The pundits — including the high-brow wonks at Foreign Policy Magazine — sniffed and made fun of her at the time. But then, to do so back then was de rigueur, so you can’t really blame them. After all, easy pile-ons against a wolf-slaughtering tundra hoochie and her outdated Willa Catheresque-type first wave feminism are more socially rewarding, among the elites in DC, then is allowing that real pragmatism comes from looking at the world as it is and taking honest assessments of the political terrain, not beginning from the premise that the world is what you wish it to be and then mapping your Utopian fantasies atop it.
Quipped Palin this weekend, “Yes, I could see this one from Alaska.”
Here’s what the insipid, folksy state college grad offered up in 2008:
“After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.”
[…]
Foreign Policy’s then-editor, Blake Hounshell, who now is an editor for Politico Magazine, wrote on the magazine’s blog that warns Palin’s comments were “strange” and “this is an extremely far-fetched scenario.”
Man. We sure dodged a bullet with this uppity bint, didn’t we? I mean, how could we face our liberal friends if we admitted that this bumpkin might have something to offer a nation poised to run off its constitutional rails?
That would be like, oh, voting for some old stooge who was most famous for starring in some B-movies with a monkey. And what kind of intellectual could do something like that…? Right, George Will?
Really. We need to get over our “cultish” admiration for such obviously empty-headed symbols of conservative extremism. And hand the reins over to President Romney in 2012.
RussiaChina Unite! trumpets the Drudge Report headline.
Yeah, but don’t anybody go all Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact on ’em now. Wouldn’t be prudent, right Brent?
Meantime, Bibi plays nice, or as nice as a recalcitrant Jew knows how.
putting Meghan’s coward piece of shit daddy in our white house is mostly what we dodged I think
Oh come now, you just know that Palin would have come up with some dumb-ass idea like a “re-set button”. She would problem misspell “re-set” in Russian as well.
We’re not going to do anything in Ukraine or Crimea regardless of who is in the White House. We’ll make a lot of policy speeches and condemn the Russians for their actions, but it will be a lot of sound and noise, signifying nothing.
Meghan’s cowardly piece of shit daddy in the White House is way, way worse than the status quo, to all appearances.
we could open up the atlantic for oil and gas development and create a CNG export terminal in high proximity to European markets
that would be thee say as kicking poor gay little putin in his poor gay little testicles
but America is too cowardly and prefers to wallow in its own feces like a momo
stupid letters
that would be *the same* is what that should say
If that had happened, we’d have at least one person in the WH smarter than a pikachu.
Which we just cannot be having
Poland Calls for NATO Article 4 Meeting
Sarah was pretty prescient:
Military excursions into Pockistan, check.
Al-Qaida resurgent in Iraq, check.
Russia in Ukraine, check.
Reagan the “B-Movie” actor was as big a lie in 1980 as “I can see Russia from my house” was in 2008.
If b-movie actor had not been elected, would Tina Fey’s joke had been ” I can see the Soviet Union from my House” ?
So if Poland, then has anybody heard word from Turkey what fate they expect will befall their prospects — good, bad, or indifferent — when those gleaming pipeline targets in Ukraine start going up in flames?
Had an interesting chat today at work with a Russian colleague, who turns out to be from a Ukrainian Jewish family. He said many Russians throughout Ukraine despise Putin, and that eastern cities such as Kharkiv, Donestsk, etc., are not monolithically Russian nationalist. Also, he had worked in Crimea, which he said wasn’t nearly as completely Russified, about 60%.
I asked him about the extent Ukrainians and Russians were united by culture, religion etc., suggesting the analogy of Kosovo to Serbs. He said it was fair, but obviously crude. There are interesting issues about the economy in the eastern, Transdnieper cities. Apparently the oligarchs of the heavy industry which is the base of the economy there are all on board with the new government. It seems to me if they jump into Putin’s arms, then they will have made the calculation that there is no future in a Ukraine outside the empire.
In other snow-related gloating news, I’ve got this and this in my yard.
And lots more where that came from after our mid-60s play out this week.
second link not working
second link, second try
At the risk of getting a rise out of the electric hamster, I did not vote for Meghans cowardly daddy, I voted for the snowbilly. She is a force of nature and I hope she decides to run for some elective office, preferably senate ( for now )
My crocuses are up, as well.
Unfortunately, they are under 4 inches of snow today.
We had ended up rolling the Soviets big-time. Without intending to, we had hit them hard. We got off to a great start.
The Soviets were not at all pleased about it and talked about it far after the summit. “I felt like we lost the game during the first movement,” said Kremlin press official Sergei Tarasenko years later.
That day, the coat incident bothered the Soviets so much that as we broke for lunch at the end of the first session, to head back to our respective venues, Gorbachev’s last words to Reagan were “When we meet again, will it be coats on or coats off?” And at every point over the next three days, whenever there was an upcoming departure, Gorbachev invariably asked the president the same question. “The next time we meet, will it be coats on or coats off?”
link
I also remember her talking about how the troubles at Fannie and Freddie were going to cost the taxpayer, whereupon the Left en masse hooted about how ignorant she was, not realizing that they aren’t really government agencies. About three days later it became conventional wisdom that the taxpayer would indeed be on the hook for the problems at Fannie and Freddie.
Adding in this example, I believe that I can generalize them by saying “If you know something that a reporter does not know, your knowledge will be portrayed as ignorance.”
i would like to watch her play softball..pitchin..headhunter..buzz cut..underhand..licking the tips of her fingers..you betcha…listening to the kinks..on earphones..what a perfect day
Left this comment on a post regarding Billy Jeff on Moran’s blog: Ah yes, our first black president and quite possibly the first rapist to be POTUS.
Result of speaking the truth to power, not surprisingly: This comment was deleted.
But it got a few up votes before it was deleted. Disgusting the amount of nasty purists out there.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/03/bill_clintons_idea_of_heaven.html
Politico’s @BlakeHounshell had a rough night of it when this story hit the Twitter.
In light of Obama skipping Security Council briefings and whatnot, Clint Eastwood is starting to look pretty damn prescient as well.
rick moron could get a job @ russia today
mt suit mt chair mt mind
the wrightings of chairman baracky
link
I am more of a grape hyacinth kind of guy.
“If you know something that a reporter does not want known, your knowledge will be portrayed as ignorance.”
– Putin is shaking in his boots.
– Its not just that Bumblefuck is a total wuss, he is a total wuss but really Russia can do whatever she wants in her own region. No one is going to risk nuclear war to try to make Russia lay off its own terroitories, no one.
– In point of fact any real aggression on our part that upsets the balance of MAD would be a total fucking disaster. MAD and the 32 on station MIRVed warhead boomers are what has kept things in a sort of wobbly, but steady, peace all these years.
– Prey Jug ears doesn’t get goaded into doing anything important. Just keep golfing pussy-boi, just keep golfing.
Notice what’s happening in Connecticut?
Yep.
on the bright side Leo can play Governor Malloy in the movie and finally get his oscar
– More Putin “shaking”, consequences this pussy-boi.
– Take away the guns, yeah, that’ll be the fucking day. There isn’t a Prog alive that has the balls to even think about actually acting on this meme. They just want the “feel good” narrative of blowing smoke up each others asses by saying the words to themselves out loud, or seeing them in some phony puff piece in the media.
Palin was just ahead of the news cycle. Putin didn’t invade Ukraine until after Obama’s reelection — and that makes all the difference in the world.
I can’t decide whether the administration is exhibiting Year 0 thinking (history is irrelevant) or postmodern thinking (the narrative is reality) in dealing with foreign policy. Either way, whether it’s Obama telling Russia what’s good for them or Kerry complaining that Russia is using 19th century tactics, this will not end well.
There’s little the US can do to stop Putin on his doorstep and it really is inconceivable that Russia would forego its Crimean seaports for its navy. Not justifying it at all, but accepting the realpolitik that only force will stop Putin and frankly, after 12 years of the GWOT , the impending drawdown of the military, and the lack of leadership and vision at the top, well, we’re just not up to it. And Europe is 10 steps behind us. The best we can hope for is that the correct lessons will be learned from this debacle.
When nothing but dither is possible, then by all means, more dither.
I’ll tell you why he’s complaining: Kerry is trying to master 18th-century diplomacy.
But he keeps trying to smother the snuff sneeze, and that gives him all kinds of trouble.
Eugene Robinson speaks and removes all doubt. Oh, yeah, ok, again:
*** Is it just me, or does the rhetoric about the crisis in Ukraine sound as if all of Washington is suffering from amnesia? We’re supposed to be shocked — shocked! — that a great military power would cook up a pretext to invade a smaller, weaker nation? I’m sorry, but has everyone forgotten the unfortunate events in Iraq a few years ago?
My sentiments, to be clear, are with the legitimate Ukrainian government, not with the neo-imperialist regime in Russia. But the United States, frankly, has limited standing to insist on absolute respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign states.
Before Iraq there was Afghanistan, there was the Gulf War, there was Panama, there was Grenada. And even as we condemn Moscow for its outrageous aggression, we reserve the right to fire deadly missiles into Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and who knows where else. ***
It’s one thing for a terrorist bomber from the sixties to walk free.
It’s another to have a traitorous slanderous gigolo as Secretary of State.
Apparently nobody’s told Eugene about 9/11, or about the difference between aggression and defense.
I’m sure if he were attacked on the street and inadvertantly blocked one of his assailant’s swings, he would insist on his own arrest due to morally equivalent guilt.
We are apparently smarter and more educated than our state department now.
Peace through Sesame Street.
Best of hands, folks. We’re in the very best of hands.
ClownDisaster: Putin’s show of force in Ukraine not a sign of strength.
Ok. Then taking the moron at his word, and if it’s a sign of weakness, why not put US troops into Ukraine to train up the deficient Ukrainian armed forces, dingleberry? Why not pour a naval armada into the Black Sea? Why not move a US combat air wing into Poland? Or hell, for that matter, straight into Ukraine itself, since it’s still a sovereign nation and can freely invite the help? Eh?
Apparently nobody’s told Eugene about 9/11, or about the difference between aggression and defense.
I’m no fan of Eugene’s, but I’ll concede that he has a point this time. We can talk 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, and Russia simply counters with the Nazi and French invasions. We can argue over who is the rightful leader of the Ukraine, and both sides will find plenty of examples of interventions to support their side of the argument.
Simple truth is, we toppled Hussein and Gaddafi because we felt they posed a threat to our national interest; Putin is going to destabilize the new regime in Kiev for exactly the same reasons.
In the end, power politics doesn’t care who’s wrong and who’s right. It cares only about who has the will and the means. Right now, we have none of the former and less and less of the latter with each passing year.
Because showing force proves you’re weak, duh! I think Kerry is going to ball himself up into the fetal position and cry Putin out of Crimea.
We should change the name of the US State department to the St. Hoffman Home for Wealthy And Sometimes Mediocre Functioning Chumps.
I like to think we’ve all read the Melian Dialogue. And sure, it’s a fantasy I cling to, something like I’m supposed to cling to my guns and religion, whatever that is. Still, I cling.
But that I cling to the idea that we’ve all read it does not mean I believe we all come away with the same conclusion about it — far from it! Despite that I also believe Thucydides had something very particular in mind to teach us by its means. That is, I think that because Thucydides was a careful writer, a subtle writer, he refused to make his teaching something brash, plain or stark, when the subject itself is anything but brash, plain or stark. ‘Cause hell, evil runs about in the world, and who doesn’t know? And that choosing remains the problem.
baracky’s mom wears commie boots. that is all.
Smart Power: Lugar and Obama Urge Destruction of Conventional Weapons Stockpiles
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
Then perhaps, Squid, someone should remind Eugene that if he is a U.S. citizen, his interests will tend to be more or less parallel to U.S. national interest.
If he wants to be neutral, he will have to be stateless; not even Switzerland would suit him, if it would have him, which it wouldn’t.
Ukraine: Follow The Energy
Sdferr, once again I must admit my ignorance. Melian dialogue? Thucidides? NO
fucking clue.
I get the gist of the post, but hell man, I only graduated high school. Some of us had to work., you know?
Point being, I come here to learn and appreciate it all, but sometimes? possibly maybe use a few terms we don’t have to look up?
To oversimplify Blitz, here is the dialogue (it’s short), wrenched from its context in the History (which is also available to you online in its entirety). The dialogue standing alone is readily comprehensible though, and the choices are quite plain.
Oh! The Pelopennesian war…shit, I read that the last time you linked it. fascinating in a way, and I do appreciate your answer. In a way, it does translate into what’s happening, but I just don’t really see it.
Hey, trying here, would rather read Tolkein or Kings Gunslinger series… and no need to OVER simplify my friend, just understand that some of us ( meaning me only I think) just can’t do the word salad sometimes.
Um, understand that I meant by oversimplify that because I think there is importance to the context, i.e., the very next thing that happens, for instance, I only intended that I’m a bit loath to tear out the parcel and possibly do damage to Thucydides’ own judgment in doing that — certainly not that I thought it necessary for your or anyone else’s sake to oversimplify. As to the stupid word salad, I do the best I know how, so forgive, to the extent it is within you possible to forgive.
Sdferr? It is not for me to forgive, it’s you that should forgive my ignorance. I know what I know, and I know that I don’t know, so that’s a start.
As far as this particular post goes, all I ever wanted to say is Sarah Palin is a force of nature, and she should go further.
I will still try to trad you, and to my mind, decipher.
not trad, read. TYPO KING!!!
Satire is no longer possible in this world..
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/04/us-nobel-peace-idUSBREA231R920140304
I sometimes think I can no longer be surprised and readily expect someone to keep digging no matter how low they go and this makes me do this in reaction:
O_o;;
I keep expecting my angel friend Satan* to show up and contemptuously chide me to dream better dreams if I don’t like this one.
*Mysterious Stranger reference.
Zombie Alfred Nobel just texted me. He says, “If it’s all the same to you non-brainovores, I’d rather be remembered for dynamite.”
So that pipeline that just blew up in Russia…is that a bit of “Hey Putin.You goin’ to leave? No. Alright. Say, that’s a nice natural gas infrastructure ya got there. Shame if somethin’ were ta happen to it.
Thanks, palaeomerus. h/t, and all of that.
https://twitter.com/serr8d/status/441208627504746496
No satire? Sounds plausible to me, given the Nobel Peace Prize as a self-mockery on the highest order.
But The People’s Cube hasn’t gotten the message so just keeps on keeping on.