Stupid Pentagon tricks.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Off the Map - Brief Article

** Chicago, where there wasn't any snow all December and the temperature approached 70 one day. Suddenly, even the liberals aren't so sure this whole global warming deal is such a bad thing.

Here's your problem.

On the one hand, you got your reporters asking all the General guys these impossible questions. You know, questions about targets and strategy, and what our next moves will be, and which Taliban leader's camel has the stinkiest breath, and why haven't all our bombing runs had pinpoint precision, and such. National frickin' security questions. Questions reporters know they could never get actual answers to because any self-respecting military guy who does answer them will disappear faster than free beer at a frat party after a homecoming win.

And yet they continue to ask the questions.

Why? Because they got to. That's their job. But they can't let on to us they know they have no real answers, so we get "Exclusive CNN Night Vision Coverage of America's New War." Which is a green screen interrupted with occasional sparks of light. "Here you can see Coalition forces advancing on a suspected Al Qaeda hideout.... No, wait, sorry, that's a security guard lighting a cigarette in the building next door."

On the other hand, you got your General guys who can't reveal a single solitary syllable, yet still have to pretend they're not annoyed at being asked these same stupid-ass questions over and over and over by the usual cabal of smirking, college-educated, blow-dried folks. (But having an admiral named Stufflebeem is one of the things that fills life's cracks with cake.) The Generals furrow their concerned brows and squint gravely towards the cameras, but all you hear is hedge and evade, dodge and divert. And nobody gets close enough to contradict them because we all know the enemy has satellite dishes, and, these days, Charlie does surf.

** Bora Bora, Tahiti, where the cost of a lobster is exactly the same as a cheeseburger. If you ask me, something has gone horribly, horribly right here.

We've changed in many ways since September 11. We've changed in many ways over the...