Nope, I ain’t gonna vote for Hillary in the primaries
This pretty much seals the deal (via Big Matty Y):
Above: Hillary and Michael O’Hanlon.Facing the prospect of defeat in tomorrow’s primary, Hillary Clinton just made her strongest suggestion yet that the next president may face a terrorist attack – and that she would be the best person to handle it.
She pointed out that the day after Gordon Brown took office as the British prime minister, there was a failed attempt at a double bombing in London and Glasgow.
“I don’t think it was by accident that Al Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister,” she said. “They watch our elections as closely as we do, maybe more closely than some of our fellows citizens do.”
Ye gods, I’m sick of this shit.
The standard bed-wetting GOP line against Democrats since 9/11 has been, “ZOMG YOU CAN’T VOTE FOR THEM THE TERR’ISTS’LL THINK YER WEAK AND THEN THEY’LL KIIIIIIILL YOOOOOOU!!!!” In reality, the terrorists could give two shits who we vote for, and if they did have a preference, they’d probably prefer that we keep electing incompetent Bushian ideologues who give them far better recruiting fodder than, say, John Kerry ever could have.
Now Hillary, look: I have nothing against you, but I really want you to lose. And it’s not just you; it’s the entire cadre of Villager foreign policy “experts” that you’ve got swimming around you as well. Check out Ari Berman’s excellent piece on the Clinton foreign policy team:
As [former UN ambassador Richard] Holbrooke found his footing on Iraq, however, he remained one of the leading hawks in Hillaryland on Iran. In 2004 he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “The Iranians are an enormous threat to the United States, the stability in the region, and to the state of Israel” and claimed the European Union would “never get their act together.” Holbrooke has twice spoken at rallies against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York, comparing him to Hitler. At a November 27 speech in Toronto, Holbrooke listed the reasons the Bush Administration would not attack Iran but called the country “the most pressing problem nation” and “the most dangerous country in the region,” accusing the Iranians of exporting explosives “that are killing Americans in Iraq.”
Little Holbrooke said about Iran could have prepared one for the latest National Intelligence Estimate, which found that the country had abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 as a result of diplomatic pressure.
None of this is to say that Obama and Edwards are exactly angels in this category; as Berman’s piece goes on to show, they clearly aren’t. But Hillary is the official candidate of the liberal hawk foreign policy community, and I’d personally like to see them marginalized as much as possible in any new Democratic administration.
Need further proof that Obama would at least be marginally better than Hillary? Then check out perpetual loser Michael O’Hanlon dissing Obama in today’s Wall Street Journal:
One of Sen. Barack Obama’s many strengths is his ability to inspire beyond party lines. Because he lacks the baggage of the past, and because his melodic message of hope speaks to many, he garnered much more support from independents in Iowa than either Hillary Clinton or John Edwards.
But if he truly wants to be the candidate of inclusiveness, Mr. Obama has some work to do. This is particularly evident on the central national security challenge of the day, the Iraq war. Mr. Obama’s problem is not his initial opposition to the war. At this point, that stance strikes many voters as prescient. Even for those of us who believe the main problem in Iraq was shoddy planning by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, Mr. Obama’s position is hard to dismiss.
But there are nonetheless two problems with Mr. Obama’s Iraq views that call into doubt his ability to build a truly inclusive American political movement. First, he seems contemptuous of the motivations of those who supported the war.
As well he should be. The people responsible for pushing our country into its largest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam are well deserving of contempt. If anything, I wish Barrack would show more public contempt for these clowns. If he were to, say, propose locking Ken Pollack up in stocks and providing his fellow citizens with an unlimited supply of vegetables, I bet he’d win in a damn landslide.
While showing proper respect for the heroic efforts of our troops, he displays little regard for the views of those many Americans who saw the case for war in the first place — even as he has called for a more civil and respectful political debate.
This is unfortunate. Saddam Hussein was one of the worst and most dangerous dictators of the late 20th century.
Who was actually less brutal than Kim Jon-Il or the Saudi government, and who posed no security threat to the United States.
The basic proposition of unseating him was hardly an unconscionable idea, even if President Bush’s approach to doing so was unilateralist, arrogant and careless.
Nope, you’re wrong. As bad as Saddam was, Iraq isn’t our country to toy around with. It’s the Iraqis’ country. A lot of countries have a lot of crappy rulers out there. It isn’t Daddy ‘Murka’s job to unseat them all and replace them with leaders who do our bidding.
He had used chemical weapons against his own defenseless people, as well as the armies of Iran; he violated 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions that demanded his verifiable disarmament; he had the blood of perhaps one million people on his hands; he transformed his country into what Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya famously called the “republic of fear.”
1.) Saddam was at his very worst in the 1980s, when the United States was giving him aid and support against the Iranians.
2.) The only way I can see justifying non-defensive military action is against a regime that is committing out-and-out genocide, or a regime that is aggressively invading other countries.
3.) Saddam was an evil shit. There are lots of those in the world. Unless Mr. O’Hanlon can with a straight face say it’s the United States’ job to invade every country with a crappy government, then his “case” for the Iraq war falls apart.
Saddam’s worst may have been behind him by 2003 — but he was grooming his sadistic sons Uday and Qusay as successors with unknowable consequences. His WMD programs were in limbo, we now know. But before the war even German intelligence thought him only half a dozen years from a nuclear weapon.
And meanwhile, North Korea has been actively testing nukes for years. Does O’Hanlon propose invading them as well?
Yet Mr. Obama consistently accuses those who supported the war of political motivations — and unsavory ones at that. On Dec. 27, for example, Mr. Obama said in Des Moines, Iowa, “You can’t fall in line behind the conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and then offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America.”
That echoed earlier comments, such as his Oct. 15 speech in Madison, Wis., in which, discussing Iraq, he criticized his opponents for succumbing to “triangulation and poll-driven politics.” Within the Democratic Party, this message seems to work fairly well. But as a way to build national consensus — or as proof of a new, more sincere and fair-minded brand of politics — it falls short.
Sigh. Here’s a poll for you, buddy, taken just last month:
People hate the Iraq war. They correctly see it as a tragically stupid waste of lives and resources. They don’t think it’s making the country safer from terrorist attacks and they understand that there was no reasonable justification for invading Iraq. I don’t give the American people credit for much, but they have finally come around to the impressively sane notion that the Iraq war was a really shitty idea.
Again, it’s people of O’Hanlon’s ilk that have me really freaked out about a Hillary presidency. Could anyone explain to me why HRC wouldn’t appoint more of these dangerous Quiet Americans to key foreign policy cabinet posts?
Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton. What’s the difference?
Fuck the Hawks!!!
I don’t think Hillary is anything close to Cheney, to be fair. But I don’t like the company she keeps. I don’t like it at all.
Now Hillary, look: I have nothing against you
Whyever not?
My problem with Hillary is she seems like she has to prove she has bigger balls than anyone else in the race. That’s a fine attitude for, say, a volleyball game. Not so good in statecraft.
I think it’s time we all pledge to vote for any candidate that promises to abstain from courting the pantsshitter vote.
Christ, could you imagine if they pulled this stuff on FDR? “After a failed attempt at terrorism right here on our own shores by German agents, Roosevelt refused to put every German-American citizen into camps. He also refused to bomb Norway in retaliation. Clearly, if we re-elect FDR, the Nazi terrorists will be emboldened to strike again within our borders.”
I disagree.
If Barack Obama’s voting record is any indication, he would have voted in lockstep with Hillary and John on the bill to allow Bush to go to war.
Obama is a phony. Period.
On “republic of fear”, via google, an imprecise but interesting tool
about 344,000 for saddam republic of fear
about 536,000 for bush republic of fear
about 920,000 for saddam kingdom of fear
about 1,880,000 for bush kingdom of fear
(adding or substituting hussein reduces the number of hits, fyi)
about 152,000 for saddam republic of fear -bush
about 491,000 for bush republic of fear -saddam
about 18,000 for saddam kingdom of fear -bush
about 212,000 for bush kingdom of fear -saddam
“If Barack Obama’s voting record is any indication, he would have voted in lockstep with Hillary and John on the bill to allow Bush to go to war.”
Bullshit.
Obama spoke unequivocally against attacking Iraq – gave multiple speeches to crowds at anti-war rallies at a time when Americans were in favor of the war, he was gearing up to run for US Senate and avoiding the topic altogether would have been easy.
According to super-expert on experts ABC’s Charlie Gibson in the weekend debate, there’s like a 30% chance that an American city will be destroyed by a terrorist nuke attack, so AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
Obama is a phony. Period.
I’m not sure that I’d go that far, but this is what has always troubled me about Obama; he seems slick, like a used car salesman. I went to see him speak a couple of times, and it just jumped out at me.
He had a marvellous organization here in Iowa. His staffers were personable, smart, and energized. He had by far and away the best campaign headquarters, nestled in the heart of the trendy East Village, right at the foot of the golden domed Statehouse. He’s a genius at positioning. I wanted to like him. I went to hear him speak because I was really interested in hearing what he had to say, and what I heard was this false, tinny note.
His policy positions were way to the right of where I thought they ought to be on health care. He wouldn’t commit to reducing the nation’s stockpile of nukes. But people don’t seem to be listening to these discordant notes, they just hear the rhetoric.
Clearly I held the minority opinion. I just see Edwards, who takes no PAC money, who seems to actually care about lifting people out of poverty, as much more believable. Oh, well, I do believe that Obama is miles better than Hillary and light years ahead of any Republican. And watching the Republicans heads swelling and anticipating the glorious explosions if Obama is elected is positively delish.
I give him credit for speaking up in ’02. But since being elected and actually acquiring power to do, you know, things, what has Obama done to slow it down?
I can either be very positive about Obama & Edwards (and even glumly accepting of Clinton over ANY Republican), or I can be extremely skeptical about the claims, accomplishments, and history of any one of them.
Sorry, but as much as I do like Obama and Edwards, there is still a whole hell of a lot of tea leaf reading, as they are both either changing from previous records or extrapolating grandly from rather minor ones.
Nature of politics. Whatchagonnado.
She’s never been on my front burner. Edwards has the domestic pulse for me. Barack’s cool but I’m not all a-twitter about him.
“he displays little regard for the views of those many Americans who saw the case for war in the first place”
Yes, yes he does.
So dry your eyes, Michael, then go stick your fucking preventative war up your ass.
In reality, the terrorists could give two shits who we vote for, and if they did have a preference, they’d probably prefer that we keep electing incompetent Bushian ideologues who give them far better recruiting fodder than, say, John Kerry ever could have.
Let me fix this:
In reality, the terrorists have a preference, they’d probably prefer that we keep electing incompetent Bushian ideologues who give them far better recruiting fodder than, say, John Kerry ever could have.
There. Fixed.
Some have suggested part of the reason why we have not been attacked since 9/11 is because Bush & CO, following a perfunctory “deposing” of the Taliban (during which key Al Qaeda types “unfortunately” escaped), we’ve essentially implimented key parts of OBL’s agenda (uniting the Moslem world against us, deposing a secular Arab leader, …). As has been pointed out, our “airport security theatre” creates many opportunities for terrorist attacks (attack a line waiting to go through airport security … and then once there is a line to get into the line to prevent such attacks, attack that line) that are much cheaper and require even less organization than 9/11 did (and could be done by Al Qaeda “on the run” even).
That we were not attacked is because there was no “need” to attack us. OTOH, if power changes, there will be a need to attack us. If we do elect a decent Dem in 2008, we will likely get attacked. It is something for which we should be prepared. Because “they” want to see if we’ll still respond the way Bush & CO did.
Of course, any attacks will produce pressure to respond “with resolve”, which will keep us safe. But the “resolve” keeps us safe not because it’s opposing the terrorist agenda, but because it’s caving into it.
Um, can I ask a question here?
Thanks. It’s just that it keeps coming up in one pandering politician’s speech after another, and it’s really confusing me.
Why are our soldiers always “heroic” and THEIR soldiers are always “terrorists”? I mean, they’re pretty much both doing exactly the same thing, aren’t they?
The reason I ask is pretty much this:
Imagine two soldiers. One is sitting in a defensive position behind concertina, tanglefoot and claymores. He has machine gun positions with plenty of ammo on both sides. A mortar section behind him. Firebase artillery zeroed in, and air support just a radio call away.
The other soldier has a rifle and a satchel charge. His job is to get through the wire and the claymores and the trip flares and the outgoing fire and the mortar and artillery bombardment and the napalm that’s surely on its way at supersonic speed, all just to get the opportunity to engage that first soldier and TRY to take his defensive position.
Now, if you don’t know who’s who?
Which one’s the more heroic?
mikey
Not only the foreign policy people,. Let’s not forget Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson, and Terry MacAuliffe.
Those are three people I could do without.
mikey, I believe that the day any major presidential candidate can manage to even come close to really making such a point, we will already be a very different country.
I always try to remind myself that in the end that in our elections we are not voting our consciences — mine will be with me no matter if and for whom I vote — but simply as a rational choice in the universe to which I was placed and which I did not design.
I much prefer Edwards, am fine with Obama, and am personally very very heartened to see Hillary get 3rd in Iowa.
If Bill were running, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat; ditto for Al Gore. But she can’t be out of the running soon enough, for me. She blew it with that Iraq authorization vote, sealed it with that crap Iranian-army = terrorists vote, and she’s been piling more crap on ever since.
but once the general election comes…
you will vote for whomever the democrats nominate, because to not do so would make you a total douchebag.
while this sucks, HERE, on THIS earth, this is your (and by extension the world’s) only hope. they all suck in different and unique ways but any one of the dems may actually do something useful to help the world. not a single republican will do anything except “feather their nest and fuck the rest yes yes feather the nest and fuck the rest”.
so you will vote for hillary like she’s the fucking brussels sprouts you never wanted but have to eat anyway.
Let’s for the sake of argument say that the new President did have to face another terrorist attack. Would he/she handle it as intelligently as Brown did in Britain? I think not. I base this conclusion on previous actions by the United States of America.
Strunk told White to omit needless words:
largest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam
Fixed your run-on sentence. You’re welcome. (Viet Nam did not sit atop much of the world’s proven oil supply.)
(The words “since Vietnam” appeared in strikethrough characters in my preview. Honest.)
“so you will vote for hillary like she’s the fucking brussels sprouts you never wanted but have to eat anyway.”
True enough but it’s looking like it might not come to that. If it does, I’ll need the whole jar of Bob’s Big Boy 1000 Island dressing to get that sprout down.
Which one’s the more heroic? – mikey
This is actually the root of a major problem we (and even more so Israel) have in projecting strength in the Arab world.
What we think is a show of strength is often taken to be a show of cowardice, because we are hiding behind all sorts of defenses and superior technology when we attack. Not that I would want anything different if I were a soldier (you don’t see me lining up for a kamakaze mission) … but we gotta realize that other people have perfectly good reasons not to view us as heroically brave but rather to view us as cowards.
– A Self-Admitted Coward
People like them are the only reason I’m pretty anti-Hillary (vs. the other Dems only- vs. the Republicans I’m wildly pro-her). I assume that a lot of what she says is bullshit, and I’m fine with that. She would still be a way better President than anyone else who’s been elected during my lifetime at least.
At this point in time, should the Democrats choose to nominate the rotting corpse of James K. Polk, I would stump for him like my life depended on it. I would have “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight” henna tattooed on my stomach and walk around in belly shirts. I would change my middle name to “Young Hickory”. I would wander across the Mexican border and try to get myself shot at by the Mexican military, so I could come home and complain about it in the press.
And I don’t even really like the Democratic party anymore. But that’s not the point. The Dems are the only thing standing in between us and another Republican presidency, and I have serious doubts as to whether this country can survive another Republican presidency at this point.
“he displays little regard for the views of those many Americans who saw the case for war in the first place — even as he has called for a more civil and respectful political debate.”
I like how those two ideas are presented as if in opposition. How does pretending to respect deluded clowns who were absolutely, totally, obviously wrong — and recognized as such, at the time — lead to more civil, respectful discourse?
Candy, you’ve articulated my position perfectly. Obama is by all measures the Pixie-Dust Candidate of Choice, who by his very election will make us all kinder, gentler, more perceptive, more open to the wisdom of the universe, less liable to sing off-key, and perhaps even more inclined to floss every night. On the other hand, it would be nice if I could believe he also had enough grit in his makeup to resist the cries of the Repub minority and the Media Villagers for “balance”, which always result in the Reichtards getting 75% of what they want and us Progressives getting maybe 5%, because, gee, those guys just WANT the least of their demands more than we want the greatest of our… requests.
Obama is very, very nice man; Edwards is a very, very successful trial lawyer. Like you, I’ll vote for whoever ends up at the head of the Democratic ticket. But unless Obama comes out of the Crystal Bunny Grotto between now and November, it’ll make me a lot happier if I’m voting for Edwards.
The truth is, that the democrats are unpatriotic cowards who would surrendrer to the islamoo-fascists in a heartbeat! The only candidate we can rely on to destroy islamic-terror and defend America and American Values is Fred Thompson. By the way I’m glad you moonbats have finally seen the light about Hitlery Satan, maybe we can have a one time only right-left alliance to defeat that whore’s candidacy.
“and perhaps even more inclined to floss every night.”
Don’t get crazy on me…..
Pie, good fellow Sadlynauts: When confronted with gibbering trolls, remember that Pie is your Friend.
“And meanwhile, North Korea has been actively testing nukes for years. Does O’Hanlon propose invading them as well?”
No, no, no. A country with actual weapons of mass destruction can actually pose a threat to us, and thus the Cheney/Bush/O’Hanlon Tough Guy Axis will leave a trail of diseased feces a yard wide and a mile long as they flee from the very idea of confronting such a regime. (If the country contains oil, Cheney will cut them a deal for more weapons, in exchange for the regime providing slave-labor for pipeline construction. He will strongly stipulate they only use such weapons on “blue” states, however. He does have a patriotic streak, after all — it’s just that his yellow one obscures it.)
Vote for BARACK OBLIQUE and the SMOOTH TALK EXPRESS!!
…because after years of a fake cowboy, now is the time for a fake preacher.
Anyway, he said he would be a uniter, not a divider. And I believe.
How does pretending to respect deluded clowns who were absolutely, totally, obviously wrong — and recognized as such, at the time — lead to more civil, respectful discourse?
Right. And some kind of consensus with them? Who wants that? It’s bullshit intended to delude people.
And yet I want my pixie-dust.
“Again, it’s people of O’Hanlon’s ilk that have me really freaked out about a Hillary presidency.”
Yeah, you would think an authoritarian pseudo-liberal would be just their type. But she’s a gurl, and so has COOTIEZ!!1!
Now, if you don’t know who’s who?
Mikey, you are too kind. You know the heavily-armed -and -armored one is part of an illegal occupying force, and the solo infiltrator just wants his country back.
Hillary Clinton is a communist in drag who wants to impose european style socialism on Freedom loving america. She is completely unelectable in the general election, no Americans in the Red States would vote for her under any circumstances, in fact I hope she does win the dem primary it will ensure a Republican victory in the general election.
“Hillary Clinton is a communist in drag who wants to impose european style socialism on Freedom loving america (sic).”
Don’t tease me like that! It is so, so cruel!
Ok, Bastion. Ok, anyway…
I have problems with every candidate running. Hill’s hawkishness, Barack’s chilling with Donnie McClurkin, and I am still smarting over 2X the loser already John Edwards letting Cheney prison rape him in their 2004 VP debate, but…
I am voting for whomever wins the Democratic primary. Did you guys see the clown car on the right park and unload last night? Yeesh!
When O’Hanlon writes, “His WMD programs were in limbo, we now know,” is he aware that even the Catholic Church acknowledges limbo doesn’t exist?
That’s where MIC shills like him belong: a place that doesn’t exist.
Well, considering that O’Hanlon et al set records in bending over backwards for any tangentially fabricated justification for the war, it’s not such a bad term.
Not quite fixed; allow me:
“In reality, we should stop worrying so fucking much about who the terrorists want us to elect as a president and concentrate more on who’d make the better foreign policy decisions with respect to the wellbeing and security of our nation, and the world at large.”
Ah, that’s better.
But I thought they hated us for our freedom, so that was why our Preznit was getting rid of the freedoms, so they didn’t have to hate us so much?
Mikey, you are too kind. You know the heavily-armed -and -armored one is part of an illegal occupying force, and the solo infiltrator just wants his country back.
Well, to be honest he probably didn’t much care about taking his country back a few years ago. But after his brother was killed because he was in a hurry because he had heard a rumor that there MIGHT be a job available if he could just get there in time and he didn’t figure the soldiers on the convoy would actually KILL him for it, he started thinking about it.
And now that his six year old daughter will never walk again because of the stray round she took through her spine when a bunch of cowboys shot up his neighborhood, he just knew he had to do something…
mikey
Saddam: bad guy. The USA had to oust him because the needs of Iraqis are important to America. Democracy had to be introduced there because the desires of Iraqis are important to America. But now, when a recent ABC/BBC poll shows that 98 percent of Sunnis and 84 percent of Shias want the occupation to end, are the needs and desires of Iraqis still important to America?
Yes, it would appear that America is keeping up with civilization’s progress if it were to elect either a non-Caucasian or a female as president, but unless you can elect an executive willing to end the Iraq occupation that appearance must be mere illusion.
Well, the Iraqis were right and worthy of listening to when we decided that we were sure that they wanted us to invade & occupy them.
However, now that some people talk to the Iraqis and they seem not to want the same things that our Commander in Chief wants, we have been able to learn that they are actually wrong about most things, so we cannot waste our valuable time listening so much to people who complain about stuff instead of helping with the Surge which is the best strategy in the history of anybody ever inventing any strategy.
It is not confusing at all.
I think that all the Dem Presidential prospects would, in the case of another attack, (unlike Bush/Cheney) ask for and listen to advice from real military and diplomatic experts, consult with the UN, and take appropriate action. I personally doubt that appropriate action would involve nuclear weapons.
Unless we allow Barack Hussein Al-Majlis Ar-rahim Abu Bakkar Obama to surrender to his Caliphate masters, we still have time for a first strike nuclear attack on the terrorists, which we had better do now since ABC’s Charlie Gibson says there’s like a 30% chance that one of our cities will get nuked under the next President, so we obviously need to make the first move.
Does every one of our trolls have to turn into a Gary Ruppert parody-of-a-parody?
First it was Saul and “The bottom line is”. Now Booger’s had all the life sucked out of him and he’s all “The truth is”.
I’m beginning to think that Kevin may have been our only “real” resident troll (in recent memory) who wasn’t the same guy(s).
Although skeptics still exist, we still have much to leard from Astrophagy.
And as long as we’re on the topic of nuking america’s enemies, let’s all go back and enjoy a classic from Novemember of 2001.
Ah yeah. Back when we KNEW what fear was. And what to fear….
mikey
And meanwhile, North Korea has been actively testing nukes for years.
I wonder what the effect of parachute drops of decent food to North Korea might be.
Sean Hannity chased by Ron Paul supporters! On video! check NewsHounds.
robert green said,
January 8, 2008 at 0:54
but once the general election comes…
you will vote for whomever the democrats nominate, because to not do so would make you a total douchebag.
while this sucks, HERE, on THIS earth, this is your (and by extension the world’s) only hope. they all suck in different and unique ways but any one of the dems may actually do something useful to help the world. not a single republican will do anything except “feather their nest and fuck the rest yes yes feather the nest and fuck the rest”.
so you will vote for hillary like she’s the fucking brussels sprouts you never wanted but have to eat anyway.
You’re preaching to the choir, here. Except for one thing.
Brussels Sprouts are Teh Awesome.
what robert green said at 0:54. That’s the way it works, kids.
Barack’s a closet mohameddan, so they wouldn’t bomb us if he became prez.
Hillary, on the other hand, is a gurl, and doesn’t even wear a hijab, so you can bet they’d bomb the shit out of us.
Also, is Edwards circumcised? It might have bearing on what the terrorists think of him, and I need to know, because I’m only voting on what I think the terrorists want. Or don’t want. Whatever makes us less likely to be bombed. Because I’m proud to be a free american, who’ll do whatever cowardly action it takes to keep Joe Mohammed from bombing my heartland again.
June 27 2007. George Brown takes office as British PM.
June 29 2007. Attempted car-bombing in London.
June 30 2007. Bilal Abdullah and Kafeel Ahmed drive a burning jeep into Glasgow Airport terminal. Suggestions that they were inspired by atrocities in Iraq; by Russian atrocities in Chechnya; by exposure to Al Qaeda propaganda. No evidence of actual contact with Al Qaeda.
Now you have HRC claiming
I realise that the importance of presidential criteria like “having a vague grasp of the facts” has been eroded lately. But surely you can do better than that. I mean, “June 27 – June 30” is different from “the day after”. It’s not rocket science.
As a firm believer in original research, I checked my argument by looking at websites that were rocket science, and there was a lot about aerospike nozzles and Hoffmann orbits, which you don’t have in HRC’s statement. I believe that this strengthens my case.
Brussels Sprouts are Teh Awesome.
Only when battered and deep-fried.
What, you some kinda Pckers Fan? We’re gonna come to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field and mop up with those Cheese-Heads!
GO HAWKS!!!1!
There’s an old European joke: ‘There are two main American political parties. One is the conservative party. The other is the extreme conservative party.’
The Democrats are just not capable of taking the country where I want it to go, and I’ve never really identified with them. And yet I always vote for them. For me, voting has almost never been about achieving something, but rather about preventing something – namely, preventing gains by the right. It sucks, but such is life.
A Hitlery Satan, B. Hussien Obama or John “faggot” Edwards Presidency would spell the END FOR AMERICA AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT!!!!! Enter the one world socialist government based in Brussels and advocated by European and American liberal elites! This is why we Patriotic Americans must stay united to defeat this menace that seeks to impose its secular leftwing multi-cultural world view on an unwilling American populance. Unity through Strength, Strength through Faith!
I just hope that when the primaries are over, we aren’t faced with a South Park election – you know, between a giant douche and a shit sandwich.
Which I fear is what we’d have with a Hillary nomination (any of the Republicans will fill the bill for the other side of the equation, and you can argue in a Hillary vs. whichever Republican which one would be the giant douche and which the shit sandwich, but I digress). My problem with Hillary boils down to one simple thing: I’m not aware of any principle she has or has ever had that was not negotiable, and given that, I’m not sure what real improvements we could expect in the country if she were to win. To the best of my knowledge, she’s never met a DLC ideal that she didn’t embrace. And at the point we’re at right now, DLCism simply equals a slower death than Republicanism. I’m not a Hillary-hater; I’m just someone who has looked at what she’s said and what she’s done and found it far lacking. I would vote for her if it came right down to it, but not happily.
As for Obama, I’ve never been one for personality cults, which is what I see developing around him. He might be a good president, now or someday in the future. But I’m not sold because the charisma doesn’t blind me to the lack of, for example, a sensible health care plan. And if he isn’t really addressing that, he’s failing to grasp the horrific situation the country is falling into economically.
Funny that someone upthread was talking about Obama as being phony, because that’s the way Edwards has always come off to me…but I figured out back in 2004 that it’s not a phony that goes to the bone, but rather the polished persona he puts out front that I find off-putting. Someone somewhere down the line has coached him in a presentation style that for me looks too practiced. Or maybe this is the result of his days as a trial lawyer. Even though I find this persona a bit off-putting, I do think that underneath it he is sincere and does see the growing inequality in the country as perhaps our biggest problem. So I don’t have any choice but to get behind him, and don’t feel reluctant about it at all.
So, go John!
Mr. Obama’s problem is not his initial opposition to the war. At this point, that stance strikes many voters as prescient.
Prescient? Oh, right. It’s like how no one could have foreseen that the levees wouldn’t hold. Christ, I’m sick of this talking point. Using O’Hanlon’s yardstick (ew), everyone I know — literally, every single person I spend any time at all talking to — is either a genius or clairvoyant, or likely both.
He wouldn’t commit to reducing the nation’s stockpile of nukes. But people don’t seem to be listening to these discordant notes, they just hear the rhetoric.
He does commit to bilateral reduction.
There is a difference between Hillary and most RePukes. She’s not in favor of public torture & executions of teh Gays (Larry Craig & Cheney’s daughter types excepted– IOKIYAR or well-connected).
Otherwise we get pretty much the same garbage: endless wars for oil & AIPAC in the Mideast, tax cuts for the richest 2%, Amer. jobs outsourced to please the hungry God of Globalization, spying on Americans without warrants, etc . . .
The most obvious and important difference is that even she is far less likely to pack the Supreme Court with Scalia clones that’ll push the Court into ultra-wacko-land. That sort of shit could lock out almost any real chance of major progressive change for decades. Me no like that prospect.
Using O’Hanlon’s yardstick (ew), everyone I know — literally, every single person I spend any time at all talking to — is either a genius or clairvoyant, or likely both.
I’m kind of okay with being regarded as a clairvoyant genius, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s more like being Cassandra getting everything right but having no one listen, than being Edgar Cayce, who was completely stupid but got a shitload of cash from it.
The most obvious and important difference is that even she is far less likely to pack the Supreme Court with Scalia clones
Stevens is gonna be 88 next year. He’d LOVE to step down if he thought he’d be replaced by an honest justice.
So check me out, and behold my greatness. After the election, Stevens will announce his retirement. If Hillary is the president, she nominates Obama. If Obama is the President, he nominates Hillary.
See how this works?
mikey
than being Edgar Cayce, who was completely stupid but got a shitload of cash from it.
And whose job, by the way, was to take NAPS!
I WANT that fucking job….
mikey
What makes trolls think that calling people “whore” and “faggot” is going to convince anybody they’re right? It only convinces me that the troll is still in kindergarten and just learned that bad words provoke the grownups.
Tehanu- that’s just a sign that kevin/saul/bastion booger isn’t getting the response he wants any more from posts under that name, and a new name will soon pop up.
Whatever the guy’s problem is, he isn’t worth the time of day.
Hysterical much?
She never said she’d stop the attack, or that obama would be more likely targeted, or whatever else you inserted in there. She said there would likely be an attack, and she would be better prepared for it. that isn’t exactly a major leap of logic – she is more likely to have an experienced team in place sooner than the other two candidates without any executive experience.
That may not be a reason to vote for her, but that is a far, far cry from what you accuse here of.
And guilt by association? When there isn’t much of an association to begin with? Sad, no? I wouldn’t let O’hanlon influence my decision at all. Why do you care what a plainly deranged person thinks of our candidates?
Hey, I wonder who we can get pictures of Obama or Edwards near!
El Cid: “According to super-expert on experts ABC’s Charlie Gibson in the weekend debate, there’s like a 30% chance that an American city will be destroyed by a terrorist nuke attack…”
Pathetic beat up, isn’t it? More chance of being run over by a car.
Even if there was a 30% risk of a nuke, it would be no reason for war or wiretapping Americans without warrants.
It would be a reason for better policing, better tracking of nukes, building better international relations, bringing the troops home, etc.
“Hillary voted for it.”–>endlessly repeated Gopper war cry.
And no, if its Hillary I won’t be voting for her.
I think reading comments is more fun then the actual articles here. Not to say articles are bad, it is just that the one writer can’t possibly think of everything that is fun, and comments add a lot to subject.
So, to add my share, I have few questions:
This ABC’s Charlie Gibson person I have no clue about (being foreigner) and the 30% nuke propability. Is there a time limit this event? Like 30% a city will be nuked within a year, within a month, etc Or is this just open ended?
If it has decent time limit, I have to wonder if he would be willing bet on it. With thirty percent I think I could give him 4 to 1 odds quite nicely. I’m betting against, and if a nuclear weapon actually is detonated in the US city within one year, he gets 4 times his money back(to make sure I explained it right). Since he suggest the likelyhood of 30% of this happening, it should give him the benefit. Hell, I’m feeling generous, so I could even offer 5 to 1 odds. I’m up for it with a hundred bucks, any takers? Anyone know Charlie Gibsons number?
The other thing I am curious about is to do with colors. Why is it that the neocons who think liberals=communists get their support from RED states? It this irony a sort that only outsiders notice?´Or is it the lack of available colours that forced them to go red? They can’t use blue (democrats have that), green doesn’t really work (the whole enviromental hippy thing), yellow has bad associations (yellow=coward, urine), White is out (surrender party), black is out (black republicans? What will they think of next), pink is out (well, Mark Foley & co. might like it, but pink elephants?). Or is the red some sort of fashion statement?
Well, actually, I apparently only heard the more conservative 30% figure. ‘Could be 50-50 odds.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!
Ten years eh?
*Checks recent USD-Euro exchange rates, and how they have developed in past year.*
Nah, I think I can still give 4 to 1 odds. Give me a hundred now, you get four if there is a nuclear attack.within 10 years. Good deal eh? (for clearance, I won’t count mismanagement of US own weapons as attack. Just so you know)
Hey, I can give a 10 to 1 odds that if it does happen, it won’t be near you. Think about it; if you are within the blast area you could score a thousand dollars by betting 100 USD now.
What are you waiting for, the odds are on your side, right?
Anyone know if this Gibson guy is a gambling man?
“Yet Mr. Obama consistently accuses those who supported the war of political motivations — and unsavory ones at that.”
Fuck this guy. Didn’t one of those neocons write–well before the Iraq invasion–that the Republican party does better when there’s a war going on?
I’ve read a lot about this in recent days. The best nuclear experts in the world say there’s a 30 percent chance in the next 10 years.
Some estimates are higher. Graham Allison (ph), at Harvard, says it’s over 50 percent.
I assume Gibson got the 30% from this study by Matthew Bunn (it’s actually 29%, but what the hell). Allison’s 50% comes from his book, Nuclear Terror: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. Note the subtitle.
Gibson asked the sensationalist question. A better one would have been, “What have you done in your public service to prevent nuclear proliferation and what would you do as president?”
Brad, thanks for a great dissection. Did you exceprt the entire article, or does anyone have a link for the whole thing somewhere else online? WSJ subscription and all that…
Yet again, we have a beltway blowhard invoking the “nation” as if it agrees with him. O’Hanlon was wrong and is still wrong, and refuses to admit it. But he’ll keep crying about it. He wants a position of power and privilege without possessing any merit.
Also, thanks to the folks who linked the Allison stuff here in the thread. I was wondering where Gibson got his alarmist BS.
Robert Green, no I fucking won’t be voting for the phony war-mongering Israel-fellating triangulater. my vote has to be fucking earned and I don’t vote for fucking lying me-too warmongers, period.
he seems slick, like a used car salesman
Funny, I feel that way about John Edwards.
What the motherfucking difference would that make, you ignorant douchebag? What kind of fucking question is that, anyway?
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?1?
Oh, and BB can blow me. How’s that for civil discourse?
I assume that Gibson would really have liked each Democratic candidate to have answered that question as such:
“Charlie, that is an excellent question. When under my Presidency an American city is destroyed by a nuclear weapon, as it surely will, at that time we will all have realized what a terrible mistake it ever was to consider voting for a Democrat, as we have never been able to properly defend America.
“Then I would of course ask my Vice President to resign, somehow appoint Rudy Giuliani or another courageous, macho Republican to replace my VP, and then I would resign, making the new America-saving Republican VP the President, and I and all of my Democratic Congressional colleagues would voluntarily march to a public square where we would beg to be burned at the stake for our surrender monkey ways.
“That is what I would do, Charlie.”
And then Charlie Gibson would say, “Yes. Good. That’s what I thought.”
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