Well, who is it? I am surprised that the brave, independent-thinking members of the Fourth Estate havent given full rein to the terrier instinct on this question. Obviously, someone inside the Obama campaign is out to sabotage The Chosen Ones credibility and, just as obviously, the journalistic profession speaks with a single voice when it comes to favoring The Obama over every other candidate. So where are the investigative reporters when weor, rather, when theyneed em? Wouldnt the cause of electing Obama come hell or high water be better served by suspending inquiries in to Todd Palins 1986 DUI citations and trying to ferret out the person or persons responsible for the disaster the Obama campaign has become?
Somebody has it in for Obama. What makes me say so? Well, theres the matter of the gloves. Every few weeks now, Obama comes out and says Ive had enough of these nasty Republican smear tactics, the outrageous inquiries into my relationship with the admitted (and unrepentent) terrorist Bill Ayers or my 20-years as a congregant in the church of the anti-American wack-job Jeremiah Wright. From now on , Im taking off the gloves and am going to run a tough (but high-minded) campaign.
Is there a budget category for gloves over at Obama Central? . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
09/13/2008 13:13 ||
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#1
It's more like there's a squirrel up in his shorts, I think.
#2
I know it's just an hint, but PJ from DUmmie funnies has for quite some time pointed out an obama campaign strategist named "Kurt Grove", a somewhat overweight unassuming fellow that is said to have been worked as a freelancer for some Republican campaigns a few years before...
#7
Billy Jeff and Hildebeest, for sure. I'm guessing that they planted a few deep-cover operatives in Bambi's camp after the Oprah endorsement started fueling his rise. Between that, some well-placed diarists and commenters in the leftist blogs, and their media contacts, making sure the Messiah had an ample supply of banana peels to slip on at appropriate times was no problem.
What I wonder is - did the Arkansas Irregulars have any clue that Johnny Mac was going to put Sarah on the ticket? That raises a whole 'nother set of questions...like has Karl Rove spent any time in NYC lately and if so, have the Harlem restaurants seen any spikes in orders for barbecued ribs to be delivered to the Clinton Foundation office?
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/13/2008 16:36 Comments ||
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#10
If there is any way to spread the rumor that the mole is likely to be a female who is bitter about Obama not picking Hillary, this thing could pay dividends.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/13/2008 20:43 Comments ||
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#2
Power is self-rationalizing.
Character first. Then power.
To do it the other way is the path to certain corruption.
Even with character it is a never ending battle to resist the corruption. However, that is the shield to steel ourselves against it.
"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' " -- New York Times, Sept. 12
Informed her? Rubbish.
The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.
There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.
He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"
She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"
Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."
Wrong.
I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.
Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.
Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.
It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.
If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration.
Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.
Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.
Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.
Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.
Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.
Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, ..." I thought it was Clinton and Congress that first 'rejected' the Kyoto protocol. I do not think Pres. Bush would have acceded to Kyoto, mind you, but he was not first. As I remember it anyway.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/13/2008 1:16 Comments ||
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while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher,"
#5
In 2002 Bush released a National security strategy which includes most of the positions outlined by Krauthammer. It's a bit of a stretch however, to call it the Bush Doctrine, although I could be wrong.
On 25 July 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 950 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[67][68] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or it "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On 12 November 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[69] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.
#8
On Gibson: some on the right think Gibson was too obnoxious or rude. He might have been (it's a matter of opinion), but the real point is: Sarah Palin has to be able to handle such interviews. It's a matter of fact that Republicans are always going to be interviewed more toughly than Democrats.
I thought Gov. Palin did well enough. She wasn't as crisp and assured on some questions as I would have wanted but she didn't provide the other side with any ammo for an ad. She looked a little tense on the foreign policy questions but most folks are going to let that slide.
I'd give her a B+ on the interview. I'd give Charlie a C+.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/13/2008 12:29 Comments ||
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Folks, you have to read the full transcript especially the parts that were edited. This is a typical "60 Minutes" type hatchet job that was skillfully edited to make Charlie Gibson seem more qualified than Obama and McCain and Palin to appear unsure of herself. But in the context of the whole interview she is amazingly knowledgeable of foreign affairs and other issues that you don't sense from the TV version.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/13/2008 12:42 Comments ||
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#10
For the next one Palin should insist on having her own cameras so she can put the director's cut on You Tube.
#11
Bingo. Follow this link to see just how badly Gibson and his editors distorted, chopped and truncated the much more sophisticated answers Palin gave on national security and foreign affairs. I am beyond pissed at this blatant attempt to sink her candidacy.
#12
InstaMan Glenn Reynolds has suggested a good way for Sarah and other candidates to fight the media distortions and "creative editing." Record interviews with their own equipment and post the unedited results. {I tried to link to the article from here but it only seems to work from his site. Sorry.)
#13
It seems like the idea is a no brainer. I would not be surprised if the McCainiacs were counting on Gibson doing a hatchet job to build his street cred with the MSM so that they could make the demand in all subsequent interviews. Gibson will always be a morning show host to me and some how I doubt Dave Garroway or Jack Lascoule would ever have the audacity or hope to think they could replace Huntley or Brinkley. Even if they brought J. Fred Muggs.
#14
It's time to loudly press for ABC to release the raw video footage - all of it. When they refuse, as they will, then announce that in the interest of fairness and in the spirit of the Intertubes (video wants to be free) all interview footage with the republican candidates will be posted online 3 hours after it airs on TV. And challenge Obama to do the same.
#15
Sarah did just fine. The proof is how little media focus is being done on the interview series. NBC is doing wall to wall hurricane coverage because they recognize they are hurting this cause.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/13/2008 15:40 Comments ||
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I'm shocked, BrerRabbit, that Wiki actually got it right!
"the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 950 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[67][68] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or it "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States"...The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification."
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/13/2008 19:06 Comments ||
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Well, you better make sure that they don't walk off with the recordings!
One guy was suspicious, and recorded the entire interview he had with Dan Rather. Dan pinched the tapes and boasted of them while holding them up on prime time.
THAT is when I first suspected that the MSM wanted to be the sole purveyor of truth.
To know an enemy, one must first acknowledge his existence.
By Raymond Ibrahim
At the inaugural conference for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) back in April, presenter LTC Joseph Myers made an interesting point that deserves further elaboration. Though military studies have traditionally valued and absorbed the texts of classical war doctrine such as Clausewitzs On War, Sun Tsus The Art of War, even the exploits of Alexander the Great as recorded in Arrian and Plutarch Islamic war doctrine, which is just as if not more textually grounded, is totally ignored.
As recently as 2006, former top Pentagon official William Gawthrop lamented that the senior Service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered [emphasis added]. Today, seven full years after September 11, our understanding of the Islamic way of war is little better.
This is more ironic when one considers that, while classical military theories (Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, et. al.) continue to be included on war-college syllabi, the argument can be made that they have little practical value for todays far different landscape of warfare and diplomacy. Contrast this with Islams doctrines of war: their theological quality grounded as they are in a religion whose divine precepts transcend time and space, and are believed to be immutable make Islams war doctrines unlikely ever to go out of style. While one can argue that learning how Alexander maneuvered his cavalry at the Battle of Guagamela in 331 BC is both academic and anachronistic, the exploits and stratagems of the prophet Muhammad his war sunna still serve as an example to modern-day jihadists.
For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammads seventh century context; hijacked planes or WMD today); the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treaties whenever possible (see Sahih Muslim 15: 4057); and that the only function of the peace treaty, or hudna, is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years.
Quranic verses 3:28 and 16:106, as well as Muhammads famous assertion, War is deceit, have all led to the formulation of a number of doctrines of dissimulation the most notorious among them being the doctrine of Taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie and dissemble whenever they are under the authority of the infidel. Deception has such a prominent role that renowned Muslim scholar Ibn al-Arabi declares: [I]n the Hadith, practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than [the need for] courage.
In addition to ignoring these well documented Islamist strategies, more troubling still is the Defense Departments continuing failure to appreciate the pertinent eternal doctrines of Islam such as the Abode of War versus the Abode of Islam dichotomy, which maintains that Islam must always be in a state of animosity vis-à-vis the infidel world and, whenever possible, must wage wars until all infidel territory has been brought under Islamic rule. In fact, this dichotomy of hostility is unambiguously codified under Islams worldview and is deemed a fard kifaya that is, an obligation on the entire Muslim body that can only be fulfilled as long as some Muslims, say, jihadists, actively uphold it.
Despite these problematic but revealing doctrines, despite the fact that a quick perusal of Islamist websites and books demonstrate time and again that current and would-be jihadists constantly quote, and thus take seriously, these doctrinal aspects of war, senior U.S. government officials charged with defending America do not.
Why? Because the Whisperers Walid Pharess apt epithet for the majority of Middle East/Islamic scholars and their willing apologists in the press have made anathema anyone who dares to point out a connection between Islamic doctrine and modern-day Islamist terrorism as witness, the Steven Coughlin debacle. This is an all too familiar tale for those in the field (see Martin Kramers Ivory Towers on Sand: the Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America).
While there exists today many Middle East studies departments, one would be sorely pressed (especially in the more prestigious universities) to find any courses dealing with the most pivotal and relevant topics of today such as Islamic jurisprudence and what it says about jihad or the concept of the Abode of Islam versus the Abode of War. These topics, we are assured, have troubling international implications and are best buried. Instead, the would-be student is inundated with courses dealing with the evils of Orientalism and colonialism, gender studies, and civil society.
The greater irony when one talks about Islam and the West, ironies often abound is that, on the very same day of the ASMEA conference, which also contained a forthright address by premiere Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis (It seems to me a dangerous situation in which any kind of scholarly discussion of Islam is, to say the least, dangerous), the State Department announced that it would not call al-Qaeda type radicals jihadis, mujahadin, nor incorporate any other Arabic word of Islamic connotation (caliphate, Islamo-fascism, Salafi, Wahhabi, and Ummah are also out).
Alas, far from taking the most basic and simple advice regarding warfare Sun Tzus ancient dictum, Know thy enemy the U.S. government is having difficulties even acknowledging its enemy.
Posted by: ed ||
09/13/2008 00:00 ||
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What? There are numerous studies of Islamic jihadism, posted on the internet, and they are usually in pdf form. Google posts out of copyright books on that subject. This author isn't much of a researcher.
Posted by: Open Arms ||
09/13/2008 7:15 Comments ||
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That's true he didn't post the yeah but, Cut the Throat quickly lesson.
#6
The key point is: Despite these problematic -- but revealing -- doctrines, despite the fact that a quick perusal of Islamist websites and books demonstrate time and again that current and would-be jihadists constantly quote, and thus take seriously, these doctrinal aspects of war, senior U.S. government officials charged with defending America do not.
It doesn't matter how much literature is available if our leaders refuse to learn from it. Instead the "jihad" has been banned from used, muslim spies are translating and forwarding our most sensitive intelligence intercepts and placing muslim agents inside all branches of government with the encouragement of high placed leaders like Asst. Sec. Def Gordon England.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. - Sun Tzu
Posted by: ed ||
09/13/2008 14:51 Comments ||
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Friday night, swarm out of the mosque, seek out the infidel...
Have I missed anything?
#1
This makes alot of sense, it is happening in St. Louis too, many stations south are out of anything except premium. One station that we stopped at today had premium only, I asked the clerk what was going on and she said they had a four hour run yesterday. They are not expecting any significant resupply for a few days.
#3
Same thing happening in Ontario. I bought premium yesterday at regular price, regular was sold out. Still cost $1.299 a litre. Most places today it is now $1.369.
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.
