THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ. for 23 Sep

Heads up folks, this news rolls downhill.

The East Valley Tribune reports inscriptions etched into Arizona’s Sept. 11 monument -- meant to inspire and capture the horror of the terrorist attacks -- sparked the beginnings of a political blog battle this week. Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said he was stunned to learn of the inscriptions. “To politicize it to me is absolutely outrageous, instead of a memorial to remember those who have sacrificed their lives,” he said. Tempe resident Donna Bird, whose husband Gary was killed in the attack, was among the 30-member Arizona 9/11 Memorial Commission created by former Gov. Jane Hull in 2002. She said all the inscriptions were found factual by an Arizona State University history professor. She added that she wouldn’t have helped design the memorial, which names her husband, if it were political. The three images below are from the memorial:

Once again, the prior employer of Jayson Blair runs a story based on information gleaned from government security leaks. In, Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat, the Times repeats their standard template: a story based on a confidential report leaked to the press by anonymous sources who put their Clinton/Democrat loyalty above their loyalty to their country. The public has no access to an actual document. Any notion of truth is pushed to the limits of credibility. The sensational news trumpeted in the first paragraph:
[T]he American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The titillation, however, is abruptly terminated seven paragraphs into the story when the Times reveals:
Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil.
The Washington Post shamelessly echos the Times story in a headline . . . unable to do the hard reporting on their own.

Reuters and the Washington Post report former President Bill Clinton, angrily defending his efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, accused the Bush administration of doing far less to stop the al Qaeda leader before the September 11 attacks. A video preview of the interview containing Clinton's statements has been circulating on the Internet. In the interview, Clinton rants, "[The Bush administration] had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed." Yeah, Clinton had eight years and Bush had eight months. Angry delusions of truth do not obfuscate reality. Observers should note that President Bush has not once made such an embarrassing, childish display, even when called Hitler and Satan. However, it's shameful to see a former U.S. president so totally stripped of his self respect. Well, I guess there is Jimmy Carter, too.

Last but not least, World leaders reacted cautiously to a French newspaper report that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has died, while the French government probed the leak of an intelligence brief cited by the daily, according to AFP. AP notes, A leaked French intelligence document raises the possibility Osama bin Laden died of typhoid, but President Jacques Chirac said Saturday the report was "in no way whatsoever confirmed" and officials from Kabul to Washington expressed skepticism about its accuracy. Echoing AP, Reuters reports France and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm a report that Osama bin Laden had died and France launched a probe into how a secret document containing the claim was leaked. The Washington Post also chimes in, French and U.S. officials discounted a report Saturday in a French newspaper indicating that Osama bin Laden had died of typhoid last month in a remote area of Pakistan.