;)
The Commentariat -- Sept. 15, 2014
Internal links, photo removed.
Steve M. has two excellent post's -- here and here -- comparing Fox "News"'s "reporting" on the reactions of President Obama & British PM David Cameron (Friend of Rupert ) to the beheading of their citizens by ISIS terrorists. ...
... Manu Raju, et al., of the Politico on the extraordinary efforts President Obama, Vice President Biden & Congressional leaders are making to get Congressional authorization to provide support to Syrian rebels. "What prompted the developments, a White House official said, were high-level discussions with Syria's neighbors about 'cooperating and hosting' a program to train and equip the rebels since the president first requested the change in the law back in June. 'We were finally able to secure high-level Saudi commitments to host the program during [national security advisor] Lisa Monaco's meetings on Sunday,' [a White House] official said." ...
... Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "Several Arab countries have offered to carry out airstrikes against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, senior State Department officials said Sunday. The offer was disclosed by American officials traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is approaching the end of a weeklong trip that was intended to mobilize international support for the campaign against ISIS."
Katie Glueck of Politico: "White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said on Sunday the administration 'didn't threaten' with prosecution the families of two American journalists slain by an extremist group, as the families have alleged. Families of journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley have ... [said] the federal government ... threatened prosecution. 'In terms of what was communicated to the families, in the midst of many, many meetings over the course of this very difficult circumstance, we obviously made clear what the law is,' McDonough said on 'Fox News Sunday.' ... As a father, McDonough said, he personally feels deeply for the families and the 'very difficult circumstances' they are experiencing."
** E. J. Dionne on the Congressional debates preceding the first U.S.-Iraq War. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) "proposes a two-step process involving, first, quick congressional approval of Obama's proposal to train and arm Syrian rebels, and then broader debate about the president's overall policy after the country votes on Nov. 4." CW: Something I forgot: "Without congressional authorization, Bush had already sent 500,000 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia to prepare for war. He insisted he did not need Congress's approval to put them into action. His request for a resolution was essentially a courtesy. It came just a week before the deadline he had set for Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait -- and, as it happened, just nine days before the war started [on January 17, 1991]. ...
... Here, BTW, is Bush I's Secretary of State James Baker, speaking on "Meet the Press" Sunday:
... Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly on "bedwetter" Sen. Lindsay's Graham's [R-S.C.] claim that Americans "will be killed here at home" if President Obama is allowed to follow his "disingenuous & delusional" plan to degrade ISIS: "There really in no excuse for a 59 year old man to not be housebroken. The idea that we are all going to get killed if the president doesn't immediately send ground troops to Iraq and Syria is the intellectual equivalent of having night terrors about monsters in your closet and under your bed."
Ari Berman of the Nation: "Late Friday afternoon, a panel of Democrat-appointed judges on the Sixth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction from a Democrat-appointed district court judge striking down Ohio's cuts to early voting. Two hours earlier, however, a trio of Republican-appointed judges on the Seventh Circuit overturned an injunction from a Democratic judge blocking Wisconsin's voter ID law. This is why elections matter. And the courts are increasingly becoming the arbiters of who does and does not get to participate in them." (Emphasis added.) ...
... Rick Hasen: The Wisconsin decision "is a big, big mistake for election administration reasons (regardless of how the court ultimately comes out) and I expect now an emergency motion to the Supreme Court, based upon Purcell v. Gonzalez, to stop this change. I think there's a decent chance the Supreme Court could intervene on this, even if the Court ultimately is likely to reject the constitutional and Voting Rights Act challenges to this ruling." (See also Hasen's comments to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, linked in Saturday's Commentariat.) ...
... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Democrats have reversed the partisan imbalance on the federal appeals courts that long favored conservatives, a little-noticed shift with far-reaching consequences for the law and President Obama's legacy. For the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents considerably outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. The Democrats' advantage has only grown since late last year when they stripped Republicans of their ability to filibuster the president's nominees.... With control of the Senate at stake in November's midterm elections, the success of Democrats in reshaping the courts is a reminder of the subtle power that the majority party has even in a moribund Congress."
Jonathan Chait takes exception with Thomas Frank's "polemic" against political science (linked here yesterday): "He argues that political science has always run Washington and that political science is the main problem with Washington. Frank is tellingly wrong on all these things, but in one way he is dead-on: He has correctly identified the field of political science as the true enemy of his worldview." ...
... CW: For what it's worth, I think Chait's analysis of reasons for the 1994 election results is off-base, too. What really shifted the balance of power -- and it was a decades-long shift that's still ongoing -- was civil rights legislation & "liberal" court decisions of the 1950s, '60s & '70s. The majority of people are inherently conservative, selfish & miserly. These selfish people are "liberal" only when they belong to a group that the majority has excluded or disadvantaged; i.e., when it's in their self-interest to vote "liberal." And they are tribal. Conservative Roman Catholics voted for Jack Kennedy. Conservative Southerners voted for Jimmy Carter. Once. Barack Obama won in 2008 because of the confluence of extraordinary circumstances: (a) of the financial crisis, & (b) a singularly unappealing Republican opponent (& his Hillbilly sidekick), & (c) the unpopularity of Dubya's actions, not the least of which was starting the Iraq War. Obama won in 2012 because -- voters are conservative: they (fairly narrowly) danced with the one that brung 'em. One might argue that the outlier in this pattern was Bill Clinton (the guy Frank criticizes for moving Democrats to the right), but even that isn't true. Besides pulling down a good deal of the tribal Southern vote, Clinton got a tremendous assist from crazy Ross Perot, who directly appealed to people's selfish tendencies. The sitting president, George H. W. Bush, had two strikes against him.
NEW. Charles Pierce comments, in hilarious fashion, on the contretemps over the remains of Saint-in-Waiting & Dead TeeVee Personality Fulton Sheen.
Isla Bennie of Reuters: "Pope Francis married 20 couples on Sunday, some of whom had already lived together and had children, in the latest sign that the Argentine pontiff wants the Catholic church to be more open and inclusive."
Paul Krugman: "Clearly, economics as a discipline went badly astray in the years -- actually decades -- leading up to the [2008 economic] crisis. But the failings of economics were greatly aggravated by the sins of economists, who far too often let partisanship or personal self-aggrandizement trump their professionalism. Last but not least, economic policy makers systematically chose to hear only what they wanted to hear. And it is this multilevel failure -- not the inadequacy of economics alone -- that accounts for the terrible performance of Western economies since 2008."
Mike Florio of NBC Sports: "According to multiple [National Football L]eague sources, [Ray] Rice will appeal the indefinite suspension on Monday. The appeal will be handled by the NFLPA and by an outside lawyer retained by Rice."
Martin Longman on Rep. Mark Sanford's Facebook break-up with his fiancée Maria Belen Chapur: "... one does wonder how awful a Republican would have to behave to get kicked out of office in the Palmetto State."
In the interest of fair, both-sides linking, here is the Palin family's version of the infamous Saturday night brawl, according to "a source close to the Palin family," via Scott Conroy of Real Clear Politicis. CW: It sure took a long time for the Palins to come up with their spin on this yarn, which goes like this: a former boyfriend of Willow's started the fight; he tried to get into the Palins' stretch Hummer, & a gang of four men -- including the boyfriend -- attacked Track, who ended up with four cracked ribs. Todd joined the melee & the gang of meanies bloodied him. Sarah, "in full mama grizzly mode," yelled, "Don't you know who he is? He's a vet!" Also, Bristol couldn't have a "mean right hook" because she's left-handed. Definitely need that video. ...
... NEW. Jeanne Devon of the Mudflats weighs in, adding some details & lots of context. Thanks to James S. for the link.
Capitalism Is Awesome. Jessica Roy of New York: "Urban Outfitters, the official clothing store of Outrage Twitter, reached a new low yesterday when shoppers noticed that the site was selling a 'vintage' Kent State sweatshirt, complete with blood spatter. The Ohio university was the site of the 1970 Kent State shooting, when the Ohio National Guard killed four students during a peace protest." Do read on. (CW: Clicking on the link to the e-bay auction page for the sweatshirt doesn't work. Maybe somebody had a change of heart.)
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
T. Bogg: "America's Most Annoying Neighborhood Kid™, Luke Russert, tried out and made NBC;s Meet the Press team this week.... Friday, Chuck 'Figure It Out For Yourself' Todd emailed his NBC/MSNBC colleagues excitedly announcing that young master Luke would be joining the MTP cast -- which, as I am sure you are aware and will be made aware no matter how much you try to avoid it -- where Luke's father [editors note to nerds: not Darth Vader] used to totally rule. It's just like The Lion King, but with self-important large-headed people instead of adorable cartoon lions and meerkats." ...
... T. Bogg helpfully provides Simba's MTP "audition tape":
Evan McMurry of Mediaite: "In his new guise as a political commentator for CNN, former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dished out conventional wisdom on State of the Union Sunday morning, which in this case meant diagnosing the Democrats' chances in the upcoming midterms as poor."
Congressional Elections, Etc.
I've studied all the polls and I really believe that we're still in a zone where they're all real close and it depends on who decides to show. And our side's not used to voting in midterms. We gotta get used to it. There's a lot at stake. -- Bill Clinton, in Iowa yesterday
... Greg Sargent on Senate race polling/odds: "The Washington Post and New York Times forecasts have tightened considerably, with the WaPo Election Lab showing the GOP with a 50 percent chance of taking the Senate and the NYT Upshot putting it at 52 percent. FiveThirtyEight gives the GOP a 58 percent chance, but the poll-focused models run by Sam Wang and HuffPollster give Dems roughly the same-sized edge.... CNN will release a poll today that finds the New Hampshire battle between Dem Senator Jeanne Shaheen and GOP challenger Scott Brown is all tied up at 48-48. However, Reid Wilson reports that the DSCC will release a poll showing Shaheen up by 51-43."
Kentucky Democratic nominee Alison Grimes is running against Mitch McConnell AND Barack Obama. It's a good ad:
** Arizona GOP Leader Would Sterilize Poor People. Resigns over Controversy. Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "Former [state] Sen. Russell Pearce, who has recently served as the Arizona Republican Party's first vice chair, resigned his post late Sunday in the wake of criticism from powerful GOP candidates about contraception.... Pearce [spoke on] his talk-radio program on KKNT 960 AM [recently] ... about changes he would make to the state's public assistance programs and was quoted in the Democratic Party's news release as saying: 'You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations.... Then we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.' In his [resignation] statement, Pearce wrote that during [the] recent radio show ... he 'shared comments written by someone else and failed to attribute them to the author.' ... Pearce, best known for his role in passing the state's hard-line immigration law Senate Bill 1070, served as Arizona Senate president before he was recalled in 2011." CW: Ah, well. He's just an accidental plagiarist. He's not really into sterilizing the poor; he just promotes the idea. And congrats to GOP candidates for condemning his remarks -- after Democrats highlighted their silence on Pearce's policy proposal/"mistake."
Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald: Fielding criticism about "a cigar-smoking boys-only 'roundtable' he held," Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), in a tight race against Democrat Gwen Graham, "wondered why the press isn't asking ... Graham about whether she ever attended a ladies-only 'lingerie shower.' ... Paging Dr. Freud." Via Steve Benen.
John Eligon of the New York Times: "Although every statewide elected official in Kansas is a Republican and President Obama lost the state by more than 20 points in the last election, [Gov. Sam] Brownback's proudly conservative policies have turned out to be so divisive and his tax cuts have generated such a drop in state revenue that they have caused even many Republicans to revolt."
Presidential Election
Amy Chozick & Jonathan Martin: Hillary & Bill Clinton go to Tom Harkin's steak fry. CW: Like déjà vu all over again. Pretty depressing. ...
... Roger Simon of Politico: "'Hello, Iowa!' says Hillary Clinton, who has not set foot in Iowa for six years and eight months, and in fact, until quite recently has loathed the place. She cautiously enunciates each word from her prepared text, even the jokes. She is careful, modulated, meticulous. She is Hillary."CW: It seems that Roger saw a different show from the one Amy & Jonathan were watching. The NYT reporters characterize Bill Clinton as dominating the event; Simon sez just the opposite. But then that might be expected, given that ...
NEW. There were more than a hundred reporters, camera-people, a human centipede of boom microphones waiting by a chain link fence, waiting for Hillary Clinton to grill a steak. Yes, Hillary Clinton and dead meat. The conventional wisdom at the moment is that the Democratic presidential field for 2016 is pretty much the same thing. -- Charles Pierce (Read the whole post.)
... Benjamin Bell of ABC News: "Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be headlining Sen. Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry today, but the longtime progressive senator indicated that shouldn't be taken as an endorsement should she decide to run for president in 2016. Harkin, who is retiring after 30 years in the Senate and was hosting his last annual Steak Fry today, said progressives should raise questions about Clinton's foreign policy and economic positions."
Arit John of the Atlantic: "During a talk with the New Hampshire chapter of Generation Opportunity (a millennial-focused group best known for using a creepy Uncle Sam mascot to convince people not to enroll in Obamacare) a young man asked [Sen. Rand] Paul if he would repeal any executive orders. 'I think the first executive order that I would issue would be to repeal all previous executive orders,' Paul said, according to Breitbart.... [This left] "the impression that ... Paul ... would want to repeal all executive orders as president, probably because he said that he would repeal all executive orders if he was president. But as a Paul aide told The Huffington Post, the senator didn't mean to be taken at his word." ...
... Steve Benen: "By one account, Paul's vow to repeal all previous executive orders was met with 'booming cheers' from his conservative audience." ...
... CW Translation/Explanation of Paul's, Aide's Remarks: Paul was addressing a fringe group in the first state to hold a presidential primary. Naturally, he told the wackos what they wanted to hear. It isn't lying. It's retail politics. ...
... Benen, Ctd.: "It's worth noting that executive orders have been issued to advance some worthy causes over the years. The Emancipation Proclamation, for example, was one of Lincoln's executive orders. Truman ended racial discrimination in the military through an executive order. Ford banned political assassinations through an executive order."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Glenn Greenwald & Ryan Gallagher of the Intercept: "The New Zealand spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), worked in 2012 and 2013 to implement a mass metadata surveillance system even as top government officials publicly insisted no such program was being planned and would not be legally permitted. Documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the government worked in secret to exploit a new internet surveillance law enacted in the wake of revelations of illegal domestic spying to initiate a new metadata collection program that appeared designed to collect information about the communications of New Zealanders. Those actions are in direct conflict with the assurances given to the public by Prime Minister John Key..., who said the law was merely designed to fix 'an ambiguous legal framework.'..." ...
... Edward Snowden, in the Intercept: "... any statement that mass surveillance is not performed in New Zealand, or that the internet communications are not comprehensively intercepted and monitored, or that this is not intentionally and actively abetted by the GCSB, is categorically false." ...
... Philip Dorling of the Sydney Morning Herald: "The latest disclosures from top secret documents leaked by Mr Snowden come in the context of the final stages of New Zealand's election campaign where New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has been under pressure to explain the extent of GCSB's surveillance activities. On Sunday Mr Key stridently attacked US journalist Glen[n] Greenwald." ...
... Adam Bennett of the New Zealand Herald: "Snowden ... appeared by video link before a capacity crowd at the Kim Dotcom organised Moment of Truth event at Auckland Town Hall this evening.... Visiting US journalist Glen[n] Greenwald who has made the same claims and who introduced Snowden to the audience of about 1700.... Snowden began his talk with the claim the NSA had a facility in Auckland and went on to expand on his article in which he said: 'If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched.' ... Information about New Zealand communications was available [to the NSA] simply by clicking on a check box in [NSA] software [called XKEYSTROKE]. This evening to huge cheers he told the audience that if political leaders were 'going to use check boxes against us... election time is when we get to check boxes about them.''' ...
... CW: So now Eddie is explicitly working to bring down the government of a U.S. ally. Okay. ...
... Key & Dotcom have a history.
Nicholas Watt, et al., of the Guardian: The Queen [of England & Scotland! & Other Places] made a rare intervention on the political stage when she expressed the hope that voters will 'think very carefully about the future' before the Scottish independence referendum on Thursday. As [British PM] David Cameron prepares to issue a warning in Scotland that a vote for independence will lead to a permanent split from the UK, campaigners for the union welcomed the Queen's remarks.... The comments by the Queen came as she left Crathie Kirk near her Balmoral estate in Aberdeenshire after the Sunday morning service. The Queen told a well-wisher: 'Well, I hope people will think very carefully about the future.'" ...
... Telegraph: "Most polls show a small lead for No, but opinion has shifted sharply in the past month, and twice in the past fortnight pollsters have put Yes ahead."
Share Article
Reader Comments (10)
Thought today's Paul Krugman op ed dovetailed nicely with yesterday's Thomas Frank piece.
Re: Bin down this road before; Not too many years ago a young Saudi vowed to rid his land; the land of Mecca, of foreigners there for training purposes. What was that fellows name? What ever happened to him? Are we really that stupid? Forgot. Dead. Yes.
Re: Snowden in Auckland
Just another Marie "shoot the messenger" Monday morning. Even if we stipulate that Dotcom, Greenwald and Snowden are a-holes with agendas how does this disprove Snowden's disclosure that New Zealand intelligence and the NSA are secretly collecting massive amounts of metadata on New Zealand citizens? Who can argue with the simple statement that voters can express their approval or disapproval of a government's policies at the ballot box? Perhaps New Zealanders would like to reflect on the revelation that their government is allied with the US in an intelligence war against them.
Re: the Ed Snowden Show (New Zealand Version)
Does this mean New Zealand won't be helping us bomb ISIL? Maybe the PM, John Key, should be checking his Facebook account to see if the Kiwis are breaking up with him.
Or maybe he'll break up with the NSA first.
And when will Vlad break up with Ed? Probably not while Snowden continues to cause fits and snits among Western democracies.
From the Dead Horse Dept. (just can't help myself)
Great cover story the Palins cooked up. From the story Palin is shoveling, it's pretty clear that, regarding the famous question of what she reads, the answer is "nothing" because no one with the most tenuous grasp of narrative could think that this story is a good one.
But it does have all the trappings of wingnut psychology: victimization combined with personal heroism in the face of overwhelming odds and family values, such as they are.
So Track didn't start anything? Well maybe not. But the idea of four guys jumping him and kicking the shit out of him to the point where he had four cracked ribs (something that everyone else at the party apparently missed. Maybe those thugs drug him out back for the beat down) after which he was seen shirtless, stomping down the street flipping people off, is just not believable.
I've had cracked (and broken) ribs. It hurts. A lot. Lots of pain, trouble breathing, and difficulty doing a things like stomping down the street flipping people off.
And "Don't you know who HE is?" doesn't sound remotely like "Don't you know who I am?". And what difference does it make if he's a vet? And why should any of the partiers know that, or care, especially if he was smacking them around.
Bristol is a leftie so there's no way she can throw a punch with her right hand? Ha-ha-ha-ha. That would be big news to anyone who's ever been in a fight. You can only use one hand? Shit, why didn't they tell me that in the eighth grade?
And finally, does Palin's story sound the least bit plausible, especially considering how far off it is from the story told by everyone else?
Thank you again, John McCain. And thank you Sarah for being such a terrible candidate that people who might have voted for Senator BombsAway ran like hell in the opposite direction.
Man, those ISIL commanders, or whoever is in charge of those nutbags, must be having themselves a good ol' laugh today. They kill three people, videotape the murders, post them online, and the leaders of the US and Britain and half a dozen other countries are talking about them as if they're a combination of the SS, the Evil Empire, the Mongol Horde, and an army of Orcs from Mordor.
Are they bad guys? Yes. Evil sons of bitches? Yes.
Should we be crying our eyes out that they're hiding in the cellar with sharpened scimitars, waiting to storm through the house as soon as we're all asleep?
Rhetorical question, that.
The larger point is that we need to come up with better, more efficient, and smarter ways to deal with situations like this. And realize that there may, in fact, not be any completely satisfactory response.
How many innocent people were put to death just this past weekend by crazy assholes all over the planet? A thousand? Two thousand? But the recent ISIL atrocities have two things going for them that those other murders don't: videotape and a connection to radical Islam.
Does this mean that if we don't see something it doesn't matter? Certainly not. But it also doesn't mean that if we see do happen to see something, we should all lose our minds and send in the Marines. We've done that before. Did it work? Not really. Not unless we plan to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq in perpetuity, a plan that would suit John McCain and Linsdey Graham to a T. But pretty soon, we run out of people, and money.
So why not come up with a better strategy, one that might not be as immediately gratifying as Shock and Awe, one that might take a lot longer to accomplish, but one which may not, in fact, do everything we hope to accomplish? That's just the way the world is. That is realpolitik.
But running around the house with your hair on fire screaming that they're coming to get us is probably not the best basis for foreign adventures.
Perhaps the final word on the Palin melee, the "Mudflats" blog, an Alaska state political blog.
http://www.themudflats.net/archives/44433
James,
Good link. Now, unless a video of the Thriller from Wasilla in action appears, I'm leaving off from Palin commentary. What more could be said that would be more eloquent than the actions of her and her family?
However, I can still be pissed at McCain and the GOP for trying to foist Ms. All World Hillbilly on the country and the world.
Outrage Immunity.
In just a couple of days we've seen right-wing icon Rushbo (where's my oxy?) Limbaugh whining that football won't be football anymore if players can't smack women around now and then without everyone getting all weepy and unmanly (I want to know when domestic abuse and assault became a requirement for "manly" men). Lindsey Graham pees his pants about fantasy Islamic warriors under his bed, screaming that we need a war right away, goddammit! Right-wing judges in WI are colluding with Republicans to deny voters who might support their political opponents the right to vote. GOP "leaders" in congress are working hard to make sure that nothing works. Conservatives are shuttering women's health clinics around the country just in case some dare to offer women choices in how they live their lives.
And that's just a few of the many outrageous things that slither out of Right-Wing World on a daily basis. So it's a little stunning when one can read about something like a policy of forced sterilization for poor women being put forward by one of the leaders of the AZ Republican Party and not want to punch someone in the head.
Seriously, this is bad. It's bad enough, certainly, that former Arizona senate president, and "hero of the GOP" Russell Pearce, is advocating having women who receive any kind of public assistance sterilized and given regular drug tests. As usual, the worst Republican ideas are aimed smack dab at women; no mention of sterilizing men who receive public assistance; just poor women.
Sterilization. Fucking sterilization! So much for individual rights and freedom, eh?
GOP attorney general nominee in Arizona, Mark Brnovich, claimed--after being shamed into it by Democrats--that Pearce's remarks "are unrepresentative of the Republican Party I know."
Oh really, Mark? You must know a different Republican Party than the rest of us, because those remarks emanate from the very heart, shriveled as it is, of the Republican Party; they are absolutely representative of Republican thinking these days.
Not all that long ago, a remark like that, spoken, not by some googley-eyed, woman-hating whacko, but a stalwart of state party politics, would have made front page news across the country. Today, it's just yaaaawwwnnn....more of the same from the wingnuts.
Conservative infamy has immunized us to the (additional) horrors they would spread across this country. And those great ideas just keep on coming. Last week, Charlie Pierce wrote that there may come a time when simply trying to suppress the vote won't be enough, that they'll want to re-institute poll taxes and tests and make land ownership part of the requirements for voters.
Sound crazy? You can bet there are scheming wingers out there at this moment rubbing their hands in glee and chortling about that very thing. And if it ever does happen, Chuck Todd will yawn and claim that, well, there are probably Democrats who want to do that too.
Outrage immunity.
P.S. I need to remind myself that "googley-eyed, woman-hating whacko" actually does describe most Republicans these days.
"So why not come up with a better strategy, one that might not be as immediately gratifying as Shock and Awe, one that might take a lot longer to accomplish, but one which may not, in fact, do everything we hope to accomplish? That's just the way the world is. That is realpolitik." (Akhilleus)
You have expressed my thoughts exactly. BUT––in our nut-filled political atmosphere to ignore these fuckers (ISIS is thrilled with it's power) would be a death knell. It's WAR, baby, and it's gonna get messy.
"Possibly it takes more strength for a president to reject military intervention when the national security establishment lines up behind it than to give the order everyone is expecting." (J. Lelyveld)
I don't give a flying fig about what went down at some party with the Palin people. It's a Jerry Springer moment in Moose country that is just as boring.
Which brings to mind Bill and Hillary in corn country with the scent of sizzling steaks permeating the atmosphere. I watched a tad of this scenario last night before I got lost in Ken Burns' saga of the Roosevelts. Typical Bill chewing off the ears of anyone who he could corral and Hillary walking around smiling and saying nice things to people who seemed to pant at her presence. I distain all these political panderings, but acknowledge their necessity.
@DAVID: "Just another Marie "shoot the messenger" Monday morning." OUCH! Really?