Moyers

Tonight's brief respite from translating the horrors of the Roman satirist Persius allowed me to watch the Bill Moyers PBS special "Buying the War," which has been the subject of much talk (I won't say "debate") in the blogosphere. You've all probably heard about this, so only watch it if you really care to, as it shows nothing new from what we've discussed at length here at Huffy Crew. I will only point out that Dan Rather is quite a tearful fellow and that I had no idea that Knight-Ridder was such a contrarian news source. Well, actually, to elaborate a bit more, I will say this: Watching much of the pre-war footage (which was no doubt picked for rhetorical purposes by Moyers and his team but which is a pretty faithful summary of the general feeling leading up to the war, I think), you can see how much of the Washington press was bamboozled into supporting this thing. Saddam was an age-old enemy, Afghanistan had been an "easy" venture, and most importantly, the press seemed to be genuinely excited about what we were capable of militarily. Iraq was supposed to be so incredibly easy that the idea of American casualties (I pass over Iraqis...) counted about nil. Draw whatever conclusions you will about the "spectacular" character of modern American warfare. (I.e. how exciting is it to flash an "America at War" graphic on your news screen and feature dispatches from your "embedded" reporter, On The Ground in Iraq.)

Persius is good for some quality nuggets, in any case. Take this one:

O mores, usque adeone

scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter?

O the state of things, has it come to this
that what you know counts as nothing unless someone else knows you know it?

And:

respue quod non es.

Spit out that which is not you.