Hillary Clinton said that Barack Obama was naive on foreign policy. And obviously out to prove her point for her, he suggests that we might unilaterally invade Pakistan.
Pakistan is an ally. Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
That's the end of Obama's rookie campaign. Sure, there will be backpedalling big time, but not fast enough. He's done.
ETC: Pale Ride says rightly in the comments, "Don't forget Edwards was talkin' tough about Saudia Arabia last week. So let's see, some Democrats want to piss off the few islamic allies we have, yet open dialog with those who hate us (Iran, North Korea, etc). To quote the wise and all knowing Wile E. Coyote, 'I'm such a genius!'"
"I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "-involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."
His remarks show that he hasn't really considered the idea that as president he'll have at his disposal the use of nuclear weapons. For all his yik-yak about Bush and the war, you'd think that he's had plenty of time to consider his position on this. It's kind of important.
This guy is such a wet-behind-the-ears rookie. I don't think Hillary needs to do much more campaigning. She'll be the one left standing at this rate for the Democrats.
My thoughts about the use of nuclear weapons: of course there are circumstances that warrant the use of a nuclear weapon - even in the case of civilians. I'll give one:
AQ unleashes a lethal biological weapon that poisons a town with a highly contagious pathogen. The choice is either to nuke the place or to allow it to spread planet-wide.
There are probably others. Fortunately, the state of our technology allows us to avoid the use of such massive weaponry. We have precision missiles that can hit just about anything squarely, so why go deer hunting with a canon when we can use a rifle?
No one who aims to be president should take our assets off the table - in any circumstance.
I voted for President Bush twice. At the moment, I regret that second vote. It's not that I think Kerry should have won. It's that I think Bush has become the most hollowed out version of a president I can imagine. He has completely abandoned nearly every one of the reasons I voted for him. I voted for him chiefly because I expected him to fight hard for the ownership society, which I saw - and still see - as a means of protecting my children from the burden of carrying an endlessly aging and 76 million strong baby boomer population. It was a campaign slogan. And while Bush can say that he did that because there was too much opposition, how would he justify that with the enormous opposition in America to the amnesty bill he's pushing to get to his desk for an overeager signature?
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans show themselves worthy. Earmark/pork spending, the forementioned amnesty bill, the sloshing around with the money to help our troops who are in the field of battle... I'm disgusted.
At this moment, I will vote neither Democrat nor Republican in the next election. I'm adrift, waiting for the creation (or restoration) of some group of politicians who would believe and vigorously pursue the following:
Small government
Strong military
Strong, enforced, and legal immigration
America first foreign policy (let the other nations push their own agendas...)
No limits whatsoever on free speech - political or otherwise
I don't believe that the Democrats or the Republicans embody that agenda. In fact, I'll score each party on each:
Small government: neither party
Strong military: Republicans, but absolutely not the Democrats
Strong, enforced, and legal immigration: neither party
America first foreign policy (let the other nations push their own agendas...): neither party
Ownership society: neither party
Completely transparent earmark policies: neither party
Low taxes, which spurs economic activity: Republicans, but absolutely not the Democrats
No limits whatsoever on free speech - political or otherwise: neither party
Hence, my "none of the above" vote.
For what it's worth, there are exceptions in each party. Obama is very transparent when it comes ot earmarks. Mitt Romney and Fred Thomson rightly call the amnesty bill what it is: amnesty. But as parties, collectively, I'm repulsed.
If our military were failing miserably, that's one thing. But when there's progress, what the hell is the top senator in Congress doing making statements like that, other than coddling his base? It can only hurt our guys and strengthen the enemy. Calling Reid's remarks "outrageous" and "regrettable" is euphemistic; his comments are traitorously opportunistic. On the backs of our troops, such malice is horrific and worthy of disdain by every Amercian.
Dennis Miller had a few words for ol' Chicken Little. Hear, hear.
I hope like hell that Bush isn't going to screw this up...
Catching up with the world of bloggers, I read on Glenn Reynolds' site that Islam may end up becoming the constitutional state religion of Iraq. Are the diplomats working that table fuckin' nuts? A lot of blood has been spilled in trying to bring democracy and freedom to the Iraqis and we might give it all away in this huge and unforgivable concession.
This is akin to George I walking away in 1991. This is all about finishing the job.
Call the state department. 202-647-4000. Tell 'em not no but hell no.
While the left may be getting energized by Cindy's way, I don't think they saw this coming. More of it is probably on the way. The war is polarizing, and in ways unexpected.
My own two cents: I have no problem with Cindy's protest. She's pissed, she's making it known in a very demonstrable manner, and in this free country, she can protest the president near where he lives. I think hers is a very great example of why this is a great country rather than a tyranny.
I certainly don't agree with her protest. Her son volunteered and he was an adult. That's what happens in the Army - people will die. It's the nature of the job.
She has every right to be upset and speak her mind. I support that right. Likewise, I also support those who disagree with her and call her on her stances. What a country.
Found this at The Corner via Instapundit, which is Aussie Prime Minister John Howard's response to a question from a reporter, who asked if Tony Blair felt that his decision to be part of the Iraq operation was to blame for the recent London bombings - i.e., are y'all bringing this on yourselves?
PRIME MIN. HOWARD: Could I start by saying the prime minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it. My first reaction was to get some more information. And I really don't want to add to what the prime minister has said. It's a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here.
Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.
Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.
And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.
Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?
When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?
When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.
Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.
PRIME MIN. BLAIR: And I agree 100 percent with that. (Laughter.)
It's idiocy to even ask the question in the first place because it's woefully ignorant of the facts, but at least PM Howard was in an educational mood. I hope reporter Paul was listening.
I came home from work today to take a break. I started messing with my watercolors and decided to multi-task a bit. If you've read this site lately, you know that I'm discontent with the amount of bad news that is always reported. How about some good news?
Last fall, in studying how the press reported on Kerry and on Bush, I did what I felt was as unbiased a study as I could possibly do. I built me a little engine that can harness the 500 most recent stories on Google News that mentioned Bush and Kerry in the same story. By doing such a thing, you see the same story several times because the AP or UPI feed is repeated by different news outlets. Therefore, the more outlets that carried the story, the bigger the footprint and the more well-known the story would be. My engine would show me a headline and the number of outlets that carried it.
What I found was that pro-Kerry/anti-Bush stories reached a much wider audience than pro-Bush/anti-Kerry stories.
I don't say that today to philosophize or sermonize; I say that as a means of background.
So in my effort to find "good news" stories, I remodeled my engine and let it rip. I did a search for the top 500 stories that had the phrase "good news" in them. Of those 500, only 2 stories are getting reported in 5 or more media outlets. (The column on the left is the headline and the column on the right is the number of outlets that carried that headline.)
Only two - and they're both sports stories. The rest of the 486 results for "good news" are more or less isolated and not widely covered. No truly big footprint for good news stories.
On a whim, I decided to see how "bad news" would fare...
Much better. Bigger footprint. Obviously, bad news is more popular. (I also find it funny that Ernie Whitt's appointment by Baseball Canada shows up in both good news and bad.)
But I am determined. I'll tweak this little project when I'm done with the project at work.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Via RedState, the campaign finance reformers have said this in their brief to the FEC regarding the regulation of blogs:
Finally, we do not believe anyone described as a "blogger" is by definition entitled to the benefit of the press exemption. An individual writing material for distribution on the Internet may or may not be a press entity. While some bloggers may provide a function very similar to more classic media activities, and thus could reasonably be said to fall within the exemption, others surely do not . The test here should be the same test that the Commission has applied in other contexts - is the entity a "press entity" and is it acting in its "legitimate press function"?
I'm no lawyer, but I can sure as hell read. The first amendment is quite clear that Congress cannot make a law that curtails what I say or what I print. The "press" is not an entity, but a facility. To suggest that the "press" is an entity would require some agency to give an official blessing and decree writing as protected.
Where do we live, China?? What "American" actually wrote that authoritarian paragraph for the reformers?"
Read that amendment again. It limits government, not the people. Wow... I'll go to the mat on this one.
I recently made mention of the capture of an Al Qaeda guy named Al-Libbi (also called Abu Farraj or Abu Faraj), and I was confused as to why we would announce that we got hold of his laptop, which seemed to contain a lot of information about contacts within Al Qaeda. Seems to me that information like that you would want to keep close to the vest while you searched out that contact information so that you could bring in as many people as you could before they knew that you knew how to find them. Make sense?
After a couple of comments from people, I decided to dig into the story a little more - to the extent that I can from the news sources available to me. Google News is a good way to generally get a feel for what's being reported on a given story, and so I got a wrap-up from it.
From reading the stories, here's what I've gleaned:
It appears that the US government touted the claim about capturing the laptop with its contact information; it doesn't appear to be a media leak. I couldn't find any instance of a government official decrying the press' announcement of the fact of the laptop. Someone vetted the information and decided that it could be used for marketing, and therefore it was reported.
It seems that the information has helped to gather up 24 more Al Qaeda members/sympathizers.
There's some speculation about Al Libbi's role and whether he was the Number 3 guy in Al Qaeda. Might be me, but in a decentralized organization like Al Qaeda, there is no real vertical chain of command, so declaring anyone as "the Number 3 guy" is dumb. There are lots of "Number 3 guys" in the Al Qaeda org chart, I'm sure.
Some left-leaning publications are taking this speculation to be a case of mistaken identity. That's a misleading headline.
So my take on it all is this...
The Bush administration/Pentagon/Homeland Security/FBI/CIA folks have taken such a bunch of abuse in the press about efforts in addressing homeland security and achieving success in Iraq that they move too quickly to find good PR and therefore make mistakes like this.
News cycles are fast. Too fast. I understand that White House and crew want to get ahead of a story quickly, but they can't afford too many gaffes, and the Bush White House has never been very good with marketing. When Time has a story like this:
It makes it more important to remain as accurate as possible.
Bush was right when he said (and unfortunately later recanted) that the war on terror can't be won. Of course it can't - that's like trying to defeat crime. There will always be crime, and sadly, there will be always be nutjobs who want to erase Americans or Isaelis or whomever from the face of the earth. But to the degree that we Americans can best gauge success - an attack on US soil - there hasn't been one in nearly 4 years. Success? Yes.
I think it mischaracterizes what's happening in Iraq to call it any of the labels given to it by those opposed to it. The majority of Iraqis remain thankful that Saddam is gone, thankful that they will rule themselves and enjoy more freedom, and thankful that with each day, life improves for them. Success? Yes.
But all the success in the world won't make up for dumb marketing.
If you watched the president's news conference the other night, there's no way that anyone can construe that the press is unbaised. A hard question is one thing (Tim Russert is very good at this), but sermons in the form of "questions" are something else entirely. And if the press isn't friendly, good marketing is all the more important, but I'm not holding my breath for this administration to fix that problem in the next 3 years.
