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Buy your Super Delegate right over here!
Posted by: McQ
Wow, this seems, well, not quite right. But it is also not surprising:
At this summer's Democratic National Convention, nearly 800 members of Congress, state governors and Democratic Party leaders could be the tiebreakers in the intense contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. If neither candidate can earn the support of at least 2,025 delegates in the primary voting process, the decision of who will represent the Democrats in November's presidential election will fall not to the will of the people but to these "superdelegates"-the candidates' friends, colleagues and even financial beneficiaries. Both contenders will be calling in favors.
And while it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials who are superdelegates have received at least $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Obviously a loop-hole in McCain-Feingold [/sarcasm].
Obama, who narrowly leads in the count of pledged, "non-super" delegates, has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates from his political action committee, Hope Fund, or campaign committee since 2005. Of the 81 elected officials who had announced as of Feb. 12 that their superdelegate votes would go to the Illinois senator, 34, or 40 percent of this group, have received campaign contributions from him in the 2006 or 2008 election cycles, totaling $228,000. In addition, Obama has been endorsed by 52 superdelegates who haven't held elected office recently and, therefore, didn't receive campaign contributions from him.
Clinton does not appear to have been as openhanded. Her PAC, HILLPAC, and campaign committee appear to have distributed $195,500 to superdelegates. Only 12 percent of her elected superdelegates, or 13 of 109 who have said they will back her, have received campaign contributions, totaling about $95,000 since 2005. An additional 128 unelected superdelegates support Clinton.
Because superdelegates will make up around 20 percent of 4,000 delegates to the Democratic convention in August—Republicans don't have superdelegates-Clinton and Obama are aggressively wooing the more than 400 superdelegates who haven't yet made up their minds. Since 2005 Obama has given 52 of the undecided superdelegates a total of at least $363,900, while Clinton has given a total of $88,000 to 15 of them. Anticipating that their intense competition for votes in state primaries and caucuses will result in a near-tie going into the nominating convention, the two candidates are making personal calls to superdelegates now, or are recruiting other big names to do so on their behalf. With no specific rules about what can and can't be done to court these delegates, just about anything goes.
"Only the limits of human creativity could restrict the ways in which Obama and Clinton will try to be helpful to superdelegates," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "My guess is that if the nomination actually depends on superdelegates, the unwritten rule may be, 'ask and ye shall receive.' "
Heh, yeah, no chance of corrupting the system there, huh?
Ah, the Dems - "count every vote, and let every vote count".
Well, unless you have big bucks, and then that vote counts for more.
The superdelegates themselves say the same thing-that any money flowing from the presidential candidates to the delegates' own campaigns hasn't had any sort of influence on their decisions.
Of course they do. What would you say if asked? Yeah, I'm for sale?
Sheesh.
Is this a sign of political progress peggy??
Iraq passes two critical laws and a budget
Posted by: McQ
Last Sunday, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Nancy Peolosi about the success of the "surge" in Iraq.
"Are you not worried, though, that all the gains that have been achieved over the past year might be lost?" Blitzer asked.
"There haven't been gains, Wolf," Pelosi replied. "The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure."
Yet today, out of Iraq, comes news that three significant laws were passed by the Iraqi parliament.
First, the The Provincial Powers Law.
It represents an important step toward framing the balance the Iraqi people seek between central government authority and the strengthening of local governments. After many months of careful preparation, the passage of this landmark law represents a historic compromise for Iraqi legislators. The Provincial Powers Law is also a major component of the "benchmark" for setting in place a framework to conduct provincial elections by October 1, 2008.
Key features of the law include:
* Along with the Elections Law, the Provincial Powers Law provides the authorities to hold new provincial elections and delineates authorities of the federal government in relation to the provinces.
* The law defines the relationship of the central government in Baghdad to the provincial governments.
* The law devolves power to the local level in a decentralized system that is groundbreaking for the region - in the Middle East, only the United Arab Emirates has a strong federal system of government.
It also promises further positive action:
The Provincial Powers Law lays the groundwork for provincial elections by requiring the Council of Representatives to pass an elections law within 90 days. Furthermore, this new law sets the date for provincial elections no later than October 1, 2008. Early provincial elections will help enfranchise Sunni Arabs and others who boycotted the 2005 elections.
Then there's the General Amnesty Law:
It represents major progress on a key benchmark to facilitate political reconciliation and the rule of law in Iraq. The General Amnesty Law addresses the scope of eligibility for amnesty for Iraqis in Iraqi detention facilities, whether they have been brought to trial or not. The law exempts from this amnesty those who have committed specific serious crimes, such as premeditated murder or kidnapping, and those who are subject to the death penalty.
The General Amnesty law received broad support from all major political parties in the Council of Representatives. The bill next will be sent to the Presidency Council, which has ten calendar days in which to either sign or reject the legislation. Once through the Presidency Council, the law enters into force on the day it is published in the official gazette.
And last, but certainly not least a budget has been passed by the parliament:
Passage of the 2008 Budget Law represents a significant milestone in Iraq's transition toward using its own resources to provide for security, economic reconstruction, and essential services. This $48 billion budget is a 17 percent increase in expenditures over last year's budget and reflects compromises among Iraq's major political parties:
Security expenditures will increase by 23 percent - from $7.3 billion to $9.0 billion - with $5.1 billion earmarked for the Ministry of Defense and $3.9 billion earmarked for the Ministry of Interior.
The 2008 Budget allots $13.2 billion for investment spending, an increase of 32 percent over last year's $10.0 billion.
Capital funds allocated to the 15 provinces will increase over 50 percent, from $2.1 billion to $3.3 billion, reflecting the improved budget execution performance by provinces in 2007.
Total allocations for the Kurdistan Regional Government will grow from $1.6 billion to $2.7 billion.
Iraq's 2008 budget contains funding for several key programs necessary to promote economic development and support security gains, including:
* $70 million for a Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program;
* $417 million for public works programs;
* $250 million for housing and construction programs; and
* $62 million for agricultural programs.
Based on increased crude oil exports and persistently high oil prices, Iraq is well positioned to afford an expanded budget in 2008. Oil revenues are expected to grow from $31.0 billion in 2007 to $35.5 billion this year, an increase of 15 percent. Other revenues are expected to grow from $2.4 billion to $6.9 billion.
I assume the usual Nancy Pelosi lites will beam in to tell us again, for the umpteenth time, that the surge has failed and that nothing is being accomplished in Iraq to meet the benchmarks. Do everyone a favor this time and instead of opinion and conjecture, deal with the facts as presented above, ok? See if you can manage to turn those into a convincing argument that no progress is being made in Iraq and the surge has failed, will you?
Well, McCain had no earmark money last year, while HIllary was a pork magnet
Whose thinking is more forward?
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: We've had some progress on pork, with Henry Waxman joining the G.O.P. moratorium, but for other members of Congress it's business as usual:
The window for Congressional earmarks is open once again. Lawmakers from both parties are inviting constituents and lobbyists to recommend pet projects that could be financed by the federal government as the 2008 earmark season gets under way. . . .
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, issued a report on Wednesday that showed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York had obtained $342 million in earmarks last year, nearly four times as much as the total for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Mr. McCain of Arizona, a fierce critic of earmarks, did not obtain any because “he did not request any,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
In its report, the group said that Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, obtained $176 million in earmarks — more than any other House member except Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, who is now a senator.
Business as usual.
ABSCAM??
Super Delegates - Seemingly Clinton’s only chance
Posted by: McQ
And, as expected, she'll do whatever it takes to corral enough of them if you believe her spokesman:
But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.
"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.
"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.
"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period,'' he added.
Pretty darn straight-forward, isn't it? And, of course, the campaign wants FL and MI delegates seated as is - no do overs.
But if the Clinton strategy rests on Super Delegates, she may be in more trouble than she knows according to Ron Fournier:
The remaining 796 delegates are elected officials and party leaders whose votes are not tied to state primaries or caucuses; thus, they are dubbed "superdelegates."
And they are not all super fans of the Clintons.
Some are labor leaders still angry that Bill Clinton championed the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his centrist agenda.
Some are social activists who lobbied unsuccessfully to get him to veto welfare reform legislation, a talking point for his 1996 re-election campaign.
Some served in Congress when the Clintons dismissed their advice on health care reform in 1993. Some called her a bully at the time.
Some are DNC members who saw the party committee weakened under the Clintons and watched President Bush use the White House to build up the Republican National Committee.
Some are senators who had to defend Clinton for lying to the country about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Some are allies of former Vice President Al Gore who still believe the Lewinsky scandal cost him the presidency in 2000.
Some are House members (or former House members) who still blame Clinton for Republicans seizing control of the House in 1994.
Some are donors who paid for the Clintons' campaigns and his presidential library.
Some are folks who owe the Clintons a favor but still feel betrayed or taken for granted. Could that be why Bill Richardson, a former U.N. secretary and energy secretary in the Clinton administration, refused to endorse her even after an angry call from the former president? "What," Bill Clinton reportedly asked Richardson, "isn't two Cabinet posts enough?"
And some just want something new. They appreciate the fact that Clinton was a successful president and his wife was an able partner, but they never loved the couple as much as they feared them.
Never count the Clintons out. They are brilliant politicians who defied conventional wisdom countless times in Arkansas and Washington. But time is running out.
An amazing situation for the person all thought would waltz into the nomination a few short months ago. It's even reduced Bill Clinton to whining about press coverage and politics of personal destruction, something of which he is intimately familiar:
CLINTON: - to refer to my daughter in the way he did. It was representative of the kind of blatant, careless, crass, cruel remarks that are altogether too common. And I wouldn't use disrespectful language referring to General Petraeus or anybody else. But I think that it is remarkable how many sexist things have been said in this campaign that have not been reprimanded. Hillary never complains when people say things about her or me. But when he involved my daughter, she complained, and I think it was the right thing to do.
Yeah, well, I think you ought to put a little ice on it, Bill. It'll be all right.
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QandO
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Quadrennial Running of the Potomac Stakes
Posted by: Dale Franks
Race those horsies! Race them! And, as we move into the backstretch, the numbers look like this, from Real Clear Politics:
REAL CLEAR POLITICS ELECTION 2008
Democrats Obama Clinton
Total Delegates 1272 1231
Pledged Delegates 1116 989
Popular Vote 9,326,079 8,638,911
Popular Vote (w/FL) 9,902,293 9,509,897
Popular Vote (w/FL & MI) 9,942,375 9,860,138
National RCP Average 44.6% 44.3%
Republicans McCain Huckabee
Total Delegates 819 240
National RCP Average 48.0% 28.2%
General Election Democrats Republicans
Obama vs. McCain Obama 47.7 McCain 43.7
Clinton vs. McCain Clinton 45.3 McCain 46.7
A couple of things jump out at me.
First, in pledged delegates, it's difficult to see how Clinton can end up with the most pledged delegates in the states that are left. As NBC News runs the numbers:
The NBC News election unit hard count stands at 1078 to 969. If you factor in the unallocated pledged delegates, our estimate rises to approximately 1128 to 1009 in Obama's favor (margin of error +/- 5 delegates). Toss in the superdelegates and Obama's lead is 1306 to 1270 (again +/- 5 delegates). What does this mean? For Clinton to overtake Obama for the pledged delegate lead — which we think is the single most important statistic for the superdelegates to decide their vote — she'll have to win 55% of the remaining delegates. Assuming next week goes Obama's way in Wisconsin and Hawaii, that percentage rises to 57%. Toss in likely Obama victories in Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, then Clinton's percentage need tops 60% of the remaining delegates available. And this is simply for her to regain the pledged delegate lead.
In other words, to go into the convention with more pledged delegates than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton must win all of the remaining primaries with 55% of the vote, which hardly seems likely. If Obama wins the states he's expected to, then Hillary must win 60% of the delegates in the states she does win. That seems even less likely. In fact, it looks nearly impossible for her to regain the lead in pledged delegates, absent a complete collapse of the Obama Campaign.
She really does have to pin her hopes on the superdelegates, and she has to hope that they'll give her their votes even if she has fewer delegates than Obama.
Second, I'm not sure that's good news since all the current indications are that Obama will siphon off enough independent voters to defeat John McCain this fall. At this point, Hillary looks like the weakest candidate in the November election, and Obama looks like the strongest.
"President Obama." You may want to get used to the sound of that.
I've already added the words "Barack" and "Obama" to my spell-check dictionaries.
Finally, what does Mike Huckabee think he's doing? It is literally impossible for him to win the nomination. To do so would require that he win 123% of the remaining delegates. Conversely, McCain can do so by winning only 35% of the remaining delegates, which is way under the general expectation. The only possible explanation I can see is that he thinks there's a chance that McCain won't get the delegates required for a first-ballot nomination, and that the convention will settle on him as a compromise candidate, since he's the only one remaining in the race against McCain.
But how does he expect McCain to come up short in the delegate count? By what sophistry of reason does he think he has a chance to take 65%+ of the remaining delegates and deny McCain a first-ballot nomination? If McCain walks in with 1192 delegates, it's over.
Does he think we're only days away from McCain losing it at some public event and begin railing against the Freemasons and the Illuminati? Or, is he just trying to set himself up for a 1012 run against Obama?
It's mystifying.
Nope, they've erased the memory of her voting for the war out of her data banks
Well, McCain has been in favor of earmark and spending reform, while the younger Clinton is feeding at the lobbyist trough
He also was the architect of the campaign finance bill ( a failed attempt, but an effort with good intentions )
So, again, your and her characterization and stereotype doesn't hold true.
That's the problem when people are marginalized because of a demographic they belong to. People just look at their group and don't see or care about their actual good and bad qualities.
Change for change sake CAN lead to putting worse offenders in office
When you talk about shady dealings and sleaze, who can even come close to the Clintons?
Witness the Rich pardon fiasco and his recent uranium deals
Probably equally curious that Hillary being a war monger doesn't bother you
The key to Iraqi reconciliation
The AP reports: "BAGHDAD – Iraq's Parliament cleared the way Wednesday for provincial elections that could give Sunnis a stronger voice and institute vast changes in Iraq's power structure after the Oct. 1 vote." This is a critically important development. Here's why. (Hat tip: Fausta)
This measure is vital to institutionalizing the gains won by the Surge. Iraq has long been crippled by the defective, UN-designed "closed-party list" voting system, which created political parties based on sectarian affiliation. A UN website describes why it adopted this system. It had the advantage of being easy ("no census is required") and creating what in the UN view was an appropriate structure of political coalitions. The trouble was the system encouraged the very same fraction that took Iraq to the brink of civil war.
One of the key problems facing strategists of the Surge was to find a way to institutionalize the grassroots movement of the past year. Former insurgents would of course, be retrained and put under the discipline of the Army or Police. But what of the political leaders? The natural path was to encourage the leadership which emerged during the Surge to stand for office, which proved very difficult to do under the closed-party list system. They were dressed up with no place to go.
The impasse in Baghdad is partly the result of a logjam of sectarian interests. There are also a fair number of politicians, who because of the sectarian nature of the coalitions, are stooges of Teheran. A new election law could sweep the logjam away in a flood, with the stooges in the bargain. Electoral reform is supremely important for long term success. It is the linchpin of "reconciliation".
The new law is one of the most sweeping reforms pushed by the Bush administration and signals that Iraq's politicians finally, if grudgingly, may be ready for small steps toward reconciliation.
Passage of several pieces of legislation, along with a reduction in violence, were the primary goals of the U.S. troop increase that President Bush ordered early last year. Still pending and not likely to face positive action soon ...
The more reason to inform the American public of the logic behind electoral reform and why it is so vital. Iraqi and American lives have taken the country back from the brink of civil war and on the approaches to normalcy. But the last steps are the most important. This is where it all pays off.
No. I think we live in a country where bigotry still exists,but where a lot of progress has been made
I would never support o candidate that plays on racism to further their career
Iraq: Understanding SOFA
Posted by: McQ
You may remember all the recent shouting and hand-waving on the left about the Bush administration trying to negotiate permanent bases in Iraq?
In fact, what they have been and are trying to negotiate is something we have with every country in which we have troops deployed. A "Status of Forces Agreement" or SOFA. In every foreign country in which I served, I had a SOFA card in my possession. As Sec. Rice and Sec. Gates discuss in their Washington Post piece today, it's a legal agreement as to how the military conducts business in that particular foreign country:
In these negotiations, we seek to set the basic parameters for the U.S. presence in Iraq, including the appropriate authorities and jurisdiction necessary to operate effectively and to carry out essential missions, such as helping the Iraqi government fight al-Qaeda, develop its security forces, and stem the flow of lethal weapons and training from Iran. In addition, we seek to establish a basic framework for a strong relationship with Iraq, reflecting our shared political, economic, cultural and security interests.
Nothing to be negotiated will mandate that we continue combat missions. Nothing will set troop levels. Nothing will commit the United States to join Iraq in a war against another country or provide other such security commitments. And nothing will authorize permanent bases in Iraq (something neither we nor Iraqis want). And consistent with well-established practice regarding such agreements, nothing will involve the U.S. Senate's treaty-ratification authority — although we will work closely with the appropriate committees of Congress to keep lawmakers informed and to provide complete transparency. Classified briefings have already begun, and we look forward to congressional input.
In short, nothing to be negotiated in the coming months will tie the hands of the next commander in chief, whomever he or she may be. Quite the contrary, it will give the president the legal authority to protect our national interest — and the latitude to chart the next administration's course.
A SOFA's purpose is as follows:
The SOFA is intended to clarify the terms under which the foreign military is allowed to operate. Typically, purely military issues such as the locations of bases and access to facilities are covered by separate agreements. The SOFA is more concerned with the legal issues associated with military individuals and property. This may include issues like entry and exit into the country, tax liabilities, postal services, or employment terms for host-country nationals, but the most contentious issues are civil and criminal jurisdiction over the bases. For civil matters, SOFAs provide for how civil damages caused by the forces will be determined and paid. Criminal issues vary, but the typical provision in U.S. SOFAs is that U.S. courts will have jurisdiction over crimes committed either by a servicemember against another servicemember or by a servicemember as part of his or her military duty, but the host nation retains jurisdiction over other crimes.
Another explanation is here.
Our SOFA agreement with the Republic of Korea is here. Japan here. Etc.
Negotiating a SOFA is actually a step in normalizing relations between us and Iraq. It would take our forces from being subject only to our own legal parameters to conforming to those of the host country. In more explicit terms, we move from being occupiers to guests of the host government and accountable to it under the SOFA negotiated.
And that is a good thing.
Identity Politics Fun Continues For The Democrats
So far, we have seen a number of flash points in the Democratic primaries for the presidential nomination over ethnic and gender politics. Now we have racial and anti-Semitic politics in a Congressional primary -- and once again, it involves Democrats. Steve Cohen wants to run for re-election in Tennessee's 9th District, but supporters of his opponent think he's too pale -- and too much of a Joooooooo:
cohenflier.jpg"
If you thought race was an uncomfortable issue in the Democratic presidential primary, wait 'til you get a load of what's going on in the Democratic primary in the Memphis area's 9th District of Tennessee, where a shockingly worded flier paints Jewish Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) as a Jesus hater.
"Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus," blares the flier, which Cohen himself received in the mail -- inducing gasps -- last week.
Circulated by an African-American minister from Murfreesboro Tenn., which isn't even in Cohen's district, the literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to "see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election."
Cohen's main opponent in the August 5 Democratic primary in his predominantly African-American district is Nikki Tinker, who is black. The Commercial Appeal wrote an editorial in Wednesday's paper condemning Tinker for not speaking out against the anti-Semitic literature.
Plenty of Democrats made cracks about Mike Huckabee and his supposed predilection for theocracy over the past few months. Where are those same critics now? Will they stand up and condemn the insistence that a black Christian represent TN-09, and will they call out Tinker for her tacit support for such tactics?
Once again, the Democrats find themselves in the position of playing racial, ethnic, and now anti-Semitic politics. We have seen it at the grassroots level now, and at the highest levels of the party, especially from the Clinton campaign. Small wonder that a relatively low-level officeseeker feels comfortable in using these tactics in 2008, given the example Bill Clinton has provided already this year.
We've listened to insults from Democrats for years for far less than this.
Posted by Ed Morrissey
much more naive than I ever thought.
LOL coming form the person that can't even see that the Clintons are playing the race card in the primaries
I'm NOT saying that McCain has all the answers- just saying that to dismiss him solely because of his age is the height of bigotry
It's just stupid to suggest that younger thought is better thought
I'd have no problem w/ the pegbot taking issue with his policies- I disagree with him on a lot of things, but when she starts every sentence w/ 72 year old she only displays her ignorance
MY point was that intelligent people can go beyond stereotypes of old, woman or black to make choices based on reason
Peg's repeated use of the word old as a negative is no better than racism or sexism
Good thing for Peggy there's no law against robotic posting of dumb thoughts
Again, "old" thinking isn't restricted to "old" people
McCain would be vigilant against out of control spending- very forward looking thought
Hillary or Obama would both pile on costly entitlement programs- reminiscent of socialism- playing the class warfare card- very backward thinking
I pointed out how old the Repub candidate is
What a tool.
You bring up his age in an attempt to demean him. Just as demeaning someone because of their sex or race is wrong, your attempting to do the same to McCain solely because of his age is wrong and stupid
Ageism is not better than sexism or racism
.I understand that it's a chore to reprogram the Pegbot once she's go a meme in heavy rotation, but your "72 year old" tag on McCain ion an attempt to demean him is a low point, even for you
TIA
So ,in your world it's OK to discount someone just because they are old"
AS if "young" ideas and thought are inherently better?
How pathetic
People similarly discounted women and minorities?
Are you OK with that??
How about Hillary the castrating white bitch, is that OK?
At least you're upfront about your prejudices
PS
How is Hillary not a war monger?
She voted for the bill to go to war- oh yeah, I forgot she said it really wasn't an authorization for was even though it was called the "War Authorization Bill" LOL
72yr old
What does his age have to do with anything?
Another example of liberal intolerance
On Being a Winner
Posted by: Dale Franks
There's really one simple and effective way for people to think of you as a winner. That is to win, and keep on winning. The converse is also true. One sure way to look like a loser is to lose, and to keep on losing. Right now, Barack Obama looks like a winner, and Hillary Clinton looks like a loser. And if Wisconsin and Hawaii go the way everyone thinks next Tuesday, that'll be even more true.
General George S. Patton, in his final speech to his troops prior to D-Day, told them, "America loves a winner. America will not tolerate a loser." For the most part, that's a truism about not just the nature of Americans, but of human nature. Everybody wants to be on the winning team.
In politics, this gives rise to the Bandwagon Effect. people tend to vote for the winner, because of the natural human desire to be on the winning team.
That's what makes Hillary Clinton's "firewall strategy" in Texas and Ohio so risky. And, as an aside, why Rudy Guiliani failed utterly in Florida. Once a candidate is fixed in the electorate's mind as "the winner", that candidate tends to take a larger and larger share of the vote. While the partsans may not be swayed, uncommitted or independent voters tend to break for "the winner" across the board.
Going into TX and OH on 4 March, Obama will have won 14 of 22 states on Super Tuesday, then an unbroken stream of 9 states in the weeks thereafter. Unless Clinton has a larger group of committed voters than both the uncommitted and Obama voters combined, the chances are that she will lose those states.
So, Clinton really needs to pursue another strategy as a backup, which is to try and get the Florida and Michigan delegates seated. Needless to say, Barack Obama is a madman if he consents to that. Hillary won big in those states, and it would put a lot of delegates in her pocket.
Nevermind that she signed a written pledge not to seat those delegates, or to campaign in those states, due their breaking of DNC rules for primary scheduling. As far as she's concerned, that signed pledge is about as relevant as the Munich Agreement, or the treaty to secure Belgian neutrality. It was an easy pledge to sign when she was winning. But, that was then. This is now. And now is all about winning, any way she can.
For Obama, any suggestion that those delegates be seated should be anathema. First, because those votes took place when the electorate was in a particular state of mind, at a particular point in time. A time when the mood of the electorate wasn't as firmly in his favor as it has moved in the interim.
For him, the least risky strategy is to fight against their being seated, by arguing that:
1) The elections are invalid on their face. Since the candidates pledged not to give credibility to those elections, and didn't campaign there, the elections cannot be a trustworthy reflection of the electorate's will. without campaigning and organizing in those states, the voters were not given the opportunity to be properly informed about the candidates, and the candidates were not able to organize their campaigns in those states. Moreover, knowing that the elections were pointless, some voters probably decided to stay home, and other voters may have cast ballots differently than they might have if the election results would have counted. Had those unusual circumstances not obtained, the outcomes of those elections might have been radically different.
2) It was well-known ahead of time that the DNC scheduling rules were being violated. Specific rules had been put in place, along with appropriate penalties for violating them. Everyone knew the consequences of those violations, and so the state parties of those states more or less intentionally disenfranchised their voters. Abandoning those rules now would amount to an ex post facto approval of that rule-breaking, and would make it much more difficult for the DNC to have their rules followed in the future.
The compormise position, which follows from the above—which would be slightly more risky for Obama—is to agree to a do-over. Let those two states have another primary, and honor the results of those elections. That would enfranchise the Democratic voters of FL and MI, but, more importantly for Obama, capture the mood of the electorate now, when he looks like a winner.
In doing so, he can argue that a) it would eliminate the disenfranchisement that the state parties intentionally inflicted on their electorates, while at the same time, b) upholds the DNC rules that invalidate the original primaries.
If Hillary Clinton continues to try and seat the current delegations, he should hammer her hard on it. Take her to task for violating her signed pledge, and ask why anything Hillary Clinton says can be trusted if she's willing to back out on her pledged word when the going gets tough for her. Ask if we want a president who can't be relied upon to sand by her commitments.
If push comes to shove, then, he can agree to a do-over vote, which, in all probability, will award him significantly more delegates than the original primaries did. Indeed, he might actually win those primaries.
I suspect that fear of that outcome will make Hillary Clinton push to seat the original slate of delegates. Which, in turn, will give Obama an opening to pound her mercilessly on her integrity.
In the nicest possible way, of course.
Obama may not have locked up the nomination yet, but, no matter what the Clinton camp says, it's white-knuckle time for them. Losses in TX and OH will essentially doom her campaign. Even worse, thanks to proportional representation, she not only has to win, but to win big in those states. A more or less even split of the delegates doesn't really help her.
So, she really does have to pursue a fallback strategy of getting those delegates from MI and FL seated, even if it means marching into Federal Court, and Obama will have to oppose it.
I anticipate with relish, however, the delicious irony of Obama and the DNC having to go into a Federal courtroom and argue in favor of Bush v. Gore to support their position.
Obama, Exxon Mobil, economics and populism
Posted by: McQ
From Barack Obama's victory speech last night, this line struck me as scary:
I know that it won't be easy to change our energy policy. Exxon Mobil made $11 billion last quarter. They don't want to give those profits up easily.
It really tells you where he's coming from, because he is only telling part of the story. The part that appeals to his audience - that appeals to populism.
Yes, Exxon Mobil made $11 billion last quarter. But they also paid 41% taxes on that income.
Dr. Mark J. Perry did a little calculating on his blog about Exxon Mobil's tax "contribution" based on its profits.
I think you'll find the results interesting.
Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend. Here's one way to put Exxon's taxes into perspective.
According to IRS data for 2004, the most recent year available:
Total number of tax returns: 130 million
Number of Tax Returns for the Bottom 50%: 65 million
Adjusted Gross Income for the Bottom 50%: $922 billion
Total Income Tax Paid by the Bottom 50%: $27.4 billion
Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).
Barack Obama doesn't tell that part of the story. Nope, only the part about those huge corporate profits find their way into his "inspirational" speeches. There he demonizes a company and an industry which provides precisely what he says he wants for this country - jobs.
Nor does he mention the fact that it provides a strategically vital commodity that increasingly costs more and more money to extract and refine.
And, of course, it's Exxon Mobil's fault we have no alternative for our insatiable desire for oil, isn't it? Now that the world's thirst is increasing as well, it is Exxon Mobil which is the blame for the market increase in price based on demand, correct?
It is certainly Exxon Mobil's fault that we can't drill in a featureless wasteland in Alaska which could provide for much of our own domestic oil need and possibly ease prices a bit, isn't it?
No, Obama never mentions any of that in his speeches. And he certainly never mentions the fact that that company alone pays more in taxes every year than half the "taxpayers" in this nation, does he?
One corporation.
Phenomenal.
But get used to it. This is populism with a silver tongue, and he'll be taking the same song and dance to big pharma, health insurance carriers and any other corporation he can demonize to those ignorant enough to buy his message but unable to comprehend the fact that he is attacking the very foundation of our wealth and prosperity as a nation.
What's ironic, of course, is that 41% - which Mr. Obama seems to imply isn't enough, given his statement - will be paid by the very people, who are cheering him as he attacks Exxon Mobil, every time they fill up their car. Funny that.
The dream of the founding fathers was to have a knowledgeable and educated electorate who could see through rhetoric like this and be able to vote accordingly. If they could see what is happening today, I think their confidence in the electorate would be profoundly shaken. That line about Exxon Mobil's profits was a huge applause line for Obama. If he has his way, that bottom 50% of taxpayers - the 50% who can afford it the least - will end up paying much higher prices at the pump than they are now, and they don't even understand that. But even as they pay higher prices at the pump for their gas, they'll have the satisfaction of knowing that evil corporation isn't making those huge profits it once was, won't they?
---------
More on Exxon
Posted by: Dale Franks
I also want to point out, as an addendum to McQ's point below, that the $11 billion quarterly profits—while a large number taken by itself, isn't the full story at all.
Last year, Exxon had $404.55 billion in sales, and ended up with $40.61 billion in profits. That's a net profit margin of 10.04%. Compare and contrast with the companies below:
Microsoft
Sales: $57.90 Bil
Income: $16.96 Bil
Net Profit Margin: 29.29%
3M
Sales: $24.46 Bil
Income: $4.10 Bil
Net Profit Margin: 16.97%
Monsanto
Sales: $9.12 Bil
Income: $1.08 Bil
Net Profit Margin: 12.11%
General Electric
Sales: $172.74 Bil
Income: $22.47 Bil
Net Profit Margin: 13.01%
Wells Fargo
Sales: $35.18 Bil
Income: $8.06 Bil
Net Profit Margin: 20.45%
We can keep going, but what's the point?
So, yes, $40 bil a year is a big number. But it represents only 10% of revenue. All of the rest goes to pay bills, or the government. in other words, for every dollar of sales that Exxon makes, anywhere in the world, they get to keep one thin dime.
That's what makes Obama's remarks so reprehensible. The only reason that Exxon rakes in the obscene profit of $40 bil a year is because they sell nearly half a trillion dollars in oil every year. That $40 bil profit represents one dime in profit for every dollar of sales.
But, a 10% profit is just too much for Barack Obama.
I guess his Houston volunteer office was displaying the right flag, after all.
A Walk Down Terrorist Memory Lane
Debra Burlingame invites Wall Street Journal readers to take a stroll down Memory Lane, to a time when murderous terrorists gained presidential pardons instead of relentless pursuit. This didn't happen a long, long time ago in an administration far, far away, but actually less than ten years ago. In 1999, with Hillary Clinton pursuing a seat in the Senate, Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 Puerto Rican separatists whose organization had committed a whopping 146 bombings and more armed robberies:
On Aug. 7, 1999, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. African embassy bombings that killed 257 people and injured 5,000, President Bill Clinton reaffirmed his commitment to the victims of terrorism, vowing that he "will not rest until justice is done." Four days later, while Congress was on summer recess, the White House quietly issued a press release announcing that the president was granting clemency to 16 imprisoned members of FALN. What began as a simple paragraph on the AP wire exploded into a major controversy.
Mr. Clinton justified the clemencies by asserting that the sentences were disproportionate to the crimes. None of the petitioners, he stated, had been directly involved in crimes that caused bodily harm to anyone. "For me," the president concluded, "the question, therefore, was whether their continuing incarceration served any meaningful purpose."
His comments, including the astonishing claim that the FALN prisoners were being unfairly punished because of "guilt by association," were widely condemned as a concession to terrorists. Further, they were seen as an outrageous slap in the face of the victims and a bitter betrayal of the cops and federal law enforcement officers who had put their lives on the line to protect the public and who had invested years of their careers to put these people behind bars. The U.S. Sentencing Commission affirmed a pre-existing Justice Department assessment that the sentences, ranging from 30 to 90 years, were "in line with sentences imposed in other cases for similar terrorist activity."
The prisoners were convicted on a variety of charges that included conspiracy, sedition, violation of the Hobbes Act (extortion by force, violence or fear), armed robbery and illegal possession of weapons and explosives -- including large quantities of C-4 plastic explosive, dynamite and huge caches of ammunition. Mr. Clinton's action was opposed by the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. attorney offices that prosecuted the cases and the victims whose lives had been shattered. In contravention of standard procedures, none of these agencies, victims or families of victims were consulted or notified prior to the president's announcement.
Who did want these prisoners released? Three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, all from New York, had demanded action to release the FALN terrorists. Hillary needed their support in her upcoming Senate bid, and that of other Hispanic leaders. At the time, Hillary expected to run against Rudy Giuliani, who would have been a formidable candidate even before 9/11, and she needed every endorsement she could find.
Bill Clinton gave it to her, but then discovered a problem: the prisoners had never actually asked for clemency. They had refused to renounce violence or express remorse for their actions In fact, they insisted that the US had no jurisdiction over them at all, and that clemency was unwanted. Hillary then flip-flopped, opposing her husband's release of the prisoners -- which records later showed his administration pursued, and not the criminals.
Congress tried to get to the bottom of the issue, but the Clinton administration stonewalled it through claims of executive privilege. The case got so twisted that, as Burlingame notes, the Justice Department had to testify that they had supplied the White House with a recommendation on the clemencies -- but couldn't reveal what they recommended. In the end, presidential pardon power is absolute under the Constitution, and Congress could do little but issue stinging, bipartisan condemnations.
This is the Clinton history on terrorism. If Hillary wants to run on her "experience" from the Clinton administration, then this should be first on the list in determining her fitness to wage war on terrorists -- or even to wage law enforcement on them.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on February 1
Hmm, they DID manage to get continued funding of the war passed though
The Final Mission, Part III
Humvee Dubat Fallujah.jpg
ANBAR PROVINCE, IRAQ – The United States plans to hand Anbar Province over to the Iraqis next month if nothing catastrophic erupts between now and then. The Marines will stick around a while longer, though, and complete their crucial last mission – training the Iraqi Police to replace them.
The local police force would collapse in short order without American financial and logistics support. “The biggest problem they have is supply,” Corporal Hayes said to me in Fallujah. “They're always running out of gas and running out of bullets. How are they supposed to police this city with no gas and no bullets?”
What they need more than anything else, though, in the long run anyway, is an infusion of moderate politics. Fallujah is in the heartland of the Sunni Triangle. The city was ferociously Baathist during the rule of Saddam Hussein. It is surly and reactionary even today. Even by Iraqi standards. Even after vanquishing the insurgency. Fallujans may never be transformed into Jeffersonian liberal democrats, but young men from New York, California, and Texas are taking the Iraqis by the hand and gently repairing their political culture.
I accompanied Lieutenant Andrew Macak and Lieutenant Eric Montgomery to an ethics class they taught to members of the Anbar Provincial Security Forces (PSF). PSF members are police officers who operate at the provincial level rather than the city level, much like state police in the U.S. The class was held at a station in Karmah, a small city wedged between Fallujah and Baghdad. Coursework included the ethical responsibilities of police officers, the importance of human rights, and the permissible rules of engagement in counterinsurgency operations. The material was the same as that taught by Marines everywhere in Al Anbar – in Fallujah, Ramadi, Hit, and Haditha.
“We’re teaching them about the Law of Armed Conflict,” Lieutenant Montgomery said. “If they become a police state, people are not going to support them.”
IP with glasses and AK Fallujah.jpg
Post-Saddam Iraq is not a police state. Even so, while it's orders of magnitude more moderate and humane than the genocidal and fascistic regime it replaced, many individuals in the government and police departments have rough authoritarian habits that are rooted in Arab culture itself as much as they are legacies from the previous era.
“If we find Al Qaeda guys or weapons traffickers, we capture them,” Second Lieutenant Gary Laughlin said. “Iraqi Police, though, are too rough with detainees, more than I think is morally acceptable. They are rough before anything has been proven. They aren't hitting them, necessarily, but they are pushing them and throwing them around. We report this to Captain Jamal in Jolan. He takes care of it.”
Many Iraqi government officials and police officers have a hard time adjusting to the standards expected of them, but a small number are real stand-up guys who want to do the right thing.
“Captain Jamal is very pro-active,” Second Lieutenant Mike Barefoot said. “That's not a typical trait among Iraqis, except, unfortunately, among the insurgents. He's pro-active in building up the community, not just in fighting insurgents. He throws parties. He holds town hall meetings. He rents a tent, chairs, loudspeakers, cameramen, everything that matters. He spends money out of his own pocket. Where he gets that money, I don't know.”
The regions of Iraq that suffered most from the insurgency are, perhaps not surprisingly, more strongly anti-terrorist than other parts of the country. Likewise, Iraqis from these regions who suffered the most tend to be more committed to responsible moderate politics.
“Captain Jamal's brother's house was blown up and he was killed,” Lieutenant Barefoot said. “He was targeted because his brother is an Iraqi Police captain. It was a highly motivating experience.”
I rode with four Marines in a Humvee to the Karmah station for the human rights class. On the way we heard gunshots.
“I'm hearing heavy gunfire,” our gunner said. He stood in the open-air turret on top of the vehicle and could hear better than we could. All I heard was the roar of the engine.
“Where's it coming from?” Lieutenant Montgomery said.
“From the south,” the gunner said. “It sounds like a heavy fire fight, sir. I think it might be at the sheikh's house.”
Well, I thought. I was just outside Fallujah and getting closer to Baghdad. Something dramatic was bound to happen sooner or later if I stayed in the area long enough. Right?
Not necessarily.
While trying to figure out what was going on, we pulled into the parking lot at the station and found the local sheikh in an argument with Anbar Provincial Security Force officers and Marines. He was trying to secure the release of several Al Qaeda ringleaders and IED makers who had just been captured and who were partly responsible for the vicious murder and intimidation campaign that had only recently ended.
“You have to let them go,” the sheikh said.
Trying to Secure Release Iraq.jpg
“We can't let them go,” Lieutenant Montgomery said
“You have to release these people so they will be less mad,” the sheikh said. “Otherwise they might start it all up again.”
“That is completely unacceptable,” Lieutenant Macak said. “They are members of Al Qaeda. They killed coalitions forces. And they can't start anything up again if they're in prison. If they're guilty, they won’t be released any time soon.”
Most low level insurgents are placed into the Iraqi criminal justice system when captured, but detainees face American military justice if they’ve killed Americans.
It was a bit strange to hear how local authorities will sometimes abuse detainees before they are even charged with a crime, and then minutes later hear a sheikh plead on behalf of a high-level insurgency leader.
“It's such twisted logic,” Lieutenant Montgomery whispered to me.
Is it, though? Earlier I was told that the very people who inform on insurgents will unseriously go through the motions of trying to secure their release. They do this to prevent retaliatory attacks from insurgents still at large in the area. Perhaps that's what was happening here, but it's hard to say.
Someone in Iraq was obviously happy these alleged Al Qaeda leaders were captured. The gunfire our gunner had heard just a few minutes before wasn’t a fire fight. It was a celebration.
“They're firing off all the ammo we gave them,” Lieutenant Montgomery said. Our gunner had said the shots sounded like they were in front of the sheikh's house. I seriously had to wonder then: did the sheikh really want these insurgents released from custody? Franky, I doubt it. But I don't know, this is Iraq. The wheels are on crooked, and there are no straight lines in this country.
*
I stood outside the classroom and drank tea with Lieutenant Macak, Lieutenant Montgomery, and our Palestinian interpreter who called himself Tom. While I stirred and sipped my tea, Tom chain-smoked Gauloises cigarettes imported from France.
“Tom, do you have a lighter?” Lieutenant Montgomery said.
“Tom doesn't need a lighter,” Lieutenant Macak said. “He just lights one from the other.”
Tom laughed and handed over the lighter. Lieutenant Montgomery lit a Camel and inhaled deeply.
“If we can get the Iraqis to not beat detainees,” he said, “that's a big step.”
Meanwhile, Americans back home argue about whether water-boarding is torture and if it should be outlawed. I’ve had no exposure to interrogators who are tasked with extracting information from high-level terrorists like Khaled Sheikh Mohammad – who reportedly really was water-boarded. But I can say, for whatever it’s worth, that I heard nothing but “liberal” opinions about how ordinary detainees should be treated from every soldier and Marine who talked about it, both on the record and off. Military justice, I suspect, is more in line with the values of domestic liberals and Democrats than many probably realize.
Prisoner abuse is a serious violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. American Marines spend a great deal of time and energy trying to eradicate the practice in Iraqi Police departments.
The class was about to begin, so we set aside our glasses of tea and put out our cigarettes.
Twenty or so Iraqi Provincial Security Force officers filed in and sat on hard wooden benches facing the white board. I took an empty seat in the front.
It was no warmer inside the classroom than outside. Windows were broken and sand-bagged.
Broken Sandbagged Windows Fallujah.jpg
The power was out and the heat was off. Iraq got cold fast. It was warm when I arrived, hot a mere two weeks before I arrived, and then it was very suddenly freezing. Summer is long, winter is short, but spring and fall only last about two weeks apiece. Iraq is one of the least physically comfortable countries on Earth.
Some of the Iraqis had sore throats. While they made tea for themselves and for us, one of the Marines gave them packets of Vitamin C to boost their immune systems against the virus that was going around.
Before getting into the ethics of policing and warfare, Lieutenant Montgomery discussed weapon safety. “Don't point your weapon at anything you don't intend to shoot,” he said to the Iraqis seated in front of him. He said that with a straight face. The Iraqis listened and kept straight faces of their own as if they were actually taking him seriously.
PSF Training Class Board 2.jpg
Lieutenant Eric Montgomery
PSF in Class.jpg
Anbar Provincial Security Force officers
It was a laughable moment from a bizarro world where the Americans pretend to be teaching and the Iraqis pretend to be learning. The Iraqis have heard this hundreds of times, but they are not going to change their behavior any time soon. They will point their weapons at me. They will point their weapons at their American allies and teachers. They will point their weapons at their fellow Iraqi Police officers. They will point their weapons at you if you ever go to Iraq. They recklessly wave the barrels of their rifles in every direction. Those rifles are almost always in Condition One – ready to fire – even though they ought to be in Condition Three or Four. I was more likely to be shot by an Iraqi Police officer on accident than by an insurgent on purpose.
But the Marines drive the point home over and over again anyway. The Iraqis know what they're supposed to do. They know how to do it even if they don't want to do it. At some point, though, they might say enough after accidentally shooting each other too many times and decide it's time to implement those safety regulations they've heard so much about.
Lieutenant Montgomery spent most of his time in the classroom talking about human rights and the very restrictive rules of engagement that apply to American and Iraqi combatants. (Police officers, unfortunately, are often counterinsurgent combatants. They aren’t handing out speeding tickets like regular officers in countries that are not at war. They are part of the multinational coalition in Iraq, and their rules of engagement are dictated to them by Americans.
Bullet Holes Iraqi Police Truck Fallujah.jpg
An Iraqi Police truck riddled with bullet holes
The Marines are not imposing American values per se on the Iraqis. They’re grounded in international law, and they’re deadly serious about it. Lieutenant Montgomery didn’t give a lecture on the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, or anything else that is particular of or exclusive to the United States. Instead, he taught the U.N. Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials.
“The human rights in question are identified and protected by national and international law,” the Code of Conduct says. “Among the relevant international instruments are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.”
Iraq Police with Radio.jpg
An Iraqi Police officer in Fallujah
“No law enforcement official may inflict, instigate, or tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment,” Lieutenant Montgomery said. He read it off the white board.
Later, I cross-referenced what he said with the Code of Conduct itself. As it turned out, he was quoting from it verbatim.
No law enforcement official may inflict, instigate or tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, nor may any law enforcement official invoke superior orders or exceptional circumstances such as a state of war or a threat of war, a threat to national security, internal political instability or any other public emergency as a justification of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Lieutenant Macak had some words of his own for the class. “If someone confesses under torture,” he said, “that confession is useless.”
According to planet-wide conventional wisdom, United States soldiers and Marines are on an abusive rampage in Iraq. Relentless media coverage of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib – which really did occur, but which the United States didn’t sanction or tolerate – seriously distorted what actually goes on in Iraq most of the time. The United States military is far from perfect and is hardly guilt-free, but it’s the most law-abiding and humane institution in Iraq at this time.
PSF Training Class Board.jpg
“Human rights are legal tools in the hands of citizens against abuse of power by an oppressive state,” Lieutenant Montgomery said. “If human rights are not respected, sooner or later it will lead to violence and instability…Human rights are rights that derive from the inherent dignity and worth of the person, and they are universal, inalienable, and equal. They are the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace. They belong to people simply because they are human.” Again, he read from it the white board. All Iraqi Police officers in Al Anbar are exposed to this material.
It is imparted to Iraqi Police and Provincial Security Force officers through instruction. It is demonstrated to Iraqi civilians by example.
Lieutenant Macak told me about a local woman some Marines met who was missing a leg. Needless to say, she had a hard time getting around. These Marines pooled their resources and bought her a wheelchair with money from their own salaries.
Such people do not wish to recklessly fire their weapons and harm civilians. Their rules of engagement are sharply restrictive, much more so than most American civilians have any idea. The rules are certainly more restrictive than Iraqi civilians expected when the Americans showed up in force in 2003.
Some Marines complain about the rules which might even be a bit too restrictive. “You can't defend yourself out here,” one sergeant told me. “If you're manning a checkpoint, and a car is coming at you going 90 miles an hour, you can only shoot after it’s less than 25 meters away. You have less than one second to legally stop it, and it could be a VBIED [a Vehicle-borne IED, or a car bomb]. If you shoot quicker than that, you go to jail.”
Lieutenant Montgomery went over several what-if scenarios with his students.
“You're in a convoy,” he said, “and you see a man crouching behind a tree 100 meters off the road. You see a garbage bag on the side of the road with wires sticking out of it. What can you do?”
Three Iraqis partially answered the question. All answered correctly. None said it would be okay to shoot the guy even though it is very possible that he’s an IED trigger man.
PSF in Class 2.jpg
If the police officers sitting in that classroom ever believed it was American policy to indiscriminately shoot at Iraqis, they certainly know better now.
I've said before that American soldiers and Marines aren't the bloodthirsty killers of the popular (in certain quarters) imagination, and that they are far less racist against Arabs than average Americans. They are also, famously, less racist against each other, and they have been since they were forcibly integrated after World War II. This is due to sustained everyday contact with each other and with Iraqis. The stereotype of the racist and unhinged American soldier and Marine is itself a bigoted caricature based almost entirely on sensationalist journalism and recklessly irresponsible war movies.
Liberal journalist George Packer has spent a lot of time in Iraq and is a reliable critic of the Bush Administration and the war. He, like me, has his opinions and doesn't conceal them. But he reports what he sees honestly and comprehensively. You can trust him whether you agree with his views or not.
In a current World Affairs article he pans some of Hollywood's recent anti-war box office flops. “[T]he films…present the war as incomprehensible mayhem,” he wrote, “and they depict American soldiers as psychopaths who may as well be wearing SS uniforms. The G.I.s rape, burn, and mutilate corpses, torture detainees, accelerate a vehicle to run over a boy playing soccer, wantonly kill civilians and journalists in firefights, humiliate one another, and coolly record their own atrocities for entertainment. Have these things happened in Iraq? Many have. But in the cinematic version of the war, these are the only things that happen in Iraq. At a screening of The Situation, I was asked to discuss the film with its director, Philip Haas. Why had he portrayed the soldiers in cartoon fashion, I wondered. Why had he missed their humor, their fear, their tenderness for one another and even, every now and then, for Iraqis? Because, Haas said, he wanted to concentrate on humanizing his Iraqi characters instead.”
It's not hard to humanize Iraqis and Americans. A competent writer or director can do both at the same time. In fact, it requires deliberate effort or willful ignorance for a writer or director to humanize Iraqis while at the same time dehumanizing Americans. Packer humanizes both because he's a good writer, he's honest, and he actually works in Iraq. He leaves his fortified hotel compound and makes an effort to get it right, unlike so many writers, directors, and journalists in the stereotype-manufacturing industries.
Marines in Window Fallujah 2.jpg
You know who else is in Iraq and therefore knows what the country is really like? Iraqis. (Of course.) They see and experience much of the same kinds of events George Packer and I have seen and experienced. They don't learn about Iraq from Reuters and Hollywood. And they are less anti-American than they were during the initial invasion in 2003 – at least many of those who have had sustained contact with Marines and soldiers. Sustained contact with the “other” breaks down bigotry all around, even in war zones.
The violent strain of anti-Americanism in Fallujah and the surrounding area has ebbed almost completely. People here know Americans are not the enemy. They know Americans protect them from murder and intimidation from the head-choppers and car bombers. They know Americans provide medical care to Iraqis hurt by insurgents and even to insurgents wounded in battle.
Marine Holding Boys Hand Fallujah.jpg
If the Iraqis who listen to the Marines' lectures on human rights and the rules of engagement ever took seriously the once common comparison between the American invasion of 2003 and the bloodthirsty Mongol invasion of the 13th Century, they certainly don't anymore. They may not absorb all the lessons of their coursework, and they may still resent the American presence on principal to an extent, but at least they know what Americans really are like as people and warriors. The class taught by Lieutenant Eric Montgomery wasn’t designed with public relations in mind, but it has that effect all the same.
“If the police are dishonest and corrupt,” Lieutenant Montgomery said, “the entire government will be viewed as dishonest and corrupt. Of all the agents of the government, you are the ones the people will have the most direct contact with. So it's more important for you to be honest than it is for anyone else.”
Many Iraqi Police officers, though, are not honest.
“One police chief is thought to be smuggling weapons in,” Captain Stewart Glenn said to me back in Fallujah. “Trouble is we can't prove it. So we’re not doing much at the moment. We can't arrest him. He is widely respected in the community for helping secure the area. So we don't want to arrest him because the locals would go what the hell? We're in a tough spot with this guy.”
“Iraqi Police said they couldn't go on patrol with us because they were out of fuel,” said another Marine whose name I didn't catch. “So we bought them fuel. The very same day we saw them selling that fuel on the side of the road. We give them guns, and the guns disappear. Now we make them put a deposit down on the weapon before we give it to them. That took care of the problem.”
“There can be no abuse of power by the state,” Lieutenant Montgomery said to his class. Iraqis certainly didn't get that civics lesson from the regime of Saddam Hussein. They did, however, acquire many bad habits from the regime of Saddam Hussein.
After class, the Marines led the Iraqis outside and showed them how to search potentially dangerous suspects.
The Iraqis laughed as they tried out their new moves. It looked like they were only half serious.
“These guys aren't the sharpest tools in the drawer,” a Marine said to me as I snapped some pictures.
“Well,” I said. “Hopefully some of it sticks.”
“Some of it does,” he said. “It does.”
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Finally, Something on which to Agree with Palestinian Officials [Andy McCarthy]
Over the years Palestinians have killed many people in terrorist attacks — including some Americans. Some of those Americans have sued and won under a 1990 law passed by Congress, and the result is hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments.
Now, the Palestinian Authority is pleading with the State Department to intervene — essentially, to side with the terrorists and against the victims. As Washington Post reports today (italics mine):
Testimony in Israeli courts has connected senior Palestinian leaders — such as the late Yasser Arafat — to specific terrorist attacks involved in the lawsuits. But Palestinian officials have argued that it makes no sense for the United States to be providing millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority while U.S. courts are threatening to bankrupt it.
Exactly right! It makes absolutely no sense for the United States to be providing aid to a non-state entity dominated by parties pledged to the destruction of Israel, which represents a people who breed, support and even vote for terrorists when given the chance.
The problem here is not the judgments; it's the aid. But let's see what the State Department does.
02/12 10:17 AM
NRO
'Honor Killing' Epidemic in Britain
Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 6:54:20 pm PST
At least 17,000 women are victims every year.
Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to “honour” related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.
And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the “honour” of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.
The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years.
The Home Office is drawing up an action plan to tackle honour-based violence which “aims to improve the response of police and other agencies” and “ensure that victims are encouraged to come forward with the knowledge that they will receive the help and support they need”. And a Civil Protection Bill coming into effect later this year will give courts greater guidance on dealing with forced marriages.
Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO’s honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is “massively unreported” and far worse than is traditionally accepted. “We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year,” he said: “If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people’s experience is at.” His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives.
i]Did Bill Sink Hill on Purpose?
Monday, February 11th, 2008
Before I explain, let me say that I’m not a (Bill) Clinton hater. I actually like the guy. I’ve grown nostalgic for the Clinton years. The economy was booming. He was the most free trade president we’ve had in a long, long time (certainly more free trade than this one). The federal government grew less under his leadership than under any president in my lifetime (save for Ford). And after the last seven years, it seems almost quaint that we were all worked up over lies about blowjobs, doesn’t it?
Anyway, on to the subject of this post.
A couple of weeks ago at a bar in Alexandria, I by chance met a visiting Democratic activist from New York. This was an older guy, who also was the vice-mayor of a decent-sized town in the Hudson Valley. We started chatting politics and, of course, the election. He said he was a long time supporter of Hillary Clinton, but had abruptly jumped ship to the Obama campaign shortly after the South Carolina primary. His explanation was interesting. It was all about Bill.
I thought at the time that Bill Clinton’s comments comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson were tacky and self-defeating, but I hadn’t really given them much more thought than that. But this guy made some interesting points. Bill Clinton has mastered southern politics all his life, the activist said. He knows all the buzz words, he knows all the code words, he knows where you do and don’t tread. Clinton, the activist said, has been on the right side of racial politics his entire political career. No one that savvy slips up the way Clinton did. It had to have been a calculated move. And because it was a calculated move, it was a deeply cynical, baldly race-driven move. Clinton, the activist said, was signaling to white voters that Obama isn’t his own man. Clinton was giving white voters the okay to marginalize Obama–to put him aside as just another stooge the party has to prop up to appease the black folk, but not someone they ought to take seriously. This, the activist told me, was unforgivable. It’s why not just black people, but a sizable number of Democratic activists have flocked to Obama.
It was an interesting conversation, and made a lot of sense. But I wonder now if Clinton’s comments may sprung from something even deeper. The thing is, Bill Clinton is incredibly savvy. He may be the most talented politician of my lifetime. The Jesse Jackson comments were uncharacteristically sloppy. What in the world made him utter them?
So here’s a crazy theory that occurred to me the other day, and that gets more plausible the more I think about it: Clinton’s comments were calculated, but they may have been more sinister than even the activist I met knows. Clinton–perhaps subconsciously–was sabotaging his wife’s campaign.
Crazy? Maybe. But bear with me, here. Clinton had to have known that marginalizing Obama wouldn’t work. He knows Obama is a talented politician, that he isn’t a demagogue like Jackson, and that he has already demonstrated that he can attract white voters in large swaths–Obama certainly didn’t win Iowa by dominating the black vote, did he?
So why would Clinton do it? Well, maybe he doesn’t want his wife to be president.
They don’t come much more alpha male than Bill Clinton. The guy’s a walking erection. I can’t imagine anything more emasculating to an alpha-alpha like Bill than to watch his wife arc over him–for her to become more powerful than he. Actually, it’s quite a bit worse than that. Hillary Clinton was on the verge of not only becoming more powerful than Bill, she was ready to become the most powerful person on the planet. Not only that, she was about to do so by assuming the very office Bill once held, but (probably) won’t ever hold again. Bill, on the other hand, would be relegated to first lady. I can’t see how that wouldn’t mess with the psychology of a guy like Clinton.
More to support my theory: It’s pretty clear that Hillary Clinton’s reputation and public image have never been of much concern to Bill Clinton. He has publicly humiliated his wife over and over and over again, then counted on her to stand by him in the interests of his career–at which point he inevitably turns around and humiliates her again. It isn’t all that hard to believe that a guy who’s alpha enough to risk his entire political career and presidential legacy for a few hummers from a pudgy intern might subconsciously sabotage his wife’s ascent to power, is it?
Yeah, I know. Clinton is supposed to be the male face of feminism. Certainly a progressive, forward-thinking fella’ like him wouldn’t undermine his wife’s ambition because of some Neanderthal urge to stay at the head of his pack, would he?
But what’s really all that feminist about Bill Clinton? Certainly not the way he’s treated women on an individual basis over the course of his career. This is a guy who routinely uses women for his own sexual amusement, then tosses them under a bus when they become a problem. Gloria Steinem famously wrote during the impeachment imbroglio that Clinton gets a “free pass” on sexual harassment because of all he’s done to keep abortion safe and legal. But Clinton was a late convert to abortion rights (he was pro-life for much of his career), and rather conveniently switched at about the time it became politically expedient to be pro-choice. And let’s face it, for a guy with Clinton’s urges (and inability to control them), there’s certainly something self-serving about “all he’s done to keep abortion safe and legal.”
I’m not saying Bill Clinton sat down and figured all of this out. But a friend of mine once told me something that I’ve found has proven true over the years: “Few things really happen by accident.” Add it up: Clinton’s remarks after South Carolina gave Obama’s already building momentum another nudge. His wife’s campaign has never really recovered. It was a mistake that was really unprecedented in his political career. Even the Sister Souljah stuff was carefully calibrated. Yes, it irked some academic blacks and the hip hop community, but it also won him praise from the ministers and religious civil rights crowd. The Jesse Jackson comments about Obama had almost no upside at all. The number of quasi-racist, primary-voting Democrats they might have appealed to is exceedingly small–certainly not worth the obvious damage a comment could inflict on the support for just about everyone else. Besides, anyone a comment like that might have been directed at wouldn’t have been voting for Obama, anyway. And it all came at a critical juncture in the campaign, when Hillary badly needed momentum, and couldn’t afford a major mistake. It gave independents who may have been flirting with Ron Paul or John McCain more incentive to come around on Obama. It just seems like too dumb a thing for a smart politician like Clinton to have done if he was really trying to help his wife win the nomination.
Remember, Clinton said some other strange things at about the same time, including his weird, unsolicited comments that Hillary and John McCain are good friends, and would run one of the friendliest presidential campaigns in American history. In the heat of a primary, in an election to replace a Republican administration universally loathed by movement Democrats, is it really wise to casually note that your wife the candidate is chummy with the GOP frontrunner, a guy who would continue most of the current administration’s policies, including (most notably) the Iraq war, the one issue that raises primary voters’ haunches than any other? Democratic voters are out for blood, and Bill Clinton says of Hillary, “Oh that John McCain? She loves him!”
Certainly, Clinton’s gaffes played a big role in turning the Democratic primary around. But the more I think about them, the more it seems like they may not have been by accident.
Hillary on Barack's Win in Louisiana [Stephen Spruiell]
AP, via Drudge:
As for Louisiana, "You had a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand," Clinton said.
Isn't this exactly the kind of thing that got Bill in trouble in South Carolina?
Sure glad they're not playing the race card, though
Obama and American Jews
Eric Trager - 01.29.2008 - 10:10
Throughout his presidential campaign, Barack Obama has faced a series of disturbingly slanderous e-mails. Obama has been falsely accused of being secretly Muslim; studying in an Indonesian madrassa; and refusing to say the pledge of allegiance, among other charges. Sensing that these e-mails were particularly prevalent within Jewish circles, Obama held a conference call with Jewish journalists yesterday afternoon.
During the call, Obama sought to reassure the Jewish community by addressing Jewish identity issues. He thus declared his support for Israel “as a Jewish state”; expressed concern for continued rocket attacks from Gaza; stated that the Palestinian right of return could not be interpreted “in any literal way”; and opposed negotiations with Hamas so long as it denies Israel’s right to exist. He further denied that he had ever practiced Islam, and said that his church leader had made a “mistake of judgment” in honoring Louis Farrakhan. “My church has never issued anti-Semitic statements, nor have I heard my pastor utter anything anti-Semitic,” he said. “If I have, I would have left the church.”
The implication that Obama—by virtue of his church leader’s connections with Farrakhan—is anti-Semitic is hard to swallow. After all, Obama remains one solid degree removed from Farrakhan—highly significant in a political environment in which Joseph Lieberman declared his “respect” for Farrakhan during his 2000 vice-presidential candidacy. Moreover, it is saddening that Obama continually feels the need to address his non-Islamic faith, particularly when doing so insultingly implies that Islam is undesirable.
Yet one question remains legitimate: how can voters who care about the U.S.-Israel relationship be reassured that Obama’s staunchly pro-Israel declarations are not mere pandering? After all, Obama is on record as having called for an “even-handed approach” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2000, just as the Palestinians commenced the Second Intifada following Camp David. According to Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah, Obama’s pro-Israel epiphany occurred shortly before his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign—an about-face for which Obama apologized to Abunimah. “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front,” Obama said at the time.
Obama’s apology to Abunimah—a major proponent of the one-state “solution”— indicates an unsophisticated view of American politics, in which success requires whispering sweet Zionist nothings to satisfy the almighty, one-issue Jewish electorate. Obama’s foreign policy advisers have similarly promoted this inflated vision of Jewish power. As my contentions colleague Noah Pollak has assiduously noted, Obama adviser Samantha Power has declared that sound Middle East policy might require “alienating a domestic constituency”—guess which one. His staff further features Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has defended the Walt-Mearsheimer “Israel Lobby” thesis that the U.S.-Israel relationship is the product of Jewish power politics, rather than strategic interest.
This mixture of prior statements and advisory influences suggests little regarding how Obama might act towards Israel if elected. Obama has repudiated Brzezinski’s call for dialogue with Hamas, while Power’s support for ending U.S. foreign military aid to Israel probably represents too radical a departure from historic U.S. policy to be taken seriously.
Rather, Jewish concerns regarding Obama’s candidacy should focus on whether Obama and his posse view American Jewry as a stumbling block in the way of promoting U.S. interests in the Middle East. This is the insidious crux of the “Israel Lobby” thesis, and Obama’s prior statements to Abunimah—as well as the writings of Power and Brzezinski—are hardly reassuring.
Obama Adviser Samantha Power on Israel, “Jenin Massacre” [Michael Rubin]
Noah Pollak has flagged several statements by Barack Obama senior foreign policy advisor Samantha Power with regard to her policy prescriptions for the Middle East. Here’s another: Many readers back in 2002 will remember Palestinian allegations of a “Jenin Massacre” which both the U.N. and many journalists hyped. The ensuing investigation, however, showed that there had been no massacre, and that Palestinian claims of casualties were exponentially exaggerated. At a George Soros-funded conference since published in the volume Ethnic Violence and Justice (2003), Power seemed upset that The New York Times had chosen to correct the narrative about Jenin, instead of holding Israel’s feet to the fire over allegations of its human rights violation. Said Power:
I have a question for David [Rohde] about working for the New York Times. I was struck by a headline that accompanied a news story on the publication of the Human Rights Watch report. The headline was, I believe: “Human Rights Reports Finds Massacre Did Not Occur in Jenin.” The second paragraph said, “Oh, but lots of war crimes did.” Why wouldn’t they make the war crimes the headline and the non-massacre the second paragraph?”
It is questionable whether any war crimes occurred in Jenin, except of course the war crimes associated with Palestinian assembly of suicide bombs which Palestinian terrorists — not uniformed officials — used to target civilians on buses and elderly in hotels. But, that does not seem to be what Samantha Power means. Perhaps Samantha Power might explain what she did mean and, now that the dust has settled, whether she still subscribes to the same views about what led up to and transpired at Jenin. Indeed, her position with Obama suggests that she should do no less.
Hatcheting a New Plan
By Jay D. Homnick
Published 2/11/2008 12:07:54 AM
The first sign of a campaign in trouble, like the last sign of a baseball team in trouble, is when they fire the manager. The Hillary Clinton for President campaign has dispensed with the services of Patti Solis Doyle. Doyle was not only guiding her current effort; she has been credited with leading Mrs. Clinton's 2000 campaign out of the doldrums and into the winner's circle. The only way to decapitate so capable a captain is by bringing in a real hatchet woman. And sure enough, the choice of replacement is none other than Maggie Williams.
Yes, there is an ethnic component here, as Maggie is an African American, which makes her, in the inane Democrat worldview, the answer to Obama. "You see, this lady is every bit as swarthy as you, yet she chooses me over you." On the other hand, Solis Doyle makes much of her Latina status, and Hillary desperately needs the Hispanic vote in the Texas primary. So in the world of the ethnos ethos, these two are more or less of a wash, and the change is hardly awash in significance.
However, there are other elements at play here, some fairly well known, plus one that I will reveal to you as an exclusive, from an inside source of impeccable accuracy.
Maggie Williams, you will recall, was the aide who carried all of Vince Foster's files out of his White House office after he died. A senior Secret Service agent, Henry O'Neill, approaching retirement after a distinguished career, testified to the grand jury that he had seen her with his own eyes. She denied it flat out, said no such thing ever happened. No explanation, no excuse, just looked this guy in the eyes and faced him down.
A big part of how she managed to avoid a major perjury conviction was by acting like a very small player. Although her position was officially designated as chief-of-staff to the First Lady, she and her colleagues made it seem like she was just a poor black woman who needed a job. Then-Senator Carol Moseley-Braun fumed about how a poor woman working to feed her family was being persecuted. For a while, she left the scene to take some kind of extended vacation in Paris...to relieve all that tension.
At one point Ms. Williams reported to a Senate committee that she had already paid $140,000 in legal bills, presumably out of her own pocket. Maureen Dowd, who often defended the Clintons, excoriated them in a column for letting a poor aide be saddled with such an immense expenditure due to their chicanery.
FAST FORWARD TO 2008 and, lo and behold, Maggie bears no grudge. You can choose to believe that she really paid that jumbo legal price tag and then came happily back to work for Mrs. Clinton, but I can draw my own conclusions. On top of that, you might well wonder how this gofer, this wallflower, this petty functionary, this accidental villain, this sheep in wolf's clothing, suddenly amassed political skills of such wattage as to render her an emergency replacement to manage a presidential campaign? It sure seems like we are missing a big piece in this picture.
Here is the answer. The fact is that Maggie Williams is a cutthroat political operative from long before the Clintons made it to the White House. She was the secret mastermind whom the Democratic National Committee sent out to run dirty attacks against Republican opponents of candidates the Party thought had an outside shot at a presumed safe Republican seat.
The following story comes, as I said, from an absolutely trustworthy source, and goes all the way back to 1982. That was the year of the first midterm election in Ronald Reagan's presidency. A young Democrat named Robert Torricelli was challenging an entrenched Republican Congressman named Harold Hollenbeck and making no headway. His local staff were hitting a brick wall. A call comes from Washington; the Party wants this one bad and they are sending a troubleshooter.
In comes Maggie Williams to take over. She scans Hollenbeck's record, finds no weak points. Then she notices the district has a relatively high crime rate. She calls the FBI for state-by-state crime rates and finds a few of the smaller states like Rhode Island and Wyoming have lower rates than that district in New Jersey. She writes an ad showing the names of these states in sequence, followed by an ominous voice-over: "Under Congressman Hollenbeck, this district has worse crime statistics than any of those entire States."
"The Torch" shot up in the polls and beat this poor oblivious guy, who was last seen mumbling about how crime rates have nothing to do with Congressmen. Maggie Williams is a tough Democrat street-fighter from the old school and Mr. Obama had best be watchin' his back.
Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events.
Ted Olson Grabs His Popcorn
Rarely in life does one get to enjoy irony and karma as much as Ted Olson. Having borne the scars of the Gore v Bush lawsuits arising from the 2000 presidential election, Olson now sees a similar outcome, on similar grounds, in the exact same state. Calling it "splendid theater", the incompetent handling of Florida and Michigan likely will combine with a razor-thin delegate chase for the Democratic presidential nomination to produce litigation that will reduce the party to shreds.
Don't count Olson among the mourners:
How ironic. For over seven years the Democratic Party has fulminated against the Electoral College system that gave George W. Bush the presidency over popular-vote winner Al Gore in 2000. But they have designed a Rube Goldberg nominating process that could easily produce a result much like the Electoral College result in 2000: a winner of the delegate count, and thus the nominee, over the candidate favored by a majority of the party's primary voters. ....
We all know full well what could happen next. The array of battle-tested Democratic lawyers who fought for recounts, changes in ballot counting procedures, and even re-votes in Florida courts and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 would separate into two camps. Half of them would be relying on the suddenly-respectable Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision that overturned the Florida courts' post-hoc election rules changes. The other half would be preaching a new-found respect for "federalism" and demanding that the high court leave the Florida court decisions alone.
Would the U.S. Supreme Court even take the case after having been excoriated for years by liberals for daring to restore order in the Florida vote-counting in 2000? And, would Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, the dissenters in Bush v. Gore, feel as strongly about not intervening if Sen. Obama was fighting against an effort to change a presidential election by changing the rules after the fact? Will there be a brief filed by Floridians who didn't vote in their state's primary because the party had decided, and the candidates had agreed, that the results wouldn't count?
As many of us argued at the time, the campaigns have to follow the rules as laid down at the beginning of the process. The Clintons' attempts to change the rules pertaining to Florida and Michigan, especially the former, undermines the rule of, well, rules in this case -- as it did the rule of law in 2000. They want to argue that the DNC violated the rights of Democrats in Florida and Michigan by stripping them of their convention delegates, and therefore "disenfranchised" voters.
But that simply isn't the case. The state parties in both places were warned not to break the scheduling rules that the DNC had established. They chose to break those rules, and so Florida Democrats "disenfranchised" themselves. Their own actions created their predicament. In that, a similarity exists to 2000 as well, since it was the Democrats in Palm Beach who created the "butterfly ballots" that supposedly created too much confusion for Democratic voters.
Barack Obama played by the DNC rules by removing his name from the Michigan ballot and declining to campaign in Florida. Now Hillary wants the DNC to seat delegates from both states so that she can benefit from breaking her word in both places. And Olson is probably right in that she will go to court to get them seated, especially in Florida. What does that tell us about a potential Hillary Clinton presidency?
Olson concludes his celebratory column by offering to send Obama and the DNC his winning arguments at the Supreme Court in Gore v Bush. Their use of that precedent would provide the crowning irony, and perhaps Olson's biggest professional triumph.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on February 11, 2008 9:21 AM |
That's the point.
If the political process doesnt work out with a stabilized Iraq, we will be gone
That's what McCain meant- the 100 years referring to the same type of commitment as we have in Germany
That's clear except to partisan moonbats like you and Hillary who try and twist his words into meaning that we will be in intense warfare for 100 years
He has stated that clearly
Krugman in "Nixonland" "Clintonland"
Posted by: McQ
Paul Krugman uses a 1956 Adlai Stevenson quote about Richard Nixon's campaign style to go after Barack Obama and his followers in an op/ed piece entitled "Hate Springs Eternal".
If you're wondering, Stevenson was decrying what he perceived as negative campaigning and warning against it:
"a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland."
What you'll not see Krugman do is admit that Nixonland was renamed "Clintonland" long ago, because you see, his article is all about shilling for Clinton. It is they, the Clintons, and especially Hillary, who are the victims of this sort of campaigning, not the perpetrators. The irony, of course, is while complaining about the campaign style of Hillary's opponent, Krugman ignores the Clinton's use of the same sort of tactics (is it because they've used them for so long it's just expected of them?) while excoriating Obama:
The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party's grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.
Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.
Why, then, is there so much venom out there?
I won't try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I'm not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We've already had that from the Bush administration - remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don't want to go there again.
What's particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of "Clinton rules" - the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
Consider this attempt to hide the scrutiny of the Clintons by the media behind a term, "Clinton rules", to imply that such scrutiny has no foundation in fact. You want hyperbole, there it is. Obama and his campaign and followers, along with their lackies in the MSM are taking "any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent"
Evil intent? Who is it out there that has talked about Obama's desire to be president all of his life based on a paper written in kindergarten? Or, on more than one occassion, floated the fact that he's used drugs as a kid? While the intent may not of been "evil" it certainly was clear, at least to most observers - "a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win."
Clintonland to a tee. It may be that we've become so used to it on their part that we don't remark on it anymore, but to pretend that the Clinton campaign is the victim of such tactics while ignoring the campaign's use of them seems to be what most people would consider shilling. And, for some unknown reason, it comes as no surprise to find Paul Krugman doing exactly that.
We've been in Germany for 60 years, is that pathetic?
More Pelosi wisdom:
Hedlines on Drudge:
Pelosi: Iraq 'is a failure' -- surge was bust...
al-Qaeda in Iraq in 'total collapse', say seized letters...
Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear'
Members of the anti Al-Qaeda Awakening movement
Martin Fletcher in Baghdad
Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group's security structure suffered “total collapse”.
These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.
The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.
That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.
Related Links
* Children 'taught to kill at al-Qaeda camp'
* US security ally killed in Baghdad suicide bomb
“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he says. “Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most.”
Assuming the two documents are authentic — and the US military insists that they are — they provide a rare insight into an organisation thrown into turmoil by the rise of the Awakening movement. More than 80,000 Sunnis have joined the tribal groups of “concerned local citizens” [CLCs] that have helped to eject al-Qaeda from swaths of western and northern Iraq, including much of Baghdad.
US intelligence officials cautioned, however, that the documents were snapshots of two small areas and that al-Qaeda was far from a spent force.
They said that while the number of car bombs had fallen over the past year, the organisation had doubled its attacks on CLC members since October. More than 20 people were killed last night when a suicide car bomber attacked a checkpoint near Balad.
Al-Qaeda gunmen stormed a compound of an “Awakening” group in Iraq's northern Nineveh province yesterday, the US military said. Among those killed in the fighting were 10 suspected Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters.
The Anbar letter conceded that the “crusaders” — Americans — had gained the upper hand by persuading ordinary Sunnis that al-Qaeda was responsible for their suffering and by exploiting their poverty to entice them into the security forces. Al-Qaeda's “Islamic State of Iraq is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar”, the unnamed emir admitted.
In an apparent reference to al-Qaeda's brutal tactics, he said of the Americans and their Sunni allies: “We helped them to unite against us . . . The Americans and the apostates launched their campaigns against us and we found ourselves in a circle not being able to move, organise or conduct our operations.”
He said of the loss of Anbar province: “This created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down . . . There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.” The emir complained that the supply of foreign fighters had dwindled and that they found it increasingly hard to operate inside Iraq because they could not blend in. Foreign suicide bombers determined to kill “not less than 20 or 30 infidels” grew disillusioned because they were kept hanging about and only given small operations. Some gave up and went home.
Finally the emir recommended rewards for killing apostates, using doctors to kill infidels and offering gifts to tribal leaders. He said al-Qaeda's fighters should be sent to more promising areas such as Diyala province or Baghdad — which is exactly what happened.
Rear-Admiral Gregory Smith, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, called Abu-Tariq's testament a “woe-is-me kind of document”. It calls the Sunnis who switched sides a “cancer in the body of al-Jihad movement”, and declares: “We should have no mercy on them.”
The author lists those who have made off with al-Qaeda weapons or money, describes the group's arsenal, including C5 rockets, which are used against helicopters, and records the fate of the battalions under his command.
Most of the first battalion's fighters “betrayed us and joined al-Sahwah [the Awakening]”, he says. The leader of the second ran away and all but two of its 300 fighters joined the Awakening. The activities of the third were “frozen due to their present conditions”. Of the fourth he writes: “Most of its members are scoundrels, sectarians, non-believers”.
He lists 38 people still working for him but beside five names he has written comments like “We have not seen him for twenty days” or “left us a week ago”. He concludes, wistfully: “And that is the number of fighters left in my sector.”
'WE WERE MISTREATED AND CHEATED'
Extracts from letters
Abu-Tariq, al-Qaeda leader
“There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees . . . Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters . . . As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less.”
“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers who used to be part of the Jihadi movement, therefore we must not have mercy on those traitors until they come back to the right side or get eliminated completely.”
Unnamed emir, Anbar province
“The Islamic State of Iraq [al-Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight.
“The morale of the fighters went down and they wanted to be transferred to administrative positions rather than be fighters. There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.”
* Have your say
Must have gotten 1460% of the black population LOL
Police name headless corpse man
Kingsgate Place
Lakhdar Ouyahia was an Algerian national and lived in Kilburn
A decapitated body found behind a row of shops in north London has been identified as Lakhdar Ouyahia.
Mr Ouyahia, who was 43 and an Algerian national, was found wrapped in a blood-stained duvet in a supermarket goods cage in Kilburn.
Detectives investigating the case have also confirmed that they have found Mr Ouyahia's head in a canal nearby.
Mohamed Boudjenane, 45, of Kingsgate Road, Kilburn, is due to appear in court on Monday charged with murder.
A man and a woman arrested in Alvaston, Derby, are being questioned on suspicion of assisting an offender.
Post-mortem tests on the body have so far proved inconclusive. Police officers found the head on Sunday afternoon in the Grand Union Canal at Blomfield Road, Paddington.
Mr Ouyahia, who lived in Kilburn, was discovered by a member of the public on Wednesday.
Can't recall too many of those in the news over here....
Wilder Still Sore Over Clinton Comment
Feb 9 09:48 PM US/Eastern
By BOB LEWIS
Associated Press Writer
44 Comments
FLASHBACK: Bill Clinton Fumes About Obama: ‘Biggest Fairy Tale I’ve Ever Seen’
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The nation's first elected black governor said Saturday he is not ready to excuse comments former President Bill Clinton made about Barack Obama.
In campaigning for his wife last month on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Clinton called Obama's opposition to the Iraq war "a fairy tale." Clinton suggested Obama had toned down his early anti-war fervor during his 2004 Senate campaign.
"Barack Obama is not a fairy tale. He is real," former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder told reporters at a Democratic fundraiser as the former president spent the day campaigning for Hillary Rodham Clinton in Richmond and three other Virginia cities.
The grandson of slaves, who was elected in 1989 in what was once the Confederate capital, endorsed Obama last month. Now Richmond's mayor, Wilder's comments still get the attention of the state's black voters, though his influence has waned since he left office 15 years ago.
Clinton also implied that an Obama victory in South Carolina would amount to a reward based on race, like the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 20 years earlier.
Wilder said the former president's comments stung him and other black voters and diminished their respect for Clinton.
"It's not just me (who) feels that; any number of people feel that," Wilder said. "A time comes and a time goes. The president has had his time."
Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said Bill and Hillary Clinton both "have tremendous respect for Governor Wilder. He has been a trailblazer who made it possible for both Senators Clinton and Obama to run for president."
In stops across Virginia, Clinton was careful Saturday to avoid any comment remotely critical of his wife's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia hold primaries Tuesday.
Any comments now?????