That Liberal Media

Always playing up bad news from Iraq.
UPDATE: Regarding this crash, exactly what kind of “routine” mission do they have going on during bad weather at 1:20 a.m. near Syria? If that’s “routine, ” what constitutes a “non-routine” mission?

280,000

Tsunami? What tsunami? This story is so 2004. I applaud TV news for moving on. There’s still some uncovered angles on the Scott Peterson trial to explore.

Fuzzy Math

There’s reality:

The White House announced on Tuesday that the federal budget deficit was expected to rise this year to $427 billion, a figure that includes a new request from President Bush to help pay for the war in Iraq.
The White House’s announcement makes it the fourth straight year in which the budget deficit was expected to grow; as recently as last July the administration had predicted that the deficit, which was $412 billion last year, would fall this year to $331 billion.

And then there’s fantasy:

In a briefing for reporters on Tuesday, senior administration officials insisted they were still on track to fulfill Mr. Bush’s campaign promise of reducing the federal budget deficit by half by 2009.

Perhaps this stems from my background in the humanities, rather than math, but how are four years of growing budget deficits putting us on a path of halving the red ink within five years? If you were to plot that on a graph, it would require an awful bizarre equation.
The entire article highlights how the White House claims are even more laughable when you factor in the costs of upcoming expenses: entitlement increases, permanent military bases in Iraq, and, of course, permanent tax cuts for millionaires. We’re at war, after all.

Finding Common Ground

Steve Gilliard is correct in pointing out that there’s not much common ground available between abortion rights and anti-abortion interest groups. And to the extent that there is any, Senator Hillary Clinton certainly isn’t the one who will find it.