The Commentariat -- June 16, 2014
Internal links, obsolete videos removed.
As if June 15 Never Happened.
Paul Krugman: "You should judge leaders by their achievements, not their press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year. In fact, there's a very good chance that 2014 will go down in the record books as one of those years when America took a major turn in the right direction."
Mark Landler & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "As President Obama weighs airstrikes against marauding militants in Iraq, he has concluded that any American military action must be conditioned on a political plan to try to heal Iraq's sectarian rifts, a senior administration official said on Sunday." ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "The United States is preparing to hold direct talks with Iran this week on how to counter the Sunni militant group, according to The Wall Street Journal. And, to top it all off, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who pushed a resolution authorizing war with Iran over their nuclear program last year, is all for working with our old foe." ...
... Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "It is not difficult to imagine a multinational war, fought along a five-hundred-mile front, and along sectarian lines, waged ultimately for regional supremacy.... The 'divine conquest' of Mosul by a group of Islamic extremists is a bitter consequence of the American invasion. For now, there seems to be very little we can do about it."
... David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "We at Raw Story's Oh God Here We Go Again desk ... marvel at the Big Brass Ones on some people who feel the need to offer their opinions about how the U.S. should conduct itself with regards to recent rise of extremist elements in [Iraq] and the loss of two of its major cities to al Qaeda. These people seem to believe that their previous dire wrongness on everything about the topic of Iraq shouldn't preclude them from opining about our nation's current course of action, goodness no." Ferguson names "seven people who need to STFU about Iraq right now." CW: Several readers recommended this column. It's a fine one. ...
... Which Is Why I Don't Watch the Sunday Shows. ... Emily Arrowood of Media Matters: "NBC and ABC's Sunday news shows turned to discredited architects of the Iraq War to opine on the appropriate U.S. response to growing violence in Iraq, without acknowledging their history of deceit and faulty predictions." Paul Wolfowitz on NBC; Bill Kristol on ABC. "Holding Wolfowitz and Kristol up as reputable sources on U.S. intervention in Iraq, the broadcasts explained neither the roles the men played in dishonestly crafting the Iraq War nor their woeful records of predicting its outcome and aftermath." ...
... Bush's British Baby Brother Blair. Patrick Wintour, et al., of the Guardian: "Tony Blair has urged western governments to recognise that they need to take an active role in the Middle East, saying the west should consider military options short of sending ground troops.... Blair was speaking on UK morning TV shows after writing a lengthy essay setting out how to respond to the Iraq crisis, including his belief that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not the cause of the country's implosion." ...
... You can read Blair's bizarre claims here. ...
... ** Chelsea Manning has a very interesting piece in the New York Times about her experiences & observations of the chasm between what actually went on in Iraq while she was stationed there & what the U.S. media reported. ...
... CW: As for me -- & (unlike John McCain, Bill Kristol, et al.,) I claim absolute ignorance here -- I have a hard time understanding why Iraq needs to be "saved." It's a fake country anyway, cobbled together over the centuries by its various foreign conquerors (most recently, the British) & settled by people from different areas, different ethnic backgrounds & different religious beliefs. Why not home rule? Breaking up may be hard to do, but it's better than more sectarian violence. Please feel free to set me straight. ...
... Here's how Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute would answer my questions: Al Qaeda! I'm including this link only because Kagan's piece is receiving a lot of media attention. He might be an expert on some of the problems, but I'm not buying his "solutions." ...
Starbucks U. Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Starbucks will provide a free online college education to thousands of its workers, without requiring that they remain with the company, through an unusual arrangement with Arizona State University, the company and the university will announce on Monday."
Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Staff members at dozens of Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country have objected for years to falsified patient appointment schedules and other improper practices, only to be rebuffed, disciplined or even fired after speaking up, according to interviews with current and former staff members and internal documents. The growing V.A. scandal over long patient wait times and fake scheduling books is emboldening hundreds of employees to go to federal watchdogs, unions, lawmakers and outside whistle-blower groups to report continuing problems, officials for those various groups said."
Emmarie Huettemann of the New York Times: "Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said Sunday that he saw a troublesome division within the Republican Party, as he discussed his stunning primary defeat, which many are assessing for possible evidence that the Tea Party is regaining steam among Republicans. Though Mr. Cantor said in a separate interview, on CNN's 'State of the Union,' that the party's internal struggles 'pale in comparison' to its differences with Democrats, he said Republicans need to resolve their party's own clash." ...
... David Carr of the New York Times: "It's now clear why the primary defeat of the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, came so completely out of the blue last week: Beltway blindness that put a focus on fund-raising, power-brokering and partisan back-and-forth created a reality distortion field that obscured the will of the people. But that affliction was not Mr. Cantor's alone; it is shared by the political press.... The big miss by much of the political news media demonstrates that news organizations are no less a prisoner of Washington's tunnel vision than the people who run for office." ...
... Laura Ingraham Has an Excellent Sense of Humor. If You Like Sick Jewish "Jokes." David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Sunday argued that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) -- the only Jewish Republican in Congress -- had lost his seat because he couldn't 'take a joke' after she suggested trading him to the Taliban over his support for immigration reform. At a campaign rally for Tea Party-favorite Dave Brat in early June, Ingraham said that President Barack Obama 'could have just traded one Eric Cantor' to the Taliban for prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl." CW: AND thanks, ABC News & Jonathan Karl, for giving that loud-mouthed bigot Ingraham more exposure. Luckily, Bill Kristol was there at the table for "balance" or something. (Another of the people who should STFU re: Iraq. See Media Matters story above.) ...
Patricia Sullivan of the Washington Post: "One of the most historic journalism sites of the past half-century will soon vanish, following a decision by the Arlington County Board on Saturday to demolish the building and parking garage where FBI official Mark Felt secretly met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward during the Watergate investigation. The County Board unanimously agreed to allow Monday Properties to replace its two 12-story, 1960s-era buildings at 1401 Wilson Blvd. in Rosslyn with a 28-story residential tower and a 24-story commercial building." Via Margaret Hartmann. CW: In the South, history only matters if there's a Confederate hero in the mix.
Presidential Race 2016
James Hohmann of Politico: "Establishment forces officially wrested control of the Iowa Republican Party from supporters of Rand Paul on Saturday, a development the victors said would help save the state's first-in-the-nation presidential caucus from being marginalized.... The transfer of power to those loyal to Gov. Terry Branstad -- which has been in the works for months but was completed on Saturday -- increases the likelihood that center-right GOP candidates, such as Chris Christie or Jeb Bush, will choose to compete in the caucus. It also jeopardizes next year's [Ames] straw poll: Branstad said the annual ritual has 'outlived its usefulness,' and other critics say it's become a spectacle that raises a lot of money for the party but has little significance politically. Pro-Paul forces, however, enthusiastically support the event and want to keep it going."
A Shocking Surprise. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Previewing a possible 2016 presidential matchup, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a leading Republican White House contender, blasted Hillary Clinton as unfit to serve as the nation's commander in chief. Speaking at the Iowa Republican convention on Saturday, Paul declared the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi the most concerning scandal of the Obama administration and laid the blame at Clinton's feet."
Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles Times: At a "retreat" for Republican political donors which Mitt Romney organized, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie "framed the bridge scandal as a media conspiracy against him after he won 61% of the vote in his gubernatorial race in a Democratic state. His opponents, he said, were trying to prevent him from getting any 'more altitude.'"
News Ledes
Politico: "President Barack Obama has notified Congress that up to about 275 U.S. military personnel are headed to Iraq to help the State Department relocate some staff from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to the U.S. Consulates General in Basra and Erbil and to the Iraq Support Unit in Amman."
New York Times: "The Sunni extremist militants threatening Iraq seized another northern city on Monday in a battle with the Iraqi Army after having ambushed a convoy of untrained Shiite militia volunteers, killing at least 29 in the first lethal encounter between Sunni and Shiite combatants since the government started mobilizing thousands of Shiites to supplement the country's faltering armed forces." ...
... Washington Post: "Al-Qaeda renegades captured another major town in northern Iraq on Sunday, forcing hundreds of families to flee into the surrounding desert as their country descended into a new round of bloodletting. The fall of the religiously mixed town of Tal Afar to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) raised the specter of deepening sectarian violence. It came as the U.S. government announced that it was drawing down staff at its embassy in Baghdad."
Reuters: "Russia cut off gas to Ukraine on Monday in a dispute over unpaid bills that could disrupt supplies to the rest of Europe and set back hopes for peace in the former Soviet republic."
AFP: "At least 48 people were killed when suspected Shebab militants from Somalia stormed into a Kenyan coastal town and launched a major assault on a police station, hotels and government offices, officials said on Monday.'
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!!! NEWS FLASH !!!
Just saw Paul Ryan running through Washington National Airport. (Apparently he didn't know that there's a shuttle to get from one concourse to the other.)
Rode the same shuttle and had the opportunity to get much too close to him - within striking distance which I didn't take advantage of. He looks dweebier in real life than I could have imagined, Eddie Munster hair and all. His feet looked unusually large too for someone so scrawny. Maybe it was because of the elf shoes he had on.
From Friday's "All Things Considered:"
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321778912/week-in-politics-the-fall-of-mosul-and-the-defeat-of-eric-cantor
Katrina Vanden Heuvel sat in for E. J. Dionne, opposite David Brooks. They never got to the Eric Cantor portion of the conversation. Many commenters on the NPR site seem upset that Ms. Vanden Heuvel didn't play nice. Brooks sounds as if he can hardly believe what he is hearing.
To my ear, her tactics were aggressive and they reminded me of an occasion when I heard Sen. Lindsay Graham in a similar situation. His speech pattern never gave a moment of silence for the others present to cut in. Ms. Vanden Heuvel's performance had the advantage that what she was saying was actually true, or at least what I understand to be true.
ON WISCONSIN: Alec Macgillis has written a comprehensive and well researched "journey through the poisonous racially divided world that produced a Republican star." While I wouldn't call Scott Walker a star, he certainly has his little beady eyes on the prize so I guess that makes him far-sighted and twinkling in Republican eyes. We get a good look at Wisconsin politics plus a good look at Scott's family background and religious affiliations–––something I wasn't aware of. And I got to thinking if I could make a campaign ad for the Democrats I'd have a video of Walker walking away from the White House with the caption: Walker––WALK ON BY––with Petula Clark singing in the background. What! You tell me Clark won't allow the rights to her song? She's a Republican? I say, she's British, for Pete's sake, what does she care? Oh, well, never mind.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118145/scott-walkers-toxic-racial-politics
Noticed a very funny bit on RC over the weekend, an analogy that compared importuning John McCain for advice on Iraq to quizzing Mr. Magoo for directions. That was a good one. Wish I'd thought of it. But since I didn't, I can't let that stop me from swiping a good idea.
Here, then, are a few more excellent examples of the worst advice you could ever get from exemplars of wrong-way ideas.
Your brand needs a good marketing boost. You call the "New Coke" guys.
You request suggestions for prosecuting a successful invasion from Napoleon after he skedaddles back from Russia with fewer than 5% of the half million men he started with.
You have a big baseball trade in mind. You call former Red Sox owner Harry Frazee who, in 1919, traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees for some cash. Outcome over the next 86 years: Yankees World Series titles: 26. Red Sox: 0.
You solicit guidance on border defenses from the architects of the Maginot Line.
You put in a call to medieval Vatican prelates for help with your astronomy homework.
You're planning a civil rights march. You call Bull Connor for security advice.
You hire Rosie Ruiz as your Boston Marathon coach.
You're drawing up ideas for a carefully planned military action. You call General Custer.
Your college needs a professor for a new course in political ethics. Your choices: Ollie North or Richard Nixon.
You need smart advice on foreign policy. You call Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, George Will, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol....
@Nisky: Thanks for your link––I could only get the transcript so I missed the vocals and from my reading, Katrina's words rang exactly right and if she sounded strident (as some comments alleged), good for her because the topic should make anyone outraged. She's a perfect match for Brooks who dithers here and there, while she hits hard where it hurts.
Also over the weekend I read that there are some in the GOP camp who are jonesing for a certain squealing Richie Rich Rat to hop back on his hamster wheel for a presidential run in 2016 after failing in his last 9 tries. Oh baby, that oughta kindle fires in the bellies of the drooling mob.
But apparently the Romney Bot convened a conclave of the best and the brightest (aka anyone who could afford the airfare) from the GOP somewhere in Utah last weekend for an "Ideas Summit" (great name, in'it? Almost like someone just figured out what ideas are good for), otherwise known as "Rehashed Discredited Bullshit that is Still Less Useful than a Bent Nail".
I suppose the fact that Romney is calling Hillary Clinton names and making stupid faces at her means he's serious.
Somebody, please. Shoot me now. I just can't do another 2 years of this mincing rodent.
Nisky Guy,
Sorry I missed that. I usually catch that segment. I like E.J., but he's usually way too nice for that smarmy douchebag Brooks who, on NPR at least, tries to pretend he's a reasonable guy but really needs a good smack at least once every segment. Glad Katrina put her dukes up.
And I'd like to remind those listeners overly concerned with politesse that lying out both sides of your mouth and spurting explosive bursts of flatulence out your ass every week are not exactly chapter headings in the Book of Playing Nice.
@Nisky Guy: "Ms. Vanden Heuvel didn't play nice. Brooks sounds as if he can hardly believe what he is hearing. To my ear, her tactics were aggressive and they reminded me of an occasion when I heard Sen. Lindsay Graham in a similar situation. His speech pattern never gave a moment of silence for the others present to cut in. Ms. Vanden Heuvel's performance had the advantage that what she was saying was actually true, or at least what I understand to be true."
Well, we have different ears. I just listened to the Vanden Heuvel-Brooks segment, & I didn't think Vanden Heuvel seemed "strident" at all. She did interrupt one time that I heard, but she interrupted Judy Woodruff, not Brooks (albeit it spared us Brooks giving the last word). I was doing other stuff as I half-listened, so I could have missed another incidence of Vandel Heuvel interrupting, but I definitely heard her waiting her turn while Brooks said stuff I didn't listen to.
Listeners must be unaccustomed to hearing an assertive woman. There's a long stretch between "strident" & "forceful" in my book, & all Vanden Heuvel did was forcefully articulate her view. There was nothing antagonistic in her delivery that I could discern. If listeners want to hear "strident" from a woman, they should listen to Laura Ingraham or Sarah Palin.
If you think Vandel Heuvel was strident, then this is a problem for Hillary 2016, as she speaks very much as Vanden Heuvel does. In fact, I'd say Hillary is more forceful than Vanden Heuvel. I'm afraid men are still more accustomed to hearing, "Can I get you more coffee, Hon?" from women.
Marie
@CW: I carefully did not use the word "strident" as it is loaded with baggage. I found it refreshing to hear a liberal standing firm and not hedging.
Republicans have been steamrolling liberals for years and liberals have been way too accommodating. The radio segment was not my favorite form of discourse, but as long as the vast majority of Republicans grab the authoritative position when they don't deserve it, I was glad to hear some deserved grabbing by a liberal.
" In the South, history only matters if there's a Confederate hero in the mix."
Sadly, not even then. Last year I thought that I would plan a camping tour, following Grant's grinding engagements with Lee from the Rappahannock to Petersburg, thence Appamattox. I scrapped the idea after a little research, which revealed that virtually all of those encounters are now marked with housing developments, strip malls, gas stations etc. There is still some of the Wilderness that is forested, but not "preserved".
I suppose you could say that this confirms your concept, since Lee was inexorably pushed back and attritted in this particular campaign, which resulted in the eventual destruction of his army. But, even so, virtually all of the monuments to the nobility of southern arms in this campaign were erected in Richmond, in Hollywood Cemetery and on its main drag (huge statues of confederate heroes on horseback, plus one of Arthur Ashe afoot). Not much preservation of the actual battlefields.
And ... since we are speaking of the garage in Rosslyn (Arlington) ... although that is in Virginia, it is no longer "the South". Those of us who live in the environs now consider the South to start at the "Sweet Tea Line", somewhere around the Rappahannock, south of which when you order iced tea you have to tell the waitress "no sugar" to avoid getting sweet tea. North of that line, up to the Potomac, people are not quite Yankees, but surely not Southerners. They are Washington exurbanites.
Marie,
The concept of female "stridency" is just below the surface for many conservatives who, by dint of genetic structures antithetical to the very idea of women doing anything but procreating (and the occasional assignment as "entertainment" for men), find a conspiracy by feminists to "end" men, entirely believable.
How else do you explain child-man Tucker Carlson and his Fox Friends in Idiocy being taken in by an online hoax that Feminists Were Out to Destroy Father's Day--and END MEN altogether. (One of them, Princeton Mom Susan (The Insufferable) Patton even went out of her way to exercise her science chops by pointing out that if there were no men, where would women come from? Faking it for the rubes? Or really that stupid?)
End Men? Oh no! Not that! Those dastardly (and strident!) women are at it again, attacking Tucker's little weiner, trying to diminish his god-given, wingnut approved he-man-authority over uppity women.
Seriously folks, as I've said before, people stupid enough to be lured into believing the silliest-ass things should not be allowed out of the house unaccompanied by adults (who are not themselves wingnuts, natch).
Honestly, start a rumor that feminists are paying for research aimed at creating removable testicles and certain types of conservatives will begin uncontrollably hooting in their cages and scratching at their underarms.
Oh no! Save us from the scary women!
Overheard in swanky Dallas suburban home:
Laura: Dear, did you see the news?
George. No, honey, I don't watch the news. I'm painting my toes. What's goin' on? That Obama feller off the rails again?
Laura: Well I saw that Sunni rebels in Iraq have been lining up Shiite soldiers and shooting them in the head.
George: ......aaahhhh...Sunnis. Which one is them again? Are they the good guys or the bad guys? Or maybe the she-ee guys are the good ones. I forget.
Laura: I'm not sure.
George. Well, you know, I handed them democracy on a plate. If they don't know what to do with it, shame on them. They could have a McDonalds on every corner by now if they handled it right.
Laura: Still, I feel bad for all those Shiites.
George. Are those the ones with towels on their heads? I can never keep them straight. Dick tried to tell me once but he didn't really know either. I guess it don't matter anyways. Well, I've made a decision.
Laura: Oh? And what's that? You are the Decider after all (small chuckle).
George. I've decided to take a nap.
Laura: Well, have a good one, dear.
Akhileus: If Iraq does get those McDonalds you posit GWB alluding to, you know what could happen then....Peace!
At least according to VSP (founding member) T. Friedman. Here's the Wiki:
"Perhaps the most famous theory presented in this book [The Lexus and the Olive Tree] is the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, or "Democratic Peace Theory," which states: "No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's". In the 2000 edition of the book, Friedman answered criticism of his theory as follows:
"I was both amazed and amused by how much the Golden Arches Theory had gotten around and how intensely certain people wanted to prove it wrong. They were mostly realists and out-of-work Cold Warriors who insisted that politics, and the never-ending struggle between nation-states, were the immutable defining feature of international affairs, and they were professionally and psychologically threatened by the idea that globalization and economic integration might actually influence geopolitics in some very new and fundamental ways."[1]
Victoria,
Thanks for reminding me of such a ridiculous construction.
I actually read that book but my mind must have rejected that conclusion from such a silly premise.
The study of logic requires its students to submit their ideas to the court of Valid Reasoning. It's certainly possible, under certain circumstances, for a premise like "Given that country A and Country B both have McDonald's restaurants" to result in a conclusion like "neither country will attack each other", but so also is the conclusion "Thus everyone loves peanut butter" a valid conclusion from the premise "Everyone love peanuts AND butter".
Friedman is a pea nut. But his logic is rancid.
Neither of which promise a reasonable conclusion.
Just to be clear here: Nisky is right when he says he never used the word strident nor did I say he did. What I did say, in parenthesis, was that comments from listeners thought Katrinia was strident. Thanks to Marie, I just listened to the exchange. I am flummoxed. Katrina's well modulated voice could have put me to sleep on a rainy night. Strident? I'll give you strident in a nano second. Here are a few of the negative comments from–– I am ashamed to see– so called liberal democrats who obviously need to get their shit together or get their ears cleaned.
"Please, NPR, don't ever have Vanden Heuvel replace E.J. Dionne again. I'm a liberal democrat, and I don't disagree with her opinions, but she was embarrassing--rude and strident, consistently raising her voice to talk over the moderator's attempt to pass the conversational ball to David Brooks. I missed the polite and congenial exchange of views and disagreements between Brooks and Dionne, an oasis of politeness and intelligence in what too often passes for debate in our polarized age."
"I consider myself a liberal democrat but I did not like the way
Heuval expressed herself or the way she interrupted. If she wasn't strident she was close to it. It was obvious she had a very strong opinion about Iraq. I don't want to hear emotional analysts. I want objectivity."
It's a sad state of affairs when you realize that people who consider themselves "liberal democrats" are really watching "Dancing with the Stars" and like Ak's George's and Laura's live in their own bubble.
Re your comment asking why Iraq needs to be "saved." I agree. I had the same question...
This morning Al Jazeera was reporting on the "crisis" and reminding us that Iraq is the 4th largest oil country in the world. That about summed it up for me.....
I always wondered how we could ignore the horrors of Darfur and Somalia, etc., etc., etc. and yet the McCain's of the world want the US to rush - boots first - into Iraw to "save" someone, or someone's someone, or (more likely) someone else's something, namely oil.
I'm so glad I found your site. Always a great, informative read.