Archive for foreign affairs

Clinton as Secretary of State? I love it.

November 14, 2008 at 11:53 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Look, I was never a Clinton (for president this year) supporter.  And I came to hate the way she and Bill muddied up the water in the primary.  I felt they wouldn’t acknowledge where the mood was and that the mood called for Barack Obama.  But I have to say, it works.

It really works, it is exactly what we (the anxious transition watchers) were looking for.  I’ve come across few people in Washington who have been feeling absolutely one candidate fits the bill.  John Kerry, very accomplished, endorsed Obama at a crucial time.  Bill Richardson, also very accomplished, endorsed Obama at another helpful moment, and is rumored to have a lot of ugly skeletons in his closet.  Chuck Hagel, fun to interview for the press, very accomplished, principled, tough and would cross from the right and meet Obama in the middle, usefully.  But it still just doesn’t fit perfectly.

Clinton brings bravado, finally in a very good way, starpower (it can intimidate, and awe), a symbolic political healing, especially with white women, and the satisfaction of the so-called Pumas, those stubborn women who felt violated and would not yield to the party’s choice.  And she also brings an incisive studiousness, a seriousness and capacity (so they say) to absorb and learn incredibly quickly.  And she’s poised, ready (youbetcha!) on day one, and it bears repeating, tough.  She’d be a great Secretary of State.  

And as I just heard Pat Buchanan envisage, with the challenges on the table in 2009, nobel peace prize could be in her grasp if she shows the extraordinary leadership she might possess. It’s just what she would look for if she were open to the opportunity and able to accept the loss (I think she has, if not Bill as much).  She’d also be a good liaison for President Obama to John McCain if he plays a central role in our policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, and elsewhere. The only drawback I see is that for a Clinton to be Obama’s envoy to the world, does that suggest a Clinton years redux in foreign policy.

Wait, there is one drawback, for it’s for Clinton herself.  Taking the job would take her out of political rotation for a while, as Andrea Mitchell put it on Hardball tonight, she wouldn’t be out campaigning for people, collecting chits and so on.  And, Chris Matthews rightly noted 

She’d be an asset.  And I think they both know it.  This announcement will be something to see, people.  Maybe they’ll cut to Bill wiping a tear from his eye.

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From Russia, with love (for the next guy)

November 13, 2008 at 1:37 am · Filed under foreign affairs ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Kremlin has, not shockingly, turned down the recent U.S. offer to “mitigate some of the Russian concerns” restarting an arms race – with a missile shield in Russia’s backyard – by allowing Russia to allow representatives tour the launch sites. 

“Russia is ready to cooperate with the United States on European security but considers the proposals that were sent are insufficient,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted an unidentified Kremlin source as saying.

“We will not give our agreement to these proposals and we will speak to the new administration,” said the source, who was quoted by Russia’s three main news agencies, an indication the remarks reflect official policy.

Thing is, the chances of actually deterring a missile, launched from who knows what corner of the earth, are so miniscile as to make spending billions of dollars on a missile defense shield in Europe. I can’t honestly figure what makes Republicans presidents (Reagan, Bush 43) tilt after missile defense shields, other than that billion dollar technology can be cool, if not effective.

But President Obama is going to find himself in the uncomfortable position of slashing and burning the federal budget to make it through the spending, deficit and taxes gauntlet next year.  And no single line item offers as much give for the take as missile defense (or, Star Wars, if you’re feeling nostalgic for the 1980’s).  President-elect Obama must be asking himself, do we really need it?

Getting the U.S. to scrap or even just freeze the Bush plan for a European missile shield (again, is there evidence that it really will protect anyone?) is about as big a priority for Russia as deterring Iran’s nuclear ambitions is to the U.S.  It has become the Kremlin’s #1 international priority.  In fact, you have to wonder how much more cooperation we could get out of Russia on the world’s most pressing crises – starting with Iran – and is it worth slashing a program that is years away from ready anyway?  Could keeping a U.S. military presence out of Poland and the Czech Republic be so vital an interest that Russia would consider backing off of Georgia and Ukraine, for good, in exchange?  

Whatever Putin’s intentions may be these days, I’m guessing that he doesn’t want to or can’t commit the resources it would take to catch up to the U.S. missile shield plan.  Maybe we could just outspend the Russians (or maybe they could play dirty, like with stateless terrorists).  It’s like the earth fell down a rabbit hole and we are reliving a Cold War and an arms race with Russia, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, on totally new ground. 

Next year’s gonna be interesting.

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Fox News takes down Joe the Plumber

October 31, 2008 at 2:42 am · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

I never thought I would see a Fox News anchor go Campbell Brown on a McCainiac.  But that is exactly what Shep Smith did to Joe the Iconic Plumber.  Take a look for yourself, and see if you can figure out what happened:
 


I’m guessing that it was this statement from the now famous plumber that most galled Shep: “I’m just going to push it back on your listeners to figure out why I would agree to something like that.” Um, excuse me, did he just get away with that?  

In a bizarre twist to the last lap in this presidential election, John McCain has elevated Joe the Plumber to – basically – running mate status.  Joe’s out on the stump gladhanding and taking more press questions than Sarah Palin has in the whole general election.  The media obediently reports everything this guy says now.  But the beauty – or the horror, to a journalist – is that Joe is accountable to no one for what he says on camera (except maybe to his kids, who aren’t old enough to be embarrassed).  It’s like he’s Tucker Bounds, except he gets away with it.

It’s all a little surreal.  Joe’s now got a publicist (who will keep him from saying such stupid things in the future), and there’s talk of a country music album now.  Joe the plumber would be the most famous swing voter in history . . . if he were in fact a swing voter.  But, he’s not, and he never was. He made that perfectly clear, even before “endorsing” McCain last week.  And now he’s basically become the campaign’s mascot; a formulaic symbol, replicable into Phil the Bricklayer, Rose the Teacher or Tito the Builder (who’s stumpin’ with Sarah the Hunter Palin in Virginia now).  

I suppose it was inevitable that someone was gonna knock this guy off the pedestal John McCain has set him on; I just never thought it would happen on the Fox News Network.  Well played, Shep. Finally fair and balanced.

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Five reasons why Barack Obama won the townhall debate

October 8, 2008 at 3:59 am · Filed under domestic policy, Economy, foreign affairs, Politics, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

Barack Obama won the second presidential debate tonight.  Here are five reasons why:

1) To understand what the candidates did right and wrong tonight, let’s take a moment to review the last debate.  As the first presidential debate opened, John McCain was having the worst week of his campaign, and expectations were extremely low for him.  People were impressed he didn’t freak out and go Jack Nicholson on Obama or Lehrer.  For not taking a knockout punch that night, and for being articulate (though repetitive) and surprisingly quick on his feet, McCain was able to fight to a respectable draw that night.

Not so tonight.  With the economy flatlining for more than two straight weeks, and polls showing a marked advantage for Obama even among the reddest of swing states (North Carolina??), it is clearly taking its toll on John McCain’s poll numbers across the board.  Conventional wisdom said that McCain needed to win this debate to get back in the race.  He simply did not do that.

2) The conventional wisdom of the week has also suggested that McCain needs to come out swinging.  (You’re hearing a lot about a 1960’s anti-Vietnam radical who engaged in domestic terrorism, am I right?)  But there is a stark difference between punching in ads and on paper, through surrogates and slogans, and having one of the candidates repeatedly injecting childish venom into every question he fields in a 90-minute period, as millions of Americans hang on their every word (if it’s interesting enough).  McCain’s incessant finger-pointing at Obama predictably registered negatively with the 30 or so Ohio undecideds sitting in CNN’s studio.  “You know who voted for it? You might never know.  That one,” with a sneer and a point at Obama, came off shockingly juvenile on McCain’s part.  It was unnerving and unpresidential.

McCain’s finger-pointing left him no time to talk about his own positive message, and his own plans for America.  He said it best himself eight years ago–the voters turn away from negative attacks because they convey a lack of vision for the country.

3) Need I even say this?  The economic woes – five straight days of stock market tumbles, taking with them billions of dollars in average Americans’ pension and IRA plan earnings – only serve to remind voters that heads need to roll in Washington.  And it may not be simply a rejection of George Bush, but that there is a fundamental preference for Democrats during deep financial crisis.  When the majority of the population begins to really worry about their own financial  future (not just their neighbors’), to whom will they turn?  To the government, of course. Who else is there?  The free market?  I certainly don’t mean to advocate for a socialist takeover (as John McCain seemed to do tonight!), but we’re getting awfully close to seeing how the Great Depression and the New Deal came to pass.  And while people may not trust Democrats to cut our taxes, but they do seem to trust Democrats to give a boost to the needier among us when we need it.  And nowadays, more swing voters are feeling needy than usual.

4) It seems unfair to keep beating up on McCain, but there’s more.  You had the sense listening to McCain that he was just throwing campaign slogan bites and policy rhetorical flourish bits around, one after another in a rushed, breathy fashion.  He sounded, actually like he was trying to nail jello to the wall (to steal one of his lines tonight).  Obama, in contrast, did a good job of consistently sounding mellifluous; he was listing coherent points in order and connecting them with poise and clarity.  CNN’s viewer reaction gauge at the bottom of the screen told the story.  Obama was much more consistently scoring high marks, with some dips and crests of course, whereas McCain’s favorability ratings remained largely lower, flat and unmoving.  He was putting the viewers to sleep – a lot.

5) Finally, McCain’s characteristic accusatory, jargon-filled, up-and-down cadence and delivery have probably begun to grate on people at this point in the campaign.  I went a little bit mad every time he repeated in that nasal, holier-than-thou tone, “I know what it’s like . . . ”  The word “reform” has lost all meaning to America.  To McCain, it’s become mere filler.  If I spent the time poring over the transcript, I could give copious examples, but you don’t need me to.  Just trust me on this one, my friends.

So, to wrap:

Rather than list for you five things Barack Obama did right tonight, I’m going to point out why I don’t have to.  As long as he didn’t stumble or fall (he didn’t), Obama is sitting in the catbird seat.  He’s in charge and he just needs to keep her steady as she goes.  Tonight, he did just that, and that is all he needed to do.

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Scrappy Palin, serious Biden: they both won, sort of

October 3, 2008 at 2:13 pm · Filed under domestic policy, Economy, foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

You’ve got to love Peggy Noonan.  You can always count on this former Reagan speechwriter to tell it like it is.  And if you are a Democrat, you really need to read her stuff.  She keeps you grounded and honest.  And sometimes she even reassures you (she’s not exactly Palin’s biggest fan).  Plus, she’s funny:

Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We’ve got a beat!

But seriously, Noonan’s commentary on last night’s debate hits most of the nails right on the head. No matter who you support in this election, it’s hard to argue with her analysis. 

She killed. She had him at “Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?” She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy . . .

As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic “talk over the heads of the media straight to the people,” and it is a long time since I’ve seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial . . .

Joe Biden seems to have walked in thinking that she was an idiot and that he only had to patiently wait for this fact to reveal itself. This was a miscalculation. He showed great forbearance. Too much forbearance. She said of his intentions on Iraq, “Your plan is a white flag of surrender.” This deserved an indignant response, or at least a small bop on the head, from Mr. Biden, who has been for five years righter on Iraq than the Republican administration. He was instead mild.

The heart of her message was a complete populist pitch. “Joe Six-Pack” and “soccer moms” should unite to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of “Main Streeters like me.” A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.

Palin’s shiny, happy populism overlooks a critical shortcoming of her ticket: there is no evidence that their policies would help mainstreeters.  Palin talks a great talk when there’s virtually no follow up from (filter between) the media.  How does their tax policy, which gives no tax break to 100 million middle “mainstreeters” but instead targets $4 billion in tax breaks to corporate America?  How is it helpful to mainstreet Americans with employer-based healthcare to lose their healthcare plan and get a $5,000 tax credit toward purchasing insurance that will surely cost double that amount out of pocket? Biden hit McCain and Palin on this point with perhaps the best zinger of the night: “So you’re going to have to place — replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the “Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere.”

Had Joe Biden not been beaten into submission before the debate (“don’t come off too mean!”), he might have engaged Palin a bit more combatively than he did.  Palin came in with that advantage, and she worked it aggressively.  Still, while Palin won on appearance, Joe Biden won on substance. And this election, more than any in recent memory, demands substantive, reassuring leadership.  Joe Biden spent most of the night effectively articulately the Obama – Biden ticket’s policies.  When he hit back it was mostly aimed at John McCain.  Near the end of the debate, after Palin had used the word “maverick” so many times it made me cringe to hear it, Biden delivered a powerful indictment against the sunny maverick McCain image Palin continually invoked:

He’s been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives.

He voted four out of five times for George Bush’s budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he’s got there.

He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against — he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.

He’s not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.

He’s not been a maverick on the war. He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

Biden even made up ground on Palin’s home turf- her image as just an average mom with an average family to juggle.  He was proud and then vulnerable, recalling the days after his first wife and daughter died in a car crash (in which his two sons were critically injured):

But the notion that somehow, because I’m a man, I don’t know what it’s like to raise two kids alone, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child you’re not sure is going to — is going to make it — I understand.

All in all, Biden turned in a strong performance (aside from his excessive grinning at inopportune moments), perhaps stronger than we realize, given that so many of us went into this forgetting that Palin excels at debate, particularly a debate with such stringent rules on followup discussion (the sort of followup that Katie Couric was able to do in her interviews).  Again, Noonan is instructive:

[Palin] is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

As for those pundits who said that Palin’s goal going into this was merely to survive gaffe-free, I disagree. Her goal was to bloody up the Democratic ticket, and in doing so win points for “feistiness”.  She threw some cute and some tough punches, but nothing that Biden didn’t counter. Palin reclaimed some of her dignity last night, and succeeded in slowing, but not stopping, her own campaign’s bleeding–you don’t pull out of Michigan unless you are in deeper trouble than one debate performance can fix.  The Couric, Gibson and even Hannity interviews did irreparable damage to both McCain and Palin that just can’t be fixed with a wink and a cutesy “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”  

Here’s some final analysis from NBC’s Political Director Chuck Todd (who has inherited Tim Russert’s white board):

Palin started strong and proved to be a folksy cliché machine, which probably came across as extremely charming. She lit up the screen at times with her smile and occasional winks.

She proved extremely adept at avoiding questions or topics she didn’t want to answer, which is the big difference in her fairly smooth performance tonight and her near-disastrous performances in those one-on-one interviews.

This debate may have a shelf life of about 24 hours, perhaps 48 hours and that’s about it. 

And he’s right.  If there’s no blood on the floor, the media will move right along.  Next story: the House votes on that bailout-rescue package today.  It’s going to be nailbiter.

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Palin brings her dad to Couric rematch

September 30, 2008 at 3:18 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Last week I stated with utter certainty that, given the horrible week the Republican ticket had over at the CBS network, McCain and Palin would surely never take another question from Katie Couric.  I was wrong.  Over the weekend, Sarah Palin took a question from a voter on the subject of Pakistan, gave the wrong answer (she sounded more like Barack Obama than John McCain), and it landed both her and McCain back in the studio with Katie Couric.

McCain has been pounding Barack Obama for publicly stating his willingness to launch a surgical strike – without the sign off from the Pakistani government – against high value Al Qaida targets operating in Pakistan if he gets actionable intelligence.  Pakistan is an incredibly difficult nut to crack.  The more we cozy up to its government, the more the people seem to hate us.  And yet, it is the government that (we hope) maintains control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.  But the new Pakistani President, Ali Azif Zardari, has no more popular mandate to maintain his government’s stability, nor any more handle on extremist groups in the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, than did Musharraf.  So the place is a tinderbox.  Maybe refraining from endorsing particular tactics is a good idea, but if the roles were reversed, and it was Obama who thought we should hold our cards closer to our vest, and it was McCain giving voters the kind of tough talk they clamor for, you can be sure that McCain would be bludgeoning Obama with his pansy tactical secrecy bit.  Recall, from Friday night’s debate:

“He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan,” McCain said of Obama. “Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.”

“And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I’m going to attack them,” McCain added.

Obama responded that “nobody talked about attacking Pakistan,” saying his speech last year on Pakistan endorsed the idea that “if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.”

“This is not an easy situation. You’ve got cross-border attacks against U.S. troops,” Obama added. “And we’ve got a choice. We could allow our troops to just be on the defensive and absorb those blows again and again and again, if Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, or we have to start making some decisions.”

So, at an unscheduled stop in Philadelphia (for cheesesteaks of course) over the weekend, a customer in the shop asked Palin about how to deal with attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan by terrorists operating in Pakistan.  He asked her whether she would support cross border raids into Pakistan, and she said: “If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should.”

When McCain and Palin returned to CBS last night, Katie Couric asked both of them about Governor Palin’s response to that voter, as it seemed to contradict McCain’s insistence on not talking about such tactics in public.

COURIC: Is that something you shouldn’t say out loud, Sen. McCain?

McCAIN: Of course not. But, look, I understand this day and age “gotcha” journalism. Is that a pizza place? In a conversation with someone who you didn’t hear … the question very well, you don’t know the context of the conversation. Grab a phrase. Gov. Palin and I agree that you don’t announce that you’re going to attack another country.

COURIC: Are you sorry you said it …

McCAIN: …And the fact …

COURIC: Governor?

McCAIN: Wait a minute. Before you say, “is she sorry she said it,” this was a “gotcha” sound bite that, look …

COURIC: It wasn’t a “gotcha.” She was talking to a voter.

McCAIN: No, she was in a conversation with a group of people and talking back and forth.

What is remarkable about this clip is not the substance of the discussion.  It’s the fact that John McCain willingly sat with Sarah Palin for a Katie Couric rematch.  Why in God’s name would they do that?  The interview manages to make Palin look even more infantile – for bringing her dad with her to the interview  – than she already does.  McCain goes so far as to even answer the question for Palin, whose body language throughout the exchange was very telling.  The back and forth really makes McCain look like a hair-splitting grumpy old man who now equates a voter asking a question of his vice president with the media playing “gotcha” journalism.  Smells a lot more like gotcha politics to me.

Want more?  The internet is buzzing in anticipation for the other footage CBS has ready to release this week – Q and As with Sarah Palin and then also with Joe Biden.

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Who won the debate?

September 28, 2008 at 2:10 pm · Filed under Economy, foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

If the debate were judged on the opening “lead” question alone, then Barack Obama won handily. But John McCain recovered from a shaky, unfocused beginning, and went on the offensive during the foreign policy portion of the debate.  He did very well, despite such a tumultuous week for his campaign.  He was surefooted and detailed oriented.  But his obvious condescension toward Obama was unattractive, as were his satisfied grimaces (McCain has an uncanny ability to look tense and angry when he is pleased) and his inability to turn and dialogue with his opponent.

While Obama did not turn in the knock out punch performance his supporters wanted, he did what he had to, and he did it well.  Obama was confident and concise.  The most important thing he had to do was to stop rambling like a professor you tune out halfway through a lecture.  His answers were meaty, purposeful and reassuring.  In fact, it was McCain who would dive into language that means nothing to people beyond the beltway, and never really channeled the anxiety of the middle class voter.

McCain did an excellent job of reminding viewers that he has years of experience dealing with foreign policy, but Obama also effectively reminded viewers about the candidates’ judgment.  He scolded McCain for talking as if the war in Iraq started last year, with the surge, when in fact it started 5 long years ago.  McCain beat on Obama for his willingness to meet with foreign leaders; a statement I am sure Obama wishes he could just plain take back, because there is never a response that closes the door on the discussion.

Yet, Obama did land a good hit on McCain, making him seem way out of touch on dealing with friends and foes when he said this: he would not meet potentially with the Prime Minister of Spain.  “I mean, Spain,” he repeated for incredulous emphasis.  “Spain is a NATO ally.  If we can’t meet with our friends, I don’t know how we are going to lead the world in dealing with critical issues like terrorism.”

One of the most compelling moments of the debate was when John McCain showed a bracelet he wears in honor of a fallen soldier.  His mother gave it to Mr. McCain and asked him to finish the mission in Iraq, and make sure his death was not in vain.  Obama countered, “I have a bracelet too,” from a mother who told Obama she didn’t want any more mothers to feel the pain she has suffered.  It was a powerful contrast.

All in all, it was a very balanced debate.  I am not sure that McCain brought any fence-sitters to his side, but Obama’s confidence just might have.  A CBS poll showed that more people felt better about Obama after the debate than they did about McCain.  Both the CBS poll and a CNN poll of viewers gave Obama the edge (51% to 38% in the CNN poll).  Obama walked away with a double-digit lead on the economy, and even edged out McCain on handling the war in Iraq.  And while more people thought John McCain was ready to be president, Obama gained 16% points on that score.

More good news for Obama – LA Times/Bloomburg just released a post-debate poll:

Though more voters still see McCain as more knowledgeable, Obama was seen as more “presidential” by 46% of debate-watchers, compared with 33% for the Arizona senator.

The difference is even more pronounced among debate-watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage.

The Republican candidate also has lost ground on several measures of voter confidence, including trust.

After the debate, 43% of registered voters who saw the event said Obama had more “honesty and integrity,” compared with 34% for McCain. A week ago, the same voters were evenly divided, with each candidate winning the trust of 40% of respondents.

Voters are also less confident than a week ago that McCain will strengthen the economy and less convinced he cares about voters like themselves.

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And that’s why we don’t talk to reporters

September 26, 2008 at 1:33 am · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric proved Campbell Brown quite wrong. McCain isn’t shielding Palin from press scrutiny because she is a woman; he is shielding her from press scrutiny because she handles it no better than he does.  Clive Crook at the Financial Times had this to say:

Was this the same Palin who gave the convention speech – or even the less-than-stunning Palin of the Charles Gibson interview? She was simply awful. In response to straightforward questions, she was scared, rambling, incoherent, and at times completely unintelligible. She looked stupid. She gave her critics everything they could have wished.

The two part interview revealed several points of weakness:

1. Palin had no answer to Couric’s questions about revelations that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ firm (in which he continues to hold an interest, pointed out Couric) has continued to receive $15,000/month payments from Freddie Mac until last month.  When Couric pressed on whether Davis’ interest in the firm isn’t a clear conflict of interest, Palin was literally at a loss for words.

2. When asked by Couric for a specific example of how John McCain had pushed for more adequate regulation of Wall Street, Palin stumbled, and when Couric pressed the point for a third time, Palin had to admit she couldn’t think of an example, but would “try to find one and bring it to ya.”


3. Couric gave the governor another shot to frame her foreign policy credentials vis a vis Russia.  Palin was wobbly, trying to finish out a sentence describing a maritime border with Russia and wandered into talking about the land border with Canada.  As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do you think they go?”  And it gets worse, you can view it below, in part two of the interview.


4. Couric asked Palin her opinion about the bailout package under negotiation in Congress this week, and whether the country could face another Great Depression if something isn’t passed. Rather than sounding a reassuring and confident note, Palin took the bait, and said that yes, we could be headed for one.  Worse, though is that she was completely incoherent – despite repeatedly looking down toward, presumably, her notes, when defining why a bailout needs to be passed.  I would paste the text here but CBS didn’t provide it; you have to watch the clip.  Her answer begins at 2:20 minutes in the Part II interview.  Then between 4:00 and 4:45 minutes she seems unable to decide whether homebuyers should bear any responsbility for home foreclosures.

5. Katie Couric asked Palin about when U.S. efforts to promote democracy backfire, such as when Hamas won control of the Palestinian government several years ago.  Palin did not seem to understand the question, and just rambled on about how important it is to promote those who seek democracy.   Not surprisingly, her diplomatic approach to Israel and Iran comes down to not secondguessing “the good guys” in “their fight” against “the bad guys.”  Time to take cover, folks.

5. Palin’s fumbles on the economic crisis led John McCain to skip a taping with David Letterman and sit down with Katie Couric, in which he avoided referring to a Great Depression but rather warned of consequences “of the utmost seriousness” if action is not taken.  Then, David Letterman skewered McCain for begging off the show to rush back to Washington, and showed live tape of McCain getting powdered for the Couric interview.

I think it’s clear that even if John McCain and Sarah Palin take any more questions from the press over the next forty days, they surely won’t take any more of them from Katie Couric.
But wait- I left out one other important video that the unholy media dug up this week.  A visiting pastor visits Palin’s church (during her gubernatorial campaign) and prays against witchcraft, and for, among other things, that God should take over the media, our schools, the financial system, our government and politics. He prays for her success, and that church members will involve themselves in her campaign.

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That’s it; I’m through blogging about Sarah Palin

September 25, 2008 at 4:39 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ok, maybe not.  But I am beginning to actually feel for Governor Palin.  Something in the way Garrison Keillor just ripped the bandaid off – courageously, I might add – in his searing commentary earlier this week has affected me.  Keillor admonished Senator McCain for “exploiting a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn’t funny anymore. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her.”

It’s a sort of moral dilemma.  If Palin is in over her head, do you just set down the gloves and let this thing play out?  Do I really need to say anything when these are the snippets we have to work with?

“I am honored to meet you,” Ms. Palin said [upon meeting the new Pakistani President, Ali Asif Zardari.]

“You are even more gorgeous than you are on the (inaudible),” Mr. Zardari said.

“You are so nice,” Ms. Palin replied. “Thank you.”

“Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you,” Mr. Zardari continued. At which point an aide told the two to shake hands.

“I’m supposed to pose again,” Ms. Palin said.

“If he’s insisting,” Mr. Zardari said, “I might hug.”

This one:

Earlier Wednesday, Ms. Palin had met with Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, and other Iraqi officials.

As the meeting began, Ms. Palin made small talk with Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, the first lady of Iraq. “Plenty to do here, isn’t there?” Ms. Palin remarked, presumably about New York. “Plenty to see.”

With a bit of nationalist pride, or perhaps the irritation of a spouse not thrilled about being dragged along on a business trip, the first lady replied, “I have plenty to do at home, also.”

Or this one:

COURIC: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He’s also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I’ll try to find you some, and I’ll bring them to you.

This one, which you have surely heard over and over again:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us.  Do you agree with that?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

The Bush administration made countless false and exaggerated claims to go into Iraq, but they never claimed there was an imminent attack.  And, Saddam Hussein was many ugly things, but he was not an ally to Islamic extremists.

And now this from Laura Bush, who is a pretty straight shooter, to her credit:

In an interview on Wednesday with CNN, the first lady, Laura Bush, was asked whether Ms. Palin had enough foreign policy experience. “Of course she doesn’t have that,” Mrs. Bush said.

“You know, that’s not been her role,” she said. “But I think she is a very quick study, and fortunately John McCain does have that sort of experience.”

If Sarah Palin, self-described hockey mom with real-life family crises just like the rest of us, had the national and international experience of Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice (neither of whom I am wild about), well, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.  But Garrison Keillor is right: it is painfully obvious that Palin is out of her league.  And while she deserves a certain amount of our respect as would any other working mother (or father) in this world, I was put off that she “didn’t blink” at the VP offer from John McCain.  If she isn’t informed enough to know she isn’t informed enough to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, it either takes some hubris, or else a lack of intelligence and critical thinking.  Being a quick study does not bestow sound judgment.

I appreciate the fact that many Americans, especially women, like being able to relate to this candidate.  She seems like many of us.  But ask yourself, do you have what it takes to be president?  Does your neighbor?

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Will they, or won’t they debate?

September 25, 2008 at 2:33 pm · Filed under domestic policy, Economy, foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, John McCain suddenly announced he would be suspending his campaign, and returning to Washington to help broker agreement on the rescue/bailout package that congressional leaders and Secretary Paulson have been negotiating.  He also called to cancel tomorrow night’s debate.

David Letterman was miffed that McCain blew off a scheduled appearance on his show last night, in his “race to the airport,” but sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead.  So, Letterman rolled live footage of McCain getting his face powdered before the interview.  “Hey, I’ve got a question for you,” Letterman yelled at the onscreen image of McCain.  “Need a ride to the airport?!”

For his part, Barack Obama wasn’t having any of it.

“With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once . . .”

“I think there’s no reason why we can’t be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand … So in my mind, actually, it’s more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and try to describe where we want to take the country and where we want to take the economy.”

President Bush went on the air last night to calm us all, and to explain why we won’t be able to get a car, home or school loan next year, even with a great credit record, if we don’t act now to stabilize our capital markets.  He’s right, actually.  But George Bush isn’t exactly someone most Americans feel confident in.

We are looking to the guy who, just over a month, is going to inherit this mess.  So, as Obama said, there is no better time to hold a nationally televised debate than now.

Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s debate negotiations pointman, had this to say yesterday: “We need a solution on this crisis more than we need a foreign policy debate.”  Oh, really?  I wonder what Mr. Graham had to say today, after Pakistani and American troops exchanged fire — with eachother — and Pakistan’s Prime Minister had this to say:

“We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told reporters on Wednesday. “We are fighting extremism and terror not for any other country, but our own country.”

And that’s not all.  Terrorist violence in Pakistan has been escalating,  and there are now reports that a “grim” new National Intelligence Estimate on the situation in Afghanistan is ready, but that it won’t be released until after the election.  Iran’s nuclear development activities aren’t on hold while Washington works to rescue Wall Street.  The North Korea deal still hangs precariously on the cliff of failure.  A new Israeli Prime Minister may or may not be able to hold a coalition government together to continue peace talks with the Palestinians, and with the Syrians.  Hugo Chavez gallivants off to see his new BFFs in Moscow every other month.  But hey, no biggie.  All that stuff can wait.

I agree with Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (never one to mince words) that McCain’s announcement was “the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of football or Marys.”  The negotiations include Senate and House leadership and the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committes.  John McCain will not be in the room at 10:00am this morning when the negotiators hammer out their remaining differences.  In fact, the negotiators will have to take a break from the actual business of negotiating to troop over to the White House and have a meaningless photo op with the President.  The president has little juice left for effective arm-twisting, and whatever lines in the sand he wants to express, are obviously represented for him by Hank Paulson.  The only thing that meeting could be good for is if Congressional leaders and Paulson have reached an agreement by the time they all arrive at the White House, and President Bush announces the deal when the “meeting” wraps.

At this stage, the arms that still need twisting are those members who don’t want the government, and thus the taxpayers, to have to front this money for Wall Street.  They are understandably angry, but they need to realize that things will only get far worse if we don’t act to stabilize the markets.  So the parameters really are around how much money truly needs to be fronted (Paulson is erring on the side of as much as he can have the authority to move around), what measures will be taken to penalize those at fault (limiting CEO pay, for example), what measures can be put in place to increase the likelihood and the amount of profit the taxpayer, and not the bailed out companies, will get later for fronting the money now, and, is there anything Congress can do to prevent more homes from being foreclosed (I have read about a proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to reset mortgage terms, but I doubt that would fly).

If John McCain wants to be useful, he should march over to Jeb Henslaring’s (R-TX) office and twist his arm.  “Jeb, I don’t like this anymore than you do,” he should say.  “But I need the caucus with me on this one.  I don’t want to be responsible for the deal failing, and Reid and Pelosi are threatening not to move if the GOP sits back on this one.  It sure would be nice to all buck the president, vote no and let the Democrats pass a socialist government takeover of Wall Street, but Harry and Nancy aren’t going for it.  So, I’ve come back to save the deal, right?  Seriously, I need you to shut up and fall in line.  You know, as if I were the leader of the Party now and I carried some real sway with you jerks?”

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Ok, children – I mean – press pool, back in the van!

September 24, 2008 at 12:41 am · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today Sarah Palin appears to have met briefly with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, in what was a highly anticipated but ultimately secretive encounter.  The McCain campaign only allowed for still photos and video coverage.  They explicitly banned any writers from covering the meeting which led the networks to refuse to air photo and video coverage.  The campaign then reversed itself- sort of – by letting one writer witness a full twenty-nine seconds at the beginning of the meeting, during which Palin and Karzai discussed Karzai’s young son, born last year:

“What is his name?,” Palin asked.

“Mirwais,” Karzai responded. “Mirwais, which means, ‘The Light of the House.’”

“Oh nice,” Palin responded.

“He is the only one we have,” remarked Karzai.

Well that was revealing.  Of course, if you were left wanting more, a McCain campaign aide was more than happy to oblige with his memory of the day’s events, which included meetings with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (he counts on the World Leader Tally, right?).

As McCain and Palin left an event in Strongsville, Ohio today, reporters shouted questions that went ignored.  Before getting herded back into the infuriatingly useless press pool van, a reporter yelled the question the best describes the media’s frustration with what has become an inaccessible campaign:

Governor Palin has given two interviews, and taken one unplanned question since she became John McCain’s running mate.  But with the candidate at the top of the ticket not taking questions either, is it any wonder why the McCain campaign laments its lack of positive coverage in the press?  Don’t you have to make yourself available to coverage in order to expect coverage?

The 15-minute press conference John McCain held Tuesday afternoon in Freeland, Mich., where reporters were permitted to ask four economy-related questions, should not have been big news.

It was though, because it was the first the Republican candidate for president of the United States has held since August 13—when the Russian invasion of Georgia was front-page news and more than two weeks before Sarah Palin joined the ticket and attention turned to field-dressing moose and dolling up pit bulls.

In that stretch, John McCain has all but cut himself off from the national press corps, an increasingly frustrated contingent of political scribes rumbling through battleground states on the campaign’s second-tier bus.

National reporters – left with time to linger over primary season memories of three press avails a day – also assert that they have an institutional memory from covering the campaign for months that makes them more able to scrutinize McCain more closely, and less likely to fall for the campaign’s spin. And they claim that local reporters sometimes run out of questions for the candidate.

No wonder the campaign prefers the press to get back in the van.

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Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow: Advisor to Barack Obama

September 23, 2008 at 4:41 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Folks, this story is a little in the weeds and now old — I managed to NOT publish it, despite writing it two days ago, when we were all shaking our heads at the “wildly exaggerating” McCain ad that called Franklin Raines (former Fannie Mae chief) an Obama advisor.

But it is still very important that you know that Sarah Palin did not withdraw from the anti-Iran rally because she is unaware of the grave threat Iran poses. Nor is it because she is intimidated by the vitriolic Ahmadenijad.  And she certainly isn’t calling for negotiations.  I am not sure where you heard those rumors, but none of them are true.  The truth is, she was just being jerked around on a string by political operators who hate freedom.

One of Sarah Palin’s advisors, a guy named Mark Wallace (husband of McCain campaign spokeswoman Nichole Wallace), is executive director of the group organizing the rally.  He thought Hillary Clinton — who signed on in August — would be fine appearing on stage with the new female phenom, and with Hillary being such a prominate Democrat, no one would miss team Obama.   So, nobody bothered to invite them, until five days before the event, when there was no Hillary to lend heft and painful irony to Palin’s appearance (because she withdrew when Sarah Palin’s addition made the event overtly political).  So, the organizers invited the Obama campaign to participate, with a full four or five days notice.

The Obama campaign signed on, sending over well-known Florida (and Jewish) Congressman Robert Wexler.  Well, at that point, the organizers decided the rally was getting too much political attention from too many “political personalities” and disinvited Palin and Wexler.  Huh?

Menacham Rosencraft at the Huffington Post explains:

Let’s be perfectly clear. The organizers had initially invited Governor Palin without ever contacting, let alone inviting, anyone from the Obama campaign. When they finally issued a belated invitation to the Obama side, it was accepted, and a prominent Democratic Member of Congress was going to speak at the rally. The organizers then disinvited both Governor Palin and Representative Wexler. And whom does the GOP hold responsible for this fiasco? Barack Obama, of course.

Never mind that the Obama campaign was ready, willing and able to participate in the rally. Never mind that neither Senator Obama nor his campaign had had anything to do with the organizers’ decisions to invite and then disinvite Governor Palin. Never mind that the McCain-Palin campaign had been perfectly content to have Governor Palin speak at the rally without anyone representing the Obama campaign. Lamenting the rally organizers’ withdrawal of the Palin invitation, the McCain campaign charged that “Senator Obama’s campaign had the opportunity to join us. Senator Obama chose politics rather than the national interest.”

If John McCain and his GOP flacks thought they could get away with it, they would blame Barack Obama for the Great Depression, the 1876 massacre at Little Big Horn, the bubonic pandemic of the 1340s, and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. And they would probably run ads alleging that Mrs. O’Leary, whose legendary cow is alleged to have started the Chicago fire, was an Obama public safety adviser.

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McCain rains on Spain mainly in the plains*

September 19, 2008 at 11:54 am · Filed under foreign affairs ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

*UPDATE: I came up with the title for this post before my husband found this.  I think mine’s better.

When John McCain referred to President Putin of Germany (wrong, but I am 100% percent sure Sarah Palin could tell him which country Putin was and kind of still is president of), you kind of said to yourself- whoa, major stumble!  Who confuses Russia’s Putin with Germany’s Angela Merkel, especially since we love Germany under Merkel (especially when she vetoed Obama’s use of the Brandenberg Gate for his Berlin speech earlier this summer).  But still, you know the man was tired, or thinking too fast, and could be forgiven such an error.

But yesterday’s Q and A moment between John McCain and a spanish news wire reporter certainly gave you pause.  Not merely because McCain didn’t seem to know that Spain is in Europe, not in Latin America.  But because he went on to refuse to commit to meeting its Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, now in his second term, referring to Spain as an adversary.  Now, this is the same Spain which suffered the biggest terrorist attack on European soil since the U.S. attacks on September 11, when terrorist set bombs off on commuter trains in Madrid.  Oh, and Spain is NATO ally.

Reporter: Let’s talk about Spain, if you are elected President would you be willing to invite Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?

McCain: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion. And by the way President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels… I attend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders, to the White House.

Reporter: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the President, itself.

McCain: Uhh.. I honestly have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America. I know how to do both.

Reporter: So you have to wait and see if he’s willing to meet with you…will you be able to do it in the White House?

McCain: All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not and that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.

Reporter: Okay what about Eur… I am talking about the President of Spain.

McCain: What about me what?

Reporter: Are you willing to meet with him if you are elected President?

McCain: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights democracy and freedom and I will stand up to those that do not.  

You would think that McCain would remember Zapatero since he withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq after being elected on that promise.  Perhaps he still holds a grudge (something he is known to do). I wonder if prodded, would he remember that when Zapatero pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq, he moved them to Afghanistan, where he thought they were really needed.  Isn’t that the sort of thing that a prominent American politician, now running for president against John McCain, has been suggesting for quite some time?  No wonder Spain is an adversary.

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Ouch! Hagel’s straight talk helps Obama

September 18, 2008 at 10:48 pm · Filed under domestic policy, foreign affairs ·Tagged , , , , ,

Senator Chuck Hagel is a prominent Republican war hero, a social conservative and staunch realist on global affairs.  He often crosses party lines in the Senate, and has been a vocal critic against the handling of the Iraq war.  Hagel’s no-nonsense pragmatism, particularly in foreign affairs, have gained him the respect of Americans in Nebraska and around the country.  So he has been closely watched, first to see if he would run for president, and when he did not, whether either John McCain or Barack Obama might tap him for the VP slot.  And, the media has been asking, who will Chuck endorse?

Well he has stayed on the sidelines until now.  While Hagel didn’t come right out and endorse Senator Obama, he has done something actually more valuable: he has raised serious doubts about the readiness of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, and by extension, the judgment of John McCain for selecting the governor as his running mate.

“She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials,” Hagel said in an interview published Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”

“I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States,” Hagel said.

“I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'” he said. “That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.”

“But I do think in a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world,” Hagel said. “I think that’s just a requirement.”

The latest poll numbers show that undecided voters may be thinking the same thing.

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Hillary says no to Palin

September 17, 2008 at 10:05 pm · Filed under foreign affairs, Politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Sarah Palin is raining on Hillary Clinton’s parade, literally.  Clinton was planning to attend a rally in protest of President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad of Iran, who will be in New York next Monday at the United Nations.  But, after learning the Sarah Palin is now expected to attend, a Clinton spokesman confirmed the former first lady will not attend the demonstration.  “(Palin’s) attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event,” says a Clinton spokesman.

My question is, would Clinton have been attending this rally if she had won the Democratic nomination for president?  I think not.  Because no matter the distaste for Ahmadenijad, this is no time for saber-rattling from the highest offices in our land, or from those who would occupy them.  And for Sarah Palin to have insisted that the United States could not “second guess” Israel if it were to bomb Iran in an unprovoked attack is the kind of careless, breezy diplomacy that President Bush (43) has been widely criticized for, and actually chastened away from in his current approach to Iran.

Here is where knowledge of the Bush Doctrine comes in.  Ahmadenijad has said horrible things about Israel–suggesting it should be wiped off the face of the earth being the worst among them–but he has not attacked Israel, and must certainly know that if he did, the United States would retaliate swiftly.  Would we side on the sidelines if we learned Pakistan were going to launch a pre-emptive attack on India?  

I deeply believe in a Jewish state, and want to see peace between Israel, a Palestinian state and the rest of the region.  But if Israel were to attack Iran, such an attack could unleash a world of hatred and hurt against Israel (and no doubt, the United States) from terrorist enclaves and their sympathizers around the world. The goal of the next administration must be to reduce worldwide tensions, not incite them further.

I feel quite sure, however, that as much as this photo op of Veep Palin bashing Ahmadenijad, the United Nations meeting provides Palin an opportunity to force a head of state to meet with her and bolster her foreign policy credentials.  I’m guessing it’s going to be Angela Merkel (female bonding photo op), Nouri Al-Maliki (which almost counts for having been to Iraq, right?) or perhaps with Nicolas Sarkozy, an equal opportunity photo-opper out to boost the French presidency after that whole “old Europe” thing.

One wonders, while in New York, will the vice presidential nominee find time to stop by Wall Street?

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