Daily Blague

¶ The Giuliana Sgrena incident, in which the abducted-and-released Italian journalist was wounded, and her companion killed, when her car, en route to the Baghdad airport, approached a checkpoint at a speed that soldiers judged dangerous to themselves, has sent a tremor through my delicately-balanced equanimity. [Rant deleted.] The Times has a prudent editorial that focuses on the laxness in current rules of engagement to which so many innocent deaths have been attributed. Whether the incident vindicates Eason Jordan, the CNN executive whose remarks on the subject of soldiers "targeting" journalists - during an off-the-record session at Davos of which, yes, there is no official record, so that Mr Jordan cannot counter the blogger whose posting stirred up a fracas on the right - led to his ouster, it is difficult to say. Or, rather, it's easy to say, very easy, and bloggers on both sides of the aisle are saying one thing or the other. The fact that Ms Sgrena is a reporter for Il Manifesto, a newspaper of Communist orientation, certainly clouds the issue, although of course it shouldn't. Like the Times editors, I don't hold the soldiers reponsible; they're working under impossible conditions. I blame the Pooh-Bahs in Washington who created those conditions, whether actively or by reckless disregard.

¶ I can't ordinarily bring myself to visit Powerline, the Radiculan Web log that pounds its chest like King Kong when it isn't eating liberals for breakfast, but I had to make an exception today, after I heard about a "victory party" in Minneapolis that several of the Powerline collaborators will address. What are they celebrating? Having brought Dan Rather down. Here are the details, for any of you living in the environs of the Twin Cities. (How long will it take for some kind soul to clue Hindrocket in on certain implications of his nom de plume?)

¶ The current issue of The Atlantic arrived yesterday, and I haven't had time to read the cover story by David Foster Wallace on "Talk Radio," but I've glanced at it, and how the story has been printed may well upstage anything that Mr Wallace has to say. Subscribers can download a PDF file that reproduces the story's look in print, but the snippet of the story that's available to everyone short-circuits the magazine's cleverness by utilizing real hyperlinks instead of the printed simulations, which are really nothing more than colorfully reformatted footnotes. Mr Wallace has always been fond of footnotes! See if:book for interesting comment.