The news of Iranian officers caught with explosives in Baghdad is also an important turning point. The truth is that the “resistance” to the liberation was always formed around Baathists, Jihadists and Iranian and other foreign meddlers. But until sovereignty was transferred, they could always be portrayed as fighting America, not fighting Iraq. Now, within days of the power transfer, we are seeing the new dynamic. It seems to me that the best reason for voting for Bush this fall is Iran. We know they will fight back soon. We also know that Kerry is closer to the “see-no-evil” French approach to the Iranian mullahs. This is the next phase of the war. It has already started in Iraq.
FISK ON SADDAM’S TRIAL: Reading Robert Fisk’s sympathetic treatment of Saddam Hussein’s trial is an eye-opener. The language is particularly revealing. Norman Geras guides you through this terror-excusing hack’s rhetorical nihilism.
WHAT GOVERNMENT COSTS: When you add up all the taxes, red tape, bureaucracy, subsidies, pork, and entitlements, the cost of government now consumes well over half of national income. At least, that’s what Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform outfit argues in this PDF document, released today. That makes the average American someone who essentially works for the government each year until July 7. So congrats. You now to get to keep your own money. Woohoo. But the small print also suggests that, with the explosion of government spending under the big-government Bush Republicans, this number could go much higher in the future. It’s perfectly possible that, if John Kerry wins in November and immediately raises taxes, government’s take of the people’s wealth will have been ratcheted up a whole new permanent notch. That could be George W. Bush’s domestic legacy: the man who made the new liberalism possible.
The Dish 