Matt Barganier

Ever since we peaceniks lost the effort to stop the war, our liberventionist friends have been telling us to look on the bright side. We should all be pleased that a dictator met justice, they say, no matter why the war was fought or what its other results may be. It is in this optimistic … Continue reading “The Autumn of the Patriarchs”

Sixty years after it was dropped on Salzburg, a U.S. bomb explodes, killing the two men who tried to defuse it. Vietnamese kids keep losing fingers, toes, arms, and legs to a conflict they’re too young to have even forgotten. Hostages of last year’s Chechen theater siege are still collapsing from the elixir that set … Continue reading “Where Will Timothy McVeigh Strike Next?”

As an American writer, the following reminder strikes me as absurdly obvious, but in absurd times the obvious bears repeating. Friday is Independence Day. It is not Veterans Day or Memorial Day. As befits a nation founded on ideas, our chief holiday lifts the quill above the bayonet. Had the Father of Our Country wanted … Continue reading “What I’ll Be Celebrating on the Fourth”

It’s one of those "only in America" stories sure to moisten every patriotic eye. A babe found wrapped in tobacco leaves, Moses in the Tennessee bulrushes, a disadvantaged lad if ever there was one, transformed, through will and conviction, into one of history’s great leaders. A boy who took up arms for his country, fought … Continue reading “America Needs a Gore News Channel”

Few of us will ever forget where we were when we heard the news. I was driving home from work, listening to National Pinko Radio (Limbaugh was over), when the world as we knew it changed forever. I rushed home to watch it on television, and it was like Berlin ’89 all over again. The … Continue reading “Mr. Sharon, Tear Down Those Empty Mobile Homes!”

In the aftermath of the Iraq war, intense scrutiny has fallen on the search for weapons of mass destruction. The peace camp can barely suppress its glee as each day passes with no smoking vials or reactors, and that’s perfectly understandable. It’s nice to see one’s antagonists – especially this sorry mob – sweat beneath … Continue reading “No WMDs? Fabulous, but Still Beside the Point”

Paul Wolfowitz finally fessed up to the obvious last week: the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were merely a pretext for ousting Saddam. That few seem troubled by this brazen admission is a sad cultural indicator. Can you imagine FDR spilling the beans on Pearl Harbor or LBJ coming clean on the Tonkin … Continue reading “Guantanamo, USA”

“You could oversee a bombing mission overseas then break for dinner with the family” – Boeing engineer Roy Smith on the new X-45 unmanned bomber Well, it’s about time. I often think to myself, as my frozen dinner rotates in the microwave, "Shouldn’t I be blowing the limbs off of some goddamn foreigners?" Then my … Continue reading “Joystick Mayhem”

Westernization is proceeding smoothly in Iraq, if imitation of Israel is your yardstick, anyway. Iraqis have demonstrated that they too can evict Palestinians, and with admirable swiftness. You see, many of those who fled to Iraq after 1948 were placed, ironically, in the confiscated homes of dissidents. Now, as if to remind the Palestinians that … Continue reading “We’re All Israelis Now – Except for the Palestinians”

Somebody hand David Brooks a Kleenex. He’s upset that President Bush’s victory dance last Thursday was interpreted politically. Boy am I in a terrible mood. I watched and listened to the punditry on President Bush’s speech on the USS Lincoln. . . . And what do my fellow pundits say? They sit in the studios … Continue reading “Election 2004: Let the Cynicism Begin!”