TNR’s James Kirchick is not impressed by Matthew Yglesias’s new book on foreign policy:
Avoiding arguments that weaken his case, Yglesias alleges that those who oppose his brand of liberal internationalism wish to transform the United States into an “imperial superpower that seeks to use its national strength to dominate the world and needlessly heighten conflicts.â€Â
If only Yglesias were as tough on America’s mortal enemies as he is with his own intellectual adversaries… He echoes Osama bin Laden when he argues that Islamist anger against the West is a justified response to foreign powers that “occupy Muslim land.†This is a bold assertion, and yet Yglesias doesn’t care to explore why Iran and Syriaâ€â€countries where foreign soldiers haven’t set foot for decadesâ€â€continue to be the two most active state sponsors of international terrorism. In fact, he urges the United States to engage Iran and Syrian in diplomatic talks about the future of Iraq so that all three can “work together to secure their common interests in that country.†What “common interest†supporters of a democratic, federal, and secular Iraq might share with the ayatollahs and Assads is left unsaid.
While charitable toward religious fascists and tyrants, Yglesias is suspicious of Western attempts to combat them…
***
Though Yglesias is at pains to distinguish his views from those of a hard leftist, he nonetheless ends up sounding like one. He sees no distinction between Saddam’s “aggressive warfare†against Kuwait in 1991 and America’s “aggressive warfare†against Saddam in 2003. Saddam’s campaign against the Kurds, by the way, was only “quasi-genocidal†(perhaps because Saddam did not kill every last Kurd?). He applauds the ridiculous Dennis Kucinich, who “was admirable in his ability to articulate a clear and coherent theory of foreign affairs†during the 2004 presidential election. He believes that rogue states and peaceful states should be treated the same, and lambastes the neoconservatives for adhering to a “two-tiered system of sovereignty†that deals with a country like Luxembourg differently than, say, Sudan. He also argues that no international action can be “legitimate†unless it has Russia’s and China’s support.
RTWT at City Journal, because — for some reason — it is not posted at Kirchick’s home base, TNR.
(h/t Donald Douglas, who also has a delightlful, non-Photoshopped pic of Yglesias dressed in “terrorist chic.”)
[…] got to appreciate this: ‘Avoiding arguments that weaken his case, Yglesias alleges that those who oppose his brand […]
“Progressive” as in a disease.
He echoes Osama bin Laden when he argues that Islamist anger against the West is a justified response to foreign powers that “occupy Muslim land.â€Â
Progressives think that because they hate America for occupying their diseased minds, therefore, radical Islamists operate similarly. Maybe they’re pretty close to being right on this one.
“He sees no distinction between Saddam’s “aggressive warfare†against Kuwait in 1991 and America’s “aggressive warfare†against Saddam in 2003.”
Your an amoral twit.
“Scratch a lefty, you’ll find a totalitarian.”
-Kim du Toit
He’s a liberal/progressive. That’s the normal mode of operation for them.
So you’re saying that the Malawi government is democratic, federal, and secular and has absolutely no ties to Iran?
I am not willing to do any heavy lifting on it, but I believe it could be scientifically proven that functional illiteracy is heavily linked to leftism.
Malawi? In SE Africa?
And no, Jerry, that is not what he is saying at all. Thanks for trying.
As a mall ninja, that’s the lamest outfit evah! Why do fat people think they look cool in camo?
Are you saying that the Bush government is democratic, federal, secular and has no ties to Russia?
!!!!ELEVENTY!!!1!!3!!!!forty-two!!!
Is this the same James Kirchick who whined to the Boston Globe about how he couldn’t find a date because the men in his life have no use for a gay wingnut?
Oooh. That pic. I bet he wishes he could have that moment back.
Lookin’ good, Achmed.
Oh, God. Not Charles Wilson again.
How’s the Sanchez stalking going, Chuck?
I bet Yglesias’ mom was pissed when she found out what happened to her best dish towels.
yes, sorta … maybe we can help
Oh. #15 is for Charles…
Yglesias who?
– If this effete’ ass were to show the slightest tendency to fondle sharp objects he’d be in an asylum someplace.
I wonder if Charles’ sexuality based attack on Kirchick, on this post that has absolutely nothing to do with sexuality, is progressive, liberal tolerance. I’m guessing it is since it uses the standard misrepresentation of the target’s statements.
Charles brought a special kind of intolerance last time he came to visit.
Yes. At the time of that piece James was happily dating someone it says. I don’t think Charles really cares though. Charles I think though has issues.
Chuckie hates him some conservative gheyz.
Passionately.
Is this the same James Kirchick who whined to the Boston Globe about how he couldn’t find a date because the men in his life have no use for a gay wingnut?
As the previously drug-addicted Rush Limbaugh is won’t to say: ~”Liberals simply cannot win in the arena of reason and ideas.”
Thanks, Chuck. QED.
That picture is so completely pathetic. If Matt ever meets a real terrorist, one hopes that his bladder will be empty already.
‘, wont.
Matt’s mom also wants her cake-frosting knife back. And several cakes.
I kinda liked the stuff he did with Willie Nelson.
Anyway, I blame whatever studio is responsible for not putting Little Drummer Girl on DVD. Half these kids don’t know how to operate a VCR, so they don’t realize this has all been done — and by Diane Keaton, of all people.
Sad, really.
Cakes!
To all the thugs/ I’ve loved before…
Oh. It was from a book.
You’d think they’d be quite fond of Carré. Smitten even.
Yeah, I commented on Kirchick’s review a few days ago. MY doesn’t seem to recall the Clinton Administration the way I do.
– The Clinton administration doesn’t seem to recall the Clinton administration the way the rest of us do either.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/6 @ 11:46 am #
The George Smiley books are wonderful, but wining the Cold War drove LaCarre over the edge.
Post Reagan Stress Syndrome.
“no international action can be “legitimate†unless it has Russia’s and China’s support”
So would it follow that no action by those countries can be legitimate unless they have the support of the United States, and if not, then why not?
#35 The US is the evil monstrosity that has ruined the balance of mutually assured destruction. Get with the fucking program. Geez.
Sorry, I keep getting stuck on that small minded “foolish consistency” bit.
You’ll have to look to a leftist then, gebrauchshund. It’s Ygelsias’ argument, so why don’t you see if he agrees with your extension of his logic. Be sure to let us know, won’t you?
Every time I sit down to do the adult thing and read something on policy written from the Left perspective – in a good faith attempt to understand where they are coming from – I invariably get to page thirty or thereabouts and realize “I’ve already read “Alice in Wonderland””.
Seriously. What planet are these people from?
The Soviet Union was defeated – it did not “grow out” of communism.
Corporations and free markets are responsible for the highest standard of living evah – and the cleanest environments as well.
The United States of America flavor of the representative republic style of democracy has demonstrated itself to be, over 230 odd years, as the first best hope for sustainable community effort to pursue ideals of individual liberty, justice, and pursuit of happiness.
And if you don’t believe me, just ask the Guatemalans, Chinese, Mexicans, Irish, Russians, Pakistanis, Indians (New Delhi kind), Kenyans, Cubans,and all the others that have given up everything for the mere chance they might take their chances here.
Piss on Old Europe; we garrisoned their walls so they could play Tea Party in privacy. At least Japan has built a navy and air force commensurate with their self defense requirements; good for them! Ditto the Republic of Korea, for making sure that they can take care of their own end of the deal when the NorKs finally snap.
And piss on the Western Left in the altogether, for leaving dumbasses like me on the wall while they post on Kos and write stupid propaganda justifying a worldview that only exists in the “objectives” annex of an enemy op order.
Fuckers.
It is important to remember that Matthew and James have had their run ins in the past — in fact I think that both writers take pleasure in deriding each other. In fact given their history it would be surprising if James said anything nice about Matthew or his books or writings ever.
Isn’t “aggressive warfare” a redundancy? Oh, never mind, I hadn’t read the label on this pap.
Tmj,
Nice one. You’re bringing back good memories.
“The George Smiley books are wonderful, but wining the Cold War drove LaCarre over the edge.”
How would you like it if your entire plot for every book just ended? Now what? Is he supposed to just start making this shit up from his imagination like a mere fiction author?
Oh wait.
Comment by TmjUtah on 4/6 @ 1:20 pm #
If you believe that humans are perfectible, then the collapse of the Soviet Union, which marshalled all of the forces of government, the economy, religion – everything that would or could call on a human – in the service of the greater good to make a ‘new Soviet man’ who would be beyond the failings and temptations that have plagued humanity for ages, all to create a glorious future that you could see but could not convince the regular fallen men you were with that it was a good idea, then that collapse was the greatest tragedy ever. And revenge must be brought against the agent of that collapse, the USA. If not, then you have to do introspection and realize everything you had given your life to before was a lie.
Tough to do that last thing.
Mikey – It was 70 years of bad harvests due to global warming. Al Gore sometimes talks about that subject. It had nothing to do with the flaws of communism. Mankind fucked communism with carbon dioxide dude. Google it!
Mikey, as my dear old dad would say to them:
Get over it.
The wall fell in ’89. Marxism/Lenism/Maoism does NOT WORK. A person would have to be a dribbling retard to miss the plentiful yet subtle objective lessons of history: Stuff like the existence of Bill Gates, sliced bread in so many different flavors you can by a different loaf twice a month at one store and STILL not repeat, or observe our poor folks biggest worry – dying of a heart attack related to obesity. On the rather stark flip, we’ve got Stalin’s and Mao’s body count, the recent past unpleasantness of Cambodia, and today’s classroom exhibits in the form of New Jersey, Michigan, and California about what happens when statists run wild…
So, the wall falls and the commies trade commissars for capos. So what does the Left – the best and brightest – do? They take a long goddamn look around the place and glom onto resurgent Islam as their partner for a brighter future. Oh, they parse their opposition to resisting the return of the caliphate as some sort of principled stand in the perspective of past colonialism and the inherent evil of teh wHiTe PATRIARCHY of evil Western Civ…
… which, just coincidentally, is the only system in which such a parasitic, even cancerous, demographic as our Left has risen to become would be tolerated long enough to become the manifetsly lethal threat they now comprise…
…which makes aligning with a misogynistic barbarian death cult just the thing to do, between caravaning the ’08 road tour of the Vagina Monologues and supporting a Chi machine pol who is playing so far out of his league as to be in the parking lot of the stadium.
They’s suicidal like the lemmings, but cold, unlovable, and scaly, and not the cute mammalians who in large numbers routinely dash off high places into the sea.
Aggravating. I cannot lie about that.
Kinda off topic, but has anyone heard from wishbone recently? If you happen to read this, wishbone, hope all is well with you and yours, and that you are quite safe.
TmjUtah – I know it doesn’t work – the actual evidence is there.
But if you were an intellectual who knew best how everyone elses’ life should run, and wanted the power to Force Them to live as you thought they ought to live (to make everything hunky-dory, natch) and then you had to watch as the great emblem of that mindset crashed on the rocks of reality – well, what do you do?
Say your ideas are nice, but don’t work with real live humans?
Or do you blame the great, sordid, corrupt, Yankee slob?
Hmmm…tough choice. Disavow the beliefs I have held for most of adulthood or curse America?
“I can’t be wrong! G-D-America!”
And that, my friend, is how it goes. Introspection is too, too painful because those who thought themselves so clever would find themselves to be the fool.
“I know it doesn’t work…”
I understood that, but was imprecise in directing my comment. It was most assuredly to the “them” I was addressing my thoughts, not Mikey.
And JUST IN CASE anybody hops in with “that lemming things a myth, dude” I will stipulate that yes, it most assuredly is.
BUT according to Wikipedia:
“Due to their association with this odd behaviour (sic), lemming suicide is a frequently-used metaphor in reference to people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion, with potentially dangerous or fatal consequences.”
So there.
And Mikey –
“Introspection is too, too painful because those who thought themselves so clever would find themselves to be the fool.”
It took me literally years (after was freed from alcohol) to face each new day with a spirit of equanimity even in the face of the miracle of everything still working as it did the day before… or even just a little bit better.
Leftists. If this was a sports league, we’d trade ours down in a heart beat, we would.
“It took me literally years (after was freed from alcohol) to face each new day with a spirit of equanimity even in the face of the miracle of everything still working as it did the day before… or even just a little bit better.“…
…should have been followed by…
And then somebody like Yglesias, Chomsky, or Kennedy (any of that misbegotten band of maggots) comes by and damns it all because it doesn’t fit his wish NOW.
TmjUtah – I sorta thought that was the case, but I wanted to make everything perfectly clear. In case I wasn’t earlier.
TmJ, Mikey,
All this goes back to a comment I made a couple of weeks ago lamenting the fact that most on the left are painfully, staggeringly, and willfully ignorant of history in general, and in particular military history, unless it suits them. I’m not sure why this is, except for the possibility that a knowledge of history, particularly your own, requires some amount of introspection and self-criticism, as Mikey notes above. For the left, every year, hell, every day, is a potential Year Zero, where the past can be erased or rewritten as required. Yglesias is glaring example.
Somewhat related, the other day I was in the local Barnes and Noble and saw a copy of Howard Zinn’s comic book “A People’s History of American Empire” about…well you know what it’s about. It was also dedicated to those “who resisted”. Its target demographic is school kids. I had to keep from retching as I exited the place.
cjd,
Anybody who needs a clue regarding just how costly and complicated a nation’s freedom, the execution of office, and the preservation of the Union could be needs to read up on Lincoln’s handling of the Civil War.
Anybody who wonders why “American Democracy” is such an absolute aberration of the historical timeline need only find two or three good texts on the history of continental Europe covering discovery of the New World to about 1750. How we got from being Europe’s dynastys’ spring training battlefield to representative democracy… amazing. And as implausible as a bar of soap at Woodstock.
I highly recommend “The Forgotten Man” for a good treatment of the anti- free market, almost flippant, game playing that was the Roosevelt economic/social disaster, and the philosophical foundation from whence today’s sorry Reality Based goobers sprang.
The issue today is not that our system is flawed; it is that it’s very strength is under so many assaults from so many directions that when it does fail it will be shattering.
What we are doing to our founding principles, via entitlements, limited wars, and social engineering is EXACTLY what the dumbass engineers did at Chernobyl. They stressed the system – while operating it in real time at outputs beyond design limits – and kept on disabling automatic controls, one by one by one, just because shit kept working.
Until it didn’t.
You watch our world; watch our world watch us, our markets, our actions in defense, or retreat, of our principles. You watch our politicians transfer billions of dollars to protect deadbeat debtors and speculators. You watch our politicians turn a blind eye to illegal immigration (nd with that, also, abandon all pretense of border security, in time of war. You watch our local and state governments surrender more and more ground to the Teacher/Indoctrinator Union Contribution machine.
Our kids will be even more stupid than we were. And they won’t have the excuse that they weren’t “connected” like we did. It will be on purpose, and done with only the best of intentions.
Kids that can’t read won’t be able to study history. Kids that are taught that math and science are hard and/or nerdy won’t try to solve problems. Kids that aren’t held to objective standards will grow up with dangerously skewed senses of entitlement…
I see all that happening today. Only my admission that maybe I don’t see enough keeps me from tossing my hands and walking away from it all. Only that… that acceptance that tomorrow might well be better than today, because dammit YESTERDAY seemed a cut above the day that came before it…
Enough from me. I guess y’all know how I feel about it. *LAWL* and such.
Watch what happens when our unemployment hiccups, when our banks tremble. All those weenies flashing their napkins about “going to the euro” look pretty silly stuck there between fealty to Iran and a patent inability to project enough military force to keep their own politicians, artists, and just normal citizens from being victims of Islamic terror in their own communities. Look southward, at Mexico’s failed-state government, when our unemployment begins to spike.
– In calmer times, its called “growing up”.
– The strangest canard about the Leftist Marxo-Utopian cult is their absolute abhorrence of the realities of life, most notably rejection of the truth of human nature, while claiming to base their ideology on reality.
– The best thing about them is they force Western civilization to fight their particular form of subversive idiocy, and strive for liberty wherever possible.
– The worst thing about them is that whenever they get involved in any conflict much greater numbers of people suffer, and the body count goes up exponentially.
– Fortunately they don’t do well in elections that aren’t rigged.
And the primary assault… the one that not only does most of the damage but enables the others — is on language. Which is what Jeff is all about. Which is why I keep coming back.
Regards,
Ric
– “…And the primary assault… the one that not only does most of the damage but enables the others  is on language.
– If you’ve followed the typical level of grasp that the average run-of-the-mill Lefty has on all things financial, its probably best they didn’t follow the general model of attacking the tarhet counties finacial institutions.
– Apparently Usama did adhere to the totalitarian handbook of overthrow, not once but twice. He must have also believed he had discovered the answer to the problem with the flocks hesitancy to self emulation, with the hijacking of the Muslim “I hate everybody” dogma.
– Although I notice lately not so many are rushing to jump in the Islamic “Do it for the cause” wood chipper.
BBH, it isn’t just the Lefties. They’re just the most visible and vocal.
There appears to be something hardwired about human perception of life as zero or negative sum. It’s relatively easy to go all faux-anthropological as to why, but if you explain “unconstrained trade” to a person selected at random it is my experience that something like three-quarters will reject it, either as impossible or as not what they want. The experience of one winner == one loser is so thoroughly ingrained that a majority of the people I encounter would prefer to be the identified winner than to come in second in a contest where everybody (including themselves) is better off than at the beginning. “Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven” is a general principle, I think.
The Left offers to suppress the winners, leaving their audience to assume that they, as a result, will come out on top. (It never happens, of course. “Them as has, gets” may not be “fair”, but in the background one can hear the mournful tolling of the bell of inevitability.) It’s rarely spelled out in those terms; legions of poor people have followed Leftist leaders based on a promise never actually made. They’ll tell you it was made, but that’s a combination of wishful thinking and sleight of hand.
I dunno how to fight it. It may just be that the experiment is over for this aeon, and we will merely have to go to our graves hoping, against all evidence, that our remote descendants will rediscover the principles that made us rich. I don’t think so, but I’m a notorious pessimist. What I think is that the future is a world arranged more or less along the lines of Han China, with a mandarinate of educated people managing the peasants For Their Own Good. I’m glad I won’t be living there.
Regards,
Ric
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone
Yglesias who? My wife has all of his father’s record albums.
I’ve got a photo of me taken in college, back when giant raptors were still hunting tiny horses. I’m sitting on a stone bench, swaddled in the red kaffiyeh I bought from a souvenir seller in Jordan, fixing the camera with an appraising glare. Should that photo surface in the general public minus any context, it might well be used to tarnish my anti-terrorism cred. I hope the same thing hasn’t happened to MY, here.
He had a knife. And also a fearsome countenance.
Is that the Poe, ‘feets? It’s been so long since I even looked at poetry that I can’t be sure. One of my classmates did “The Bells” as a declamation exercise, and I despised the guy so thoroughly that I never learned to appreciate the poem.
Regards,
Ric
Yes! I hate when they feel like they have to do that “group interp” thing with that. It invariably elides all meaning.
– Whereas I tend toward cautious optimism, since pessimism seems too harsh an aperitif to accept gracefully.
– I give you the temporal example of the Haight-Ashbury, where the elite have discovered Capitalism, and individual ownership as a win-win concept, probably proving once again, that property values always trump ideology.
Ah, but remember my rule: pessimists are always cheerful, because they only get nice surprises.
Regards,
Ric
– “…pessimists are always cheerful, because they only get nice surprises.”….but are too internally despondent to enjoy them.
Condi as veep is a lot optimistic I think. I really like her, so it’s really unlikely that that’ll happen.
This is a lot an I wonder what Jeff thinks kind of thing.
Ric, free trade is so easily demagogued. It is so much easier to interview the textile workers who were laid off when their company opened a plant overseas than it is to explain comparative advantage. The impact of those who suffer losses from trade are large and direct. The beneficiaries are many but the benefits to each are almost imperceptible except when looked at in the cumulative.
As does Tmj I also recommend The Forgotten Man. The New Deal mainstreamed the demonization of business and entrepreneurs. The costs of regulation and litigation are the driving forces behind most companies’ decisions to move overseas these days. But rather than address those issues it’s so much easier to criticize them as greedy bastards out to screw the working man.
Mike C.
You’re right, and no one is immune. I support free trade, as being just about the best of all possibly economic arrangements. Yet even I can’t help wishing sometimes, that for every dollar a corporation saves by outsourcing to China, it should lose two dollars to counterfeiting.
Here’s the well that NPR will for sure a lot draw from. They could have written that, really.
I have heard and heard of Condi Rice being referred to in the most vile, degrading terms imaginable from our oh-so-tolerant friends on the left.
She’s more blacker than Obama really. And not Ivy-League.
I think this could be a lot gratifying. Which means probably time to refer back to #68.
Also she was an indisputably tenured, full professor at Stanford. Poor Baracky.
– Bob Beckle always comes out of his chair on FOX at the slightest mention of Condi as McOldGuys running mate, with the usual torrent or reasons why she would be a terrible pick.
– That right there would be enough to get my endorsement, even if I knew not a thing about her.
I don’t know this Bob Beckle. brb. Oh. Beckel. He’s a liberal. His hooker’s name is Tiffany. His brother Graham had a role in C.H.U.D.. These are interesting things one might know about Bob Beckel.
At one time I was a huge Condi fan. Not so much anymore. She was supposed to change the culture at the State Department. Instead, she was co-opted by it. Reading John Bolton’s book confirmed my worst fears.
I know all that part. But you picks your battles. The State Department has more than shown their willingness to undermine U.S. interests and policy, and her tenure was not a good time to go toe to toe with them on that I don’t think. Discretion is a lot a big part of valor I think.
And really I don’t care about Palestine. They fade a lot into the background importancewise while Iran is all ensconced in Dexter’s Lab making the big splodey weapons I think.
Also they’re tedious, those Palestinians.
The Israel-Palestinian endeavor was really quite harmless because destiny had decided nothing was going to come of it anyway. I just think that she didn’t just choose discretion but kind of embraced many of the more underminey aspects of Foggy Bottom, or the Dept of September 10th as I once heard someone refer to it as.
She ended affirmative action in tenure decisions while at Stanford. That had to have been quite the shitstorm. I don’t think she’s all that co-optable for real. I’m guessing she had her reasons. There has been, in the negative mediaspace, a largely unremarked upon but huge reaffirmation of our Pacific alliances … Japan, Australia, South Korea … and extremely hugely significant improvement in our relationship with India. India is the future. Much good in other words in areas where the entrenched at State don’t rally have their heels dug in. I really see a lot of signs that she’s made the best of a bad situation.
*really* … her legacy is a lot stronger than I think anyone has an interest in recognizing just now.
you may be right, happyfeet, but as hard as the Dems are trying to tie McCain to Bush, I don’t think it would be a good idea for McCain to give them something to work with.
– maggie, I don’t believe the Donkeys would leave that stone unturned, no matter who McCains choice is. Its really all they have, because at this point the Obamaettes know they are working from an empty wagon in terms of National or International experience in any sense.
– They’ll do it in spite of the fact that up until now it just isn’t sticking. They’re trying to play to the type of voter who will hold their noses and vote for McCain, and they’ll hold their noses because they don’t believe McCain is a Conservative, even to the extent Bush is. So the NcBush ploy doesn’t make any sense, let alone work.
– Condi added to the ticket would give the Left visceral heartburn. An “Intelligent, highly experienced, Black Woman”. The Right would have a field day chiding the Lefts reactions to her candidacy. Voters on the Right that view McDodage as a Rino would breathe more easily with her at his side.
– I think it would be a very formidable ticket with her aboard.
I agree with the idea that that’s going to be the attack anyway, and really, how effective is that? McCain spent decades being not-Bush, but more, the people for whom that argument is persuasive weren’t voting for McCain anyway I don’t think. So does Condi, apart from the Bush admin ties thing, incite more people to vote for Obama than for McCain?
I think there are a lot of people that will be impressed with her bio that may not have realized what a neat lady she is. Speaks five languages she does.
hf,
It’s really scary when you drop the knowledge on us like that. It’s almost as if the foozle and thingers are a clever ruse…
ack. ohnoes. This is how rumors start. I’m for real just happyfeet. The ones with the crazy knowledge are the Jeffs and the Rics and the psychos and the RTO. And you and Dan and Darleen. I promise. I don’t even read things on paper anymore except when I fly.
well, I’m thinking it doesn’t stick for now because there isn’t anyone in McCain’s camp that’s close to Bush (that I can think of off the top of my head, but I’m also hopped up on allergy meds). sure we all know he’s done his darndest to be not-Bush, but I’m thinking most people would see Condi as that link they’ve been grasping for. I mean, she’s one of the few that has been part of this administration since the beginning.
and I don’t think she adds anything to where McCain is weakest, which I think would be the domestic policy side of things. he maybe needs someone to cover the economic side of things.
And also nishi and maggie and dicentra and guins and bbh and bmoe and mcgehee and bj and also squid and cowboy and ardsgaine and really a lot SEK when he comes by… and a bunch of other people. MC a lot too. And Christopher Taylor even if I always have to remember that that’s not the one that lives by the Hundred Acre Wood. Is it just me?
The economy… that’s a weird one. What with all the global warming propaganda in the air there’s a really not inconsequential strain of “we deserve it” out there that I think confuzzles the left’s ability to really capitalize. It’s hard to pin down, but NPR seems to be having trouble focusing for all the breadth of their systemic indictment of capitalism.
it’s like bedtime prayer time, isn’t it happyfeet? God Bless mom and dad and gramma and happyfeet and….
– I don’t disagree with your point maggie. I just think the benefits she brings far outweigh the down side.
– And not to put to fine a point on it, this ole boy, Independent whitey given the chance to vote for a trully viable Black candidate, a woman no less, after listening to decades of being called a racist and a sexist by douchebags I wouldn’t trust washing my car?
– Oh yyyyehhhh behbeh.
yeah, you’re probably right. and if we’re talking about stealing Dems from Obama, maybe Condi would be the way to go. because of the identity politics.
Yeah – I didn’t want to leave anyone out. The other thing I’d add is that I have no doubt that Condi is up to the job, and concerns about where she is on the conservative spectrum seem to be not really an appropriate part of the analysis. Do we really want a stalwart conservative to tarnish his bonafides by languishing as McCain’s VP for eight years? Being tied to a McCain Administration I’d venture would be a whole lot more of a career ender than being tied to G.W.’s, for a for real conservative movement figure anyway.
Condi would definitely make things more interesting than some white governor guy.
that’s when you pull out the ol’ Gilligan’s Island “and the rest!” ;D
so, how bout Michael Steele?
I did look at Michael Steele, but really, his resume is thinner than I knew. He’s not ready on day one at all I don’t think and especially when his running mate’s sort of, well, geriatric, and also he’d palpably suffer in a comparison to Obama. I think people would compare them cause they’re both black males. And beyond that Obama could easily find a more qualified running mate to set against Steele.
– “so, how bout Michael Steele?”
– Another excellent choice. Maybe not the educational credentials, certainly not the foreign experience, but a damn fine man.
Also, Steele would undeniably have been chosen for just the one reason really. I don’t think that would hold for Condi though.
so it is. huh.