City Pages

Schlock and Awe



“This ‘Schlock and Awe’ tv glossary aspires to cut through what nearly every news anchor has ponderously been calling ‘the fog of war’ — as if they were quoting an obscure passage from Thucydides — and replace it with the fog of punditry. On the subject of obscure passages from Thucydides, how about this adage from The History of the Peloponnesian War: ‘Zeal is always at its height at the commencement of an undertaking.’ (Recall what Donald Rumsfeld declared last week, We’re still, needless to say, much closer to the beginning than the end.) Less than two weeks into the campaign, our zeal for war seems to have dissipated — and no one is looking forward to the undertaking.” This feature by Michael Tortorello appeared in Minnesota’s City Pages, which BNN’s editors could not let pass without sharing with our readers.