Who Needs a Hug?

I'm not sure which is more surprising. Help me if you can: (A) Hans Blix's report is not an unequivocal warrant for war, and it might've been misrepresented by Colin Powell; or (B) Britney Spears got dumped again. Poor Colin Powell -- once this makes its weekly round through the liberal / French quarter of the blogosphere, their darling (relatively speaking, that is) of the administration, regarded by so many as the 'sane' one, is going to be chewed up and spat to the ground like a highly-decorated, discarded sycophantic Myrmidon. Hans could have expected far worse, I would imagine, had he declared, "Let's Roll." So it goes, I guess.

Here at Silentio, though, I extend my embrace of sympathy to everybody involved in this torrid affair. First, to Hans Blix, for being dragged from his Swedish love nest all the way to Iraq, and then to the floor of the UN, where he had no recourse but to mumble through an equivocal address that that the Russian translators are still puzzling over. He couldn't give one lap dance here, to either Iraq, the U.S., or France; no, no, much to his chagrine, because the Swedes are so prudish, he had to entertain them all. Second, to Colin Powell. Personally, I don't think his was an illicit lie, but a circumstantial extrapolation, much like most of the U.S. case for war against Iraq. Sure, I disagree with the terms in which this war is straining to be fought, but sometimes even five-star generals need hugs -- perhaps if only they had more. Third, and maybe most importantly, I think we're all in need of a hug right now, because all this is getting really kind of mind-numbingly confusing, all cloaked in grey and limned by equivocation and pretense, and is coming a little too similiar to a situation I observed in high school between the captain of the soccer team, his girlfriend the third chair viola player with silky soft hair and the stippled nape, the skate-poseur with bad teeth and a knack of writing obsessive letters to viola players with Gazelle-wearing boyfriends, and Mrs. Dick, the Spanish Teacher who had to intercede in the semiological argument that ensued just after the punch that prefaced the "Oww" that came ten seconds after "I was just joking!"

Oh, and yes, a long long hug for Britney, too.