He DID?! OMG. (Of course, I can only handle war news for about an hour at a time,but...I didn't know that. Doesn't seem very responsible, to say the least.

Yeah, it was a few months back. His comments included something about the price of a one-way ticket and a bullet.

(He's "clarified" by saying he was only making a rhetorical point - that a bullet doesn't cost near as much as a "one-way ticket", i.e., exile.

Ari Fleischer told CNN he was making a "rhetorical point" on the cost of a possible war and his comments were not meant to send signals to the Iraqi people.

However, Fleischer said, "no one would shed a tear" if the Iraqi people took the matter of Saddam into their own hands.

ugh. More reason than ever to hate him.

Fliecher's comments don't bother me nearly as much as someone selling "terrorist hunting licences" over the internet. I can only speak for the area I live in now, but people are wound up. Some of them are directing their anger at anyone. I wish whoever it was wouldn't encourage them.

Good point, Heather. Ari Fleischer is scary, but not in the same kind of immediate way.

Can you imagine the hissy fit if someone turned around and said they wouldn't sell to Americans?

Huh? People are smashing McDonald's up, pouring Coke down drains, withdrawing American brands from Parisian restuarants--and it's as common, and noticeable, as burning our flag. It's soooo adolescent--"Look! We're burning your flag in our demo! The symbol of your contry! Aren't we outrageous?! Aren't you upset?!!"

Yawn. Yes, dudes, outraged. Yay you. See you at the movies.

I think you can credit the demonstrators with motives stronger than adolescent angst. Sure, there are going to be the usual fluffbrain show-offs and blowhards who show up at these things no matter where in the world they occur or what political stand they take, but there are many people all over the world who are genuinely disturbed about this war and more importantly about the way we got into it. My brother lives in the Netherlans and has a lot of Dutch friends and he tells me the antiwar (and anti-American) sentiment comes from people whose integrity and intelligence he respects, whether he agrees with all their points or not.

Seems odd to me to call the behavior of Europeans who refuse to buy Coke adolescent without mentioning that there are, after all, equally adolescent Americans refusing to buy French wine. Or sell computers to Canadians.

after all, equally adolescent Americans refusing to buy French wine

But we have been mocking them ruthlessly for weeks.