These non-apology apologies*** keep getting more, erm, elaborate:

“I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended,” Kerry said in a statement.

Still, I hope we can move past this quickly. This was a particularly shameful dirty political move on the part of the Republicans—the kind that Republicans seem to specialize in when they think they’re on the side of right: they will do whatever it takes to win. (See my discussion of James Baker in this post.)
—–

***see this post

It’s known as the hudna, and Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to Palestinian “prime minster” (of resistance until the destruction of Israel) Haniyeh, is the author of the op-ed in today’s New York Times, in which he lays down what sounds like such a reasonable course of action—a temporary “truce” with Israel, which Hamas seeks to destroy:

A truce is referred to in Arabic as a “hudna.” Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences. The Koran finds great merit in such efforts at promoting understanding among different people. Whereas war dehumanizes the enemy and makes it easier to kill, a hudna affords the opportunity to humanize one’s opponents and understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or international dispute.

Here’s the proposal:

We Palestinians are prepared to enter into a hudna to bring about an immediate end to the occupation and to initiate a period of peaceful coexistence during which both sides would refrain from any form of military aggression or provocation.

The “occupation” Yousef refers to, of course, is the “occupation” of the land of Israel by Jews, because Hamas doesn’t recognize the State of Israel.

Such a concept — a period of nonwar but only partial resolution of a conflict — is foreign to the West and has been greeted with much suspicion.

Gee, I wonder why. It can’t be because of Hamas’s circular reasoning, can it?

Norm Geras has his own take:

But what about there being no support for recognition, and what about ending up like Michael Collins? It wouldna (with the hudna) happen? How come? I guess, because even though the hudna would be a kind of recognition, it also simultaneously wouldna be that - not, anyway, in the Michael Collins sense. What, even though this Palestinian delegation have said publicly that it would be? For difference within identity, for dialectical thinking, you couldna do better than a hudna?

Here’s the piece in New York magazine’s Intelligencer column. Careful: there are lots of big words. The spelling mistake isn’t in one of them.

Just because you’re a great writer doesn’t mean, as it turns out, you’re also a great speller. This was the disappointing lesson of “A Better Bee,” a literary-celeb-studded spelling bee held at Exit Art in Chelsea last night to benefit the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

Contestants included big-name writers like Garden State author Rick Moody, The Position scribe Meg Wolitzer, and Prep’s Curtis Sittenfeld. (Last year’s champion, Ghost Town author Patrick McGrath, couldn’t attend and was instead represented by a Hello Kitty doll.)

The misspelling is in this paragraph:

As the competition moved into its non-customized rounds, Sherman tripped up on “rhythmically” and Thisbe Nissen missed “baccalaureate.” “Sacrilegious” knocked out Adriana Trigiani, Sigrid Nunez, and Nussbaum. The contestants eventually dwindled to The Epicure’s Lament author Kate Christensen, Georgia O’Keefe biographer Roxana Robinson, Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema, and Moody. “Bezoar” baffled all four, which kept them all in the game, but then Moody flubbed “inoculate,” and, several words later, Christensen struck out on “quodlibet.”

Happy hunting!

Has he crossed the line yet? You be the judge.

Olbermann’s October 31 love letter to John Kerry

On Tuesday’s Countdown, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann came to the defense of Senator John Kerry in the aftermath of the Democratic Senator’s comment that those who don’t study and get an education “get stuck in Iraq,” interpreted by many as an attack on the intelligence of American soldiers. As Olbermann contended that the comment was really meant to be an attack on President Bush’s intelligence, Olbermann accused the Bush team of being “stupid” for not seeing Kerry’s comments as an attack on the President. Olbermann: “Kerry called them stupid, and they were too stupid to know he called them stupid.” Olbermann later charged that First Lady Laura Bush had “gotten into the gutter” and suggested she may have “gone deeper into the muck than Limbaugh” because of her recent comments regarding actor Michael J. Fox’s political activities, that it is “easy to manipulate people’s feelings…when you’re talking about diseases that are so difficult.” 

is now featured on Kerry’s website.

“Countdown with Keith Olbermann”

Keith Olbermann discusses John Kerry’s remarks on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”

And Kerry thinks Bush is stupid!

The Democrats had better win, because in searching for something new to say in her comic-strip critiques of pols and public figures, Maureen Dowd is becoming seriously stupid.

In today’s “column” (why doesn’t she just hire an illustrator?) Ms. Dowd suggests that experience is not necessarily a good thing for government officials.

But if there’s one thing W.’s reign proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is this: Experience, like affectations, can be dangerous.

They will fill up history books with all the myopic misjudgments made by a war council with a couple of centuries of experience, blunders that undermined America’s security and integrity, wrecked Iraq, loosed Osama, and made the world more dangerous.

Those on the president’s “dream team” of foreign policy advisers were haunted, not strengthened, by their years of past service in top jobs. When they got the chance to run the country again under W., all they wanted to do was finish unfinished business, misapplying old ideas to new crises, like those who sabotage new romances with baggage from old relationships.

If anyone should know, honey, it would be you. At least your nemeses are married.