Where are the girls?

Bill Frist gives a speech about AIDS. He’s against it. “Without a doubt, AIDS is the greatest moral, social and humanitarian challenge we face.” Hey Bill, does HIV spread through crocodile tears?

WaPo headline: “Mideast Summit Ends in Acrimony.” Well color me shocked. It gets even more amazing: “Israeli officials said Sharon spoke angrily at times during the talks.” And he’s usually so easy-going, placid, one might even say devil-may-care. “Just minutes before the meeting, the Israeli air force fired a missile into the northern Gaza Strip”. Sort of like that song: If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake and fired a missile into the northern Gaza Strip.

Alberto Gonzales wants new minimum sentencing requirements, in which judges retained discretion — but only to increase sentences. He said, “We risk a return to the pre-guidelines era, when defendants were encouraged to play the odds in our criminal justice system, betting that the luck of the draw . . . might result in a lighter sentence.” So the purpose of sentencing guidelines is to intimidate people into guilty pleas?

WaPo sub-headline: “U.S. Forces Surprised By Taliban’s Resilience In Remote Afghanistan.” Yes, Americans, in every freaking war, are always surprised when the other side actually fight back. The article is about an infantry battalion arriving in a small remote Afghan town, making nice with the natives, or rather ordering the natives to line up while the Americans gave a little performance of niceness for their edification. That battalion doctor handed out painkillers, the commander gave stuffed animals and pencils to the children

“Where are the girls?” Stammer asked, as a throng of little boys pressed around him. “I want to make sure the girls get these, too.”

Yeah, a well-armed American comes to a village and wants to know where the girls are; I’m sure that went over real well. An elder told them, “You guys are very nice. But you only come around once in a while. The Taliban will come here as soon as you are gone.” As Daniel Ellsberg says, it’s not Vietnam: it’s a dry heat.

Dick Durbin abjectly apologizes for being outraged about the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo, or something. “More than most people, a senator lives by his words,” he said; then he ate his, and opened wide to show that they were all gone. Let the healing begin.