Hunter:
Here is a brief excerpt from the first NYT referenced in this thread:
"As a participant recounted one of the sessions, Mr. Obama told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that the law was “just wrong.” Mr. Obama told them, the participant said, that he had delayed acting on repeal because the military was stretched in two wars and he did not want another polarizing debate in 2009 to distract from his health care fight.
But in 2010, he told them, this would be a priority. He got no objections."
That's part of what is going on; it's only possible to fight so many battles at once, especially when you have people like Rush, Hannity, etc. spoiling for a public fight on every little thing you might say.
The Claire Short story is significant precisely because she has been calling Blair a liar for some time; the Chilcot Inquiry doesn't believe him either. Her words are carrying far more weight than they did in '03, which I hope means the tide is turning.
Saudi Arabia has never bothered much with bin Laden before, so I can't understand why you don't feel this has significance. The Saudis' motives are probably financial; the unrest in the Middle East have caused grave harm to the area's business concerns. But now they're at least trying to do something instead of nothing, which feels like a gain to me.
None of this is a movie-like Happy Ending, true. And I would agree with you that no one's motives are pure, not Obama, not the Saudis, no one's. But I do think some significant things are happening, or beginning to happen, and I also believe that sticking to yesterday's talking points as a basis for one's world view is not particularly productive. The more we go on about how we're in desperate trouble and nothing can ever possibly change, the more self-fulfilling those words become.
I honestly believe that if the media conspired to run fictitious stories about a miraculous financial turnaround, our stock market would rise, our factories would begin sputtering back to life, and shoppers would return to stores in force. Thinking does make things so, at least sometimes and in some ways. I get a little tired of all the gloom and doom and "everyone's against us" stuff, to be honest. There are, to me, signs that some problems are going to be addressed, maybe not to my complete satisfaction or yours, but at least worked on.
