Everything's Coming Up Roses

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Apr 08, 2003

Two wholly unrelated recent news items:

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf insisted US claims of being near the airport were untrue. "Their lies are endless," he told a news conference in Baghdad. He added that Republican Guard forces had engaged coalition forces in the area south of the city of Kut and "taught them lessons, a catastrophe," inflicting heavy casualties and forcing encircled coalition forces to retreat. "We buried a lot of them today," he said. He denied the battle successes claimed by the coalition. "All this is to cover their disappointment and inability," he said.

Minneapolis Archbishop Harry Flynn, speaking Saturday at Siena College, his alma mater in upstate New York, said critics still are talking about bishops who shuffled priests from parish to parish. "This is not an accurate or fair characterization of the bishops' actions in the last decade," Flynn said. The charter and norms the U.S. bishops recently approved in Dallas establish a set of national standards that make it clear "the bishops are committed to a national solution to a national problem," he said.