My kids, when they are more skilled at reading, are going to have to read this.

The NY Times has a story by R.W. Apple that attempts to put an historical perspective on President Reagan's ultimate legacy, and while some of it is laughably parochial and small-minded in that inimitable New-York-Leftist-Received-Wisdom way ("he demonstrated his pragmatism in rolling back some of his huge 1981 tax cuts" while not mentioning the deleterious result of the luxury tax increases), most of it is as fair as one can expect of the NY Times.

However, there is one apparently inadvertent howler right at the end of the piece:

But hagiography will not determine their leader's ultimate standing, and whether he is entitled to be called "great." Only what the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called "the cool eye of history" will do that, many years hence.

I'll admit Mr. Schlesinger is a well known historian, but to quote him while making a point about dispasionate, clear eyed analysis is hysterically funny.

Here's Arthur Jr, circa 1982

I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street ... those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink are wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves.

Who is engaging in wishful thinking now, hmmm?

What I pointed out below about hindsight and Reagan is echoed by Charles Krauthammer today.

Rarely has a president been so quickly and completely vindicated by history.

What he said.

While perusing The Corner I followed a link to Jim Hoagland's latest column in which he attempts to paste a few blemishes on the Ronald Reagan hagiography. To his credit, Hoagland avoids the silly whining that characterizes so much of the left's critique of Reagan, but Hoagland lets slip one odd notion:

Perhaps this is how contemporary history is made or, in the electronic era, mismade and distorted. Reagan's growing reputation as the great victor in the Cold War who made Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall depends on looking at Reagan and his times through the light cast by subsequent events.

I don't wish to argue with Hoagland over the relative merits of Reagan's foreign policy with regards to the former Soviet Union. What I take issue with is his odd notion that thinking well of Reagan's deeds "depends on looking at Reagan and his times through the light cast by subsequent events". To ordinary people, that simply means assessing Reagan with what little historical perspective there can be after such a short time. In other words, it means employing 20-20 hindsight, and finding that Reagan had uncanny foresight, at least on this issue.

Further into his article, Hoagland quotes an unnamed TV executive saying

Today history is what we say it is.

That may or may not be accurate, but the net result of such arrogant narcissism has been the near total collapse of public faith in the media. I work in the media business, albeit on the technical side of things, and I for one don't want to see my livelihood destroyed by the kind of egoism displayed by that comment.

Little noticed by the big national news organizations is a recent levee break in the Sacramento River delta that has destroyed hundreds of acres of crops and imperils the most important agricultural product of the delta region (at least, the most important to me!): asparagus.

Take a peek at this map:



The levee that broke is right next to Victoria Island, which produces a huge proportion of California's asparagus crop. It also produces what is widely regarded as the best asparagus in the US.

For an asparagus lover like me, this could be a disaster far worse than any bloody mayhem going on in Iraq. We're talking about asparagus, here.

I just listened to an NPR report on President Bush having retained a lawyer to handle the Plame/Wilson grand jury. I usually listen to NPR during my morning commute, so I'm rather inured to their consistent slant, but what I heard from Nina Totenberg this morning just beggars belief:

You'll recall that Ambassador Wilson blew the whistle on the White House claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium for a bomb from the African nation of Niger. And, Wilson had been assigned to check out that story for the Administration. He found out that it wasn't true, and after his findings were ignored by the Administration he went public with that information.

By my quick count, I find three clear untruths in that short statement.

Bush never claimed Iraq tried to buy uranium for bombs, whether from Niger or anywhere else. He said

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

No mention there of bombs (untruth #1), or of Niger(untruth #2). The only claim there is that the British government had discovered some important intelligence. A claim which at the very least may be true, and last I checked the British still stand by it.

Further on, her claim that "He found out it wasn't true." is itself another untruth (#3). He claimed at the time that it wasn't true, but that is simple making a counter claim, not proof of the truth or falsehood of the original claim. Besides, Wilson himself has since changed his tune about the uranium story:

It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.

That's according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.

Nina Totenberg should follows George Tenet's example, and resign in disgrace.

That cute little colt pictured in the post below has taken a turn for the worse today. His bowel movements have stopped, he's jaundiced, and I'm quite certain he's not going to make it. My dear wife and a wonderful neighbor have been trying to help him with enemas, bottle feedings, and other medical interventions, but after a full day of it we don't see any improvement.

Which is why I'm sitting here in the house keeping my distance. When it's clear to everyone he won't make it, it's going to be my job to end his pain. I simply don't want to sit there ministering to that poor animal knowing that I may have to put him down. I've done this enough times now to know becoming emotionally attached to sick critters is a luxury I can't afford. Otherwise, I'd probably be a wreck every time I have to perform the final goodbye.

I really hope he makes it, and as I am the praying sort I'm also doing that. But I don't have much hope.

Damn, damn, damn.

Born yesterday morning, and not named just yet, a healthy palomino Peruvian Paso colt:

Someone tried to use one of those WMD's that Saddam never had:

A roadside bomb containing deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed finding of any of the banned weapons upon which the United States based its case for the Iraq war.

Two people were treated for ``minor exposure,'' but no serious injuries were reported.

While there is some confusion about the role Iraqi former general Jasim Mohamed Saleh will play in pacifying Fallujah, he appears not to suffer from any doubts regarding the role of foreign terrorists:

But just how muddled the situation has become was underlined Sunday when the general chosen by the Americans, Jasim Muhammad Saleh, declared that no foreign fighters were in the city after all.

"There are no foreign fighters in Falluja, and the local tribal leaders have told me the same," he told the Reuters news agency.

I wonder what the former Baathist general would say to the UPI reporters who infiltrated Fallujah and produced this:

"First, a guy came up to me speaking like a Syrian and told me to put out my cigarette," the UPI employee, Osama Mansour said." When our guards told him that we were with them, he told them to leave and go back to their base. And they did. Then his men searched our car and found business cards and a picture of (Shiite Cleric Moqtada) Sadr."

"I knew right they must be (fundamentalists) because of how they acted when they thought I was Shiite," Osama said. "And they broke the (music) cassettes they found in the car and put me in handcuffs, claiming that I was a Kufr (non-believer) and a spy."

While Osama was handcuffed and locked in a closet, the guide he was working with was taken to another room, and both were then subject to semi-professional interrogation.

"They would ask me questions and then take them to (the guide) and come back and question me on parts of my story," he said.

"They found the (business) cards (of the UPI reporter) and asked me why I worked for Kufr. When I said that we just wanted to interview them to tell the truth, he told me to shut up," Osama said. "They called their leader, who interviewed me, and they all spoke with Syrian accents. They were not Iraqi."

"After they found the picture of Sadr and a letter from Sadr's office giving us permission to travel in the south, they asked me if I was Shiite or Sunni. I told them 'Hey I'm a Muslim, there is no Shiite and Sunni.' They respected that but told me that the Shiite were worse than Kufr, who just don't believe. They said the Shiite disagreed with (the Prophet Mohammed) and should all be killed."

Osama said at least 10 Syrians were in the compound he was held in and estimates that far more were hidden in various fortifications around the area.