of note: sunday edition -- two very worthy opinions -- bacevich/dowd. . .

the first comes via a
hat-tip to thinkprogress.

the second, via a hat tip
to talkingpointsmemo.

if you click the wordmark for
each newspaper, you will be able
to read the full opinion, in each
case -- and you should do just that.

these are the poignant bits, though.

andrew bacevich -- a father, and professor:

. . .Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent. [. . .By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought. . .] [ed. note: the soldiers are "who actually pay", according to his earlier remarks in this piece, so i've set that sentence here.]

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time. Yet he was the better soldier -- brave and steadfast and irrepressible.

I know that my son did his best to serve our country. Through my own opposition to a profoundly misguided war, I thought I was doing the same. In fact, while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him.

[Andrew J. Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston University. His son died May 13 after a suicide bomb explosion in Salah al-Din province. ed. note: the last paragraph, below, was actually his first:]

. . .Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings.

This may seem a vile accusation to lay against a grieving father. But in fact, it has become a staple of American political discourse, repeated endlessly by those keen to allow President Bush a free hand in waging his war. . .

just immensely sad.

and now, maureen dowd, via the n.y.t.:

. . .The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesn’t know we’re leaving. Osama hasn’t been found because he’s hiding. . .

The terrorists moved into George Bush’s Iraq, not Saddam Hussein’s. W.’s ranting about Al Qaeda there is like planting fleurs du mal and then complaining your garden is toxic. . .

there are so many ways to say these
same things, but these were two of
the best i've seen, in months and
months of looking. . . so, do go read
each opinion in full. . .

me? -- i am going out into
the sunshine -- right now. . .