Sunday, September 08, 2013

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about rightbloggers and Obama's Syria push. I'm opposed to bombing Syria -- my bets against American intervention have been good for years and I'm inclined to let them ride. Rightbloggers make bad allies, though, for reasons I lay out in the column -- the nutshell is, they're obviously not against half-assed foreign adventures, and only oppose this one because they see a political opening.  They'll bomb the shit out of Iran first chance they get.

Maybe their ill wind will blow some good in the Congressional vote. But you can't forget what they are. They're a little like Hyman Roth, except you can't respect them.

UPDATE. Ur-neocon Norman Podhoretz dodders out of Hell's vestibule to tell us Obama is trying to make warmongering look bad on purpose because he hates America. Far from being "incompetent and amateurish" as all the other conservatives are saying, Obama is in Podhoretz's estimate "a brilliant success as measured by what he intended all along to accomplish." And what is that? Weakening America abroad!
As a left-wing radical, Mr. Obama believed that the United States had almost always been a retrograde and destructive force in world affairs. Accordingly, the fundamental transformation he wished to achieve here was to reduce the country's power and influence...
Podhoretz knows it doesn't look like that to you, but he knows Obama's kind -- no, not the schvartzes, at least not this time; he means socialists. Like all good one-worlders, Obama's willing to use trickery to destroy the U.S. -- even pretending to be pro-war when in fact he's secretly tickling the "war-weariness of the American people" by, among other things, "using drones instead of troops whenever he was politically forced into military action." (How can we sustain Americans' fighting spirit without American casualties? What's a bloody shirt without blood?)

In fact, though his fellow wingnuts are always talking about how arrogant Obama is, Podhoretz knows that in fact Obama is selfless -- such a zealot, in fact, that he'll willingly sacrifice himself for his cause:
For this fulfillment of his dearest political wishes, Mr. Obama is evidently willing to pay the price of a sullied reputation. In that sense, he is by his own lights sacrificing himself for what he imagines is the good of the nation of which he is the president, and also to the benefit of the world, of which he loves proclaiming himself a citizen.
Norman Podhoretz can't believe how blind you all have been not to see it. Up next: How Obama drags American to socialism while presiding over an unprecedented stock market rally. Oh wait -- they say that all the time! Maybe Podhoretz isn't senile after all -- maybe he's actually a conservative thought leader. But how would anyone tell the difference?

136 comments:

  1. PersonaAuGratin8:38 PM

    Let's shoot for 500 comments this time!

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  2. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps8:39 PM

    I don't think we have the args for it.

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  3. PersonaAuGratin8:40 PM

    (Not really... last I looked yesterday, previous thread was at 222, and I thought it must have reached some natural limit. But No...)

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  4. PersonaAuGratin8:44 PM

    I grok that...

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  5. JennOfArk8:51 PM

    I'm with you in the main re: opposition, but perhaps for a different reason. My take is that there really does need to be some kind of a response or else the nearly universal agreement against use of chemical weapons is meaningless. My opposition lies in the belief that lobbing a few bombs isn't going to really do anything to address it in any effective way, and neither I nor any other thinking human being wants to sign up for another disastrous and protracted occupation. As we've learned, those don't work very well, either.
    But I do wish people who should know better would stop drawing parallels with Iraq. There are broad similarities in that both are in the Middle East, both have rival religious and ethnic factions, and etc. But in terms of the situations in each case, it's just bullshit to compare the two, and it chaps my ass to hear numbnuts on NPR drawing equivalencies between Sadaam gassing the Kurds 15 years prior to shock-n-awe as being the same as responding to Assad's attack that happened a couple of weeks ago.
    More than that, I'm extremely irritated by the repeated assertion that Iraq happened because of "faulty intelligence." It didn't, and everyone knows that it didn't - rather it happened because of robust pimping of cooked and cherrypicked intelligence. So it's just stupid to say "well how can we trust the intelligence now?" Well, here's how - by acknowleging that Bush went into office with a hard-on for Iraq, whereas Obama has pretty visibly tried to avoid involvement in Syria up until the recent attack (and has been pretty relentlessly excoriated for failure to show "strong leadership" by having already bombed the shit out of Syria by a pretty good faction on the right). Bush pressed for full-out occupation and started putting the forces into place months before failing to get UN sanction or even the support of a majority here in the US (something like 62% still voiced opposition to Iraq absent UN support on the eve of the invasion). Bush (well, Cheney) already had the division of the spoils all worked out months before the invasion.
    So let's please drop the false equivalencies. There are plenty of reasons to be anti-intervention that have nothing to do with the clusterfuck Bush set in motion in Iraq.
    Personally, I've wondered if this hasn't been punted to Congress just to get those Republican hawks who have been sniping about the "lack of leadership" to either put up or shut up. Obama can count on the loony faction to screech loudly about how they'll impeach him if he so much as looks at Syria crosseyed, once they've voted down any resolution of support, which might give more excuse to back down, while he still gets a few brownie points for wanting to make some kind of intervention. Wouldn't be a half-bad Brer Rabbit strategy to have them throw him in the briar patch. Or maybe he's really set on lobbing some bombs - I don't know. But I do know this: it's not a situation equivalent to Iraq, and anyone who tries to make it into a parallel situation succeeds only in making themselves look very foolish and/or gullible.

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  6. AngryWarthogBreath9:00 PM

    I don't believe it is in America's interest to use force here. But if we were going to respond, why respond proportionately? Why not respond disproportionately?

    So, Aaron Sorkin has recently disappeared up any number of his own orifices, but he answered this question fourteen years ago on his silly fantasy Presidency show. And now the Moustache is asking it of real politicians. Obviously the wrong people end up the recipients of proper public shame.



    The episode was about Syria, too, it's amusingly symmetrical.

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  7. glennisw9:14 PM

    I'm incapable of snark because I can't follow any of the rightblogger arguments. They've always had the cognitive dissonance thing going, but this time it's descended into utter incomprehensibility. I can't even make fun of them anymore - I simply can't follow them.

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  8. AngryWarthogBreath9:16 PM

    'Sokay, TECH will solve that problem.

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  9. glennisw9:19 PM

    Exactly. I'm always aggravated by the "Hey he ran against the Iraq War, how come now he wants a war?" line of reasoning.


    We could argue philosophically that all war is the same and one should be opposed to it, but, frankly, holding someone to adhere to a position they took over war with country A for reason B, when years later and unforeseen we're considering war with country C for reason D is ridiculous.

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  10. mommadillo9:21 PM

    "They'll bomb the shit out of Iran first chance they get."



    They'll bomb the shit out of Syria as soon as it's no longer the Kenyan Usurper's idea.

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  11. If only Syria had developed the Internet in 1945 they would be a free-market techtopia by now and we wouldn't need to bomb them.

    Sure, women would still be an oppressed minority but only because that happens to maximize the happiness of the white western oil barons who'd moved there.

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  12. Derelict10:44 PM

    I'm going to guess that most of the RW opposition to Syria is based on nothing more than "Obama wants it, therefore I'm against it."




    But I'll take that. I do not see any possible positive outcome from an adventure begun with no actual purpose in sight (beyond that of dropping bombs because we can). And especially not in Syria. If we're so concerned about the suffering of the Syrian people, why can't we overwhelm the battlefield with humanitarian aid?

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  13. hellslittlestangel10:51 PM

    I find this issue to be both too serious and too fucking stupid to comment on.

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  14. redoubt11:03 PM

    I'll take Noonan.

    She's remembering the good old days of Pops Reagan, and never mentions Lebanon; she claims the world didn't know that Saddam Hussein was gassing the Kurds, without mentioning how George senior allowed Saddam Hussein to do so without fear of retaliation; she refers to twelve years of war, without mentioning George junior's role in starting same.

    And "Wrong time, wrong place, wrong plan, wrong man."? She remembers hearing something like this somewhere, from a bartender. Absent of context, on deadline, and between martinis, it sounded plausible.

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  15. montag211:10 PM

    Oh, I just think it's funny as hell that racist animus toward the President and a desire for his political undoing may be preventing a war against yet more brown people, even if it means foregoing the opportunity to destroy an ally of Iran.


    It's like there's a daisy-chain of teabaggers in the House cloak room, all of `em on autopilot, gnawing out the asshole in front of them and then coming to and wondering why their asses hurt and there's blood everywhere.

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  16. hellslittlestangel11:32 PM

    These guys could fuck up a baked potato human centipede.

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  17. IncongruousAmoeba11:32 PM

    Bullshit. Drawing comparisons doesn't require that two situations be the same in every respect. The evidence of Assad using chemical weapons has not been fully corroborated as far as I've heard (I wouldn't trust a US politician's word on this kind of thing on general principle), and even if it is borne out, it still doesn't justify unilateral action on the part of the United States. The US is not the world's policeman, and it ignores international law whenever it wants (we supported Saddam while he used chemical weapons).

    If Obama really wanted to avoid involvement in Syria, he could do that easily by NOT GETTING INVOLVED IN SYRIA. Comparisons to Iraq seem relevant, even if the situations aren't exactly the same.

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  18. AGoodQuestion11:45 PM

    "He is a strategic thinker," sighed Raider. "He took total control of Russia's vast disjointed socioeconomic and political landscape through a thorough, effective, forceful, sometimes ruthless, campaign. He now rules that nation with a firm hand."


    James "no, my surname isn't overcompensating" Raider loves loves LOVES iron-fisted dictatorship and he doesn't care who knows it.

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  19. AGoodQuestion11:54 PM

    Mister we could use a man like Leo McGarry again.

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  20. DocAmazing12:14 AM

    Kinda describes life generally.

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  21. BigHank5312:16 AM

    Liquor helps.

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  22. BigHank5312:19 AM

    Once you introduce a libertarian to the equation, there really is no limit to the amount of bullshit that can be produced.

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  23. DocAmazing12:19 AM

    One large parallel with Iraq: there are international inspectors on the ground, and they need to finish their jobs before some rush-to-judgment cock-up is launched.


    There's no need to jump on Syria right now. War crimes are traditionally prosecuted after hostilities have ended. The ICC and the UN have this.

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  24. JennOfArk1:01 AM

    Ok, if it's "bullshit", perhaps you'd care to enlighten us all on what Obama's hidden agenda on military actions against Assad might be.
    We know the answer to that for Iraq; hell, we knew it before it started.
    As for your assertions that the US isn't the world's policeman and ignores international law when it chooses, please point to anyone on the thread who claimed otherwise. But first, outline the hidden agenda on Syria. Failing that, refer back to the last sentence of my previous post.

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  25. I'm sure Raider rules his dong with a firm hand, especially when contemplating Putin.

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  26. she claims the world didn't know that Saddam Hussein was gassing the Kurds


    Jeez, I was a student then and I knew. Everybody knew.

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  27. DocAmazing1:23 AM

    They make it from static electricity.

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  28. JennOfArk1:29 AM

    Didn't a perpetual bullshit machine figure prominently in Atlas Shrugged?

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  29. SomeJerkface1:29 AM

    The problem with synopses this good is I feel like I don't have to read the column.

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  30. petesh1:31 AM

    I wish I agreed that the ICC and the UN have this, but I don't, given the veto power of Russia and China and the spotty history of the Court. Which doesn't stop me thinking that doing nothing may be the least worst option, for the US, for now. But then Obama surprised me by going to Congress, and I still haven't worked out what he expected then or expects now (and if they are different). I don't think the US should bomb Syria but I dont know if we shall. This is the most confusing diplomatic situation I can recall since I was a kid during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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  31. philadelphialawyer1:59 AM

    It is equivalent to Iraq in that it would involve the use of military force without either a UNSC mandate or a real case for self defense. And that means it would violate the UN Charter. At least, that is the aspect of the two "situations" that I think is most important.
    Also, Syria is not a signatory to the convention re chemical weapons, so there is a real question as to whether its use of them actually violates international law. But even if it does (on the basis of the prohibition of the use of them against civilians now being a part of "customary" international law which is binding on all nations, signatories or not), there is stilt the question of enforcement. And the convention itself, in Articles XII and XIV, says that enforcement must be in accordance with international law generally and specifically that UN procedures apply. In other words, while, as you put it, "some kind of response" may indeed be called for (legally as well as morally), military action to enforce either the convention or the norms it embodies, without UNSC authorization, would itself violate international law.

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  32. We have always been at war with the Dixie Chicks!

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  33. coozledad4:19 AM

    It wrote the damn thing.

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  34. Al Swearengen5:12 AM

    Jesus, is Limbaugh taking PR money from Assad?

    And more of the creepy Putin-crush. These guys loves 'em some shirtless strongmen, for what that's worth.



    And it would probably be nice if we maybe had more of these discussions around Roy's articles in the comment section of said article. We're giving ad revenue to Blogspot (Google) instead of VV.

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  35. BadExampleMan5:50 AM

    Has this blog ever gotten a full TBogg Unit?

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  36. Megalon5:58 AM

    Sure wouldn't surprise me.

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  37. Megalon6:06 AM

    Where does Victor Davis Hanson, an Iraq Invasion supporter, get off calling the Libya intervention a "fiasco?" Seems to me that went about as well as any such operation could possibly go. Sounding just a bit desperate I gotta say.

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  38. Derelict6:45 AM

    Many of us remember the cheering that went on when Saddam gassed Iranian troops. Funny how the absolute prohibition against gas weapons didn't quite apply in that case.

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  39. Pope Zebbidie XIII7:00 AM

    If you are going to be in favour of the US dropping munitions on Syria, it is up to you to demonstrate why and how that will make the situation better.


    Wars fuck things up. Always. And this time is not any different.

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  40. Pope Zebbidie XIII7:04 AM

    The comments system at the VV has defeated me on numerous occasions. I have long ago given up.

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  41. "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity" (VIPS) would argue that the intelligence about the Syrian attack may be "cooked" as well. In any case, while I agree the Syrian situation is not the same as Iraq, the main similarity in my mind is that in both cases we have attacks sold to the public as "easy". I do not trust Kerry's claims that attacks on Syria will remain "limited".

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  42. There does not necessarily have to be a hidden agenda on Obama's or Kerry's part like there was with Bush/Cheney. As far as Obama or Kerry is concerned, they may really believe an attack is necessary. The US government, and all its associated corporations, have a structural tendency to start wars for no good reason.

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  43. reallyaimai9:18 AM

    I, too, can't even joke about this. As a country we have no good options--doing something to be doing something when doing something is bombing or arming someone is doomed to failure, whatever the intentions of the President and Secretary Kerry are. Reality hasn't lied down and taken a nap on that one. Sometimes the international community is hamstrung. Sometimes there are no good options. The downside to doing nothing is that more people will be killed--but they will be anyway. The upside to doing nothing is that more people will be killed--but they will be anyway. I can wish as much as I want that the President had been able to articulate and pursue a path that makes more sense to me than the one he is pursuing but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

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  44. JennOfArk9:19 AM

    Since I've already stated that I don't believe it will make things better, and that I'm not in favor, it's not up to me to demonstrate anything.

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  45. reallyaimai9:20 AM

    I think the reductionist "war against brown people meme" is really off the mark here. The race of the people against whom we go to war, or at whom we lob bombs, is not an issue at all when it comes to taking sides in a civil war. The right wing, certainly, has a long history of finding a way to make non whites "honorary whites" for purposes of violence, and to make stark albino style whites into demons for the purposes of bombing them. When blood is their argument all arguments are bloody and color has little to do with it.

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  46. reallyaimai9:21 AM

    Didn't we find out not very long ago that some principled thinker on the right was being massively paid by Malaysia? Wasn't it Josh Trevino? Using the term "thinker" loosely, of course.

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  47. JennOfArk9:26 AM

    You are correct on all of the above.
    Those points, however, are not the ones being used by members of the media (and other fools) to equate the two situations.

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  48. synykyl9:34 AM

    Damn you Ma Bell!

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  49. I used to comment there, too.


    What the Pope said.
    ~

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  50. Halloween_Jack9:46 AM

    Yep, and he spread that cheddar around. Quite a list of certified hacks there.

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  51. Halloween_Jack9:49 AM

    Right; following your mention of Josh Trevino above, I'd like to proffer this little tidbit, made by him despite the fact that he's half-Mexican.

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  52. Halloween_Jack9:53 AM

    When I was an undergrad in the eighties, the Iranian students (who were mighty brave to be hanging out at a state university in the Midwest, IMO) had a table at the school's International Fest with pictures--pictures--of civilian gassing victims in the Iran-Iraq war. The world sure as fuck knew.

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  53. Halloween_Jack9:55 AM

    Only to a certain extent. Trust me on this.

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  54. Halloween_Jack10:06 AM

    Funny how "The Chicago Way" is so popular all of a sudden.

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  55. Halloween_Jack10:08 AM

    I dunno, I was going "AARGH" all through that thread.

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  56. redoubt10:09 AM

    (Subpoena to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee to follow.)

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  57. DocAmazing10:21 AM

    All day discussions with the Russians
    But they still went ahead and vetoed the plan.

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  58. JennOfArk10:23 AM

    I'd like to make a 60+ page, 3 hour radio broadcast speech in praise of this comment.

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  59. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps10:24 AM

    Because BENGHAZI!!!!!!!!! BENGHAZI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  60. philadelphialawyer10:33 AM

    Absolutely true. Almost all of the folks on the right (and the foolish media too) who now happen to be advocating for the right thing are doing so for a myriad of wrong reasons.
    Buy, IMHO, too many of those of us on the left are too willling to disregard international law prohibiting military intervention except in very limited circumstances. (Of course, that too many on the right, in this and in other cases, do the same goes without saying.)

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  61. Puddymas Bunny10:43 AM

    It's posts like this that make me proud to be your eeny weeny baby sis. Well said, Beeg Bro.

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  62. BigHank5310:46 AM

    Oh, there's plenty of times when it's about as useful as a Hello Kitty Band-Aid would be for a compound fracture. On the other hand, if the end of your femur is sticking out of your thigh and only thing you have is that Hello Kitty Band-Aid....why not stick it on? At least whoever finds your body may get a chuckle out of it.


    Shorter: I am sadly aware of how few problems are solved via inebriation.

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  63. BigHank5310:56 AM

    C'mon, everyone knows that there's never been a terrorist with red hair. Just ask anyone from Dublin.

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  64. Halloween_Jack10:59 AM

    Note to self: pick up Hello Kitty band-aids.

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  65. Halloween_Jack11:01 AM

    I'll check with a fine, upstanding public citizen like Martin McGuinness.

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  66. LittlePig11:19 AM

    Wouldn't be a half-bad Brer Rabbit strategy to have them throw him into the briar patch.


    After his mouth said 'redline', which I think was a genuine duh from a guy that doesn't make many, he's been trying to get out of that one as much as possible. Putting the albatross on Congress' neck is a clever way to turn lemons into lemonade, and he gets kudos for that.


    Slick bit of jui-jitsu. I don't think he wants to bomb (though I don't think it would bother him to do so), and seems to be playing to look his very best as he "loses". Brer Rabbit is spot on.

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  67. XeckyGilchrist11:39 AM

    The Dixie Chicks hatefest has been, in my experience, an easy way to put righties on the defensive. Point out how unbelievably creepy those radio station lynch-in-effigy mobs were, crushing Dixie Chicks CDs with a bulldozer, and they retreat into that weird Libertarian quizzical thing where they go all Spock. "Why do you perceive a political motivation when people happen to choose to behave in a certain way toward a piece of physical property?"


    They really did let their Nuremberg show on that one.

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  68. sharculese11:46 AM

    The drop off in commenting when VV established their new system was so sharp and immediate that as a casual reader, I noticed it, and I'm shocked they haven't addressed the issue yet.

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  69. Jay B.12:02 PM

    Their brains are entering the territory of HAL or the computer in War Games without any of the underlying logic. Everything they know is in conflict with everything they hate and they are sputtering. First, they never figured out you can't actually win tic-tac-toe because they've never quite encountered that level of expertise. Then they can't even figure out if Obama is a dictator, a wily fox or a hopeless dupe. They are staring at the skull and think the fucking thing is mocking them.

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  70. Jay B.12:06 PM

    Yes. I think you can even google it: alicublog + "math mage". It was magical.

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  71. Because I missed my pop to arg on the previous thread, I'm a'gonna show my lack of social media etiquette and comment here on my disdain for glibertarians and co.:

    Always a day late and 400+ comments short am I--missed this delightful marathon thread while away on bizness.

    To go on an idiomatic bender, I'd say that Mangrove Throatwarbler's blindness is the same as all self-proclaimed "true" libertarians in that they can't see the forest for the trees, and Mangrove particularly wants the rest of us to put all our eggs in his shaky, little basket for "safekeeping."

    Preservation of the Self, as an evolutionary motivator, has become the fatal flaw of humanity--displacing the Preservation of Species mechanisms of most Earth life a long, long time ago. This pathological obsession with collecting all the coconuts from the other monkeys has become our death warrant. We have become so adept at the evolutionary trick of manipulating our environment, rather than adapting to changing conditions, that we now have ability to casually destroy ourselves while losing sight of the fact that we are still susceptible to changes like all life-- a very dangerous combination of arrogance and ignorance.

    So, what am I getting at? Mangrove's assertion that a democratic government's sole purpose is to foster business by destroying monopolies and empowering startups is an example of this short-sighted "blind men's elephant" phenomenon.

    It is only applicable if one understands every human in society to be a "startup" and monopolies to be those monkeys with so many coconuts that they hold undue power and influence over others.

    In that sense, it is the function of a democratic government to keep a fair playing field (as much as is possible)--that is, provide a basic level of security and quality of life--not just for humane reasons but for practical reasons of survival.

    When humans feel secure in their personal survival, they are more able to overcome the pathology inherent to our species and begin to consider survival of the species.

    We have mastered the evolutionary trick of manipulating our environment rather than adapt (so much so that it is pretty much our only trick), and so we are in a unique position to bring about our own extinction. However, diversity is the foundation of natural selection, and if we wish to meet current and future challenges with confidence, we must be prepared and able to adapt to changing conditions. This means we should maintain as diverse a population, both physically and socially, as is practically possible. This collective action implies organized planning and regulation--ummm...let's call it "governance" for want of a better word. Oh wait, we already do.

    So, democratic government's real purpose and function is to provide the social safety nets that allow the greatest survivability of population diversity. These, unfortunately, are the very institutions that right wingers and libertarians actively oppose, all firmly locked into the self-preservation-above-all pathology--ignorantly, and ironically, fighting the very principles that offer the best chance for their personal survival (and prosperity).

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  72. He IS referring to Comrade Stalin, nyet?

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  73. KatWillow1:06 PM

    Yeah, me too.

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  74. Roy's post is still there, but the comments are gone. However, Totten's reply post is still up and has a bunch of comments complaining about how angry and rude we all were to them. Good times, good times.

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  75. glennisw1:19 PM

    Norm Podhoretz, "wheels within wheels, man!"

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  76. I think part of the problem is that Americans are simply ignorant about international law, as well as being skeptical that anyone really cares about it. Under these conditions, it is difficult to champion it.

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  77. There's a good argument that the 2012 Tuareg rebellion in Mali was a direct result of the NATO attacks on Libya. This emigration of armed Tuareg was an unintended consequence of defeating Gaddafi. Though, honestly, Victor Davis Hanson probably isn't even thinking of that. He's just a partisan asshole who wants Obama to look bad by any means available.

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  78. Mooser2:14 PM

    Pot helps a whole lot more, and sharpens the appetite.

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  79. Jimcima2:33 PM

    I don't know, some people were clueless.

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  80. Jimcima2:35 PM

    Oh I don't know, some people were clueless...

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  81. Mooser2:49 PM

    I wonder what would happen if Obama intervened. I bet the media would suddenly become very concerned with bringing people objective reporting about the intervention. A tragedy for Obama.

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  82. deadweasel2:56 PM

    Mr. Podhoretz hasn't forgotten his youthful Leninism, I see. Since President Obama is objectively a traitorous leftist socialist atheist communist traitor Muslim, all actions he takes are objectively destructive to the country, even when the contrary appears true. So, for instance, he may be subjectively threatening a weak and friendless country with annihilation in a naked exercise of international power politics, objectively he's trying to tear the fabric of the country apart, destroy the military and the economy, and force all of us into Stalinist gulags where we'll be forced to have gay Sharia abortions.

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  83. tigrismus3:36 PM

    I'm willing to be a test subject in a study of the relative efficacy of both methods.

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  84. And indeed, where it's goin', no one knows.

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  85. Mooser3:55 PM

    "For this fulfillment of his dearest political wishes, Mr. Obama is
    evidently willing to pay the price of a sullied reputation. In that
    sense, he is by his own lights sacrificing himself for what he imagines
    is the good of the nation of which he is the president, and also to the
    benefit of the world, of which he loves proclaiming himself a citizen."



    Gosh, Mr. Podhertz, I can sort of remember when people said stuff like that about a certain ethnno-religious group in the US in the 50's. That they were working behind the scenes to destroy America, in covert league with our enemies. But I can't quite remember which ethno-religious group they said those things about. Was it the secular humanists?

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  86. Mooser4:00 PM

    "Shorter: I am sadly aware of how few problems are solved via inebriation"


    Yes, but it helps me overcome the heartbreak of sobriety.

    and people smoking medical marihuana often report they are cured, cured completely. And it's nice if the pot is well-cured, too, but really, I'm not fussy.

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  87. Mooser4:01 PM

    I guess Band-Aids don't come in those cool little metal boxes anymore, huh?

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  88. Mooser4:03 PM

    Gassing the Kurds? No way!

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  89. willf4:06 PM

    I'm extremely irritated by the repeated assertion that Iraq happened because of "faulty intelligence." It didn't, and everyone knows that it didn't - rather it happened because of robust pimping of cooked and cherrypicked intelligence.



    This is what Obama seems to be doing to go to war in Syria.

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  90. He's actually squeaking in a two-fer, I think. Both the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and the Harlem Renaissance of the '20s were condemned as either, at best, communist dupes and, at worst, communist fifth columns. I may be giving him more credit because of his age, though, 'cause the average neocon's history starts in 1969, skips the '70s, and starts again with Reagan. The idea of damning "uppity" black folks as dirty commies really ain't a new thing.

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  91. stepped_pyramids4:09 PM

    My sense is that discouraging commenting has become an actual goal of most sites at this point. There's a reason those noxious Facebook comments are so popular now -- because they take comments completely out of the purview of the site operators and provide a little bit of advertising on the side.


    These days, it's very rare for any large non-blog site to have any kind of coherent commenting community. The biggest one I can think of is the AV Club, and from what I've heard from the site admins there, they go out of their way to support a commenting community even though it isn't really worth that much from a business perspective. Apparently comment count corresponds very poorly to pageviews, to the point that advertisers are completely uninterested in comments.

    ReplyDelete
  92. MikeJ4:13 PM

    Damn those Doctors Without Borders. Fucking warmongers.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Democrats are held to perfection in outcomes. Republicans, whether the venture made enough of a profit.

    ReplyDelete
  94. cleter6:15 PM

    Oh no, neocon history doesn't skip the 70s. History's Greatest Monster looms large in their mythos. You can't have St. Ronnie slaying the dragon without, you know, the dragon.

    ReplyDelete
  95. cleter6:20 PM

    The real solution to the Syrian dictator gassing his own people is to do nothing, so a Republican president in 2033--Jenna Bush perhaps, or maybe Torg Romney--can use this event as a pretext for a poorly thought-out war.

    ReplyDelete
  96. willf6:26 PM

    I thought the MSF guys just said that there were casualties and others with injuries consistent with chemical weapons use, not who used them or why.

    ReplyDelete
  97. cleter6:32 PM

    The world sure as hell knew. BBC reporters caught it on film. Reagan's secretary of state gave a press briefing about it, for fucks sake.

    ReplyDelete
  98. cleter6:47 PM

    Ah, math mage. Those were good times.

    ReplyDelete
  99. JennOfArk7:48 PM

    It's not just the examination of the victims - don't they also have (or at least claim to have - I haven't seen them personally) satellite images showing the delivery rockets being launched or at least showing where they launched from? Then there's also reports that Assad's troops suited up with chemical weapons protective gear before the attack.
    Until all the cards are put on the table, you and I can't know for sure, but seems a bit of stretch to me for the rebels to have gotten hold not only of the weapons but also of the delivery systems, which is why I kinda doubt the rebels were responsible for the attack.
    I will note in closing that you make an assertion of Obama cooking and cherrypicking intelligence - other than the screeching coming from the extreme right - which of course cannot be considered anything approaching "evidence" - what is your evidence for that assertion? And could you please speculate on what the president's motive might be for falsifying intelligence in order to get entangled in Syria?

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  100. ADHDJ7:59 PM

    "He [Putin's] a man with a slow hand," sighed Raider. "And a lover with an easy touch. He's somebody who will spend some time, not come and go in a heated rush."

    ReplyDelete
  101. TGuerrant8:49 PM

    Shut up before you give Chris Matthews an Aqua Velva high.

    ReplyDelete
  102. TGuerrant9:00 PM

    Yes.

    ReplyDelete
  103. TGuerrant9:04 PM

    Cold fusion - without a single fuse.

    ReplyDelete
  104. TGuerrant9:07 PM

    Or we could do the poorly thought-out war now and snatch the prize from their slavering jaws. Certainly, we can kill a lot more Syrians than Assad can in no time at all. That would certainly impress everyone and put our Nobel Peace Prize winner on a fluffy pink cloud floating near God's left ear.

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  105. Like all good one-worlders, Obama's willing to use trickery to destroy the U.S. -- even pretending to be pro-war when in fact he's secretly tickling the "war-weariness of the American people" by, among other things, "using drones instead of troops whenever he was politically forced into military action."



    Probably the stupidest political-historical thesis proposed by a student of Lionel Trilling and F.R. Leavis since the eighties, when Podhoretz devoted a whole book (The Present Danger) to arguing that England was weak on Naziism during the thirties because of all the literary homosexuals who were still mourning all those cute young dead soldiers from the First World War, and the United States was falling into the same trap vis-a-vis the Commies because of gay rights...I wonder what Podhoretz thinks of Putin?

    ReplyDelete
  106. BigHank539:55 PM

    Don't forget the good times that were had in the 50s, when Tailgunner Joe McCarthy saved the country by rooting out all those filthy Reds.

    ReplyDelete
  107. KatWillow9:56 PM

    We ought to deal with our OWN war crimes and war criminals before meddling in other countries.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Very good questions about the intelligence. I would suggest that other intelligence agencies might be trying to influence the US by selectively leaking data, as suggested by Gareth Porter in his recent article. The Israeli and Saudi Arabian governments would apparently both like to see a US strike on Syria. I agree, though, that one has to be very careful when attempting to ascertain the truth in a situation like this.

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  109. BigHank5310:01 PM

    I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow commentators for their inspired riffing. It is a delight to see other people take a joke and make it better.

    ReplyDelete
  110. JennOfArk10:15 PM

    That's certainly something that needs to be looked at as well - where did the intel come from? Our guys, or someone else's, and if the latter, who?


    Reports today indicate that there might be some negotiation possible in regard to getting Assad to put the chemical stockpiles under UN monitoring, and perhaps some Russian support for this plan. And if that can happen, then whoopee, that's the best possible outcome here and a good show of how it should be done, as opposed to the cowboy doctrine of GW Bush. If it does miraculously come to pass, then we have to ask if it would have ever happened without the possibility of military action having been raised (my guess would be: no). My whole gripe here has been the knee-jerk reflex by some in assuming that because the Bush administration were a bunch of skeevy liars, it follows that so is anyone else who ever raises the possibility of a military intervention. We definitely should be alert for skeevy lying in any and all of these types of situations, but it's kind of hard to support a claim of skeevy lying without at the very least advancing some theory of motive to explain it.


    That's really all I'm sayin'.

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  111. IncongruousAmoeba11:02 PM

    Fine; I disagree in general with "something must be done" arguments, but if something must be done then let there be more humanitarian aid to the refugees, let there be negotiations with Assad and the rebels, let the United Nations investigate and take action about the use of chemical weapons; what there shouldn't be is Obama dropping bombs on Syria because he made a dumbass speech about some stupid red line.


    I don't see what is morally different between Obama and Bush here. There doesn't have to be a "hidden agenda" -- his visible agenda is bullshit enough.

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  112. AGoodQuestion11:34 PM

    Obama is on record as saying that there's no immediate threat to America, which is why he went to Congress instead of taking action on his own. So there's a good chance he really doesn't want to bomb, at least not now.


    If he does want it, he's gotta be missing Hillary. She's a lot better at sales than Kerry is.

    ReplyDelete
  113. JennOfArk12:42 AM

    Really? You think there's no "moral difference" in starting a war of choice for the purpose of profiteering, and say, for example, the action taken in Kosovo?


    I see a pretty huge difference, and I'd wager most people would.

    ReplyDelete
  114. JennOfArk1:11 AM

    Well, and following on what was reported today - and my details in the post above were off a little - this thing could get very interesting. First the details I got wrong - it was the Russians who floated the plan to put the chemical weapons under international supervision. The response from Damascus was that they "welcome the suggestion" but nothing definite beyond that. The administration has expanded on the idea to include destruction of the stockpiles by the international monitoring body. We'll see how it goes. But essentially, what we're seeing here is the Russians applying some leverage to pull things back from the brink.


    Now, supposing they succeed and some sort of negotiations with Assad re: monitoring & destruction or surrender of the weapons starts moving forward, things get really interesting politically. Just the possibility of this plan succeeding puts the House, and specifically House Republicans, in a bit of a sticky spot. Do they vote against allowing limited military strikes, knowing full well that doing so will trash the president's leverage in perhaps getting this solved through an agreement for monitoring & destruction/surrender of the weapons, because, fuck that guy? They're certainly both traitorous and stupid enough to do it.


    Then you've also got to consider the possibility that they're going to get leaned on very hard to vote yes to protect themselves from the above characterization, which would be an accurate one if they vote for "fuck that guy" in the middle of sensitive negotiations to reach a much better solution.


    That's the other thing that's griped me a bit: the tendency for some to willfully ignore that, in and of themselves, calls for or threats of military action can and often do serve as leverage for diplomatic solutions without actually materializing. Should they manage to arrive at a diplomatic solution here, does anyone doubt that it without the specter of a military action having been raised, the Russians would have even applied this amount of leverage? Or that Assad would show any openness to the idea? If they manage to thread the needle on this, a lot of people are going to end up looking really stupid. House Republicans for sure, because they look like that all the time. But also those who are insisting that Obama is exactly the same as Bush, for having - thus far - only raised the possibility of a military action. Which for all we know, might have been done mostly or solely in the hopes of arriving at this type of diplomatic solution.

    ReplyDelete
  115. IncongruousAmoeba1:15 AM

    People are just as dead regardless of the intentions behind the bombs dropped on them. That said, the comparison is not between Iraq and Kosovo, but between Iraq and Syria -- if we want to compare Kosovo and Syria, well, even Britain refused to go along with Obama's plan, which doesn't inspire much confidence.


    Just because intentions are good (if they are) doesn't mean that bad things won't happen, and bombing Syria would seem to be a combination of accomplishing the least good with the worst consequences (which I think you agree with). I don't see anything in the current situation that warrants defending Obama here.


    If you want to say Bush was an asshole, I won't disagree with that. But just as Bush didn't "have" to invade Iraq, Obama doesn't "have" to bomb Syria. Personally, Obama seems far too willing to drop bombs on people -- maybe that comes with the job, but that still doesn't make it okay.

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  116. JennOfArk1:25 AM

    You don't see anything in the current situation that warrants defending Obama here while I don't see anything in the current situation (to this point) that warrants condemning him. No bombs have been dropped to date; so far it's just words. And as I noted downthread, the threat of military action often is used as a diplomatic tool and goes no further. I look at the president's behavior regarding the situation in Syria, and I've not detected over the past 2 years a deep desire on his part to get involved. If he was as gung ho as some have portrayed him, I kind of doubt he would have punted to the Congress, especially given that he continues to maintain that he doesn't need their approval. That having been said, if bombing really is his goal I'm not in favor of it. But unless and until it happens, I'll reserve judgement on whether he's just as bad as Bush or not.

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  117. Far from being "incompetent and amateurish" as all the other conservatives are saying, Obama is in Podhoretz's estimate "a brilliant success as measured by what he intended all along to accomplish."


    Bush in a nutshell... It's always about projection!

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  118. As with most issues, bagger fuckheads have no credibility here and
    aren't smearing the NSA due unethical conduct but rather just to bash
    Obama who is also a major disappointment and should go down in history
    as the most duplicitous, full of shit President we've ever had. He is
    establishment through and through and sits in the oval office to give
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    ReplyDelete
  119. IncongruousAmoeba5:39 AM

    I will just say that I don't think it's a good idea to give any US president the benefit of the doubt in these kinds of things -- the history of the United States is a history of presidents doing bad things to other countries, and at some point it becomes a loser's bet to assume a new president will be any different. Of course, Obama is *not* a new president; he's carried out assassinations and authorized fairly indiscriminate drone attacks, and hasn't shown much reluctance to bomb people up to this point.


    Sorry about the "bullshit" above, by the way; that was more confrontational than I should have been.

    ReplyDelete
  120. smut clyde6:14 AM

    I rate for the Bacon band-aids from Archie McPhee's.

    ReplyDelete
  121. smut clyde6:18 AM

    I see you are learning the argot.

    ReplyDelete
  122. smut clyde6:21 AM

    Norman Podhoretz can't believe how blind you all have been not to see it


    On the bright side, he manages to restrain himself from telling us what the queers are doing to the soil, so somewhere within his time-ravaged brain there still remain a few neurons of self-censorship.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Let us be thankful for small mercies.

    ReplyDelete
  124. May I just mention: there is a way to look at Obama and Kerry that is neither condemning them nor defending them. I think our desire to intervene militarily comes from an illusion of control. We want to believe that we control world events, and can keep Syrians from dying in the middle of a civil war through firing missiles at Assad.

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  125. It is indeed annoying when folks consider Obama to be exactly the same as Bush. I get this a lot in the very left-wing circles I move in.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Seoptima Rzeszów8:34 AM

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  127. StringOnAStick10:26 AM

    At some point in life, I read that diplomacy is war by other means, and it is looking like that was the case here and the pressure applied by serious and consistent saber-rattling got Russia involved and hopefully Asad's chemical weapons will be taken off the table. Seems like that was the whole point of all the dick-swinging*.
    Now I'd like to see the energy that's been stirred up used to deal with the humanitarian crisis that the Syrian civil war has caused. Destabilizing Jordan just makes Israel's trigger finger get itchier, and it is making Lebanon teeter again as well.
    *Dick-swinging by Obama has caused some really complicated Freudian-level angst amongst the righties; throat-shovingly so.

    ReplyDelete
  128. StringOnAStick10:34 AM

    Strangely enough, I can comment there easily, and had to wait for months before discus decided I was allowed to ever read comments here. I have no idea what changed, just that when I click on comments here, I no longer get that snotty "nothing here for you now" response and comments are actually loaded.
    Short answer: do Roy a favor and try commenting at VV again; it might work now.

    ReplyDelete
  129. StringOnAStick10:38 AM

    Well said. Now I have to go back and read what I missed on the prior thread....

    ReplyDelete
  130. As a left-wing radical, Mr. Obama believed that the United States had
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