#2
"There is no god but Gaia, and I, AlGore, am her prophet!"
Posted by: Mike ||
02/01/2008 16:57 Comments ||
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#3
Didn't he go to Divinity School for a bit? Scripture has been cherry picked to support slavery, too, as as everyone knows. I don't think this will add any new believers to the Gore Gospel.
#4
They warned me if Bush was re-elected, religious zealots would try to run our lives...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/01/2008 18:33 Comments ||
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#5
I wouldn't bet on it tw.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/01/2008 18:36 Comments ||
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The meaning of the versus in Luke that Gore used had one meaning only, and that is recognizing diety by signs evident to that diety.
For Gore to twist those versus and for the liberal Baptist convention to allow that and to proclaim Gore a "prophet" is considered a very serious sin per my preacher, in that Gore and that bunch of hypocrits are trying to turn people away from the true meaning of God's message. And the Big Guy upstairs NEVER lets a sin go unpunished.
#7
"And the Big Guy upstairs NEVER lets a sin go unpunished."
I wish he'd hurry the hell up, www.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/01/2008 20:47 Comments ||
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#8
And what is unbelievable is that the versus that Al Gore used in Luke for his global warming message were words straight out of Jesus Christ's mouth regarding the reason Christ had come into the world and that His presence was a sign to the people that Salvation was now.
Al Gore took those words, pushed Christ out of the picture, changed the meaning of those versus and put himself and the meaning he wants for those versus in its place in place of Christ. Al Gore is demonic.
#9
Al Gore is a self-righteous, self-congratulatory idiot who daily has to live within the hell that is himself. He's not nearly good enough to be demonic.
#11
The Left corrupts everything it touches. The West will have to sort this out before it will ever effectively deal with Jihad.
First the traitors, then the enemy!
Posted by: Grease Dark Lord of the Algonquins9226 ||
02/01/2008 22:36 Comments ||
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Posted by: Alexander of Macedon ||
02/01/2008 13:09 Comments ||
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NATO is done, stick a fork in it. The Germans want no part of a real war. If NATO dies it's on Europe's shoulders and it shows what the reality of any EU force is, useless as tits on a bull.
#3
It's been clear for a while NATO is too weak and fractured for its role in in Afghanistan.
NATO for practical purposes is dead and the USA should focus on Iraq, the real prize. Trying to take up the NATO slack in Afghanistan is a recipe for losing both Afghanistan and Iraq.
the Open Society Institute donates millions of dollars to a host of leftist organizations that share George Soross major social and political agendas. These agendas can be summarized as follows:
* promoting the view that America is institutionally an oppressive nation
* promoting the election of leftist political candidates throughout the United States
* opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the Patriot Act
* depicting American military actions as unjust, unwarranted, and immoral
* promoting open borders, mass immigration, and a watering down of current immigration laws
* promoting a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs funded by ever-escalating taxes
* promoting social welfare benefits and amnesty for illegal aliens
* defending suspected anti-American terrorists and their abetters
* financing the recruitment and training of future activist leaders of the political Left
* advocating Americas unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending
* opposing the death penalty in all circumstances
* promoting socialized medicine in the United States
* promoting the tenets of radical environmentalism, whose ultimate goal, as writer Michael Berliner has explained, is not clean air and clean water, [but] rather ... the demolition of technological/industrial civilization
* bringing American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations
* promoting racial and ethnic preferences in academia and the business world alike
Soros in 2004 spent some $26 million of his own money trying, unsuccessfully, to derail President Bushs reelection bid, a task Soros called the central focus of my life and a matter of life and death. He has likened Republicans generally, and the Bush administration in particular, to the Nazi and communist regimes
Posted by: Bob Graving9503 ||
02/01/2008 12:52 Comments ||
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* promoting a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs funded by ever-escalating taxes
so lets start the tax increase with those that have a billion or so -- say 75% -- should be a good start for the idiots vision
Posted by: dan ||
02/01/2008 15:59 Comments ||
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He has likened Republicans generally, and the Bush administration in particular, to the Nazi and communist regimes
Rich, coming from a real errand boy for the Nazis.
Posted by: ed ||
02/01/2008 16:13 Comments ||
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I cannot understand what the payoff is for this POS.... Is anarchy, in and of itself, leading to the complete destruction of the U.S.'s mores and system be the "end game"?
Could it be that what would follow would, somehow, be of greater benefit to this A-o than the present system?
In an article ironically printed on the front page on Memorial Day 2006, Senator Kerry announced to a star-struck New York Times reporter, Kate Zernik, that he was going to go right out there and tell the truth about all these Swiftie allegations. He even announced he had a committee formed to support his investigation called the Patriot Project.
According to the New York Times, The Patriot Project "are compiling a dossier that they say will expose every one of the Swift boat group's charges as a lie and put to rest any question about Mr. Kerry's valor in combat. The result? A year and a half later not a single Swift Boat Veterans for Truth lie has been refuted and no one has heard of the Patriot Project since.
A few months ago, billionaire Boone Pickens bet billionaire by marriage Kerry a million dollars if Kerry could disprove just one of the dastardly Swiftie allegations. Kerry eagerly rose to the challenge . .The result? Nothing happened again. game, set, match and we're done
On Wednesday, we linked to the famous quote from Jimmy Carter's November 1976 Playboy interview, in which the soon-to-be-president admitted, "I've looked on a lot of women with lust." This line is still good for a laugh after 32 years, but reader Gayle Trotter read the longer quote and had a thought-provoking insight:
I'm too young to have remembered the Playboy interview the first time around. I had always thought he was just being humble and the press had blown it out of proportion.
When I read the interview for the first time this week, I was struck by how the roots of his current accommodationist philosophy were evident even in 1976.
In the interview, he takes his own presumably slight failings in one area (lust) and uses that as an excuse to justify antisocial behavior by others. . . . Doesn't he do the same with North Korea, et al., today? We, the U.S., have slight failings in certain areas (pick one of the liberals' favorite causes like "social justice"), and because of our failings, the North Korean dictators have the justification to continue to develop nuclear capabilities, starve their people, and suppress religious liberty and the free press. Where is the prophetic voice condemning the terrible behavior? Carter is too busy making sure he doesn't condemn anyone.
Time reported contemporaneously on the interview under the assumption that Carter was simply pandering to the kind of man who reads Playboy. Yet it really does seem to shed some light on Carter's worldview more broadly, and on liberal sanctimony more generally.
Carter focuses on one particular sin--pride--and suggests that it is less problematic than lust or even adultery. In this telling, we all are subject to lust, even Jimmy Carter. Some of us succumb to it, and some do not. If you are one of those who do not, it is a sin for you to think that makes you a superior man.
So far, so good. But the Carter of the Playboy interview does not measure up to his own standard. He begins by acknowledging his own lustfulness, but then describes a hypothetical man who "leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock" and one who "screws a whole bunch of women." Carter's protestations notwithstanding, there is no escaping that this comparison is highly favorable to him. . . .
Carter's formulation of morality is entirely self-centered. For his purposes, the adulterer and the lothario exist only as instruments, enabling him to display his own ability to be nonjudgmental. What does not figure into Carter's equation at all is the wife and children the adulterer betrays, or the string of women the lothario uses. It is a morality in which intention counts for everything and consequences for nothing.
This is where the analogy to a certain kind of liberal foreign policy becomes clear. The idea is that America (or another Western country, usually Israel) is not perfect, and therefore has no business passing judgment on the affairs of its adversaries. All nations, like all men, are predisposed to sin, and the greatest national sin of all is for a dominant power to exhibit pride. By this reasoning, it is morally worse for an American leader to call (say) the regimes of North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq "evil" than it is for those regimes to undertake actions that deliberately hurt or endanger innocent people.
When applied to public as opposed to private morality, this kind of above-it-all attitude, this self-regard masquerading as humility, provides an excuse for inaction in the face of evil. To be sure, sometimes inaction is a wise course, because available actions would only make matters worse. But this is a practical question--one of consequences, not intention.
To make the perfect the enemy of the good, to make a principle of responding to evil with inaction, is a dangerous way to approach the world. That should have been the lesson of the Carter presidency. It is a lesson American voters would do well to keep in mind as November approaches.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/01/2008 15:30 ||
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Carter, the tool, says, In the interview, he takes his own presumably slight failings in one area (lust) and uses that as an excuse to justify antisocial behavior by others. He says, "But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife."
But hey, even vermont knows you can't trust a politician. Excuse me while I mop up this 30 year old spill.
#2
IMO its NOT too late for Jimbo to salvage his POTUS legacy or his post-9-11 credibility/reputation. JOMBO has to remember the "sincere/back to basics" campaign promises he + Dems made back in the 1970's and apply it the DEMS PERVASIVE DENIAL OF SUFFERING FROM PRO-OWG/GLOBAL-ITIS JUST FOR THE SAKE OF "POLITIX AS USUAL" vv GOP.
Barack Obama's real thinking about Israel and the Middle East continues to be an enigma. The words he chose in an address to AIPAC create a different impression than the composition of his foreign policy advisory team. Several advisors have evidenced a history of suspicion and worse toward Israel. One of his advisors in particular, Robert Malley, clearly warrants attention, as does the reasoning that led him to being chosen by Barack Obama.
A little family history may be in order to understand the genesis of Robert Malley's views. Normally, one should be reluctant in exploring a person's family background -- after all, who would want to be held responsible for the sins of one's father? However, when close relatives share a strong current of ideological affinity, and when a father has a commanding persona, it behooves a researcher to inquire a bit into the role of family in forming views. That said, Robert Malley has a very interesting father.
His father Simon Malley was born to a Syrian family in Cairo and at an early age found his métier in political journalism. He participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World. He wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations. In Paris, he founded the journal Afrique Asie; he and his magazine became advocates for "liberation" struggles throughout the world, particularly for the Palestinians.
Simon Malley loathed Israel and anti-Israel activism became a crusade for him-as an internet search would easily show. He spent countless hours with Yasser Arafat and became a close friend of Arafat.
He was, according to Daniel Pipes, a sympathizer of the Palestinian Liberation Organization --- and this was when it was at the height of its terrorism wave against the West. His efforts were so damaging to France that President Valerie d'Estaing expelled him from the country.
Malley has seemingly followed in his father's footsteps: he represents the next generation of anti-Israel activism. Through his writings he has served as a willing propagandist, bending the truth (and more) to serve an agenda that is marked by anti-Israel bias; he heads a group of Middle East policy advisers for a think-tank funded (in part) by anti-Israel billionaire activist George Soros; and now is on the foreign policy staff of a leading Presidential contender. Each step up the ladder seems to be a step closer towards his goal of empowering radicals and weakening the ties between American and our ally Israel.
Robert Malley's writings strike me as being akin to propaganda. One notable example is an op-ed that was published in the New York Times (Fictions About the Failure at Camp David). The column indicted Israel for not being generous enough at Camp David and blamed the failure of the talks on the Israelis.
Malley has repeated this line of attack in numerous op-eds over the years, often co-writing with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Yasser Arafat (see, for example, Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors ). He was also believed to be the chief source for an article by Deborah Sontag that whitewashed Arafat's role in the collapse of the peace process, an article that has been widely criticized as riddled with errors and bias.
Malley is a revisionist and his views are sharply at odds with the views of others who participated at Camp David, including Ambassador Dennis Ross and President Bill Clinton. Malley's myth-making has been peddled in the notably anti-Israel magazine, Counterpunch and by Norman Finkelstein, the failed academic recently denied tenure at DePaul University . Malley's Camp David propaganda has also become fodder for Palestinians, Arab rejectionists, and anti-Israel activists across the world.
His story of the talks is also plain wrong.
Dennis Ross had this to say regarding the failure of Camp David when he laid the blame on Yasser Arafat and Palestinian leadership:
....Fundamentally I do not believe he can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause... for him to end the conflict is to end himself.
...Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it wasn't ... achievable was because Arafat wouldn't accept it.
President Clinton echoed these remarks, elsewhere:
So a couple of days before I leave office, Arafat says, calls to tell me what a great man I am. And I just said, "No, I'm not. On this I'm a failure, and you made me a failure."
At the conclusion of Camp David, Clinton made these points, stressing that Israeli leader Ehud Barak had gone the extra mile to reach peace with the Palestinians:
-Prime Minister Barak showed particular courage, vision, and an understanding of the historical importance of this moment. Chairman Arafat made it clear that he too remains committed to the path of peace.
-Prime Minister Barak took some very bold decisions...
-I will say again, we made progress on all the core issues; we made really significant progress on many of them. The Palestinian teams worked hard on a lot of these areas. But I think it is fair to say that at this moment in time, maybe because they had been preparing for it longer, maybe because they had thought through it more, that the prime minister moved forward more from his initial position than Chairman Arafat on -- particularly surrounding the questions of Jerusalem...
-... not so much as a criticism of Chairman Arafat, because this is really hard and had never been done before, but in praise of Barak. He came in knowing that he was going to have to take bold steps and he did it, and I think you should look at it more as a positive toward him than as a condemnation of the Palestinian side...
- I would be making a mistake not to praise Barak, because I think he took a big risk, and I think it's sparked already in Israel a real debate, which is moving Israeli public opinion toward the conditions that will make peace. And so I thought that was important, and I think it deserves to be acknowledged. (Clinton press conference, July 25, 2000)
Was Malley so central to the peace process that he knew something that escaped the attention of our Middle East Envoy and our President? When one reads Dennis Ross's account of his years of trying to bring peace to the region, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, one can question just how central Malley was to the Camp David negotiations.*
Malley has written a range of pieces over the years that reveal an agenda at work that should give pause to those Obama supporters who truly care about peace in the Middle Peace and the fate of our ally Israel.
Playing Into Sharon's Hands: which absolves Arafat of the responsibility to restrain terrorists and blames Israel for terrorism. He defends Arafat and hails him as
..the first Palestinian leader to recognize Israel, relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine and negotiate for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries. And he remains for now the only Palestinian with the legitimacy to sell future concessions to his people.
Rebuilding a Damaged Palestine: which blames Israel's security operations for weakening Palestinian security forces (absurd on its face: terrorists filled the ranks of so-called Palestinian security forces-which, in any case, never tried to prevent terrorism) and calls for international forces to restrain the Israelis
Making the Best of Hamas's Victory: which called for international aid to be showered upon a Hamas-led government and for international engagement with Hamas (a group that makes clear in its Charter, its schools, and its violence its intent to destroy Israel). Malley also makes an absurd assertion: that Hamas' policies and Israeli policies are mirror images of each other.
Avoiding Failure with Hamas: which again calls for aid to flow to a Hamas-led government and even goes so far as to suggest that failure to extend aid could cause an environmental or health catastrophe-such as a human strain of the avian flu virus!
How to Curb the Tension in Gaza: which criticizes Israel's for its actions to recover Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped and is being held hostage in the Gaza Strip. He and co-writer Gareth Evans call Israel's actions collective punishment" in "violation of international law".
Forget Pelosi: What About Syria?: where Malley calls for outreach to Syria, despite its ties to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the terrorists committing murder in Iraq; believes it is unreasonable to call for Syria to cut ties with Hezbollah, break with Hamas, or alienate Iran before negotiations; he believes a return of the Golan Heights and engagement with the West will somehow miraculously lead the Syrian regime to take these steps -- after they get all they want.
Containing a Shiite Symbol of Hope: that advocated engagement with the fiercely anti-American Iraqi Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been responsible for the murder of many Americans and Iraqis as the leader of the terrorist group, the Mahdi Army. He also has very close ties to Iran.
Middle East Triangle: (co-written with former Arafat advisor Hussein Agha) calls for Hamas and Fatah to reconcile, join forces, and to frustrate, in their words, Israel's attempts to "perpetuate Palestinian geographic and political division". Then Hamas will grant Abbas power to make a political deal with Israel that will bring peace. Noah Pollack of Commentary Magazine noting, as Malley habitually fails to do, Hamas intends to destroy Israel, eviscerated this op-ed.
The U.S. Must Look to its Own Mideast Interests: (co-written with Aaron David Miller) which advocates a radically different approach towards the Middle East which, in their words, does not "follow Israel's lead" and encompasses engagement with Syria (despite problems with Lebanon and their support for Hezbollah) and Hamas (regardless of its failure to recognize Israel or renounce violence).
A New Middle East: which asserted Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and the kidnapping of Israelis, which sparked the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, were motivated by Hezbollah's desire to retrieve Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails and were a response to pressure being exerted on its allies-Syria and Iran.
Robert Malley also testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February, 2004. In that appearance he called for the Road Map to be cast aside because incremental measures intended to build trust were unworkable. He advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with "cries of unfair treatment" but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a "reliable Palestinian partner' was unnecessary.
This is merely a sample of Malley's views -- which are focused on disengaging from our ally Israel (whose lead America should not "follow") and engaging with and, in some cases financially supporting, the likes of Syria, Moqtada al-Sadr, Hezbollah and Hamas. His ideology is radically at odds with American foreign policy as it has been practiced by two generations of Presidents -- both Democrats and Republicans -- over the years. This is the type of advocacy Robert Malley has been pursuing in the years since the end of the Clinton Administration and from his perch at the International Crisis Group -- an organization that may share his agenda.
The International Crisis Group
Robert Malley is the Director of the Middle East/North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group (ICG). Given the impressive title of the group, one might expect it to have along and impressive pedigree -- say long the lines of the well-regarded Council of Foreign Relations. In fact, the group is rather small and it has a short pedigree. More importantly, it has ties to George Soros. Soros is a man who has supported a wide variety of groups that have shown a propensity to criticize America and Israel; a man who has made clear his goal is to break the close bonds between America and Israel ; supported the views of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer whose work on the issue of the "Israel Lobby" has been widely criticized for factual inaccuracies, shoddy research, and has been called "anti-Semitic" in the Washington Post; a man who has taken steps to counter the supposed political influence of the pro-Israel community in America; a man who has also been a key financial backer of Senator Obama's; and a man who can activate a wide variety of 527 (c) and other activist groups for any politician he supports.
Soros is a funder of the ICG through his Open Society Institute ; he serves on its Board and on its Executive Committee. Other members of the Board include Zbigniew Brzezinski (whose anti-Israel credentials are impeccable) and Wesley Clark (who called US support for Israel during the Hezbollah War a "serious mistake"; who has flirted with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; and who has been the direct beneficiary of donations made by Soros ; Wesley Clark has defended the actions of George Soros.
But let's return to George Soros.
While it is true that the ICG receives funding from other sources, none of these donors are on the board; and a billionaire on the Executive Committee of the Board can wield a great deal of influence. Soros is a man who is legendary for his investment prowess. In this case, he again seems to have invested well -- as he is proud to trumpet. When the ICG gave him a Founders Award, he spoke of how pleased he was with the work the group does ("my money is very well spent"), and he took particular pride in the work done "on the Palestinian question".
As he should be, given his goals. Malley, as the Director of the Middle East/ North African program at the ICG, has assembled a group of "analysts" who reflect his (and Soros's) views and who share their goals: a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy. These policies would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies.
This small cast of characters at the ICG:
Issandr el Amrani has accused the Bush Administration of fanning the flames of sectarian strife by rallying support against Iran. He absurdly claims that the goal of this alliance is to create,
"a new regional security arrangement with the Jewish state firmly as its center-the holy grail of the neo-conservatives who, despite reports to the contrary, continue to craft U.S. Middle East policy. (Otherwise, why would Elliott Abrams still have his job?"
Peter Harling: who has co-written numerous op-eds with Malley that advocate outreach toward Iraqi extremist leader Moqtada al-Sadr; talks with Iran and Syria ; and numerous op-eds critical of American actions in Iraq.
Nicholas Pelham who advocates outreach toward Hamas.
Other analysts and their opinions can be found here.
They are uniformly passive on dealing with terrorism and terrorists; critical of US efforts in Iraq and American-led efforts to constrain Iran; advocate aid be given to Hamas despite its record of terrorism; endorse engagement with Syria despite its links with Hezbollah, its role in oppressing Lebanon and its involvement in the assassinations that have helped to destroy Lebanon. They also seemingly have no qualms about advocating outreach to Iran, regardless of its role in the killing of American and Iraqis in Iraq and its proclaimed goal of destroying Israel.
No wonder Soros is happy with his investment in the International Crisis Group and in Robert Malley.
Question remain
Why would Barack Obama have on his foreign policy staff a man who has been widely criticized for a revisionist history of the Middle East peace process sharply at odds with all other accounts of the proceedings?
Why would Barack Obama give credibility to a man who seems to have an agenda that includes empowering our enemies and weakening our friends and allies?
How did Robert Malley, with a record of writing that reveals a willingness to twist facts to serve a political agenda, come to be appointed by Obama to his foreign staff?
Was it a recommendation of Zbigniew Brzezinski to bring on board another anti-Israel foreign policy expert?
What role did the left-wing anti-Israel activist George Soros play in placing Robert Malley (or for that matter, Brzezinski himself) in a position to influence the future foreign policy of America?
What does it say about Senator Obama's judgment that he appointed a man like Malley to be a top foreign policy advisor?
Or does it speak more to his true beliefs?
*A digression, if I may, regarding Malley and impressive sounding titles. A Washington Post article on Senator Obama's foreign policy advisors described him as having been President Clinton's Middle East envoy. Now this would come as a surprise to Ambassador Dennis Ross who actually was Clinton's Middle East envoy. Indeed, there is a paucity of mentions of Malley in Ross's exhaustive history of the Middle East peace process during the Clinton years, The Missing Peace, where more often than not he is described as a note-taker-once serving as Yasser Arafat's stenographer.
#1
Wow ! Great find A5089. This is beginning to add up. Malley doesn't sound Syrian. Rezko certainly does. All Arabs/Muslims collaborate whether Egyptians, Jordanian, Syrian, Iranian. etc. All foul fish from the same sewer. And B.Hussein admits, because there is no denial, that father, grandfather, and all remaining African relatives are Muslim. Plain and simple. What a coup it would be for Islamos to have the duped Americans to elect a Muzz as their president. The howling and gunfire would never end.
There was general amazement when (the now-muzzled) Bill Clinton did his red-faced, attack-dog, race-baiting performance in South Carolina. Friends, Democrats and longtime media sycophants were variously perplexed, repulsed, enraged, mystified, and shocked that this beloved ex-president would so jeopardize his legacy by stooping so low.
What they don't understand is that for Clinton, there is no legacy. What he was doing on the low road from Iowa to South Carolina was fighting for a legacy a legacy that he knows history has denied him and that he has but one chance to redeem.
Clinton is a narcissist but also smart and analytic enough to distinguish adulation from achievement. Among Democrats, he is popular for twice giving them the White House, something no Democrat has done since FDR. And the bouquets he receives abroad are simply signs of the respect routinely given ex-presidents, though Clinton earns an extra dollop of fawning, with the accompanying fringe benefits, because he is (a) charming and (b) not George W. Bush.
But Clinton knows this is all written on sand. It is the stuff of celebrity. What gnaws at him is the verdict of history. What clearly enraged him more than anything this primary season was Barack Obama's statement that "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that ... Bill Clinton did not."
The Clintons tried to use this against Obama by charging him with harboring secret Republican sympathies. It was a stupid charge that elicited only scorn. And not just because Obama is no Reaganite, but because Obama's assessment is so obviously true: Reagan was consequential.
Clinton was not.
Reagan changed history. . . . By comparison, Clinton was a historical parenthesis. He can console himself with considerable justification that he simply drew the short straw in the chronological lottery: His time just happened to be the 1990s which, through no fault of his own, was the most inconsequential decade of the 20th century. His was the interval between the collapse of the Soviet Union on Dec. 26, 1991, and the return of history with a vengeance on Sept. 11, 2001.
Clinton's decade, that holiday from history, was certainly a time of peace and prosperity but a soporific Golden Age that made no great demands on leadership. What, after all, was his greatest crisis? A farcical sexual dalliance. . . . What is the legacy of the Clinton presidency? Consolidator of the Reagan revolution. As Dwight Eisenhower made permanent FDR's New Deal and Tony Blair institutionalized Thatcherism, Clinton consolidated Reaganism.
He did so most symbolically with his 1996 State of the Union declaration that "the era of big government is over." And more concretely, with a presidency that only tinkered with such structural Reaganite changes as tax cuts and deregulation, and whose major domestic achievement was the abolition of welfare, Reagan's ultimate social bete noire.
These are serious achievements, but of a second order. Obama did little more than echo that truism. But one can imagine how it made Clinton burn. He is, after all, a relatively young man who has decades to brood over his lost opportunity for greatness and yet is constitutionally barred from doing anything about it.
Except for the spousal loophole. Hence his desperation, especially after Hillary's Iowa debacle, to rescue his only chance for historical vindication a return to the White House as Hillary's co-president. A chance to serve three, perhaps even four terms, the longest in history, longer even than FDR. The opportunity to have dominated a full quarter-century of American history, relegating the George W. Bush years to a parenthesis within Clinton's legacy. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
02/01/2008 10:15 ||
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2008 IS HERE - we'll see what will happen as per Dubya-USA versus Moud-Iran? Dubya has argued that he will NOT be a "lame duck" POTUS vv the "Iranian Bomb" or threat from same, even iff means a potens threat to his life; Moud = Radical Iran contins to refuse to halt nucdev efforts. RADICAL ISLAM > any US = Israeli attack on Iran will result in retaliation agz US-Isr-Allied interests ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD INCLUDING INSIDE AMERICA.
DUBYA'S "LEGACY" = means "BIG/PREZ D" CANNOT NOT DO NOTHING ABOUT IRANIAN = ISLAMIST BOMB.
As much attention as the decision of the stars of the Kennedy family to endorse Sen. Obama received this week, it has still not been given its due. This was a break with the establishment and from the expected, and it may carry a price. The Clintons are deeply wired into their party, they run many money lines and power lines, and Hillary Clinton is still, in the Super Tuesday states, in the lead. Will the lives of those who rebelled against her be made more pleasant if she wins? The Clintons have never had the wit to be forgiving.
But all parties, all movements, need men and women who will come forward every decade or so to name tendencies within that are abusive or destructive, to throw off the low and grubby. Teddy's speech in this regard was a barnburner. He went straight against the negative and bullying, hard for the need to find inspiration again.
He is an old lion of his party, a hero of the base. But people do what they know how to do, and objects at rest tend of stay at rest, and Teddy has long led a comfortable life as a party panjandrum who knew to sit back and watch as the dog barked and the caravan moved on. In a way he seemed to rebel against his own tendencies. He put himself on the line. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
02/01/2008 08:10 ||
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Fatass Ted was only trying to get some retribution against Bill, who slapped him several times and held him down. Now he's trying to get rid of the Clinton machine and receive the well known adulation he richly deserves as the leading liberal in the Democratic vanguard. There's nothing noble involved.
#2
Fatass Ted was only trying to get some retribution against Bill, who slapped him several times and held him down.
Woozle I also thought the lousy MSM chose to omit one the most important power plays by a senior DemoCrap Senator, when they reported Teddies endorsement of Obama.
Would you or any other RBee please cite some specific examples of the conflict between the Liar in Chief and the Larded Masshole from Taxachusetts.
Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism, @ National Review's "The Corner"
As most readers know, I've been pretty distracted by the book and haven't been participating much in the Corner of late. But I think I should just be on the record that I disagree with the tone, tenor and substance of much though certainly not all of the anti-McCain commentary around here. It's not that I object to a single post or comment though there've been a few. It's that I disagree with the overwhelming impression that supporting McCain is some kind of lunacy. I have serious disagreements with McCain. I think it is entirely right to disagree with him on all sorts of issues and entirely legitimate to think he would be bad for the party, bad for conservatism or bad for the country to have him as the nominee or the next president. I agree with some of those sentiments, disagree with others.
But this disaster talk leaves me cold. McCain wouldn't be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he's the nominee or the president is pretty absurd.
And I find such claims odd coming from some people who've insisted for a couple years now that the war on terror is the #1 overriding issue of this campaign. Some people who said as much, used that logic to support Rudy Giuliani. Maybe they were right that Giuliani would be a better wartime president than McCain. But, that's an argument that requires a pretty substantial leap of faith given Giuliani's very meager foreign policy experience (never mind that Giuliani is now endorsing McCain). Plus, given that Guliani is out of the race, it's all hypothetical anyway.
I haven't heard anyone make a credible case that McCain wouldn't be a good commander-in-chief. So it's a bit hard to believe McCain would be a disaster given that he would be at minimum pretty good on the single most important issue facing the country. . . . Just as important: neither of the Dems is going to be any good on the GWOT.
Obama believes in the ideal of negotiation, the idea that if we just sit down with Ahmenadjad and the Wahabbis and be sweet and nice and just listen in total sincerity, they'll respond in total sincerity and we can sing a couple choruses of "It's a Small World" and finally overcome our differences. He's sincere, well-intentioned, and dead-ass wrong on this point.
The Clintons and their syncophants are ruthless, vicious, bloodthirsty, and uncompromising combatants--but only when fighting domestic political opponents. They showed Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich and Kathleen Willey and Paul Tsongas and Rush Limbaugh no mercy--but they were nowhere near this hard on the likes of Arafat or bin Laden. In fact, they avoided confrontation with the jihadis and the world's various thugocracies and tyrants whenever possible. Thanks to the Clinton policy of avoiding the fight, we got 9/11.
If we have a Clintobama administration taking power a year from now, there will be another 9/11. It might not happen on their watch, but it will happen.
One 9/11 is quite enough for one lifetime, thank you.
If you are tempted to think, "well, after four years of Clintobama screwing up, people will be so fed up we'll get a real conservative/a third party movement/something better in 2012," and vote (or not-vote) for that result, I implore you, in the spirit of friendship, reconsider. Around the 'Burg here, we rightly condemned Reid and Pelosi and their ilk for rooting for American failure in Iraq, because they put the interests of their political party ahead of the interests of their country. Do not fall into their trap. It is not worth trading the lives of your fellow citizens, and the freedom of fifty million Iraqis and Afghans who are working alongside our troops, to pick up four senate seats and twenty house districts in the '10 midterms.
Posted by: Mike (a disappointed Fredhead) ||
02/01/2008 07:43 ||
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And there's my point of disagreement. the WOT isnt the msot impoartant if we lose our soverignty. Open Borders obviate all the overseas work. So border security has to be first and foremost, as doe sustaining the republic as a untied one, not a balkanized one.
And Mccain has bee completely wrong and stubbornly two faced about that very vital issue. Same goes with is entagling us in Global Warming to the detriment of the economy under UN guidance.
So yes tthe GWOT is on the surface the top item - but without the support of border security its rapidly lost. So that is item #1.
#1
It's seldom I agree with Clinton, but in this case I'll make an exception.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2008 8:54 Comments ||
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It's a delightful surprise to find anything that I can wholeheartily agree with Bill on. If Bill is a broken 24 hour clock, then this heckler is a sun dial covered with a blanket. It's possible to never be right and the heckler seems a good candidate for that post.
#3
As said before, among other premises/thingys WOT > WAR FOR [Anti-US versus Pro-US]OWG-NWO, GLOBAL-ISM, GLOBAL ORDER, etc.
As perhaps best illustrated by Dubya-USA versus Moud-Iran, the WAR FOR OWG-NWO = GLOBAL ORDER, etc is at a decisive period right now, i.e. CAN "MAKE-OR-BREAK" AMER's + ANY SIDE/-ISM'S EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE SAID ORDER OR "GLOBALNESS".
CLINTON'S QUESTION > DOES HILLARY STILL WISH TO BE POTUS IFF PRO-DEMO "REGIME CHANGE" IN IRAN = PRO-ISMAIST NATIONS PROVES IMPOSSIBLE, + NEW WARS MUST OCCUR DURING AND AFTER HER POTUS TENURE???
NEW/GLOBAL GIRL ORDER > Remember, Hillary per se still has the 2012 window - iff she desires to prove that she has the "gumption" of a THATCHER, GOLD MEIR, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, etc, then Hillary logically should run andbecome POTUS DESPITE ANY POTENTIAL FOR NEW WAR [Pst-Iraq or even Iran], as opposed to engaging in 1990's style Clintonian "safe" politix.
BILLARY CAN SHOW THEIR PATRIOTISM BEFORE MAINSTREAM AMERICA - BILLC PER SE HAS A NEW CHANCE TO REDEEM HIMSELF, DEMS AND HIS LEGACY.
Amers = Amer soldiers are fighting and dying to protect and save AMERICA = THEIR AMERICA > NOBODY WANTS A NATIONAL LEADER(S) THATS GOING TO PLAY "SAFE" + BE PC EACH AND EVERY TIME.
TOO MUCH CORRECTNESS-POLITIX AS USUAL IS HOW US INTEL, etc. FAILED TO PREVENT 9-11 > All Amers are in a DE FACTO "VICTORY OR DEATH" "WINNER TAKES ALL" NATIONAL-GLOBAL WAR FOR SURVIVAL-EXISTENCE WHICH AMERS HAVE TO FIGHT WHETHER THEY WANT TO OR NOT, LIKE IT OR NOT.
SEAN CONNERY in THIRD CRUSADE > "In this kind of race, boy, theres NO PRIZE FOR COMING IN SECOND".
#4
All Amers are in a DE FACTO "VICTORY OR DEATH" "WINNER TAKES ALL" NATIONAL-GLOBAL WAR FOR SURVIVAL-EXISTENCE WHICH AMERS HAVE TO FIGHT WHETHER THEY WANT TO OR NOT, LIKE IT OR NOT.
#1
I recently attended a briefing by a U.S. Air Force colonel who declared that the current terrorist threat had nothing to do with Islam.
I related news: WWII's blitzkrieg threat had nothing to do with Nazism.
Such well-intentioned statements appeal to political correctness at the expense of meaningful understanding.
Such well-intentioned parsing of complete bullsh*t do nothing to promote meaningful understanding either.
It is true that the War on Terror is not a religious war between Islam and any other religion;
No. The "War on Terror" is newspeak to avoid the blindingly obvious fact Islam is at war with all other religions (including and especially other versions of Islam).
it is also true that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists.
It is also true that the overwhelmingly majority of Muslims think the only terrorists are British, American or Jewish; that the overwhelming majority of Muslims say nothing which is not in the form of whining or seething and htat the overwhelming majority of Muslims tacitly and materially support the war against us.
However, the global war against the extremists who attacked America on September 11 has a theological dimension that we must acknowledge.
I have had the opportunity to interview Brigadier General Edward Cardon, Deputy Commanding General (Support) Multi-National Division-Center(MND-C), one-on-one. We last talked in a Bloggers Roundtable on January 24.
My thanks to General Cardon for his time and patience with this interview and this interviewer. My thanks to Major Alayne Conway, MND-C Deputy PAO, for facilitating the interview with the telephone tag. And a great big thank you to both of them and all the men and women of Task Force Marne for their service to the United States.
MND-C is also known as Task Force Marne. Its major area of responsibility is the security zones located along the southern edge of Baghdad and scales from the border of Saudi Arabia to the border of Iran. MND-Center is headquartered by the 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, Georgia.
Throw out your American experience; its making it worse - General Cardon on how to work with the Iraqis. The General talked extensively about the necessity of building relationships with Iraqis. The country, the culture, operates on a relationship basis. He was emphatic that, as our military rotates, the incoming troops and officers already understand this and working with the Iraqis is much simpler. Our people arrive trained in the Iraqi culture, where a good meal and a cup of tea afterwards counts as much as getting right to business. Much more at the lin, a 3 part series
Good and useful stuff, Chuck. I'm very impressed that you got an interview with General Cardon. It's a tribute to your impact on the Warblogging world, and to all its connections beyond.
A SIGN adorned with Ataturk's favourite adage, Happy is he who calls himself a Turk, hangs in Diyarbakir, south-east Turkey, as a reminder of Turkey's decades-old policy of forcibly assimilating the region's Kurds. The ruling Justice and Development (AK) party might prefer Happy is he who calls himself a Muslim.
Uniting around our common Islamic identity is the only way to solve the Kurdish problem, argues one AK leader. Islam bound us in Ottoman times and during the war of independence, why not today? Religion has become the mildly Islamist AK's most potent weapon as it seeks to snatch control of Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of Turkey's estimated 14m Kurds, from the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DTP) in next year's local election.
In the slums of Diyarbakir sympathy for AK is growing. They give us free coal, free school textbooks, my vote is for AK, croaks Fatma Demirci, a shrivelled mother of nine. Generous welfare spending, plus modest reforms to satisfy the Kurds' demands for greater freedom, helped the party to take over 50% of the vote in the mainly Kurdish provinces of Turkey in last July's general election.
Now Turkey's richest Islamic fraternity is helping the AK to win more Kurdish votes. Named after Fetullah Gulen, a liberal Muslim cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in America, the Gulenists distributed meat to some 60,000 families during the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice in December. Scores of Gulenist doctors are offering free check-ups and treatment in Kurdish areas. Their message is that Turks and Kurds are brothers in Islam and that nationalism, whether Turkish or Kurdish, is bad. Such Islamic fraternities (tarikats) have strong roots in the region.
Other AK actions are also burnishing the party's image. A new government proposal to scrap restrictions on wearing the Islamic headscarf in universities has elated pious Kurds as much as it has horrified Turkish secularists. Kurds of all leanings cheered the arrest of 14 members of an ultra-nationalist gang whose leader, a retired army general called Veli Kucuk, is said by some to have plotted the extra-judicial murders of Kurdish dissidents at the height of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) insurgency in the early 1990s.
The government's popularity seems to be surviving even the airstrikes launched in December against PKK targets in northern Iraq. A retaliatory bombing claimed by the PKK killed seven people in Diyarbakir last month, but provoked outrage and rebounded against the DTP. One reason, some say, is that it is in practice run by the captive PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, making it hard for elected DTP politicians to disavow PKK terrorism. Polls suggest that the party's support has slipped.
With much of their time spent in court or in jail, few DTP mayors are able to govern effectively. Diyarbakir's mayor, Osman Baydemir, is facing 23 court cases and other investigations for such crimes as printing new-year greeting cards in Kurdish. Some mayors have been pursued for offences such as building an artificial pool shaped like the map of Kurdistan.
Hasim Hasimi, a moderate Kurdish politician, argues that this sort of pressure on the DTP may cause voters to return to it. Even business leaders are disquieted by the government's attempts to dilute Kurdish nationalism. It is foolish to imagine that the Kurds' demands to develop their language and culture will go away, says Mehmet Kaya, president of the Diyarbakir chamber of commerce.
On a recent visit, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AK prime minister, dismissed calls for more Kurdish-language education and broadcasting. He argued that other minorities would agitate for similar rights. His message has reached the state-run maternity clinic. Cetin Bakir, the chief doctor, rejects suggestions that his staff might communicate better with patients if they used Kurdish. Absolutely not, he sniffs. Leyla Dincer, a midwife, disagrees. What use are these? she asks, pointing to a rack full of pamphlets on birth control. It's all in Turkish, nobody understands a word.
Needless to say, it wasnt always thus. During World War II, Hollywood stars like James Stewart and directors like Frank Capra enlisted in the military to combat dictators as willingly as Sean Penn and Michael Moore now tootle down to Venezuela and Cuba to embrace them.
#3
Clearly written in white heat by a man with both heart and brains. Well worth the time to read, even if there's no mention of the latest Number Three who got himself killed by good guys on the wrong side of the border.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
In an article ironically printed on the front page on Memorial Day 2006, Senator Kerry announced to a star-struck New York Times reporter, Kate Zernik, that he was going to go right out there and tell the truth about all these Swiftie allegations. He even announced he had a committee formed to support his investigation called the Patriot Project. 
