For whatever reason, Sunday morning, after I'd braved impending triple-digit misery index numbers to do actual work in the garden, I sat down with my second cup of tea and grabbed the A section of the New York Times. I rarely read the Times for actual news, which I prefer to get from reliable sources. But suddenly there it was in my hand. Maybe I'd failed to "hydrate". I can't say the Channel 8 Weather Bunny didn't warn me.
[Incidentally, I used to think they said "Be sure to hydrate" instead of "Drink water" because it sounds more scientific, but it recently occurred to me that the latter could be construed as endorsing a product. The weather bunny also suggested I wear light-colored clothing, so I skipped the black-leather gardening chaps this weekend.]
The thing that kept occurring to me as I read on was, "Weren't we supposed to ask this question back when this news broke?" There's an insurgency in Iraq now? And our presence may, in fact, be helping recruit more terrorists? Military recruiting is down? And nobody's calling for sacrifice on the Home Front? A question has arisen about whether George Bush really wanted to get to the bottom of the Plame affair in 2003?
So now I'm wondering if Judy Miller had been hiding everybody's mail for the last few years.
Oh, but the good news is, Al Qaeda is allegedly having a hard time meeting its recruiting quotas, and must aggressively hound schoolchildren as prospects.
ReplyDeleteApparently their methodology is seen as confused, unfocused, and somewhat ineffective, their exit strategy is lacking, their goals do not resonate with the common people who are preoccupied with scraping out a living in crumbling economic conditions, and even those who support them as an organization probably feel they can do more for the cause by staying home and earning money to donate. After all, there are always people with no other talents to contribute the necessary bodies.
In the face of all this, the recruiters become increasingly desperate and spend more time trying to sucker kids with no other prospects.
How do I know? I read it in The Daily News--Oh, sorry. USA Today. Well, same thing. Though a bit more expensive.