So Samantha Power didn’t exactly set me on fire, and this week she managed to show some foot-in-mouth disease and cost herself her role in the campaign, and her colleague Susan Rice explained that neither Obama nor Hillary are ready for the 3am call. Sheesh.But when I wonder why I can’t bring myself to support Hillary, there’s always this to shore me up:
Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.
The archivists’ decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.
Clinton’s legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.
And when I suggested that Obama’s idealistic foreign policy – the one sticking point in my support for him – wouldn’t survive contact with reality, I may just have been right:
For all the chatter about Obama adviser Samantha Power’s calling Clinton a “monster,” another set of remarks made on her book tour in the United Kingdom may be equally threatening to the Obama campaign: Comments in a BBC interview that express a lack of confidence that Obama will be able to carry through his plan to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months.
“He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator,” she said at one point in the interview.
…or maybe that’s why she resigned?
Did you notice the last paragraph of the Politico piece?
bq. _UPDATE: A Clinton adviser — though, unlike Power, not a member of her campaign team, recently told The New York Sun similar things about the New York Senator’s position._
Not that anybody would be shocked that Clinton’s Iraq plan didn’t leave wiggle-room for just such an about face.
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
It would be ignoble to take satisfaction in the misfortunes of others. Yes, sir.
But only fair to recall that not long ago the Democrats were strutting around like a kid with an ice cream cone in each hand, bragging about how excited they were, and taunting Republicans for having such boring candidates.
Even that doesn’t give me much satisfaction, because I can’t imagine what kind of hangover is going to follow this year-long binge. If the Democrats crash and burn in November, after years of assuring themselves that they had it all in the bag this time, they might expect the rest of us to listen to their complaints. Over and over, day after day …
The issue that’s beginning to emerge is that if the Democrats can’t govern their own party any better than this why should Americans turn the government of the country over to them? The primary problem of governance in Iraq at the moment is a writ-large proportional representation system that facilitates factionalism (not fascism, but in the same family). It’s difficult to determine whether the creation of a PR system in Iraq by the UN was a deliberate attempt to scuttle an emerging Arab democracy, or a naive belief that PR is more “democratic” than “winner-take-all” constituency-based politics, but you’d think someone might have taken a look at Italy’s example, or consulted Hannah Arendt.
The Ds are getting a tough lesson, but it’s not clear whether they’ll actually learn anything yet.
I didn’t mean the UN actually created the Iraqi constitution. Facilitated, advised, or nurtured, is more accurate. The Bush Administration, on the other was, was inexcusably naive and foolish to stand aside and allow it.
AL you must have missed Barack Hussein Obama’s latest speech where he locked himself into withdrawing immediately, and ALL troops out by 16 months.
He HAS to do this. His entire career is on the line to placate the hard-left American hating loonies (of which to be fair he is one). Of COURSE he will surrender in Iraq. Afghanistan. He’s not proud to be an American today. His latest speech peddles that riff — how he’ll make little girls proud to be Americans abroad.
Sharpton’s already threatening riots and burning cities if Barack Hussein Obama does not get the nod. Recreat68.org is setting up it’s site to coordinate for a replay of Seattle 1999. The Times Square Recruitment center bombing. Where was Barack Hussein Obama’s pal Bill Ayers then?
That’s the power brokers of the Democratic Party. Obama OR Hillary will have to lock themselves into the hard left. Reality does not matter — their backers do.
What the Vietnam War started with the Democratic Party the Iraq War will finish — transforming it into a “lifestyle aspirational” brand ala Volvo or Apple or Starbucks. Reality won’t enter it, can’t enter into it. Instead the very spoiled, very sheltered, very affluent left will demand and get stupid things. Heck even Jay Rockefeller found that out when he defended Telco immunity and got a whacking. That we are going to have permanent inability to listen in on AQ abroad without the express authorization of the AG and THEN a court order is evidence that the Dem Party is not responsive to reality.
They are gambling politically that no attack will happen.
It is too bad that Sen. Clinton did not have the Graciousness of Spirit and accepted Ms. Powers’ apologies and just moved on instead of trying to gain some political advantage against someone elses’ disadvantage especially in light of the facts that Sen. Clinton and her team have smeared Sen. Obama within the last few weeks, throwing more than the Kitchen Sink, a few Stink Bombs too, and they call themselves Good People. It is politicians like them that make average Americans distrust and hate politics and politicians. What Ms. Powers meant that Sen. Clinton’s actions over this whole campaign process has been “monstrousâ€, and that it has! It is and should be a part of the past and left behind as we move towards more goodwill, compassion, cooperation and holistic ways of living. America’s Soul is being reclaimed.
Hillary is not going to win the Hezbollah wing of the Democratic Party. Which is most of the Democratic electorate.
So she has to paint Barack Hussein Obama as the hard-left, lunatic, anti-American loser who will bring down most of the Blue Dog Dems. In other words a dose of reality.
Politics is tough. Too bad Obama’s racialist backers and post-American progressives find the argument that he’s both unelectable and a disaster overall for the party dangerous. It’s one worth having.
That might be “monstrous” but it’s also respective of reality.
A mass casualty attack after FISA reform by Jay Rockefeller is killed to protect Trial Lawyer’s lawsuits and civil rights for Osama is a disaster. Even AFTER the election. Desire to simply wave a magic wand and “talk” to enemies and make them go away is magical thinking. Not anything that might work. Remember Jimmy Carter? Weakness only invites more attack, from more people.
Obama is arguing that America needs to be brought down a peg or two, made weak, and humbled by it’s enemies because defeat is morally good for the whole “corrupt and flawed” nation that is America. He (and his pastor) believe America so fatally tainted by racism and whites that it is worthless. The view of the rich, comfortable, sheltered post-American progressives as well.
THAT is not a winning argument. It’s a disaster sprung from safe, isolated districts and the Malibu-Manhattan bubble. Threatening that safe worldview is of course, monstrous. Reality often is.