Items

Item: Mahmoud Ahmedinejad challenges George W. Bush to a debate
Why would you do that? The premise underlying any debate is that there are two points of view being expressed, and generally the assumption is that there is a certain amount of validity behind each. Why would we even want to give Ahmedinejad even a semblance of standing? Does his rule over Iran truly represent the will of the Iranian people? We cannnot know this, because a free and fair election is not possible in Iran.

Further, do we assume there is any validity to some of the views that Ahmedinejad has previously brought forward? Is anti-Semitism an intellectually valid viewpoint? Is the destruction of Israel even worth discussing?

Item: Ayatollah Khatami to visit U.S., speak at Harvard
There's an old saying - if you are too open minded, your brains spill out onto the sidewalk. Perhaps that is the explanation for bringing Ayatollah Khatami, part of the gang of mullahs that are the powers behind Ahmedinejad and his regime, to speak at Harvard. This sort of thing is part of a long-standing tradition at Harvard, of course - who could forget when the school brought Hermann Goering to campus to speak in 1937? Or Pol Pot's famous stroll through the Cambridge greenery in 1977? Wait, you say, those events didn't happen? Yep, of course they didn't. But we're so beyond all those provincial notions now.

Item: Katie Couric begins tenure as new anchor of CBS Evening News
Oh, did that happen yesterday? Funny that I didn't hear anything about it.

Item: Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew Armitage was leaker in Plame case
So what the hell has his three year investigation been about, then?

Item: Star Tribune endorses Mike Erlandson for MN-5 seat
The Strib can't abide parking scofflaws, so Keith (X) (Hakim) Ellison can't go. Actually, he might want to consider a career as a UN diplomat. We're not going to talk about Farrakhan here, no we aren't. Our little secret.

Item: Democrats living and dead all call for Rumsfeld to resign
We're all for free speech, just not for the SecDef. He can shut up, they explained.