comments.

before the early nbn news today, hajj hussein khalil had a press conference in which he revealed some "letters" concerning saad hariri, hezbollah's weapons, israel, and the summer war. just now, al-moustaqbal replied to the not so implicit accusations. it should be noted that one of the recent strengths - for better or for worse - of the so-called opposition is that it has been able to control the topics within the national discourse. march 14 and the government spend their time replying to all accusations - true or untrue - as opposed to setting a unique and dominating beat, which just reflects their own weakness as an entity. the opposition has even stolen the word "opposition" - something march 14 had kept solely for themselves. even though they technically stopped being the opposition over a year ago, people like geagea still want to be referred to as the "opposition", as he stated quite explicitly yesterday in a press conference. again, that need is just a reflection of weakness and a lack of long-term strategy. even though such political entities may live day by day, they need to be able to define a thread that ties together days within a certain time window, so that they at least appear proactive as opposed to simply reactive. it is no surprise that march 14 has not been able to do that.

on another note, please let me know if you have been able to understand anything siniora has said to his seraille groupies in the past 4 - 5 days. i'd like to know if his being cooped up has had an effect on his mental coherence, or if my being jet-lagged is the main reason i'm having trouble with all his speeches.

posted by Lazarus, 11:05 AM