Friday, July 27, 2007

Teach Thyself




After arguing an invasion of Iraq would trigger a wave of positive change throughout the Arab world, Charles Krauthammer, the neocon columnist, is not in much of a position to lecture anyone on foreign policy. Yet he does so today, making use of my recent article on Barack Obama's flubbed response at the YouTube debate. (See all those posts below). In piling on Obama, Krauthammer notes that after Obama vowed to meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, there came

from the Nation's David Corn to super-blogger Mickey Kaus, a near-audible gasp.

That much is true. But pointing to Obama's slip-up, Krauthammer feels compelled to instruct Obama on how presidential summitry works. Next he huffs,

(1) Obama is inexplicably unable to think on his feet while standing on South Carolina soil, or (2) Obama is not ready to be a wartime president..

Obama did oppose the war Krauthammer cheerleaded. Which means he understands better than Krauthammer a key rule of foreign policy: think clearly about the consequences of your actions before acting.

KEEPING GONZO ALIVE. Besieged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is the Terri Schiavo of the Bush administration: he must be kept alive at all costs. No matter how miserably he performs during congressional appearances and no matter how many times he's caught in a contradiction (or a lie), George W. Bush stand by his man. It's that famous Bush loyalty, some observers say. But Bush has readily bounced people when they became liabilities. It's that famous Bush stubbornness, others opine. But Bush has changed course when political reality dictated a shift. My one-liner on this (suitable for use on TV and radio shows) has been: Gonzales has fixed too many parking tickets for Bush over the years. In other words, he knows too much. And that may partly explain Bush's continuing embrace of Gonzales. But there might be yet another explanation: Bush and Cheney do not want to lose control of the Justice Department.

If Gonzales were to resign, Bush would be forced to nominate a nonpartisan figure of independent standing for the job--that is, someone he and Cheney could not rely upon to do their bidding. With various investigations under way and with Bush and Cheney still seeking to expand presidential power, they need the Justice Department on their side. They cannot afford to let anyone of independence to take its reins. Gonzales has job security.


MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL.... Who's the neocon-est of them all? That is, of the GOP presidential contenders. In a piece in the latest issue of The Nation , I write:

The neoconservatives are not riding high these days. The Iraq War--their number-one cause--is a failure, and the public has turned on the war, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, their top man in the Administration. Meanwhile, the so-called foreign policy realists appear to have the upper hand against the Administration's dwindling neocon cell in many internal policy squabbles. But the neocons are faring rather well when it comes to the presidential race. The leading GOP contenders are all die-hard fans of the war. And the newest star in the show--Fred Thompson, the former Republican senator from Tennessee, onetime lobbyist and TV actor who has all but officially announced his candidacy--might be the most neoconnish of all.


To read why that is, click here, though you might have to subscribe. And sometime today, the latest edition of the Corn & Miniter webcast will be posted on PajamasMedia.com.

Posted by David Corn at July 27, 2007 11:55 AM

39 comments:

capt said...

Mr. David Corn,


Krauthammer? BAH! Who reads his crud anyway?


Thanks for all of your work.

Kirk

capt said...

From an Alternet email:

Quote of the Week:

When the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn't until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy? I've read the State Department Inspector General's report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it's not worth the paper it's printed on.

- Rory Mayberry, a former subcontractor employee for First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, in testimony to Congress about the use of forced labor to build the massive new US embassy in Baghdad.

*****

No matter how bad everything gets - it seems to get worse and worse by the day. This (and more) is all done in OUR name - America - it is our embassy.


capt

capt said...

CNN's YouTube Debate Failed the American People



from page 2

[...]

CNN's reticence and failure to embrace either the promise or full reality of citizen media was clearly a mistake but an unsurprising one. The initial error of exerting 'too much control' was then compounded by a second one -- the unwillingness or inability of moderator Cooper to adequately control the candidates and push them to answer in a forthright manner those questions CNN did at least allow to be asked.

Failing to exert proper control as moderator too often meant that a great, pointed question from the electorate was met by the sort of evasion and obfuscation one has become accustomed to hearing from those so anxious to represent us.

By the end of the evening -- when candidates resorted to blatant flattery, bad jokes and pure refusal to answer when asked to name "one thing you admire and one thing you don't like about the candidate to the left of you" -- Cooper seemed content merely to throw his hands in the air and watch the spectacle along with the rest of us. In a brief on-air post-mortem, he later confessed to Wolf Blitzer, "the hardest part was getting people to answer the video question."

Still, "the candidates didn't know what to think -- that was a good thing, and the video adds anther dimension to the debate," Cooper continued. As he also noted, "it was a dimension that was missing."

Let's try to be positive (for once, I hear the blogosphere muttering!) CNN certainly deserves some credit for encouraging citizen media. But by reserving control on which questions were asked -- and compounding the mistake by then failing in many cases to get the candidates to answer the questions as directly as they were asked -- the cable network also disappointed. One hopes matters will be rectified for the next YouTube debate in September, featuring the GOP candidates.

Ultimately, the only real solution for CNN and other MSM stalwarts is to give up even more control in the future. Those firms that learn to stop worrying and embrace the new participatory citizen media, (such as the BBC, for example) will thrive in the future. Those that don't -- and continue to filter in fear -- may not even survive.

In the meantime, here's hoping that CNN has the foresight, trust and yes, courage, to let go even more next time around and really open up the process to let the citizens decide. Sitting in the dark, cool Control Room, seemingly safe from the madding crowd, is no longer viable. Going only halfway this time only resulted in a half-great Great Debate.


More HERE

capt said...

$1.7 billion for Iraq?



Taxpayers, don't worry: It'll only cost $1.7 billion for the war in Iraq. That was the claim by Bush administration official Andrew Natsios on an April 23, 2003 broadcast of ABC's Nightline.

"I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?" asked a startled Koppel, a recipient of 41 Emmys.

"I do, this is it for the US," said Natsios, then referring to the involvement of other countries like Germany, Norway and Britain, and an expected wave of oil revenue. "The American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."

Koppel kept pressing the point: "I want to be sure that I understood you correctly. You're saying the, the top cost for the US taxpayer will be $1.7 billion. No more than that?" Natsios replied that yes, no more than $1.7 billion.

Koppel, clearly, couldn't believe it: "The American taxpayer will not be hit for more than $1.7 billion no matter how long the process takes?"

This time, Natsios attacked his critics, saying, "these figures, outlandish figures I've seen, I have to say, there's a little bit of hoopla involved in this."

Hoopla indeed. This month, the Congressional Research Service, the taxpayer-funded research arm of Congress, calculated the total current cost of the Iraq war to be $450 billion. Each month, the government spends $10 billion for Iraq.

The Iraq war will be President Bush's legacy. But imagine what the alternative could have been: better healthcare and education, a more secure homeland, and an improved global image.

The New York Times' David Leonhardt did just that, calculating that the cost of universal healthcare for all would be $100 billion a year. Universal preschool for 3 and 4-year olds would be $35 billion. Carrying out the security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission would be $10 billion; and immunizations against measles, whooping cough, tetanus, tuberculosis, polio, and diphtheria for the world's children would cost just $600 million.

In the time preceding the Iraq war, many government figures low-balled the cost of the Iraq war (the Pentagon estimated it would cost just $50 billion). The highest came from economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who was then fired. But in the annals of gross miscalculations, none beat Andrew Natsios, who eventually resigned from his Iraq reconstruction position. But don't worry for Andrew or his career. Bush appointed him to another important project: Special US Envoy for Darfur.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Wiretapmag.org is read by mostly young people. They are ahead of the MSM on a few issues. It is encouraging.



capt

capt said...

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour


On July 16, I attended Christians United for Israel's annual Washington-Israel Summit. Founded by San Antonio-based megachurch pastor John Hagee, CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and his minions have forged close ties with the Bush White House and members of Congress from Sen. Joseph Lieberman to Sen. John McCain. In its call for a unilateral military attack on Iran and the expansion of Israeli territory, CUFI has found unwavering encouragement from traditional pro-Israel groups like AIPAC and elements of the Israeli government.

But CUFI has an ulterior agenda: its support for Israel derives from the belief of Hagee and his flock that Jesus will return to Jerusalem after the battle of Armageddon and cleanse the earth of evil. In the end, all the non-believers - Jews, Muslims, Hindus, mainline Christians, etc. - must convert or suffer the torture of eternal damnation. Over a dozen CUFI members eagerly revealed to me their excitement at the prospect of Armageddon occurring tomorrow. Among the rapture ready was Republican Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. None of this seemed to matter to Lieberman, who delivered a long sermon hailing Hagee as nothing less than a modern-day Moses. Lieberman went on to describe Hagee's flock as "even greater than the multitude Moses commanded."

Throughout CUFI's Israel Summit, videographer Thomas Shomaker and I were hounded by PR agents seeking to prevent us from interviewing attendees about the End Times. The conference, we were told, was about "one message" - evangelical Christians supporting Israel. We were instructed to only interview CUFI leaders capable of sticking to the talking point that their support for Israel has, as Hagee declared, "nothing to do with the End Times." But I was forbidden from asking Hagee about statements he made in his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," that appeared to blame Jews for their own persecution. After doing just that during a press conference, I was removed from the conference by off-duty DC cops summoned by members of Hagee's family.

I have covered the Christian right intensely for over four years. During this time, I attended dozens of Christian right conferences, regularly monitored movement publications and radio shows, and interviewed scores of its key leaders. I have never witnessed any spectacle as politically extreme, outrageous, or bizarre as the one Christians United for Israel produced last week in Washington. See for yourself.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Yikes!



capt

Gerald said...

I have heard that there is slave labor working on the Nazi American Embassy in Baghdad.

The cost of two wars and possibly four wars with our attacks on Iran and Pakistan will be in the trillions of dollars.

Please remember this thought, INCOME TAXES CAN BE INVESTMENTS IN NAZI AMERICA, such as better roads, health services, environmental practices, education, social services, etc. The Nazi rich and our Nazi corporations should be paying more in taxes because their asses have the most to lose!!!!!

Krauthammer, Chris Matthews, Hannity, and O'Reilly should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of knowledge and understanding of CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING.

I do not wish to judge another person because I am a sinner but I do believe that I have some knowledge and understanding of CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING.

David B. Benson said...

Oh, goody. A new thing to worry about.

Fifty pound chunks of ice falling from the sky and wrecking your house.

on Live Science

Gerald said...

Martial Law is a real possibility

Gerald said...

Bushism

Gerald said...

Believe it or not!

Gerald said...

Did Bush Order a Murder?

Gerald said...

Was Tillman Murdered?

Gerald said...

New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed

Gerald said...

Pope Benedict and the Environment

Gerald said...

Never skip your appointment with yourself

Gerald said...

Praying Each Day: July 28

Gerald said...

The Bonus of Beauty Within

As shallow as it may sound, many people believe that their lives would be perfect if they were more beautiful.

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in discussing those who seek happiness in life through the enjoyment of beauty, says “beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.” Why?

There is a world of difference between looking beautiful outside and being beautiful within.

Katherine Ann Porter says “the real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one’s own… for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.” We don’t have to be perfect for God to love us; for God loves us just as we are. And Anne Frank once said, “Think of all the beauty left around you and still be happy.”

It’s good advice. Appreciate the beauty already inside you.?

The glory of the stars is the beauty of heaven…Look at the rainbow…it is exceedingly beautiful.…He scatters the snow like birds flying down…the eye is dazed by the beauty of its whiteness. (Sirach 43:9,11,17)

Lord, help me to learn that it’s from You all life’s blessings and beauty flow.

Gerald said...

Nazi America is not a democracy

Gerald said...

American soldiers have become murderers

Gerald said...

Those who come back from war, like Millard and tens of thousands of other veterans, suffer not only delayed reactions to stress, but a crisis of faith. The God they knew, or thought they knew, failed them. The church or the synagogue or the mosque, which promised redemption by serving God and country, did not prepare them for the betrayal of this civic religion, for the capacity we all have for human atrocity, for the lies and myths used to mask the reality of war. War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. This bitter knowledge of betrayal has seeped into the ranks of American troops.

Gerald said...

Camilo Mejia, who eventually applied while still on active duty to become a conscientious objector, said the ugly side of American racism and chauvinism appeared the moment his unit arrived in the Middle East. Fellow soldiers instantly ridiculed Arab-style toilets because they would be "shitting like dogs." The troops around him treated Iraqis, whose language they did not speak and whose culture was alien, little better than animals. The word "Hadji" swiftly became a slur to refer to Iraqis, in much the same way "gook" was used to debase the Vietnamese or "rag head" is used to belittle those in Afghanistan.

Gerald said...

The scene, Mejia noted, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins. Senior officers, protected in heavily fortified compounds, rarely saw combat. They sent their troops on futile missions in the quest to be awarded Combat Infantry Badges. This recognition, Mejia notes, "was essential to their further progress up the officer ranks." This pattern meant that "very few high-ranking officers actually got out into the action, and lower-ranking officers were afraid to contradict them when they were wrong." When the badges, bearing an emblem of a musket with the hammer dropped, resting on top of an oak wreath, were finally awarded, the commanders immediately brought in Iraqi tailors to sew the badges on the left breast pockets of their desert combat uniforms.

Gerald said...

We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds and give them uniforms with colored ribbons on their chest for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness, of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints of war, the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. They are the props of our civic religion, our love of power and force, our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak and rule. This is our nation's idolatry of itself. And this idolatry has corrupted religious institutions, not only here but in most nations, making it impossible for us to separate the will of God from the will of the state.

Prophets are not those who speak of piety and duty from pulpits -- few people in pulpits have much worth listening to -- but it is the battered wrecks of men and women who return from Iraq and speak the halting words we do not want to hear, words that we must listen to and heed to know ourselves. They tell us war is a soulless void. They have seen and tasted how war plunges us to barbarity, perversion, pain and an unchecked orgy of death. And it is their testimonies alone that have the redemptive power to save us from ourselves.

capt said...

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology." : Michael Parenti political scientist, author

===
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." : U.S. historian Howard Zinn, 1993

=
"A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts.": Euripides

=
"Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty." : Anne Louise Germaine de Stael - (1766-1817) French author

=
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. " : Thomas Paine Common Sense, January 1776
http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/sense1.htm

===


Thanks ICH Newsletter!

capt said...

US accuses Saudis of telling lies about Iraq



First time administration has made concern public
· Claims royal family is financing Sunni groups



The extent of the deterioration in US-Saudi relations was exposed for the first time yesterday when Washington accused Riyadh of working to undermine the Iraqi government.

The Bush administration warned Saudi Arabia, until this year one of its closest allies, to stop undermining the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.



More HERE

capt said...

Official: $20 billion arms sale to Saudis in the works



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States is developing a proposed $20 billion, 10-year arms sales package for Saudi Arabia, a senior administration official confirmed on Saturday.

The proposed sale, first reported in The New York Times, is intended to upgrade the Saudi military's ability to counter possible Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf region, the official said.

"This is all about Iran," said the official, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because discussions with the Saudis are still going on and the arms sale deal has not been completed.

Israel is expected to raise objections to the arms package, and has expressed concerns about previous Saudi arms deals.


More HERE

Gerald said...

St. Therese of Lisieux

Dear Posters:

I believe that our world should be lived like a family in a community of families. As I have posted my comments, I remember the words of St. Therese of Lisieux, “There are things the heart feels but which the tongue and even the mind cannot express.”

I have tried to express myself but my heart’s feelings are often confusing. How do we love one another as a family? There is no easy answer because even in our families we have difficulty in loving one another. Yet, I believe that we should strive to love one another.

Unless we love one another, our planet as we know it will forever breed endless wars, hatred, mass murders, and degradation for humanity.

Sincerely,
Gerald

Gerald said...

Now It's on to Iran

Gerald said...

So, good bye, Abe Lincoln. So long, Thomas Jefferson. Adios, Greatest Generation. You are over. Greed has won. Money has won. Might has won. The beasts of our nature have won. And so it is left for another future people to escape from the tyranny of their oppressive masters, to forge with their sweat and soul a nation that stands apart from the mechanized soulless empires that writhe about the surface of the depleted planet, and who can hopefully learn from our mistakes and create a nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Gerald said...

Armageddon - Bring It On

Gerald said...

According to the Jewish Blumenthal, the typical CUFI member apparently believes "God" wants Bush to do what Lieberman and the Likudniks are urging him to do – nuke Tehran – to trigger an all-out nuke war to bring on Armageddon – the final climatic battle, waged here on the planet Earth, between God and Satan.

Gerald said...

Counting the Cost

Bush, the idiot, failed math!!!

Gerald said...

One of the most important costs of fighting this war is the number of U.S. soldiers who have died for a lie. As I write these words, the death toll stands at 3,645. The first time I ever mentioned in an article the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq the figure was "only" 855. I believe now what I believed then: every death was both unnecessary and preventable. Every life lost was not just lost; every life lost was utterly wasted, thrown away. Bush and company have blood on their hands – American blood and Iraqi blood. Just as Johnson, Nixon, and their cronies were never held accountable for the crime of Vietnam, so Bush and company may never be held accountable for their war crimes – in this life. They will certainly give an account to Almighty God for their sins when we are rid of them here.

The great tragedy of this war, like most wars throughout history, is that all the death and destruction, all the carnage, all the broken homes, all the money wasted, all the suffering, all the ruined lives, all the power the state has gained, all the liberty the people have lost – all of it could have been prevented if only Bush and company had counted the cost.

Gerald said...

There's no vacation for our troops in Iraq

Gerald said...

There's no vacation break for our troops this August. Only another day, another week, another month on another patrol on an impossible mission in a war that their commander-in-chief and his men expected to be over, and indeed declared over, four years and four months ago.

"Mission Accomplished," that banner draped across an aircraft carrier crowed. A "cakewalk," one of them predicted.

Have a nice vacation all you politicians, and by the way, keep those bloody hands hidden. You wouldn't want to frighten the children on the beach.

-------

Gerald said...

Here are three glorious ideas for the most evil empire the Universe has ever known.

Armageddon - bring it on!!!!!

The Rapure - bring it on!!!!!

The End Tme - bring it on!!!!!

Gerald said...

Praying Each Day: July 29

capt said...

"Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. 'We have a single system,' he wrote, and 'in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.'" : Gore Vidal - The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

=

"No one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by lies." : by: Salvador de Madariaga - (1886-1978 ), Spanish writer, diplomat, and historian, noted for his service at the League of Nations

=
"...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich." : Noam Chomsky

=
"Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort." : Marshall McLuhan - (1911-1980)

=
"If a baseball player slides into home plate and, right before the umpire rules if he is safe or out, the player says to the umpire - 'Here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. If a lawyer was arguing a case before a judge and said, 'Your honor before you decide on the guilt or innocence of my client, here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe.

"But if an industry lobbyist walks into the office of a key legislator and hands her or him a check for $1,000, we call that a campaign contribution. We should call it a bribe." : Janice Fine - Dollars and Sense magazine

===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

capt said...

New Thread