George Bush Meets Graham Greene (tags)
In any case, here’s the Bush statement today: “In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called ‘The Quiet American.’ It was set in Saigon and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: ‘I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.’...Maybe someone should tell him that Pyle, in the novel, helps arrange and then defends a terror bombing that kills and maims civilians. Or perhaps Bush only saw the misbegotten 1950s movie based on the book, which obscured Pyle's guilt.
BTL:NSA Domestic Surveillance Tests Constitution (tags)
Interview with Chrisopher Pyle, former intelligence officer and professor constitutional law, conducted by Between the Lines' Scott Harris
Oh for the Day When Journalists Were Journalists (tags)
Even in World War II, when the enemy was fascism and Hitler, a reporter like Ernie Pyle could write of the horrors and waste of war, and describe the carnage in terms that defied the jingoism of the day. Where are reporters like that in today’s media, where we aren’t even allowed to see the dead, much less write about them. ------------------