Our Nation’s “Lonely Eyes” Seek A Savior
By SusanUnPC on January 4, 2008 at 10:32 PM in Bush/Cheney, Clinton, Current Affairs, Democrats, John Edwards, Obama, Presidential Candidates
What’s behind the astonishing successes of Mike Huckabee’s and Barack Obama’s campaigns last night in Iowa? BBC correspondent Katty Kay knows. People are “fed up,” she said tonight on BBCAmerica’s exceptional hour-long news program, BBC World News America. Ms. Kay continued:
It’s the wonderful age-old mantra of “I can fix it for you by being an outsider. I am on your side.”
We are “fed up” alright. We, the people of this nation, are so desperate to get past the Bush administration that we’ve been obsessing since last year about the race for a president who won’t take office until late January 2009. In the last of his series of columns for The Guardian — which The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg says is “an unparalleled running history of the ideological and moral squalor of the George W. Bush Administration” — Sidney Blumenthal summed up how far America has fallen:
Every aspect of George Bush’s foreign policy has now collapsed. Every dream of neoconservatism has become a nightmare. Every doctrine has turned to dust. The influence of the United States has reached a nadir, its lowest point since before the second world war, when the country was encased in isolationism. [...]
The quest for absolute power has not forged an “empire” but provoked ever-widening chaos. … Squandering the immense influence of the US in such a short period has required monumental effort. [...]
But this is not rock-bottom. There is further to fall.
About the “neoconservatives” who wrought this catastrophe, Blumenthal notes that, for them, “Self-examination is too painful and in any case unfamiliar.” So too is “self-examination” too painful and unfamiliar to most Americans, especially how they got themselves in this horrific mess with Mr. Bush. Indomitable and hegemonic as Americans been for so very long, we, as a people, are not given to the sobering habits of self-questioning or self-doubting. So, instead of self-examination, the American people have rushed heart-long into paroxysmal love affairs with saviors who promise them a “new morning” in America — like a dying patient who is willing to try any quick-fix treatment, undeterred by sober warnings about quackery.
The mantra of “I can fix it for you by being an outsider. I am on your side” is an elixir for humiliated, desperate and frightened people. Fittingly, the conservative Hoover Institution’s Shelby Steele talked on Charlie Rose’s post-Iowa show about the “magic appeal” of Barack Obama. He represents “dramatic change,” said Steele. Obama is a “bargainer,” Steele continued. He’s someone “basically who makes a bargain with white America saying that I won’t rub America’s shameful history of racism in your face if you won’t hold my race against me. And whites show a lot of gratitude for that kind of a bargain. Oprah Winfrey is a classic bargainer. They have a special magic.”
“You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by this.,” writes David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, about Obama’s Iowa win. Pragmatism and “political substance” are out; “personal uplift” and idealism are in.
Conservative speech writer Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal, uses the word “huge” — three times — to describe Obama’s victory. “[S]omething new begins on the Democratic side,” pens Ms. Noonan, with Obama’s message, which she italicizes: “Look at who I am and see me, the change that you desire is right here, move on with me and we will bring it forward together.”
“Look at who I am and see me, the change that you desire is right here, move on with me and we will bring it forward together.” If that’s not “ethereal,” I don’t know what is.
“[S]omething new begins.” What exactly that might be, we have no idea. But Ms. Noonan urges us to believe.
But, suspicious as I am, I have to wonder why conservatives like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Shelby Steele — and, also today, Karl Rove and rightwing Web sites like RedState.com and even Free Republic — are gloating over Obama’s victory.
Suspicious as I am, I think that perhaps I should have titled this article, “Republicans Celebrate Obama Iowa Win: Obama Sized Up As Weakest Democrat.”
Mark Crispin Miller hits on the problem with, as I wrote about the other day, Obama’s “mushmelon bipartisanship”:
In his big summary speech in Iowa the other day, while going on and on and on about the “change” that he keeps saying he represents, [Obama] said that “it’s change that won’t just come from more anger at Washington, or turning up the heat on Republicans.” With his gaze, as ever, nobly fixed on some bright galaxy far, far away, he added: There’s no shortage of anger and bluster and bitter partisanship out there. We don’t need more heat. We need more light.”
Now, I’m as keen on civilized relations as the next man; but if the next man is a fascist, it would be foolish to expect him to reciprocate. …
Larry Johnson laid it out first and best in his “give ‘em no quarter” piece, “Why Are the Rightwing Republicans Hyping Obama?”
Following close on the heels of Obama endorsements from the neoconservative Weekly Standard and the conservative Republican newspaper the Sioux City Journal, yet another conservative Republican newspaper the Dallas Morning News has now rushed to support Obama.
There’s definitely an Obama bandwagon out there – built and pushed by Republican neocons eager to put another right-wing Republican in the White House.
There is no question in my mind that the right views Obama as the one Democrat most easy to beat in a general election.
Larry points out the motivators behind the Kumbayah praise from all of these conservatives and right-wingers:
Could it be because his positions on the crucial issues of health care and Social Security are closer to those of the Republican right wing than those of any other Democratic contender?
Could it be because his pose of rejecting what the Morning News calls “the divisive politics of the past” make him an easier mark for Republican leaders who still go down the line with the partisan and hyper-divisive George Bush and Dick Cheney?
These Republicans have proved for many, many years that they are all for divisive politics, so as long as it helps the right. So maybe that’s why they are promoting a Democrat who talks like Barack Obama does – and why they loathe the prospect of running against tested fighters like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
Or maybe it’s just that these Republicans just want the Democrats to nominate someone they know will be easy to best. Yes, I know some polls suggest Obama does better in a nationwide match up. If you buy that nonsense let me sell you a bridge.
Does anybody seriously doubt that the Dallas Morning News – or the Sioux City Journal or the Weekly Standard–or Karl Rove – who have all hyped Obama, will all support the Republican nominee in the fall election …?
Me? All I can hope for is that voters — so desperate to feel good again about themselves and, most of all, their country — will see that it’s the Republicans who most want them to see their savior in Barack Obama. All I can hope for is that those Americans, somehow, will sober up and take a hard look — why, even a pragmatic “due diligence” review — before it’s too late.
While besotted voters are awe-struck, the conservatives are having the time of their lives, lying in wait, for an untested Barack Obama they can defeat in a general election. The conservative bloggers at Hot Air are giggling themselves silly over Hillary’s runner-up position. And here’s the image up last night, and all day today, at a smirking RedState.com:
And Clinton enemy Dick Morris? He’s so ecstatic that he links Barack Obama’s speech last night at the top of his column today. Then he says:
THE amazing victories by Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in Iowa last night are truly historic. They demonstrate the impact and viability of a message of change in both parties.
Dick Morris adds this laughable, and cruelly untrue, statement to buttress his promotion of Obama:
On the Democratic side, Obama - by winning in a totally white state - shows that racism is gone as a factor in American politics.
Racism is gone? My god. Morris is so eager to bash Hillary and get Obama as the candidate-to-beat in the general election that he indulges in utter fantasy.
Morris then denigrates experience:
Her campaign professionals (including Bill) decided to stress experience, precisely the wrong message in a Democratic primary. Prematurely appealing to the center and abandoning the left, she fell between two chairs - not sufficiently centrist to win independents or liberal enough to attract Democrats.
Morris is still worried though. He’s worried that Democrats will take a hard look at Obama, and get past their giddiness:
With the limelight comes the spotlight. Obama will be subject to the scrutiny that comes with being the leader. Can he weather the examination?
Perhaps not. Democrats may turn on him, worried that he may not win in November. The doubts about Obama, up to now hidden behind concerns about Hillary’s candidacy, will be on center stage.
Morris remains upbeat about Huckabee and, more importantly, his ultimate target, Obama — who you can be sure he’ll fight against tooth and nail until November 2008:
Their appeals are truly unique and obviously resonate with voters. Their approaches are now and the outcome shows how relevant their message is.
“Their approaches are now?” What in the hell does that mean? “[H]ow relevant their message is”? Whatever that message actually is, Morris doesn’t make clear, mostly because the vagueness, the ethereality of that “message,” he knows, is what makes Obama such a prime target for a 24/7 attack during a general election.
Further, I contend, that to get past “the ideological and moral squalor of the George W. Bush Administration,” we’re going to need a hell of a lot more than a message. What we will really need is a president who can take charge before Day One and actually make change happen through true grit and hard work. Soaring speeches won’t go far in the relentless scrutiny of any presidency. And the promises that we can work with Republicans will fail, with depressing regularity, thanks to the day-to-day resistance of a Republican party that will be dedicated to destroying an Obama presidency.
If you still don’t believe me, read what a person posted at Free Republic. This is exactly the kind of tripe that Obama will face in a general election — and not just in print, but also in whispers across backyard fences:
Did the weakest Dem candidate for the general election won tonight? I think so.
By sending forth Hussein Osama out of Iowa, Democrats have unwittingly weakened their general election prospects.
Hussein’s exotic mixture of radical liberalism, Kwanzaa Socialism, antipathy towards the unborn, and weakness against his jihadi brethren will all come back to destroy him against almost any Republican opponent, even the snake-grope from Hope.
I think we as Republicans should be celebrating tonight at the coronation of Hussein, in whose presence millions of Democrat women, from elementary school teachers to journalism majors to law school grads to dykes on bikes will go weak in their knees.
As defenders of this great Republic, and of the pinnacle of Western civilization that it represents, we should all come together tonight and agree on a common strategy that will keep the White House from becoming a madrassa.
Don’t dismiss them as fringe crazies. That’s how a lot of Americans still think, even if they know better than to talk like that to you. (It’s no matter that Dick Morris doesn’t agree, at least in print.) And they’ll rush to the Republican candidate, and go “nuclear” to destroy Obama’s message.
The only mistake that that Free Republic nut made was to reveal their fondest wishes too early. He needs David Brooks and Karl Rove to explain the game plan to him.
Please heed Sidney Blumenthal’s warning:
But this is not rock-bottom. There is further to fall.
Indeed there is “further to fall.” And further we will surely fall if we end up with eight more years of a Republican presidency.
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By Sarah Palin (Release date: November 17. 2009)
Thanks again for the sanity, Larry. Hope? Positive thinking? Spirit of cooperation? An end to the things that separate us? The partisan divide is all an illusion, a bad dream that will go away if we only elect a uniter?
I have seen this film before.
George Bush Cedar Rapids, Iowa 1999
The next president must close this gap of hope. It is the great challenge to America’s good heart. But changing our culture requires more than laws. Cultures change one heart, one soul, one conscience at a time. Government can spend money, but it can’t put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives.
This country is hungry for a new style of campaign. Positive. Hopeful. Inclusive. A campaign that attracts new faces and new voices. A campaign that unites all Americans toward a better tomorrow. I say a better tomorrow because I’ve learned that people want to follow an optimist.
It feels to me like an old era of American politics is ending — like Americans are waiting for new hopes, new energy, new idealism. We will show that politics, after a time of tarnished ideals, can be higher and better. We will give our country a fresh start after a season of cynicism.
George W Bush,July 1999 Presidential campaign speech
This is where my campaign is headed. We will carry a message of hope and renewal to every community in this country. We will tell every American, “The dream is for you.” Tell forgotten children in failed schools, “The dream is for you.” Tell men and women in our decaying cities, “The dream is for you.” Tell confused young people, starved of ideals, “The dream is for you.”
As Americans, this is our creed and our calling. We stumble and splinter when we forget that goal. We unite and prosper when we remember it. No great calling is ever easy, and no work of man is ever perfect. But we can, in our imperfect way, rise now, where there is hatred, sowing love; where there is darkness, shedding light; where there is despair, bringing hope.
George W. Bush, A Victory Speech, December 2000
The spirit of cooperation is what is needed in Washington, D.C. It is the challenge of our moment….We must put politics behind us and work together to make the promise of America available for every one of our citizens.
I am optimistic that we can change the tone in Washington, D.C. Our nation must rise above a house divided. Americans share hopes and goals and values far more important than any political disagreements.
Our votes may differ, but not our hopes.
Together, guided by a spirit of common sense, common courtesy and common goals, we can unite and inspire the American citizens. We have discussed our differences. Now it is time to find common ground and build consensus to make America a beacon of opportunity. [...]
I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation. The president of the United States is the president of every single American, of every race and every background.
Holy cow. That is just plain EERIE stuff. Thank you.
Yeah, Bush ran as an outsider…as if.
Sorry, this one was Susan’s, not Larry’s! Thanks to you then, Susan!
TY! Hurried to get it done because my friend Tim is bringing me groceries — he’s a former fellow Deaniac who remade an ugly old convenience store into a sparking, beautiful little organic grocery, and he’s been delivering me groceries since late October. Of course, we always end up chatting about politics! (He and his wife Sherry adopted the two cutest girls from China — they come along sometimes when he drops off my groceries.)
WMCB qoutes Bush:
….We must put politics behind us and work together to make the promise of America available for every one of our citizens
As we found out in hindsight, for a price.
SusanUnPC:
We’ve got COWS!!! (Gusting to 160 in Lake Tahoe)
Great job.
TY!
What??? The wind is 160 MPH?
Tim just left after delivering my groceries. He said it’s a good thing I stocked up because — grrrrr — we’re getting snow again. (I don’t listen to the ghastly local radio station — it’s all Limbaugh and O’Reilly — so I miss out on weather reports sometimes.)
LAKE TAHOE is so beautiful. Lucky you.
SNOW? When? It’s in the 40’s and raining.
The wind earlier was kinda wild though. Probably stronger out where you are.
It was completely unbelievable here! Shredding umbrellas, and blowing people this way and that, and the building was swaying and shaking on the upper floors.
It was REALLY cold here yesterday. An icy wind whipped right through several wool layers and a coat as if it were nothing. But it’s supposed to warm up over the weekend.
New York?
California?
Yup! It rained like crazy, and the wind was just unbelievable. I lost two loyal umbrellas to the storm. I felt oddly sad - they had been with me for quite some time.
And my hair looked SO CUTE when I left the house, and three steps out of the house I was wondering why I had bothered. I could have saved myself twenty minutes of primp time ’cause I was going to look like a cross between a drowned rat and a bag lady today no matter what. Today was one day when I really envied women who wear headscarves. Makes life so much simpler really.
No California; winecountry. Iwas watching the local weather and that what was reported in them there hills. It was so windy here it stripped the bark of the Eucyliptis out back. My yard is a mess. No kite flying today for sure.
Yeah, I heard it was a mess up there. They closed the Golden Gate bridge, too.
I haven’t been able to really check out my property because I got home after dark, but the roof is still on the house, the house appears intact and the electricity stayed on all day. I’ll take a look tomorrow.
Shirin, your beloved umbrellas, and your hair. … It is tough. My mom always wore those rain hats, but they’re so lame looking. Me, I gave up on umbrellas long ago. They always turned inside out in the wind, or I’d lose them. I have very thick, straight hair so the worst that can happen is that it hangs like planks of wood down along my cheeks.
Yeah - I have to give those poor umbrellas a decent send-off to the next world. They died doing their duty.
As for my hair, well, that was quite a tragedy, but I got through it.
This is playing at the Roxy in SF with a Q&A after with the directors Steve Connors & Molly Bingham.
http://meetingresistance.com/
I caught an interview with the film makers. They concur with what you were saying about Iraqi people not being segragated on cutural /religious lines prior to being invaded.
Thanks, TWK. I have also heard some interviews with them, and would like to see the film. It sounds as if their experience confirms much if not most of what I know to be true about Iraq, Iraqis, and the resistance, and of course it feels good to be vindicated. :o}
weather.com girl. type in your zip code and you are good to go.
(also, if you have cable, the weather channel. “on the 8’s” gives you your local weather at 8 past the hour, 18 minutes past, 28 etc.)
A levee broke too, in Nevada. Hundreds of homes flooded. What else is going to break down there in the USA? Ron Paul is right. Stop spending on foreign policy. We really need to repair our own back-yards.
God. No kidding. Our infrastructure sucks. Hillary has talked about it a lot — and from the standpoint that one big PLUS is that a big infrastructure rebuild will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs!
I was on the oregon coast late last nite … one of my favorite places to be when a big one decides to come in. the rain and the foam from the surf was blowing sideways … a great sight!
[...] from larry johnson’s ‘no quarter’ [...]
“Hope” is NOT a plan…
But FRED!
“Change” IS a plan. Come on, Fred.
I worried about an Iowa relative caucusing for Obama, because they listen to Limbaugh and have been talking up Romney for months. They just wanted to go with a winner? Hard to say…
They really don’t like Hillary Clinton, or even Huckabee. (Limbaugh don’t like Huckabee, you know.)
The profound lessons learned from Iowa is:
1. Independents are voting Democratic.
2. Iowa, a state that is 92% white, voted an African American as their nominee.
I hope that Obama and Clinton try to make inroads among the celebrated NH independents by seizing on McCain’s “100 years in Iraq” comments. McCain I fear.
despite this the 80th psychotic anti obama topic in a row, the topic starters point is well taken. we have a 3 trillion dollar budget. we cannot be “unified” when we have a government this big. When it moves it shifts the entire leviathan over to the left or right to the point where the opposite side will not be able to abide by it.
If socialized medicine passes it will be the dem equivelent of the iraq war. people who don’t support it and don’t want it will have to read about it everyday and pay for it. obviously it won’t be as destructive as the iraq war but it will be as devisive.
the only way we can be unified is to be free to live as we want to: states rights with a weak central government. then we can all be proud of america.
this positive hope stuff isn’t the answer.
…..If socialized medicine passes it will be the dem equivelent of the iraq war. people who don’t support it and don’t want it will have to read about it everyday and pay for it. obviously it won’t be as destructive as the iraq war but it will be as devisive…..
The people that don’t want it will just have to grin and bear it because there isn’t any other place in the world they can go to escape it. You see, every country in the civilized world has a health plan for it’s citizens and SANE politicans making the decisons. In these responsible countries, anyone that has a death wish for his neighbor is regarded as a nutcase.
Susan,
Amen. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
Morris hates Hillary - she was always on to him, unlike her husband.
Yet, as a Clinton insider of that era, Morris is distinctly qualified to comment on Hillary’s “presidential experience”.
Uh, Morris is so consumed, so obsessed with Hillary, that he’s become a caricature. Caught him recently on BookTV (C-Span2 weekends) promoting his latest book, and she was all he could talk about. I think Taters has it nailed. And I’ll be he knew that Hillary was on to him, and that she was an influence in getting rid of him finally.
While besotted voters are awe-struck, the conservatives are having the time of their lives, lying in wait, for an untested Barack Obama they can defeat in a general election.
How funny. We already saw the tactics the GOP will use from the Clinton campaign.
He was tested.
Did anyone watch 20/20 last night? I saw it only once, so I may not have all the details correct.
20/20 showed a segment on political “dirty tricks”-how each candidate has their own research organization to uncover items that would be damaging to other candidates. The last part of the segment dealt with push-polling in Iowa’s 2007 causcus and an Iowa woman who said she had been called and recorded the call. The caller/pollster asked about Obama and Edwards with questions suggesting possible unethical practices on their part, but no questions were asked about Clinton. The host of 20/20 pointed that out the push/poll may have been conducted by the the Clinton campaign as no smear questions regarding Clinton were asked. I plan to attend an open house at a new campaign office for Senator Clinton in Phoenix this afternoon. Perhaps someone there will have a comment. What do you guys think about the segment and a network program airing it less that a week before the NH primary?
I’d guess, if it happened as the woman describes (it’s anecdotal), that it came from a 527 — a union perhaps.
Also: I’m very wary of 20/20 these days because of John Stossel, a ‘winger if there ever was one.
Conversely, Obama himself ran a radio ad in Iowa that accused John Edwards and Hillary Clinton’s health plans of deficiencies while falsely claiming his own plan is better. (We’ve cited numerous sources for that here in other stories. The last was from Elizabeth Edwards herself who was clearly angered by Obama’s radio ad, and said Obama’s ad spread “false” information about both her husband’s and Clinton’s plan.)
FYI: I’ve read several anecdotal reports of Obama staffers pressuring Iowans at the caucuses. At some caucuses, Obama people told Bill Richardson supporters that Richardson had instructed his supporters to go to Obama’s group if he didn’t meet the 15% requirement. Richardson did no such thing.
Then there was the behavior of Obama supporters last night at the traditionally formal NH Democratic dinner. Obama’s people brought in a lot of young people who (1) booed Hillary Clinton during her speech, and (2) began waving their Obama signs, and shouting for Obama, as Bill Richardson finished his speech. I.e., they didn’t show courtesy to other candidates, as is de riguerre at all Democratic formal functions.
So, dirty tricks abound. And frequently it’s Obama’s campaign that executes the trickery.
in your FACE no quarter!!!!!
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/01/hillary_booed_at_nh_democra tic.html
Hillary booed at NH Democratic dinner
If the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 100 Club dinner is any bell weather – Barack Obama will handily win here. When Obama, the dinner’s last speaker, took the stage the crowd surged forward chanting “O-bam-a” and “Fired Up, Ready to Go!” So many people pressed toward the stage that an announcer asked people to “please take their seats for safety concerns.”
By comparison Hillary was twice booed. The first time was when she said she has always and will continue to work for “change for you. The audience, particularly from Obama supporters (they were waving Obama signs) let out a noise that sounded like a thousand people collectively groaning. The second time came a few minutes later when Clinton said: “The there are two big questions for voters in New Hampshire. One is: who will be ready to lead from day one? The second,” and here Clinton was forced to pause as boos from the crowd mixed with cheers from her own supporters. “Is who can we nominate who will go the distance against the Republicans?”
The dinner held in the Hampshire Dome in Milford is the largest political dinner in New Hampshire history, Republican or Democrat. More than 3,000 people attended.
By comparison Hillary was twice booed.
I don’t care for this behavior.
Lester, we know the media hates the Clinton’s. I read that she took coffee and bagels to them and not one person spoke to her. They kissed W’s ass. Nasty people.
I’m not impressed by anything that TIME reports.
They have an agenda to destroy her. The question people need to answer is will they support the opposition if or when she’s out of the game.
I know a New Hampsherite who was at the NH Democratic dinner last night. As a longtime Democratic party member, he was given the job of helping to hand out the tickets to attendees. Campaigns had bought up some tickets for their supporters. He was shocked to see that almost all of those who’d been given Obama tickets were high school kids. Which explains the grossly uncharacteristic and impolite behavior during BOTH Clinton’s and Richardson’s speeches. (Poor Richardson — those teenagers were waving their Obama signs and screaming “Obama” while Richardson was still finishing his speech.)
This focus on the young by the Obama campaign has had me concerned. While the Obama/Oprah machine spin Obama as the “agent of change” and the “antiwar candidate” and “bold”. Obama skips town on the Kyl Lieberman amendment (when he could have demonstrated that he truly stands for diplomacy
instead of racing towards pre-emptive military action against Iran).
He could have taken a stand…he did not.
Obama making less than a quarter of Senate votes
Full of words
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/12/report_clinton_readies_web_att.html
Obama Missing in Action
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/02/obama.missed.votes/index.html
That speaks volumes of Obama’s supporters to boo her.
If Obama claims that he is an outsider and that he is the candidate of change - the anti Clinton - why does he tout the fact that the has many
of Bill Clinton’s former employ as his people now?Actually he
lieduh, misstated and said he had more than Hillary (He just couldn’t divulge their names) Which is untrue. Yeah, right.Like Larry said, this guy uses Rovian tactics. Why does Rove want Obamna to win?
Here’s what Earl Ofari Hutchinson says…
Rove Cheerleads Obama for a Reason: He Thinks He is Easier Prey for the GOP than Clinton
Dec,4, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/rove-cheerleads-obama-for_b_75246.html?load=1&page=2
Her campaign did this. She’s paying for it now which is why they say they aren’t planning any other negative attacks. Has Penn been fired yet?
Susan,
Pressuring caucus members is part of the plan. Odd system.
I finally looked up the term Magic Negro. Someone here mentioned it a while back.
I found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm6hlj-BV0s
And you are BRAGGING about this? You are proud, and not embarrased, that Obama’s supporters behave in this manner?
Well, this story has certainly convinced me, if there was any question, that Obama is not for me. It hasn’t changed my mind about Hillary one way or the other.
Well, one thing for sure: Such behavior NEVER occurs at a formal political party dinner — Republican or Democratic. The party faithful are invariably polite and respectful to all who speak at their events.
I glanced at Memeorandum.com this morning, and all the ‘wingers were writing up the booing. They love it. It helps them, they think, bring Clinton down and promote the candidate they most want in the general, Mr. Obama.
[Once more: I think Obama is terrific. He's brilliant and politically able. But he needs more time in the Senate. And he needs to work harder. I posted this a while ago:
Longtime members of the Senate are unhappy that Obama hasn't bothered to learn the rules of the Senate, which is Senate 101-kinda stuff. Jeez. Then there's that he was given a chairmanship of a Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe and NATO, and he hasn't held a single hearing. Heck, he doesn't even list his chairmanship on his own Senate Web site! (I searched the entire obama.senate.gov site.) The 100% fair-minded Steve Clemons is very unhappy about Obama's lack of work on his subcommittee and failure to even travel in Europe.
And his occasional Qs during Foreign Relations hearings are a snooze. I watched those because I was curious what allthe excitement over him was about, and I didn't get excited. I didn't witness this, but a trusted friend did: Joe Biden read the newspaper while Obama was questioning someone. Biden, a true expert on foreign relations knew it was going to be pro forma questioning. Not good. Just not good.]
Shirin, I respect your concerns about Sen. Clinton. And I forgot to tell you that you made me laugh out loud for your comment the other day that I can’t get on your case for hammering on a point anymore because I’ve been doing precisely that. Yup! You got me! One thing that I sympathize with about Sen. Clinton’s stands is that, as a woman, she has to “appear” tougher on national security matters, moreso than a man would have to, because male voters are SO much harder on women candidates. You know this, Shirin — we women have to try twice as hard to get half the credit. But I look at the body of her life’s work — how she traveled over and over, for years and years, to remote villages in Africa and Asia and South America to help impoverished women get microeconomic grants (and she also set up that program in Arkansas for women) — plus her 35 years of work for women’s and children’s rights, and i know that that’s where her soul LIVES. It’s just that to run for prez, she needs to sound tough. (Personally, I wished she’d done what Edwards did, and apologized for her Iraq authorization vote — she has said she regrets it — but she has to be careful saying AT THIS TIME what she’d do with the troops in Iraq because, in the vicious general election, the Republicans would pulverize her if she comes across too leftie on the issue. I think, in office, she’d move a lot faster than she can say at this moment.)
I think, in office, she’d move a lot faster than she can say at this momenent
I think this true and it has been mentioned Hillary was running her campaign as if it was the general election. I figure this would her allow her some flexibility, but in the short term is problematic.
Thank’s for your comments, Susan. I am glad you found my hammering away remark amusing. I have to say that you currently hold the hammering championship, and I’m gonna need to work hard to regain it!
Susan, the only things I have to go on that are real are a candidate’s history and a candidate’s words. All the rest is pure guesswork, and often wishful thinking. That is not a reliable way to predict what someone will do. Therefore, I just don’t accept the argument that you (and others) have put forth that her statements do not really reflect what she intends to do. In that case she is lying about her intentions, isn’t she? Aren’t we all sufficiently sick of lies, or does it depend on whether the lies are coming from someone we dislike versus someone we like?
And by the way, we could play exactly the same sort of guessing game with any of the candidates regarding policies or statements we don’t like. I could decide that John Edwards’ statements that he will leave a few thousand troops in Iraq is just an effort not to turn off voters who are opposed to a complete withdrawal of troops, and that he actually intends to have all troops out within 16 months. And I could decide to support him on that flimsy basis. I could, but I won’t.
Looking at Hillary Clinton’s record going back to her years as First Lady I see someone who very consistently has readily supported and at times urged military action for all kinds of things, including forcing compliance with United States’ (or in some cases Israel’s) wishes. Listening to her statements as a Senator and as a presidential candidate, it becomes obvious that she considers military force to be an acceptable tool of foreign policy. I find her stated intention to expand the military and increase and already outlandishly huge military budget to be more than slightly worrying.
As for all her humanitarian activities, bully for her, and if her soul lives in women’s and children’s rights, it’s just a shame that her soul only lives in that place for certain portions of humanity and apparently lives somewhere else entirely for certain other portions of humanity.
Where was that soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights for the eight years that she was cheering on her husband’s systematic starvation of Iraq’s women and children? Where was that soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights for the eight years that she encouraged her husband to continue to deprive millions of Iraqi women and children to the most basic necessities of life - a healthy diet, potable water, medical care (and this in a country whose medical system had been held up as a model in the region), education, proper sewage disposal and treatment, paper, pencils, books and on and on and on and on? And where was that soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights each time she supported or encouraged all her husband’s other uses of military power in Iraq, in Kosovo, in Somalia, and elsewhere? Does she not know that the primary victims of any military action - and particularly of bombs dropped from the air - are women and children?
And where was that soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights when she was giving her gung ho support to the lies that resulted in the human rights catastrophe that her government has turned Iraq into? And where was it when she officially gave the go-ahead for shock and awe without even bothering to read the document that was supposed to, but did not, justify it? And where has it been for the last five years during most of which she has remained one of the cheerleaders for Bush’s Iraq debacle, and in any case has never once attempted to take concrete steps to bring an end to it?
And where was that soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights while she was giving her all-out support to Israel’s unspeakably criminal 33 day attack on Lebanon - an attack during which Israel destroyed vital civilian infrastructure, along with thousands upon thousands of women’s and children’s homes? And where has that soul been while Israel has absolutely refused to provide mine removal teams with maps of the mine fields they laid down in Lebanon during their horrible 18 year occupation there? And where was that soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights when Israel responded to the cease fire agreement with Lebanon by spending two days carpeting southern Lebanon with cluster bombs - the gift that keeps on killing - and where is her soul every time a woman or a child is killed or dismembered by those most indiscriminate of weapons that lie in wait for curious young hands to pick them up, or unaware feet to step on them. Does she even think about the tens of Lebanese children who have already been killed or maimed by these weapons? If she did would she give a damn?
And where has that soul been that lives in women’s and children’s rights for the decades and decades that she has enabled, encouraged, and applauded Israel’s depredations on a captive Palestinian population, its collective punishments of women and children for the alleged actions of their relatives, its blocking of women’s and children’s access to food, water, electricity, medical care, and education? Its theft of their land and their means of survival? Where is that soul of hers when Israelis block women in labor from reaching medical facilities? Where is that soul of hers every time a mother dies or a baby dies because the Israeli will not let them pass so they can get the care they need and deserve?
If her soul is in women’s and children’s rights, then why does she show such utter contemptuous for the rights and well being of the women and children of certain segments of humanity?
Without diminishing her no doubt very real contributions to the women and children whom she HAS helped, there is something terribly, terribly wrong here. I would not go so far as to suggest that she has not been sincere in wanting to improve the lives of women and children, but she has certainly been very selective, hasn’t she? Her soul that lives in women’s and children’s rights does not seem to mind a bit supporting, encouraging, cheer leading, and even taking a part in some of the most horrific violations of those very same rights her soul supposedly lives in.
No, thank you, Susan. I’m not buying.
lester could you be any more immature? i know you are a libertarian/republican which automatically makes you immature but good god … perhaps you could take some time to read, develop a couple analytical skills, and lear a bit about logic before befouling this bog with your postings.
secondly, your comment about states rights being better then a strong central government makes no sense in light of you being so thrilled with the neoconic agenda. pay attention, the neocons have done more to erode state rights [well even federal rights] then the democrats could ever accomplish.
finally, your comments about a national health program also is a quick primer to why libertarians are so very wrong … choosing not to have health insurance is not a decision that just effects the individual making the choice … ah, i know this logic escapes the truly selfish and immature.
Should Obama be elected President in 2008, he will find quite quickly just how much the Republicans are willing to work with him in 2009 to grapple with the economic morass we will find ourselves in. Just how quickly will he be willing to abandon Social Security and Medicare, not to mention many other programs, to persuade the Republicans to join in doing anything to prevent the complete collapse of the economy?
The real mortgage reset season starts next spring and the accelerating foreclosure season will become apparent within six months - after the next President is elected. The Republican-led bankers will plead for a new source of cheap funds to forestall bankruptcy and the only ready source from their perspective will be Social Security. Obama won’t even be able to get the Fed to print money, because it’s headed up by a Republican adherent. We’ll be seeing a replay of the Carter administration - except this time the Republicans will be laying the blame on a young, black Democratic politician.
Why wouldn’t the Republicans be chortling at the prospect of an Obama Presidency? They figure they can force him to drink the poisoned chalice they’ve prepared and try to explain to the public why it’s good for them. That’s bipartisanship for you.
They figure they can force him to drink the poisoned chalice
The Democratic leadership has already been drinking gallons.
Try another argument.
The wheels are coming off already.
Clinton: Obama’s Too Liberal
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/clinton_obamas_too_liberal.php
lol sorry for my above exhortation.
above: change is a plan.
could someone, PLEASE, ask him:
CHANGE TO WHAT? WHAT CHANGE?
The big blogs (such as the big orange) never challenge either Edwards or Obama when they say CHANGE won. Clinton is the establishment. All slogans. I never seen a lamer campaign slogan than change.
Markos, Atrios, and Josh all have their smug (or in case of Josh, know-it-all with glasses) faces that, Oh, we are so neutral this time.
I am tempted to write a diary at dkos, and call Joan Walsh (at Salon) an idiot, b/c she says the blogfathers have stayed neutral this time. I want to say, “and you call yourself a journalist?”
Wait, they all call themselves journalists.
But then, Americans vote for sleek, unprepared salemen with empty slogans, and the rest of the world is doomed.
The SERIOUS danger is the PRESS, the BLOGS, and Amercan VOTERS do not understand the urgency of this MOMENT. They tell themselves, why be paranoid? It always works out in the end. Like the gambler which keeps going double or nothing.
Why don’t Americans see that the world and the planet are in A MAJOR CRISIS. Crisis which needs steedy leadership and solutions. The consequences are simply enormous.
Well, egoists would think, we can sing Kumbaya now and gamble. The adults will rescue us. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and others would come and save us.
To Markos and Josh who just think of their business (despite claims to the contrary) and Atrios who is just amusing himself, meet the new media in the mirror, same as the old media. They are responsible for the shit that follows.
Nader said in 2000 that Gore, Bush, what’s the difference?? We found out at a huge price. Now, bloggers think, what’s the difference? We might as well go for a hipper guy and we hate Hillary anyhow (and all claim they are not sexist). Well, they may just find out.
Hillary wants change. She wants this to be the country we were in the 90’s when we had peace and prosperity. Hello America!!! You have permission to HOPE without voting for Obama. Hope never changed anything only hard work toward a specific goal does that. In order to make an omelet you have to break some eggs. If you just compromise with the eggs you go hungry. Obama thinks that all he has to do is become president and show his face to the world and everything will change. I know he can’t be that stupid — but he must think we are.
It pains me to remember that Bush made that same kind of Washington outsider “can’t we all get along” speech in 2000. That was before he spyed on us, took away habius corpus and led us into 2 protracted wars. We are condemned to live in interesting times.
I heard her say that the first Clinton cleaned up after the first Bush and she’ll clean up after this one. Good line. The truth is an entirely different matter.
What Robert Perry wrote has really stayed with me.
The First Clinton-Bush Deal
That’s exactly what happened in 1993 when Bill Clinton entered the White House after defeating George H.W. Bush.
Clinton and other senior Democrats shut down or wrapped up four investigations that implicated senior Republicans, including Bush, in constitutional abuses of power and criminal wrongdoing during the Reagan-Bush years.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/123107.html
Cee … i was never a bandwagon bill clinton supporter … he had plenty of warts and made numerous mistakes and deals no doubt. BUT … and it deserves to said loudly … more americans did well when he was in office then almost in history. call it luck, call it criminal, or just ignore it … this is a bottom line historical fact that can not be debated.
go figure … hey
Jeez, what sour grapes. Give me a break.
Would you say that Taylor Marsh has been irresponsible for promoting HRC like she’s the second coming? I really like Taylor, but her blog has become nothing but an obsessive Go Hillary! site. And the commenters there brook no dissent from anyone supporting Obama.
Larry and Susan are firmly in Hillary’s camp and most of their posts are devoted to that point. I sometimes get really tired of all the Hillary promotion, but these people run their own sites and are private actors in the political scene. They have no obligation to stay neutral or try to please readers. Same goes for Edwards and Obama supporting blogs.
But, hey, it’s kind of cool that you think the blogs have so much power to sway the electorate, because if that’s really the case then we will certainly have a Democrat in the White House come January 2009.
From your lips to …
Btw, by the time I got done with my blogging duties, I was too tired to watch all of the debate last night (DVR’d it). But I must say, at the beginning, on Pakistan and nukes, John Edwards did very well, imho. I was half-asleep so couldn’t quote him, but he gave me the strong impression he has done the HARD study and talked to a lot of people. If my #1 doesn’t make it for some reason, I could easily support Edwards. (Just to make it clear: I’m not saying that to be nice. I mean it. I think he’s mature enough, hard-working enough to do the job.)
“her blog has become nothing but an obsessive Go Hillary! site.”
And this one hasn’t?!
Actually, this one has been more like “Obama sucks, so you better support Hillary”. And Edwards almost might as well not exist, despite Larry’s claims that he supports him rather than Hillary.
The difference, though, is that Larry and Susan are not myopic, and they allow dissenting views. Have you seen ever Susan fly off the handle in anger at commenters? I haven’t. I believe they have thicker skin. This place attracts intelligent and diverse views. The commenters at the other place have circled the wagons to defend against against any questioning of their candidate and their blogger host. (It’s become quite paranoid, believe me.)
So, I can come here and put in my two cents without getting attacked and labeled as a “troll” or a “sexist” (which was always ridiculous to have to tolerate over there, considering that I’m a woman.)
And yes, you will notice some of those commenters are now showing up here because they think this is the only blog in the entire blogosphere that also supports their candidate. I actually read some comments over there to the tune of “I can’t ever trust Josh Marshall again! He’s such a hyposcrite! I will NEVER go to TPM or Kos or C&L again!” Believe me, there’s a whole lotta whining goin’ on.
Let me add this as well.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/010408.html
we had peace and prosperity because clinton didn’t get us in to any unending wars like the one his wife supported and still supports. but he didn’t change the policy on iraq and he strongly believed in intervwening all over the place and dropping bombs on innocent people and sanctioning them.
and nice try attempting to spin the crowd reaction in new hampshire. first you say it’s not true because Time was reporting it and they are anti-hillary. then another one of you say obamas supoprters are rude.
susanpc = “Also: I’m very wary of 20/20 these days because of John Stossel, a ‘winger if there ever was one.”
kind of like former CIA officer Larry Johnson. and chuck hagel and barry goldwater.
this place has gone from liberal fever swamp to stalinist stanford prison experiment.
spin spin spin
Lester, what makes you think that Barak “Bomb ‘em all, friend or foe” Obama would be any different from Hillary “I never met a war I didn’t love” Clinton? They look to me for all practical purposes virtually identical on foreign policy, military policy, and they are very much on the same page when it comes to Iraq.
At least Hillary took a stand on the Kyl Lieberman amendment which Senator Webb described as “tantamount to declaring war on Iran” while the “anti-war, agent of change, bold” candidate Senator OBama happened to be out of town on the day when he could have taken a clear anti war stance on Iran based on unsubstantiated claims in regard to Iran’s “alleged” nuclear weapons program.
Granny D is behind Edwards. I was able to walk with this kick ass inspirational woman on her walk across the US for campaign finance reform. She
can walk and think most people half her age under the table.
http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/12/19/21167/564
Lester1/2jr said: “we had peace and prosperity because clinton didn’t get us in to any unending wars…”
______________
Beg to differ, Mr. Lester. We were in an unending war, escalating mightily with OBL’s declaration of war in 1996, and the World Islamic Front Statement in 1998 - a document creating and uniting the global Islamic jihad movement against the west, their allies, citizens and other infidels.
We, as a naive and self-absorbed country, just never engaged in this unending war until they decided killing only our military, diplomats, journalists, and humanitarian aid workers on foreign soils wasn’t enough, and decided to hit the shores of NYC.
It is a war on cockroaches who know no state to call home save their beloved Caliphate. They breed worldwide, including here. Bomb them out of one “home”, and they merely run to another to proliferate.
They do business with governments and private citizens alike, use charities for financial fronts, and teach jihad publicly in our universities and on the streets with nary an outcry. They have aligned themselves with other terrorist groups with like goals (under the umbrella organisation of AQ), but also work in tandem with groups such as the Taliban to achieve their quest. They have infiltrated govt with positions of power in parliaments and security in SE Asia and the ME. And they have learned how to win the media war, effectively turning a western freedom into their own weaponry.
Yet you believe if we pull out of Iraq, this will all go away? From your lips to God’s ears… but I wouldn’t be placing any bets on it. Sometimes humans must learn their lessons the hard way.
Yeah, we’re going to repeat the hard way.
War Whisperers
The 2008 hopefuls promised a change in foreign policy then hired the old guard.
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_10_08/article.html
The US Election is Already Over. Murder and Preventable Death Have Won.
The US press is reporting that on Thursday the American political system will begin the process of selecting the next President of the United States.
But that is not true.
The process is already largely completed, in that we already know that the next president will highly likely be one of eleven rich people each of whom have positions that — if implemented — will kill perhaps eleven million poor people.
http://newsc.blogspot.com/
War Whispers is a good reality check.
And yes, Cee. First step to recovery… recognization that there is really not a kilo of difference between blue and red pols. Both will respond to the nation’s defense as they see befitting the moment. And that includes mobilization of our military. Or perhaps worse… not responding at all and being overrun.
Blue or red - it’s a CIC’s job to protect the nation. And the next CIC will have to decide where and how to fight the relentless global jihadist movement. Today they believe dialogue and US scarcity in selected ME nations is the cure. Tomorrow they will learn differently. We have suffered far more with a considerably smaller footprint abroad.
Two things are certain. First, we can leave Iraq, but that will not stop the Caliphate quest. And many in other nations will die along side US military, trying to fight the oppression that comes with the implementation of Islamic law in their lives.
Second, the Pentagon strategy gurus are inherited from previous admins - not elected or appointed. Warfare is their career and expertise - even if is from a different style and era. This means the next CIC advisors to the present - regardless of party - will be tapping into the same, dated military brain power for their advisory talking points.
Then again, we’re still here and still enjoying relative opulance. Far and large, we are suicide bomber free in our neighborhoods - even post 911. So our military and intel brain trusts must be doing something right - despite multiple trip ups - after decades. And we should never take their contribution to our personal safety and well being for granted.
Sure would love the “whirled peas” bit as a reality. Trouble is, the world is inhabited by humans.
Then again, we’re still here and still enjoying relative opulance. Far and large, we are suicide bomber free in our neighborhoods - even post 911. So our military and intel brain trusts must be doing something right - despite multiple trip ups - after decades. And we should never take their contribution to our personal safety and well being for granted
With respect I ask,
1) relative opulance; relative to what? The lack of dental services and teeth in Kentucky?
2) we are suicide bomber free; Has the sacrifice of our liberties have been worth it?
3)military and intel brain trusts must be doing something right; your kidding right?
How many times have we heard it is not a matter of IF but WHEN we will be on the receiving end?
And with respect, I shall elaborate, TeaWoodKite
1: relative opulance compared to other countries. Our standard of living here is not equalled in most parts of the world. Our “poverty” level includes TVs, DVDs, cell phones, vehicles…. The American lifestyle is far from the norm. Although we are certainly a self-absorbed nation who too often assumes the rest of the world lives and should think the way we do.
2: Suicide bomber free at the moment… I have sacrificed no discernable liberty in my daily life. Then again, I don’t have terrorists calling me.
And what liberties have you *personally* lost for such diligence by others? Can you still not speak your thoughts? Travel where you wish? Have you lost your library card? Has someone shown up at your door to ask you of a phone conversation you had, or a book you checked out? Or has taking your shoes off at airports really gotten to you? Tell me what difference you personally have experienced in your life? Or is your indignation founded on just reading media reports about possible abuse (as if the intel folks had time to waste with petty-infractions)?
3: military and intel brain trusts must be doing something right because we are all still here, and (so far) no more attacks on homeland soil. Granted, it’s far from perfect, and too many old guard military/intel brain trusts still clinging to old notions. But we slowly making headway in intel improvement (of which we had virtually none in the 90s).
And I believe younger blood, more conducive to dealing with the very different type of warfare and stateless enemy we face, will increase - replacing that old guard. Changes do not happen overnight… and some may prove ineffective. But our attentions to improvement are well placed for the times.
But I suggest that, again by comparison to other parts of the world, your and my days aren’t filled with stress about car and suicide bombs. (x fingers it will stay that way.) Our threats come mostly from internal human idiocy and envy… drunk drivers, highway accidents, crime for financial gain, etc.
2: Suicide bomber free at the moment… I have sacrificed no discernable liberty in my daily life. Then again, I don’t have terrorists calling me. he
The arguement you make infers “I have nothing to hide, so its ok.” that permits a very dangeous slow disintergration of our constitutional rights.
Is it ok that a US citizen can and have been rendered on US soil, without Haebus Corpus?
Is it ok that our 1st 4th 5th, oh hell the entire constitution has been subverted / suspended to “stop the Caliphate quest.”
Tell me what difference you personally have experienced in your life?
The fact that our use of speech, the internet, email and personal property, financial records are not secure has caused me to make changes in the way I lead my life. But it is not about “I or ME ” In my view it is about “US” as a nation. “You don’t know what you got until it is gone” is not a road we , as a nation can afford to go down.
I am not blind to the challenges you point out, but not at the expense of our Constitution.
I too share a concern that some things have a potential to be abused, TWK. But some of these have been abused for years. Most especially in the habeas corpus world.
As my cyber-handle suggests, I’ve got some biker experience and quite often over the past 15 years had my own “habeas corpus” rights denied. And I’ve taken it to the courts pro per/per se each time… as have many of my friends.
Fact is abuse of habeas corpus didn’t start under this WH admin. Ignorance of your rights in our judicial system constitutes their very loss. So I guess my response to you as to whether it “bothers” me is … yes… Do I think it’s new problem that just cropped up? No. Is there legal remedy? Yes.
I think the “entire Constitution subverted” comment is a tad vague, and I shall just interpret that as your inherent frustration. We can all get that way.
It’s interesting you’d want to “secure” emails, speeches, internet (did I read that rightly?). Rather the opposite of the FOIA in concept, don’t you think? So I’m not sure where you’re going there.
I certainly think privacy for personal financial and medical (to name two) is important. But then, both are more apt to be confiscated by a hacker for monetary/criminal gain than by some overworked, over innundated US official who you believe may be blindly sifting for incriminating data on anyone. The manpower and time is not there to waste on unimportant targets. Just like, in the “drug war”, feds don’t take down petty small time dealers unless they’re trying for the big time importer. They triage.
In reality, there is no ultimate security or safety. And we can have laws… or no laws. With the first comes those who do not follow the laws anyway. With the second comes no legal remedy for the first when wronged. Kind of an ugly catch-22, so to speak.
But very happy to hear that you are not blind to the challenges, and do keep your ear to the ground.
Fact is abuse of habeas corpus didn’t start under this WH admin. Ignorance of your rights in our judicial system constitutes their very loss.
“Our rights” are not something being taught in k-12 and I realize abuse of habeas corpus did not start with GW but he sure turned it into a Texas size Barbeque.
No warrent, no email. FOIA is for getting a lot of redacted pages these days.
Ride well.
I don’t believe there is a Caliphate quest.
I hope Edwards has a nice long talk with Sibel Edmonds.
Last night he said again that there would be no foreign lobby influence in his administration.
The quest for a Caliphate has been stated and documented many times, Cee. For just one analysis, you can find the CFR’s (hardly an extreme right organization…) take on the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) at http://www.cfr.org/publication/12717/#4, last updated Dec 11, 2007.
Malbrunot, one of the two French journalists held hostage for 124 days back in 2004 was shown a map by one of his captors that laid out the Caliphate territory they sought… from Andulusia (Spain) to the border with China. Lots of Europe in that path, unfortunately. The IHT had an article/interview with Malbrunot that is no longer available on the original link, but here is an archived quote from that article.
_____
His jailers’ references to bin Laden were frequent, he said. A guard insisted to Malbrunot that it was the Christians who were waging war against the Muslims. “Our objective,” the jailer went on, sketching a European map of the future that squares with Al Qaeda’s notions, “is to overthrow all the Arab rulers, and to return to the caliphate [Islamic rule] from Andalusia [Spain] to the border with China.”
_____
Even many Muslims, not necessarily of the jihadist flavor, look to a UMC (Union of Muslim Countries). http://1muslimnation.wordpress.com/2006/08/13/a-proposal-to-unite-muslim-world-a-union-of-muslim-countries-umc/ Not sure how they would designate a state as a Muslim country if it were not Islamic/Sharia law governed. Then what happens to the infidels there? Lots of Taliban/Afghanistans we do not need.
If you choose to believe the Islamic Caliphate is a figment of the world’s imagination, you are certainly free to do so. However I sure hope you aren’t involved in the intel/strategy biz for this nation. Ignoring their oft stated goals is not in the best interest for any of us.
So, there is a miniscule group of Muslim loonies who allegedly say they want to “bring back the Caliphate” and apparently are willing to use violence to do so.
So, what, exactly, does that mean in your mind - “bringing back the Caliphate”? What, in your mind,IS the Caliphate, in the historical sense? What do you think it is in the minds of the nut cases that you believe are trying to bring it back? What exactly would be involved in “brining back the Caliphate” - that is, what would be the scope and magnitude of such a project? What would it look like? What specific effects do you believe it would have to “bring back the Caliphate” - assuming that is even possible? How much of the world would that encompass? In what way would it be worse than the situation in the world now?
And what is the probability that this tiny band of Muslim wack jobs with no real power operating under a lot of scrutiny and on a small budget could succeed in “bringing back the Caliphate” anywhere, let alone on any kind of significant scale?
And what is the probability of a tiny band of Muslim wack jobs with no real power operating under a lot of scrutiny and on a small budget “bringing back the Caliphate”, compared to the probability of a far, far larger group of Christian wack jobs, who have managed to achieve great power and enormous wealth managing to bring about something that looks an awfully lot like the Apocalypse?
My interpretations of the caliphate are unimportant, Shirin. It is the interpretation of that “tiny band of Muslim whack jobs”, as you call them, that counts. I only listen to what they proclaim. Perhaps your questions of what it looks like, and how they intend to succeed should best be directed to them.
But for a small percentage of the Muslim population, who you say are operating “under a lot of scrutiny” and on a “small budget” (911 didn’t cost much, ya know…), they are doing a lot of damage world wide. It only takes a small group of devotees to strap on bomb belts, take control of tribal villages and expand that little by little, or fly airliners into buildings.
They are hard to eradicate anywhere since fear often prohibits the locals’ cooperation. (i.e. NWFP, SWAT, portions of Iraq not long ago, N. Africa, etal) Amazingly effective for a “miniscule” group by using fear, backed up with weaponry. Saddam’s regime was far from a majority as well, yet that did not stop him from holding sway.
You might find this site informative… http://baheyeldin.com/writings/history/brief-notes-on-the-historical-and-modern-caliphate.html An Egyptian family blog. They have a page (the link above) on the historical and modern caliphate. As they say, it’s usually the quest of extremists. The ones you think have no power, no influence, and no financial backing.
And what is the probability that this tiny band of Muslim wack jobs with no real power operating under a lot of scrutiny and on a small budget could succeed in “bringing back the Caliphate” anywhere, let alone on any kind of significant scale?
None. This is Bernard Lewis fantasy.
Cee thanks for that article. Interesting no mention of who Edwards brought on board. Hope it would be General Wesley Clark, General Zinni, Scott Ritter.
Did you know that Kenneth Pollack is USGO 1in the Aipac espionage trial
Middle East ‘Analyst’ Named in AIPAC Indictment
Mathew E. Berger
Middle East analyst Kenneth Pollack is one of two US government officials referenced in the indictment against two former staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), JTA has learned. But Pollack, who was a staffer on President Clinton’s National Security Council, said he didn’t give the AIPAC staffers any classified information. Pollack also said the information that Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former director of foreign policy issues, was accused of passing on to a reporter could not have come from him. “I believe I am USGO-1,” Pollack told JTA on Monday, using a term in the indictment for US Government Official No. 1. A second source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has verified the information.
I didn’t realize this. What is the trial date?
Bush is going to Israel next week.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall.
Lester,
I didn’t say it wasn’t true. I said they have a bias.
this place has gone from liberal fever swamp to stalinist stanford prison experiment.
-Knuckleheaded comment #147
Philip Zimbardo was my psychology professor. His Friday tests were brutal, but he is no Stalinist. I wish BookTV would have the guts to show his talk again … my god, he showed the REAL photos from Abu Ghraib with no polite black rectangles…. genitals and all. Which is as they should be shown, because it makes the humiliation of those prisoners all the more vivid and sickening.
Hyperbole is one of the biggest commodities on the internet. Apparently, Lester owns a lot of that stock.
I can’t look at the photos of Abu Graib anymore. I feel the same horror as when I look at photos of Holocaust victims, or lynchings of blacks in America.
i remember 1976. we were so grateful to get rid on the republicans then that we nominated jimmy carter, a man spectacularly unprepared to be president. when he lost, americans were so distrustful if a democratic president that we got 12 years of reagan-bush. pray we don’t do that again.
america would be a much better country today if we had listened more closely to carter. his energy plan alone would have alleviated many of the problems we are now facing. finally, lets not forget, it took the october surprise for the republicans to beat him … republicans and secrets deals in the mid east … ah what a proud history (sic) for the party of lincoln.
I agree. Carter was so decent, but not at all equipped to deal with the likes of the Republican players. He would have done well as the president of Norway or Finland, perhaps. If reality is indeed a cultural/social construction [and I believe it is], Carter was able to act on a reality that Reagan was far too limited to begin to experience. One of the first things Reagan did when he took office was to remove the solar panels Carter had installed for one room of the White House.
That’s why I want Senator Clinton for our next president-her reality is more in line with Carter’s, even Lincoln’s, and she knows how to work in the current political reality, as well.
Her foreign policy reality is far more in line with Reagan’s and Bush’s than with Carter’s - although Carter was no saint in that regard either.
America would be a much better country if we were about 10 different countries. We are too big, too rich in rescources, too powerful, and too isolated to escape our delusions. Too easily diverted by irrelevance, by sick fantasies about Arabs and Islam to understand what is being done to us.
If the ‘terrorists’ were coming they would have done so years ago. We are vulnerable beyond imagining. Ask a sapper, or any other veteran, how hard it would be to wreak havoc. Ask a rancher how he clears stumps. Ask any one of a dozen trades how difficult it would be to mightily screw things up. Not hard at all. No state sponsorship required. A little knowlege, and intent, and we would be in deep trouble. But after 911, nothing. Why? Because they aren’t coming.
The real threats are are already here. Seven years of lost time - while the polar ice melts, the economy is wrecked, the constitution is shreded.
Power holds us in contempt. We are sheep, blinded so easily, so easily shorn. Again.
One thing the first Clinton admin cleaned up was the economy. From the biggest deficit to date (Bush Sr’s) they got to the biggest surplus (which Bush Jr spent asap).
Bill did a couple of bombing operations (Iraq and Kosovo) both with little or no US casualties, and a clear prompt victory in Kosovo. People criticize him about “Rwanda” without noting that what he did was STAY OUT of their civil war.
Bill did more than “a couple of bombing operations”, and there were lots of non-American casualties - aka victims - of his little “bombing operations”, but who cares about them? If they weren’t American they don’t count.
But by far his worst crimes were in Iraq.
“But by far his worst crimes were in Iraq”
Scott Ritter:
“From January 1993 until my resignation from the United Nations in August 1998, I witnessed first hand the duplicitous Iraq policies of the administration of Bill Clinton, the implementation of which saw a President lie to the American people about a threat he knew was hyped, lie to Congress about his support of a disarmament process his administration wanted nothing to do with, and lie to the world about American intent, which turned its back on the very multilateral embrace of diplomacy as reflected in the resolutions of the Security Council…and instead pursued a policy defined by the unilateral interests of the Clinton administration to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”
For more, and commentary, here:
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2007/03/it_didnt_start_1.htm
And on the awful effects of the Iraq sanctions, see John Pilger’s “”Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq”:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1867691819991815704&q=iraq+sanctions+video&total=314&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=5
The reality we have so much trouble with.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece
Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
It’s not just Republicans who are pushing the Obama phenomenon, it is also our bizarre mainstream media. They are spewing platitudes about change and positively swooning over him, just like they did over Bush. Look how well that has served us.
Somewhat of a tanget but related. It looks like the spin room and opposition research has gone real time.
The last thing the corrupt Bush/Cheney/PNAC wing of the Republican Party wants is to see a Democrat in the White House who will work with Democrats in Congress in investigating the criminality of the outgoing Bush/Cheney administration.
Yes, it may take years of Congressional hearings and Democratic-controlled Justice Department investigations, especially with Bush and Cheney reportedly already shredding administration documents and deleting e-mails, but when comparing the outgoing Clinton/Gore administration in January 2001 to the outgoing Bush/Cheney administration come January 2009, the corruption on display in the Bush administration wins hands down. (Remember White House TypewriteGate? You know, the claims by the incoming Bush/Cheney administration in early 2001 that the two-term Clinton/Gore Democrats had far and wide vandalized the White House, but an investigator determined that only a few W’s were missing from a few typewriters?)
Anyway, the list of possible investigations into Bush/Cheney criminality is enormous. Valerie Plame Wilson outing…where’s the CIA’s after-incident damage-assessment report? Pre-9/11 Bush/Cheney blindness and inaction? Pre-Iraq War hype? Post-Iraq War beginning screw-ups? U.S. Attorney firings? Hatch Act violations? Torture endorsement and coverups? Voting rights violations by the Justice Department? Stealing of elections through contrived voter disenfranchisement?
So, the Bush/Cheney/PNAC wing of the Republican Party is deathly afraid that a Democratic Party president and a Democratic-controlled Congress might unleash a flurry of investigations beginning in early 2009, with Republicans unable to block them as they have been doing, and the widespread criminality of the Bush/Cheney administration will finally be revealed.
Thus, based on all of Barack Obama’s rhetoric in which he talks about bipartisanship and working with the Bush/Cheney/PNAC lapdog Republicans (or Joe Lie-berman), the odds are against him holding the outgoing Bush administration accountable or working with Democrats in Congress who might be conducting criminal investigations into the Bush/Cheney/PNAC wing of the Republican Party.
We cannot afford, as a free and democratic nation, to “capitulate” anymore to a bunch of traitorous fools with fascism on their brains. Barack Obama, although I like him personally, doesn’t sound like the Democratic Party presidential candidate who will hold the Bush/Cheney/PNAC wing of the Republican Party accountable.
Hillary Clinton might hold these neo-con wingnuts accountable, but she falls between Obama and Edwards as far as likelihood.
John Edwards, I believe, definitely would go after the Bush/Cheney/PNAC wingnuts and their fascism/corporatism/elitism conspiracy for our country.
Thus, the corporate news media touts Barack Obama’s Iowa caucus win, at the same time making snide comments about Hillary Clinton, while attempting to totally ignore John Edwards.
The fascist/corporatists know that a President John Edwards would nominate anti-monopolists to critical positions in his administration (FCC, for example) that would undermine their Robber Baron takeover of our Fourth Estate as well as other media and entertainment outlets, while I believe that a President Barack Obama or a President Hillary Clinton would be more amenable to the conservative, monopoly-building fascist/corporatists, you know, at their attempt to reconcile with (i.e. capitulate to) those forces in our society that have done so much over the past Bush/Cheney years to undermine our democracy in their mad quest for absolute, unchecked power.
No matter what, though, I will definitely vote for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee this November, even if I end up holding my nose like I did when Joe Lie-berman ran as Al Gore’s running mate in 2000.
What if any of these investigation implicate the MSM for being complicate in covering up a criminal entiprise? They will look to cover there own asses rather than tell you or me squat. Is it any wonder they have to much time on thier hands to shovel the crap they do? And Conyers? All due respect, What a joke! Don’t hold your breath.
oops, clicked add http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22519257/
The fact that Obama is appealing to certain asperations of people is not a surprise, splitting the difference between reality and fantasy… what will be a surprise is if he can overcome these types of tactics.
We don’t need ‘Hope’ and we don’t need ‘Change.’ We don’t need someone who will make us feel good abuot ourselves. We need someone who will tell the us truth about the world, and about ourselves. That’s all. Edwards might be that. Obama until now is not. And Hillary is certainly not.
Regarding Edwards, that David Bonior is Edwards campaign manager is very significant. Bonior is a man of considerable courage. He was democratic whip until 2002, when the republican state legislature redrew his district. As whip, he took many positions denounced by the lobby as anti-Israel and pro Arab. He was in fact in favor of telling the truth, the constitution, justice, and Israel’s true interests. That Edwards chose him as campaign manager is an act of a man who is a truth teller. That Edwards won’t take PAC money or money from lobbyists - and has never done so is huge.
Edwards needs some serious consideration.
I agree. My #1 is HRC, but I would have no problem working hard for and voting for Edwards.
(P.S. CNN just announced that they are replaying last night’s ABC/Facebook debates — tonight.)
Bonior also accompanied McDermott on the 2002 trip to Iraq where this exchange took place:
Stephanopolous: “Do you think President Bush is lying?”
McD: “I believe the president would mislead the American people in order to get us into a war with Iraq”
Then McD was vilified as “Baghdad Jim” even though every single thing he predicted has come true!
I’d say Bonoir has more than proven his liberal/progressive bona fides. He was a good congressman and I was glad to see when he joined the Edwards campaign.
Note for those who revile Ken Pollack as I do:
He and McD held a debate in the fall of 2002 in Seattle about the coming Iraq War. Pollack became completely unhinged when McD predicted the administration was not interested in inspections, but was plannina full-out assault on Iraq, and that it was likely that, before this war was over, we would see guerilla fighting (Iraqi insurgency) and about a million dead Iraqi civilians.
Pollack threw a little tantrum and I really thought he was going to cry.
What makes me cry is that McD was, in fact, right about every single one of those predictions.
Thanks WMCB for the comments.
Told locals here thaty Obama was just playing the GWB talking points from ‘99 and 2000, now you cans ee so.
No wonder the media swoons over him so!
Empty Suit 2.0 = Barack Obama’08
Creflo Dollar
Reverend Ike
Father Divine
Sweet Daddy Grace
Billy Sunday
All fine men for change, the change in your pockets, the change in your sofa, the change in your bank accounts.
Add two more Sen B. H. Obama and ex-bovineur M. D. Huckabee. They play well on TV and they are inspirational as all get out.
kathleen- hillary didn’t take a stand on kyl lieberman. she voted FOR it. and yes it was tantamount to a declaration of war on iran as Webb said
matahrley- i don’t live in the middle east. I could care less what happens there.
[...] not real fighters like Edwards and Clinton — gets the nomination. Those who lie in wait include David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Shelby Steele, Karl Rove, RedState.com blog, Bill O’Reilly (who [...]
Edwards should have added media monopolies to his list of corrupting corporations in last nights debate. The moment moderator Charles Gibson criticized raising taxes on the ‘$200K middle class’, the audience certainly got it! Since all the politicians and media personalities are wealthy, how can any not have a conservative mindset? Preserving status and wealth is a preoccupation of most and their main reason for existence for Repugs.