European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 4, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                May 2007 opinion stars and stripes Mideast edition Page 13 apology spin int the Road to perdition by Pinkerton who sorry now lots of people Are Rushing to the claiming to be misunderstood but none of them seems truly saying that one is of is just the those who Are genuinely apologetic know that repentance is a Stern Accord ing to Catholic Doc for contrition is a Sor Row of soul and a hatred of sin with a firm purpose of not sinning in the fun in other if you Are you really have to mean so we can make Short of ran Dall until resigning suddenly last was Deputy Secretary of among other ant aids abstinence the mar ried Tobias admitted to Abc news that he called an escort service to have gals come Over to the Condo and give me a Massage but insisted that no sex was if the Bush administration believed Tobias Why did he resign if his Bosses didst believe Why should the rest of us Bottom line Tobias is not contrite he does not yet hate the sin he even if his wife might find a Way to keep him from committing it another miscreant who obviously int sincerely sorry is Don the Ershock after a career of calling people he went Over the line in slurring the female Rutgers basketball he issued a couple of grudgingly remorseful then announced that he was done with the sorry routine in going to but we gotta move unfortunately for the transgressor can Only make his Best Case for its up to the world to decide whether to accept the in Imus it was not accepted because few saw in him a firm purpose never to name Call next up in the sorry Dock is former Cia director George who collected a million Book Advance so he could spin his role in the Iraq War Specif that his no notorious slam Dunk phrase was taken out of Tenet said those War justifying words in december and yet he just smiled As they were cited by president Bush for the yearn Dahal that he Clung to his and Tenet held his Tongue Beneto former Cia director George Tenet wrote at the Center of the when awarded the presidential medal of Freedom in december Only after All these years of Deba does he wish to Undank himself from As he told 60 he is now seen As an so Hes out to fix that by spinning on its one thing to make a even a big the question is what does one do about it if Tenet genuinely hated what he had he could give his medal Back and donate his Book millions to Chari until that he is just another Beltway operator who failed upward to speaking of failing now we come to tenets Exco league in the Bush Paul More than anyone dreamed up the Iraq War from his Pentagon Ivory having been kicked upstairs to the world Bank Wolfowitz now stands accused of Fina gling the intelligence once again Over wed woman much Wolfowitz says his enemies Are out to get him Over what he did in not Over what he is doing at the world that for and let that be a lesson to future Arm chair generals if the War you foment goes As badly As this one a lot of people will be once malefactors should be warned the Road to perdition is but the path Back to forgiveness is and ineptly spinning the Media Only makes these attempted comebacks As Well As James Pinkerton is a new York new Day Halberstam was truly one of the Best and brightest by Richard Holbrooke when we met in Saigon in May 1963 David Halberstam was Only but he was already the dominant figure among an influential group of journalists who reported what they observed even when it contradicted the version of the War put out by the this was daring stuff Only 18 years after world War reporters were not supposed to question senior american military it was such a Seri Ous matter that president Kennedy asked new York times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to reassign a re quest Sulzberger in the decades Halberstam and his colleagues often have been blamed by righting commentators and some Mili tary officers for the loss in on the grounds that their reporting undermined Domestic support for the this of nonsense in Success Speaks for spin May delude the Public for a but not indefinitely and mean while people the Basic truth is simple Halberstam reporting was and the official version was i can still see David the first time we met everything that evening seems now to have foreshadowed his future and our complicated outlasting a week after i arrived in As a Young foreign service officer on his first Over seas i presented David with a letter of introduction from a Mutual with his characteristic he invited me to dinner at one of Saigon Best French bringing along his Clos est up Bureau chief Neil who later described the evening in his Book a Bright shining they seemed a generation older and Wiser than but and i realize this now with astonishment All of us were in our they were tall and intense and noisily sex they knew they were covering the biggest Story in the with very few they knew the official version was and they were going to get the truth out not to bring Down the american Mission but to help it find its David shown covering the Viet Nam wrote War in a time of at that time they still supported the they wanted those who were lying to the both the corrupt South vietnamese government and american military com to be held they especially despised the senior com world War ii Veteran Paul har and after giving me some advice Trust anything those bastards Tell and Neil spent most of the evening denouncing after some they conducted a mock trial of the fourstar general for incompetence and dereliction of in his Power Ful David pronounced Harkins guilty of each after which Neil loudly carried out the execution by imaginary firing squad against the Back Wall of the As others listened with i looked around in certain that if i was my career would be Over before it had in late october in a fever pitch of David and Neil took me to lunch whispering told me that a coup against the Saigon government would begin right there and every few minutes one of them would run outside to look for troops marching on the presidential when lunch ended without a Neil left for a Brief Vaca Tion in Tokyo and David stayed the coup happened a week exactly the Way they had and David won a pulitzer for his work that he moved leaving the times to write a Book that would change forever perceptions of the american no Book of its sort has had a greater Impact he called it the Best and the and it is still a in the age of unexpectedly studying the background and values of the men around Kennedy and Lyndon Halberstam created a brutal por trait of people far too sure of certain that they knew what was Best for the nation and the world but woefully ignorant of the Distant land to which they were sending Young american in overpowering he conveyed deep anger and a sense of As with he wanted to hold High officials his primary targets were defense Secretary Robert Mcnamara and National Security adviser my George two of the smartest men Ever to serve in by the time Halberstam finished exposing their arro Gance and they were never perceived the same Way he wrote a second Book in what amounted to a continuing study of America and War in a time of on Clinton and the and before his death last week had just completed a on the korean that will come out this one can Only imagine what he might have written about Richard Holbrooke is a former ambassador to the United this column first appeared in the Washington prickly City by Scott Stantis  of wwh6