Quick Hits

We went tonight to see a perfectly awful production of Camelot. It had Michael York, who wouldn't necessarily be my first choice for Arthur, but he can hold his own as an actor. I'd planned to compare the echoes of the original Camelot and its connotations to a previous era to the current rumblings about Barack Obama and his potential. This is Obama's hometown--was he in the audience? (Dear God, for his own sake, let's hope not.) But the letdown of a lackluster show made me forget most of the points I'd considered making. We didn't sit too far from Hedy Weiss, so I'll let her take care of the takedown. In the meantime, here are a couple of updates of some stories we've been following.

• As expected, the Prez vetoed the money for the troops because it involved the beginning of a withdrawal of American forces. Of course, Bush has no intention of withdrawing or redeploying or doing much of anything because he has no desire to change anything in Iraq. In explaining his decision shortly after the veto itself, he said:

For the security of the American people, we must not allow al Qaeda to establish a new safe haven in Iraq.

Oooops. In a further disappointment, he made no notice of the fourth anniversary of "Mission Accomplished." If he's having second thoughts, when would that mean the mission became unaccomplished?

• Also as expected, David Broder responds to the 50 Democratic senators who insisted they were downright pleased with Harry Reid. He stands by his story that there is a "long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude [Reid and Gonzales] to end." Now, it wouldn't be the first time a politician spoke out of both sides of his mouth, but if that's the case here, then there are at least a few Democrats who are either lying to the public--us--or to Broder. Of course, it's also possible that Broder is stretching the truth to make for a more interesting column. Either way, he knows the truth, but as head of the Washington cool kids, he's not telling. That just makes this one more in a line of newsworthy stories that the press has had in Washington (Scooter Libby, anyone?) but has decided to conceal for whatever reason. It's just not significant enough for us to know who's lying in Washington. I guess we'll just have to figure it out for ourselves.

[Ed. note--Edited for typos caused by and not previously caught because of the ungodly time this posting was originally made. When is this guy going to get to bed at a decent hour?]