideology you have inherited and I hope transformed by living and which with your psyche is the prism through which your self or your soul is refracted, the light and air baffle which your flame or the smoke from your smouldering traverses to reach the exterior world, by setting the inner and the outer up as combatants on the epic dramatic stage in your head, you will arrive, maybe by the time you're 80, maybe earlier if you work hard at it, at some understanding of yourself, if you don't fear the dark night of the soul you will; and you won't fear it so much as long as you remember that no one is happy, only Bush is happy; the best you can hope for is to be happy-ish; remember too that the real value of a dark night of the soul is that it's maybe the surest way of ascertaining that you have one, a soul that is.
The "What am I doing here?" part is where Kushner gets to talk politics, and, as usual, he takes full advantage of the opportunity, tearing into Bush, Cheney, Andrew Sullivan (though subtly here), the Greens, and the ideologies of individualism and consumerism.
one of the answers to the WHAT question ought to be: I am here to organize. I am here to be political. I am here to be a citizen in a pluralist democracy. I am here to be effective, to have agency, to make a claim on power, to spread it around, to rearrange it, to democratize it, to legislate it into justice. Why you? Because the world will end if you don't act. You are the citizen of a flawed but actual democracy. Citizens are not actually capable of not acting, it is not given to a citizen that she doesn't act, this is the price you pay for being a citizen of a democracy, your life is married to the political beyond the possibility of divorcement. You are always an agent.
And then he gives advice and quotes a beautiful poem by Czeslaw Milosz and reminds us of something that we should all know anyway — that we could all stand to read more Emerson, but especially the "Divinity School Address" — and then, as if that weren't already more than any graduating class could ever deserve (even if it is a graduating class at Vassar), he sends us off with words that sound like they could be spoken by a character in a Tony Kushner play:
It's time to stop talking. Oh it always goes like this, I start out not knowing what to say and before I know it I can't shut up. So commence already! A million billion mazels to you and your parents and your teachers and Vassar for having done so self-evidently magnificent a job. I am certain you are aflame. Hurry hurry hurry, now now now, damn the critics and the bad reviews: the world is waiting for you! Organize. Speak the truth.
Amen!
Theology of Empire
Monday, August 11, 2003 | 0 Comments
This weekend I received the latest issue of Sojourners, in which editor-in-chief Jim Wallis discusses the neocon move toward empire and the bad theology that Bush uses to promote it. The article isn't available online yet — all the more reason to subscribe — so here's a quick preview:
The much-touted Religious Right is now a declining political factor in American life. The New York Times' Bill Keller recently observed, "Bombastic evangelical power brokers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have aged into irrelevance, and now exist mainly as ludicrous foils." The real theological problem in America today is no longer the Religious Right but the nationalistic religion of the Bush administration — one that confuses the identity of the nation with the church, and God's purposes with the mission of American empire.
America's foreign policy is more than pre-emptive, it is theologically presumptuous: not only unilateral, but dangerously messianic; not just arrogant, but bordering on the idolatrous and blasphemous. George Bush's personal faith has prompted a profound self-confidence in his "mission" to fight the "axis of evil," his "call" to be commander-in-chief in the war against terrorism, and his definition of America's "responsibility" to "defend the . . . hopes of all mankind." This is a dangerous mix of bad foreign policy and bad theology.
But the answer to bad theology is not secularism; it is, rather, good theology. It is not always wrong to invoke the name of God and the claims of religion in the public life of a nation, as some secularists say. Where would we be without the prophetic moral leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Oscar Romero?
Wallis's piece doesn't offer any particularly revelatory insights into Bush's agenda, but it's a great read because it synthesizes so much material and reexamines it through his (Wallis's) humble perspective. And on a day that I discovered this, it seemed that a little humility was in order.
A couple of fun factoids from the same issue:
- CEO pay at the 37 largest defense contractors increased 79 percent from 2001 to 2002. The average defense industry CEO in 2002 made $11.3 million — 577 times as much as the average U.S. army private on the ground in Iraq.
- In 1999 the average wait for public housing in Miami was 9 months; in 2002 it is 84 months.
Really Short Take
Monday, August 11, 2003 | 0 Comments
I was hoping to write more about Capturing the Friedmans, the best new film I've seen in months, but I can't seem to find the time. If you've seen the film, do yourself a favor and listen to Terry Gross's interview with its director, Andrew Jarecki. The story behind the making of the film is as interesting as the film itself, which is saying alot.
Vigorous Democracy
Friday, August 08, 2003 | 0 Comments
I don't know whether suddenly I'm hearing more talk about democracy because I'm listening better, or prompting it. But if the clearest essential for a vigorous democracy is a citizenry that cares, I'd rather think that my conversations are signs of a nation rousing itself in defense of democratic traditions and institutions.
— Margaret Krome
I've been thinking the same thing lately, though that might be more a reflection of the company I keep than anything like a national trend. During Clinton's first campaign, I was a typical 20 year old undergrad — a kid who considered himself a "registered apathetic." (I used those exact words to describe my political leanings then.) Over the next decade I became increasingly aware politically, and increasingly interested. And then came Bush/Gore . . .
George W. Bush has turned me into a political animal, and I'm not the only one. Everywhere I go now, I find myself stepping into political discussions. Wars, dead soldiers, and budget deficits will do that to a country, I guess. Hopefully, history is a good indicator here. Johnson's an interesting example. So's Bush 41. And instead of announcing the golden age of neo-conservative hegemony that many had predicted, Newt's Contract with America in '94 helped to set the stage for Clinton's landslide re-election. I'm beginning to think that Dubya's club-'em-and-smirk-while-you-do-it agenda might just be inspiring the same kind of counter-movement across the left-of-center. Hell, if he keeps it up, Bush might just lose the center, too. Surely Margaret Krome and I aren't the only people who are noticing this.
Miscellaneous Debris
Friday, August 08, 2003 | 0 Comments
Little piece of advice. If you're looking for higher education don't even consider Tennessee.
My new all-time favorite Google search that (for some reason) hit Long Pauses: "toil or gild or force or growl or anglicanism."
F-Train is back, and with a new design, the mechanics of which are well beyond my understanding but fascinating nonetheless. Today's post, "Web Pidgin," is a great read (or listen).
Steve Martin says, "It All Depends on What You Mean by 'Have'"
Kent Jones on Cannes. Jones makes a provocative comparison between two up-coming films — one I've been anxiously anticipating, one I'd written off as Hollywood fluff.
Clint Eastwood's Mystic River shares a number of concerns with Dogville, but the fact that it's by a homegrown director who knows the virtues of "classical" storytelling isn't what makes it the superior movie. Eastwood's style is as potentially turgid as Trier's experimental theater mannerisms (ca. 1968) are potentially exciting. But this is by far the more honest, the more complex, and the more passionately engaged of the two films.
Calling Howard Roark
Friday, August 01, 2003 | 0 Comments
Both the Times and the Post ran cover stories on construction projects today. The subject at the Times is the new Trade Center design, which is finally beginning to build some sort of consensus among politicians, developers, and architects. Hopefully New Yorkers will come along soon. Of the many articles included in the "Rebuilding Lower Manhattan" feature, the most interesting, I think, is a short editorial by Joel Meyerowitz, who spent nine months taking more than 8,000 photographs of ground zero during the recovery and clean-up. For Meyerowitz, the "inanimate hero of the disaster" is the "bathtub" of steel and concrete that surrounds the site, holding back the waters of the Hudson River.
Now the bathtub has been exposed to daylight, and walking into it reveals a power similar to that of the pyramids. Every day I spent down there I felt the majesty of those walls, with the city soaring into the sky above. This is a new perspective for a city to offer in its midst — a sacred space below sea level yet open to the sky.
With the choice of the design by Studio Daniel Libeskind for the World Trade Center site, this space has a chance of being preserved. Mr. Libeskind centered his memorial on the bathtub, keeping it uncovered, allowing sunlight to grace it. Of course, his design is only the beginning, and in the days ahead it will be subject to constant pressures and alterations. For this reason, New Yorkers need to stand watch to ensure that the final plans sanctify this space deep in the earth. Although unasked for, it is our Parthenon, our Stonehenge. Purified by loss, it is ours to shape and renew.
The piece in the Post is much closer to my heart (and my ass, as anyone who has sat motionless in beltway traffic can testify). The new Woodrow Wilson bridge is inching closer and closer to becoming a reality, and it sounds as though it will be quite an engineering marvel once completed. A twelve-lane drawbridge (!), it will be powered by "motors with no more power than a Dodge Neon engine." Unbelievable.
The piers must be strong enough to hold up under the daily strain of more than 300,000 cars and trucks — and possibly train traffic someday. They also were designed to withstand warping and sagging through sizzling summers and freezing winters, not to mention the possibility of a ship collision or earthquake. The piers must keep the draw spans rigid enough to open and close almost 5,000 times during the next 75 years and still line up within that one-eighth of an inch every time — so closely that a bottle cap could barely fit between them.
Engineers have even accounted for the way the sun passes through the Washington sky. Because the sun will bake the bridge's southern side more than its northern side, the concrete and steel on different parts of the bridge will expand and contract at different rates, Healy said. Unless compensated for during construction, that difference alone could cause the draw spans to warp enough to throw off the alignment. How do they account for so many possible calamities? "A lot of math," Jim Ruddell, head construction manager, said with a chuckle.
Speaking of Howard Roark, if you're ever up for a night of good, campy fun, rent King Vidor's 1949 version of The Fountainhead, starring (Knoxville's own) Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon and Gary Cooper (!!) as Roark. You just haven't lived until you've heard Cooper chunk his way through pages and pages of Rand's ridiculous dialogue. Oh, it's so bad.
I Still Don't Get It (And Words Still Matter)
Friday, August 01, 2003 | 0 Comments
Remember that Saturday Night Live skit during the '88 campaign — the spoof of the Bush/Dukakis Debate? I keep thinking of a moment during that skit when Jon Lovitz's Dukakis looks over to Dana Carvey's Bush, then turns to the camera and says, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy." Some words of wisdom to mull over as you sit in traffic:
Bush: I will never assume the restraint and goodwill of dangerous enemies when lives of our citizens are at work.
— July 30 Press Conference (Independent/UK)
Bush: I also take responsibility for making decisions on war and peace. I analyzed a thorough body of intelligence, good, solid, sound intelligence that led me to come to the conclusion that it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
— July 30 Press Conference (Altercation)
Mokhiber: Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary, said last week this: “I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.” And I was wondering if the President agrees with that?
Scott McClellan: We've made our views very clear in terms of foreign terrorists being in that country in terms of countries that maybe could be taking steps to prevent that from happening. So I think the President has made his views very clear on that issue.
— July 29 Press Briefing (Common Dreams)
Darren Hughes is a web designer and freelance writer in Knoxville, Tennessee.