Friday Fun: John Kerry's Answering Machine

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Obama: The Audacity of Hope?

That's what Barack Obama said he was running on. He even wrote a book about it.

But this is not what "hope" looks like:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, adopting a tough tone after a chief rival accused him of naivete in foreign policy.

Obama's stance comes amid debate in Washington over what to do about a resurgent al Qaeda and Taliban in areas of northwest Pakistan that President Pervez Musharraf has been unable to control, and concerns that new recruits are being trained there for a September 11-style attack against the United States.

Obama said if elected in November 2008 he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government, a move that would likely cause anxiety in the already troubled region.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

I thought (naively, I suppose) that America would be done with infringing on other countries' sovereignty once dubya was gone. Instead, Obama supports the Bush Doctrine:

According to the Bush Doctrine, grave threats require a military response regardless of other countries' views. The Bush doctrine includes making reasonable efforts to include other nations in military or diplomatic actions, however in the absence of coalition partners, unilateral military action is taken against perceived threats. The policy document states that "United States has, and intends to keep, military strength beyond challenge", indicating the US intends to take actions as necessary to continue its status as the world's sole military superpower.

And then there's Hillary the Hawk, who still hasn't apologized for her support of the AUMF against Iraq:

Clinton, in an interview with the American Urban Radio Network, stressed the importance of the Pakistanis "taking the actions that only they can take within their own country."

But she did not rule out U.S. attacks inside Pakistan, citing the missile attacks her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, ordered against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998.

And how did that work out for him, Hillary?

John Edwards has the right idea, sort of:

Another Democratic candidate, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, said he would not hesitate to use force against extremists but said, "I believe we must first use maximum diplomatic and economic pressure on states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to take all necessary actions to stop al Qaeda."

(But they won't, of course, since Pakistan and SA are their allies - no matter what those countries do.)

And that doesn't make up for the fact that he's in there like a dirty shirt warmongering against Iran to show his support for Israel.

Hawks - all of them. Don't expect US foreign policy to change any time soon, no matter who's elected president in '08. The wars must go on.
 

Kucinich: 'Attempt made to rig presidential elections'

Hillary and Edwards busted - caught on tape talking about narrowing the field of candidates during the debates:

According to the Associated Press, Fox News Channel microphones picked up Clinton and Edwards on stage discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some rivals lower in the crowded field. "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group," Edwards said into Clinton's ear following a Presidential Forum in Detroit hosted by the NAACP on Thursday.

Clinton agreed with Edwards, according to print reports and video footage of the exchange. "We've got to cut the number. ... They're not serious," she said. Clinton added that she thought representatives of her campaign and Edwards' had already tried to limit the debates, and "we've gotta get back to it," according to the AP.

"Candidates, no matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be, do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not," said Kucinich.

"Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial President."

Video: Olbermann on Bush's Urge to Surge

The transcript is available here.

And while the media reports that Republicans are revolting (in more ways than one), they're still supporting Bush's surge by doing things like successfully filibustering the Dems' attempt to have "longer troop rests between combat deployments".

The Senate voted 56-41 to cut off debate on an amendment to the annual defense policy bill by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) that would have mandated that troops be granted home leave between deployments of at least as long as their previous combat tours. Already stretched National Guard and Reserve units would have been granted three-year breaks between assignments.

Just keep wearing out those soldiers, Republicans. But don't be surprised when they refuse to support you in next year's elections.

And this is the reality about the Dems' weak efforts to end this illegal war:

The Senate's failure to break the filibuster, however, signaled that Democratic efforts to mandate troop withdrawals almost certainly will fail in the face of Republican parliamentary roadblocks.

They might as well spend the summer on the beach for all the good they're doing:

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said today that despite growing Republican discontent with the Iraq war, convincing GOP members to support withdrawal legislation remains a daunting challenge that so far has netted few results.
[...]
Durbin also conceded that the Democrats, with a bare majority in the Senate, won't be able to placate liberal Democratic calls for a specific end date, including a funding cut off.

"Obviously there are folks who want the war to end today, and all the troops to be home tomorrow. And even though I think that is a worthy goal, it is not a realistic goal," said Durbin. A major redeployment of troops will have to be done gradually and in a responsible manner, he noted. "We also understand that just leaving cold turkey, with everything gone, could have the whole region descend into chaos," Durbin said.

Nice GOP talking point there, Dick.

And then he decided it was a good idea to attack John Edwards while he had a captive audience:

Durbin, an early booster of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, singled out former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) for helping to fuel unrealistic anti-war expectations for congressional action. Edwards has chastized his fellow Democratic candidates who are currently serving in the Senate, for not pushing hard enough to end the war.

"I recall when John voted for this war. So it's understandable that he feels badly about that decision and wants to see something done to undo the harm that has happened," said Durbin. "But it has to be done in a sensible way."

I'm no fan of Edwards, but that is a very low blow coming from someone with Durbin's position. Apparently Durbin seems to think that Americans are just plain stupid and have all been influenced by Edwards' opposition to this nightmare of a war. I'm sure Edwards will be pleased to hear he has so much power.

Maybe Durbin should just quit his job as majority whip and go out on the campaign trail with Obama full time. This is what happens when politics is electioneering 24/7, 365 days a year. Politicians seem to forget that they actually have important work to do on behalf of the country they're supposed to be serving and which is currently involved in two wars that aren't getting any better.

Blogging for The Guardian, Roy Greenslade notes several questions that US journalists are failing to ask about the situation in Iraq according to author Robert Dreyfuss with this one being key:

Dreyfuss concludes: "The dénouement of America's failed occupation of Iraq could be bloody indeed. But not enough reporters and news analysts are looking at the other possibility: In the wake of an orderly withdrawal over, say, the next year, might not Iraq's nationalists join forces against the separatists and struggle to create a new center in Iraqi politics? As Zbigniew Brzezinski says: 'The only Iraqis who want us to stay are the ones who will have to leave when we leave'."

The Democrats and Republicans need to stop parroting Bush talking points and get down to the nitty gritty of examining the entire situation in Iraq from a new perspective. By refusing to do so, they continue to support the carnage in Iraq while giving their incompetent commander-in-chief free reign over a war he has absolutely no idea how to manage.
 

Politico.com's Reputation

This morning, before John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth held their press conference in which they sadly announced that Elizabeth's cancer was back but that John would continue on with his presidential bid regardless, Ben Smith of politico.com reported:

John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

"At a minimum he's going to suspend" the campaign, the source said. "Nobody knows precisely how serious her recurrence is. It’ll be another couple of days before there’s complete clarity."

Once the Edwards actually held their press conference in which they announced his bid would go on without interruption, Smith issued a correction in which he said he had relied on a single source for his story. Bad move, obviously.

And that might be the end of it if Politico.com hadn't been involved in misreporting before, but it has. If you've followed the Democrats fight with the administration and Republicans over the Iraq war, you'll remember how the phrase "slow bleed" was attributed to John Murtha and just how much of a firestorm that caused. The problem is that John Murtha never used that phrase. Politico.com's editor was the source of it. To add insult to injury, when John Harris announced his culpability weeks later the damage had already been done. To top that off, he wrote that he was proud of what he'd done:

With a mixture of pride and remorse, I have a confession: I am the author of the Democratic Party's "slow-bleed strategy" for ending the war in Iraq.

I had nothing to do with the details of the plan that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) floated two weeks ago. His plan was crafted to use the appropriations process to limit President Bush's options for mobilizing more forces in Iraq, while trying to protect Democrats from the accusation that they were abandoning troops in the field. As it happens, Murtha's idea is itself bleeding support, hit by a barrage of denunciations from people who say it does indeed amount to abandoning the troops.

In retrospect, it probably has already occurred to Murtha and his supporters that from a public relations perspective, "slow-bleed" was not the most winning description. How could they have been so stupid?

That's where I come in. "Slow bleed" is my phrase. Murtha had nothing to do with it. Neither did John Bresnahan, the reporter whose name was on the Politico story in which the "slow-bleed strategy" made its debut.

You can understand my pride of authorship. Editors labor in obscurity. Our job is to keep reporters from looking bad, and to let them take the credit when they look good. Rarely is there tangible evidence that we are having any impact. But in 20-plus years in the business, I can scarcely recall an instance when words typed on my keyboard have had such a loud and immediate echo.

Who takes pride in misrepresenting what a politican says just because it pulls him out of obscurity and then causes major political wars about the most serious issue facing the American people and government today? That's Rovian and it's selfish immaturity taken to its highest level.

The bottom line? Politico.com should not be considered a trusted source since its employees are obviously incapable of acting with any sort of journalistic professionalism. We already have enough problems dealing with what comes out of the mainstream media. If a new media organization wants to be considered legitimate and above that fray, it obviously needs to act with caution and integrity - something Politico.com has been lacking.
 

Coulter: You bought her, you own her

Many right-wing bloggers are busy doing damage control following Ann Coulter's despicable remarks about John Edwards at CPAC this week. As Editor & Publisher points out, some major media outlets are busy ignoring what Coulter said.

The sentiment in the right-wing blogosphere today is basically, 'well, I never really liked her anyway'. Then why do so many of them run ads for her books, endorse some of her behaviour and even defend her when it's convenient? And, if she truly has no credibility in conservative circles, why was she even invited to speak at CPAC? It seems to me that those right-wing bloggers who are now disowning and trying so hard to distance themselves from Coulter should have arranged an attempt to have her blacklisted from their conference - especially when she pulled the same kind of stunt at CPAC in 2006 by using the word "raghead" - grabbing headlines for herself at their expense then too.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. You know exactly what you're going to get when you invite Coulter to speak anywhere: a woman who grandstands with the most vile comments just to get people to pay attention to her.

So, you can't have it both ways, right-wing bloggers. Either boycott Coulter completely - and that includes not buying or selling her books for her - or just accept the fact that you're complicit in her behaviour.

Update: Blowback against Coulter from the right-wing bloggers which might actually seem sincere if it didn't endorse equally vile Rush Limbaugh and throw in this dig against the left:

At CPAC 2007 Coulter decided to turn up the volume by referring to John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator and current Presidential candidate, as a “faggot.” Such offensive language–and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it–is intolerable to us. It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation’s premier conservative gathering.

They just can't help themselves, can they? Some of the bloggers and their commenters signing onto that letter have used the most racist, bigotted language you'll find anywhere on the internet. It's not enough for them, apparently, to take ownership of denouncing Coulter. They just have to attack the left while they're at it in a weak attempt to look superior. Talk about mixed messages. They may not like some of the words she uses, but they sure like her tactics.

Yet another update: Editor & Publisher notes:

Ann Coulter, fresh from implying that John Edwards is a "faggot," now has a statement on her Web site saying Edwards campaign manager David Bonior "is fronting for Arab terrorists."
[...]
A copy of Bonior's letter was posted on Coulter's Web site, with this note underneath: "It's always good to divert Bonior from his principal pastime which is fronting for Arab terrorists."

I guess she thinks she's on a roll now.