Month: February 2007

Hyper-Links

I’ve heard you. Many of you want the links to open in a new window as they once did. We’re on it. We’ve fixed the RSS feed, I hope. If you have any more suggestions for the new site, I’m always eager to hear them. Many more incremental changes are in the works: e.g. the Atlantic has bought me a subscription to Getty Images (which the whole Atlantic site shares as well). I’ll now get to pick the photos myself, rather than relying on ones already selected by photo editors. Yay! And thanks for showing up in such large numbers in the new home. The traffic data show no loss in readership from the transition at all (even an increase), which surprised me. They also show that 83 percent of the readers yesterday came directly to the site. Obviously, many of you bookmark http://www.andrewsullivan.com. It remains the best and simplest way to find the blog. Thanks again for making this blog part of your day.

The Latest Romney Switcheroo II

Dizzy yet? This time, it’s campaign finance. Back in 2002, he backed McCain-style reform. Now: Not so much. Money quote from The Hill:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who strongly criticized campaign-finance regulations in a private meeting with House conservatives last week, once touted dramatic restructuring measures such as taxing political contributions and placing spending limits on federal campaigns.

Romney makes John Kerry look immoveable.

Rove and Hillary

A reader has a paranoid theory:

I’m sorry, but the recently choreographed burst of GOP high-strategist handwringing over the possibility of a Hillary run feels purely Rovian to me, fresh from a think tank. How did we get from "A Hillary candidacy is the one thing that could galvanize the Base and save Republican prospects for the White House," to "Fear Hillary" so quickly?

And whence cometh the seemingly responsive timing to the recent and building nationwide coming out party for Obama? This is Rove-a-Dope redux. They are hoping ardently to have Hillary Clinton on the Dem lead horse. Let the ‘Base’ be regalvanized …

The Gitmo Farce

It’s almost a Monty Python skit. After under-oath testimony of FBI agents reporting beatings of detainees, an investigation was initiated. There were no beatings. How do we know? You know the drill:

Col Bassett carried out 20 interviews with suspects and witnesses, but not with detainees, the Southern Command said, according to AP. "He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made," a Southern Command spokesman told AP.

In the words of Principal Skinner, "Now, let’s have no more curiosity about this bizarre cover-up."

Sea Knight Down

Do we have a helicopter problem in Iraq? It doesn’t look good:

The latest helicopter casualty, an Apache, "exploded in a ball of fire" on Friday, according to witnesses.

"That’s unlikely to happen due to small arms fire," [Kiowa Warrior pilot ME] says, "and the odds of hitting an Apache heads on with an unguided RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] are pretty slim."

The fuel cells are crashworthy, and unless they are hit by something like an API (armor piercing incendiary – like a .50 cal or higher) shell, I don’t think they are going to explode. Hitting munitions onboard isn’t likely to make a fireball either. But the explosion of a SAM hitting it might look like a fireball.