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A Condie respondeu às criticas por ter se recusado a depor no inquérito do 9/11 (veja notas) no 60 Minutes ontem. Veja a transcrição no
Washington Post e a reportagem na BBC.

O representante da direita "muito barulho por nada" que desperdiça tempo útil no Manhattan Connection achou genial a jogada da turma do baby Bush de fritar a Condie para salvar a imagem do governo enlameada pelo Richard Clarke (veja nota).

Seria normal em política, se não tivesse sido criada a imagem de intimidade pessoal entre a assessora e o nucleo familiar do baby Bush. Quando tudo estava bem, vendiam a Condie como uma moça solteira inteligente e carente que compartilhava a intimidade da familia presidencial, inclusive nas viagens de final de semana na fazenda fake de Crawford, Texas (veja nota).

O ator, escritor e diretor, Sir Peter Ustinov, morreu ontem à noite na Suiça aos 82 anos. Veja BBC.

Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said of Sir Peter's Unicef work: "(He was) among the first ambassadors who played a very important role. "When you have the capacity to have an influence on the public, through movies or theatre, it isn't difficult to have the same experience to solve the humanitarian problem."

BBC presenter Michael Parkinson said Sir Peter was in his "top five" interviewees of all time, describing him as a "good writer and actor, a wonderful raconteur and as such, God's gift to the talk show host". In an interview with Reuters last year he said: "I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilised music in the world."

He also said he had decided on the epitaph for his gravestone - "Keep off the grass." Director Michael Winner, who worked with Ustinov on the film Appointment with Death, said: "He was a professional. "He was a very dear friend for over 50 years. He was very caring and gave of himself unsparingly. "He had this great eccentricity, he could say lines that were very tedious, but he could say them with a wit that made them interesting," Mr Winner said.

He added: "A great raconteur of course. He was quite irascible, he was not the cuddly teddy bear he put out.

Uma coisa que a BBCWorld mostrou e eu não sabia: o Ustinov era famoso por ser um excelente raconteur (contador de histórias). O que a vi no obituário televisivo era tão, ou mais engraçado que o Seinfeld... Uma pena descobrir isso só agora. A BBC publicou uma seleção de frases dele como:

# "Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first."

# "Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them."

# "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."

# "The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come."

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Tava dando uma procurada da história da Mendes Junior no Iraque, mas não achei muita coisa...

Não ví ontem, mas deveria ter incluído este editorial na nota sobre a repercussão do depoimento do ex-chefe do contraterrorismo do baby Bush no inquérito do 9/11 (veja nota). A Time fez uma crítica muito forte (e não insana como a Fox) contra a postura partidária do Richard Clarke no livro e nas entrevistas.

Leaving aside the fact that Bush never fails to insist that the terror threat is as great today as it was on 9/11, these passages reveal the polemical, partisan mean-spiritedness that lies at the heart of Clarke's book, and to an even greater degree, his television appearances flacking it. That's a shame, since many of his contentions — about the years of political and intelligence missteps that led to 9/11, the failure of two Administrations to destroy al-Qaeda and the potentially disastrous consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq — deserve a wide and serious airing. From now on, the country would be best served if Clarke lets the facts speak for themselves.

Bacana. Só não disseram que o Clarke vota nos republicanos e participou dos governos Reagan, papa Bush e baby Bush, além do Clinton. Será que é tão difícil de acreditar que gente decente desse mundo, não importando as cores ideológicas, são capazes de ficar indignadas quando a dose de hipocrisia e mentira é muito acima do "normal"?