Don't Know Much About History... (Reprise)

Think about this - the probable next President of the United States does not know even the broad outlines of the history of American foreign policy from WWII forward and does not know the history of Democratic icons Roosevelt or Truman.  We had kvetched about this earlier.  The fateful quote from Barack's Tuesday victory speech is this:

"I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

Hope and change!

MORE: STALIN IT IS!  Here is Obama at a March 27 2008 fundraiser:

"I think people understand the notion of talking to our enemies," Obama said. "If FDR can meet with Stalin and Nixon can meet with Mao and Kennedy can meet with Khrushchev and Reagan can meet with Gorbechav, then the notion that we can't meet with some half-baked dictator is ridiculous."

Well, Stalin was a fully-baked dictator, but he was also our ally against Nazi Germany when he met with Roosevelt.  For a good example of "half-baked" we need look no further than Barack's proposed meeting with Ahmadinejad.

SOME BACKGROUND: Here is an account of the debate where this came up:

In the debate, Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet — without precondition — in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

"I would," he responded.

Clinton said she would not.

"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes," she said. Her campaign quickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has a different understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.

RETURN TO SENDER:  No, letters don't count (and I already had pointed out the Roosevelt-Hitler letter) - letters do not provide the sort of propaganda photo-op being criticized.  Besides, Bush has sent a letter to Kim Jong Il, but where is the photo of the two of them shaking hands?

BRINGING IT TOGETHER:  McCain wants to bash Obama on Hamas, and has criticized Obama's intention to confer legitimacy on the Iranian regime by meeting without preconditions.  Well, if Obama is justifying that meeting by reference to historical parallels that exist only in the imaginations of himself and his speechwriters, that is troubling.

And having an Obama adviser caught chatting with Hamas is not helpful for Obama's cred, either.

EXPANDING THE ELECTORAL MAP:  Set aside his evident deficiencies in American post-war history (Nooo, not the Vietnam war) and think about this - Obama is still hazy on how many states there are in the Union, not to mention the normally uncontroversial status of Alaska and Hawaii.  Marc Ambinder has the video of Obama claiming that he has visited 57 states (Hmm, maybe he was sampling Heinz ketchups...).  Obama made a similar whoopsie when chatting with the AP a few weeks ago - back then, he was talking about forty-eight states, plus Alaska and Hawaii.

I would tell him to check the flag in his lapel, but of course he won't be wearing one.  [OK, maybe he did check his lapel pin...]

DOCTOR, DOCTOR, GIMME THE NEWS:  MRI, stat:

This faux pas is beyond weird; I know the guy is tired, but “How many states are there in America?” is the kind of question they ask you at the hospital after you've had a seizure to see if your brain is still working.

Comments

[boris]

We're voting against Beau Bama and Lama Rama Ding Dong.

[jimmyk]

I don't see what Joe brings to the ticket. McCain already has credentials as a centrist hawk willing to cross the aisle (you know, the stuff BHO claims he has but doesn't). McCain needs a true conservative to bring back the disenchanted Republicans, or at least someone from an important swing state. Why do we never hear Rick Santorum's name?

[boris]

What you're net seeing is that moderates have an alternative but conservatives don't.

The draw for prudent conservatives is the kind of landslide that locks in a moderate & conservative coalition and discredits the looney left. As long as they have credibility their tantrums make it impossible to have a rational discussion of domestic or foreign policy. It's a problem that is too serious to pass up a chance to deal with it decisively.

[boris]

** not seeing **

[Neo]

Who would be stupid enough to think .. Is It Time to Invade Burma?

[Neo]

Patriotic Barack Obama lapel pins unveiled honoring all 57 states

LOL

[kevin]

"Just like I can no more disown my own white grandmother." His grandmother, by the way, lives in Hawai'i, her husband and only daughter having passed away. Hawai'i not being one of those 57 states Obama has visited.

Wow, if he never goes to see her now, what would it be like if he did disown her...

[Ralph L]

Why do we never hear Rick Santorum's name?
Because he lost an election, he becomes a non-person until he runs again and wins. Whatever happened to George Allen?

[SteveMG]

Obama's now pulling back re unconditional talks with Iran.

Or more accurately, the adults around him are.

HotAir

and

NY Times story.

[jimmyk]

Because he lost an election, he becomes a non-person until he runs again and wins.

You mean like Michael Steele?

[Neo]

This ought to shake things up a bit ..

Concern has been mounting in Israel that Iran's nuclear capability may be far more advanced than was recognized by the US National Intelligence Estimate last December, which reported that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 in response to international pressure.
...
"We expect the Americans to amend their report soon," a high-ranking military officer said last week.

They are now claiming that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by mid-2009.

Mohamed ElBaradei still busy playing "Where's Waldo ?"

[kim]

Susan Rice is, has been, and will continue to be a mess. What a contrast with a professional like Condi.
===================

[sbw]

NY Times: Responding to Mr. McCain’s accusations in an interview with CNN on Thursday, Mr. Obama elaborated on that position. He again called Hamas a terrorist group and said that “we should not talk to them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence and are willing to abide by previous accords”...

Of course the Times failed to mention the Obama aide who was talking with the Hamas that we won't talk to unless they recognize Israel. You know, the yet another Obama aide that has been banished for having been uncovered.

[windansea]

get your barf bags ready, here's NYT sunday article on how Obama transcended Chicago politics

The secret of his transformation — which has brought him to the brink of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination — can be described as the politics of maximum unity: He moved from his leftist Hyde Park base to more centrist circles; he forged early alliances with the good-government reform crowd only to be later embraced by the city’s all-powerful Democratic bosses; he railed against pork-barrel politics but engaged in it when needed; and he empathized with the views of his Palestinian friends before adroitly courting the city’s politically potent Jewish community.

To broaden his appeal to African-Americans, Mr. Obama had to assiduously court older black leaders entrenched in Chicago’s ward politics before selling himself as a young, multicultural bridge to the wider political world.

[windansea]

not to worry,

"The Republican National Committee has amassed a 1,000-page dossier on Mr Obama, with researchers spending weeks in Chicago seeking fresh material.

yummy

[RichatUF]

SteveMG-

Or more accurately, the adults around him are...

When Susan Rice is considered the adult regarding BHO's foreign policy, they are in a pretty scary place. Stunned she is still around after she said that neither one of the Dem candidates is ready for the 3am phone call.

[bgates]

Bush has sent a letter to Kim Jong Il, but where is the photo of the two of them shaking hands?
I don't know where that one is, but I know the one of Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands is taken as proof of the eternal evil of the neocons, by the kind of person who thinks Rumsfeld is a neocon. I assume a picture of Obama shaking hands with Ahmadinejad on the morning of the day Iran nuked Tel Aviv would not be thought to demonstrate any such thing, any more than any right thinking person could imagine comparing 2009's Chief Executive to a chimpanzee, or accusing such an august figure of bad judgment due to youthful cocaine use, or denying him the moral authority to order the country into war simply because he never saw combat.

[JM Hanes]

RichatUF:

Stunned she is still around...."

Forget about history; you don't even need a functioning short term memory to play at politics today.

[RichatUF]

Here is the link for the windansea clip. Hope no one here is diabetic because it is triple sweet-disgustingly so.

[RichatUF]

JM Hanes-

Its unbelievable that anyone would want her around after her Clinton Administration failures regarding Rwanda and the Sudan. She was a disaster, the pointwoman on Africa, while it decended into the Lord of the Files and Apocalypse Now. She's not ready for a 3 pm phone call, forget the early morning business.

[windansea]

Here is the link for the windansea clip. Hope no one here is diabetic because it is triple sweet-disgustingly so.

Thanks Rich

here's another article about Wright's Tumpet magazine which surely graced the coffee table in the Obama/Michele household

Obama knew

[Danube of Thought]

OK,OK--I know this site isn't really big on ornithology, but I feel compelled to share the following bulletin with the unique community of JOMers. And although we're only a little more than four months along, I'm putting in my bid for Off-Topic Post of the Year:

"Great tits cope well with warming

"By Richard Black
"Environment correspondent, BBC News website

"At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

"Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

"Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.

"Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.

"The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise."

This is especially good news for those of us who feared great tits had become nearly extinct in the UK since they started letting all a them Mohammedans in.

[clarice]

DOT!
My guess is that great tits everywhere will manage climate change better than the great twits will.

[PeterUK]

DOT,
You will be thinking of the famous dish Tit Masala,makes a good substitute for chicken.

[sbw]

Glad to see others here have a Benny Hill kind of mind. I read the BBC's great tits bird article to my wife last night It doesn't take much to get me laughing, again and again.

[Sara]

I am starting to wonder about Barry O -- can't remember how many states we have, or what month it is, or how many more months till the election.

The foremost characteristic of a liar, isn't it? Not remembering what they said yesterday or last week or last month or last year.

[Sara]

The newest political bumper sticker. You can see it here:

Battle Of the Proxy Incumbents

A 3rd Term for Bush is Better than a 2nd Term for Carter

[kim]

Wondrous new insight; tit is the same in the mirror.
===============================

[bgates]

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to....other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.
So the headline should be "Great tits benefit from hotness; get laid sooner".

[sbw]

So, I can write tits in cursive backwards just like Maybee...

[vnjagvet]

I wonder if tit and run caught that article.

[ParseThis]

A 3rd Term for Bush is Better than a 2nd Term for Carter

from the link: "Do political fashions run in 30-year cycles? If so, then get ready for the fabulous comeback of energy crises, stagflation, high unemployment, and national malaise."

Since all those things are happening now, I don't worry about a McCain presidency. He'll be remembered for being both Bush's 3rd term and Carter's 2nd term.

[boris]

Not old enough to remember 1980 are you.

[clarice]

Obviously he isn't, Boris. No one who lived thru it could forget how bad it can get with a really awful President.

[Danube of Thought]

I believe the species faced its first serious challenge when Kay Graham got one of hers caught in a wringer. (Perhaps only Clarice will get that one.)

The Great Tit is, of course, probably the most palindromic bird in the world, even as Lon Nol was the most palindromic leader--at least since Otto, or perhaps since Tut himself.

So here we go: A man, a plan, a canal--Panama!

Madam I'm Adam.

Able was I ere I saw Elba.

A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.

[Sara]

Obviously he isn't, Boris. No one who lived thru it could forget how bad it can get with a really awful President.

Amen to that! And let's not forget mortgage interest rates of 18-19%, no Christmas lights, wearing sweaters all the time, or those horribly long gas lines, if there was gas at all. All that before we get to kissing up to our terrorist "friends."

_____________

PS: Clarice, did the Chantix(?) work for you?

[kim]

Obama a Wonder was I ere I saw Red Now aam A, Bo.
=========================

[Rick Ballard]

Now, now - remember, history starts at sun up (for geese and the intellectually challenged). Ancient history started in January 2001. Anything that is said to have occured before the Anschlus of November 2000 is prehistoric. There is no verifiable record extant from which Parsnips could (as if that were possible) draw any conclusion other than the one he so thoughtlessfully reached. Not in the world in which he awakes, at any rate.

I wonder what the Short Bus schedule is going to look like as we draw closer to November? Two a day now is tolerable but it's going to become annoying if it gets up to ten.

[clarice]

Yes, it did, Sara. Perhaps because it was so awful, I never want to go thru that again.

[vnjagvet]

That old joke with the punchline "two pickets to Tittsburgh" comes to mind as well.

[Danube of Thought]

Kim, you were going great guns till you got to the "aam A Bo" part. What's up with that?

[PeterUK]

"Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas"

[Sara]

Via Flopping Aces, a little musical tribute for a Saturday afternoon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UAFbMLZm4g

[kim]

It was pretty desperate, DoT. A natcheral palindrone I ain't. Think dialect for 'Am I, Brother'.

Without looking it up I know Pete's is going to be clever.
================

[Beto Ochoa]

"Ancient history started in January 2001"

So does that make B.C. Before Clinton
and A.D. After Dumbass?

[PeterUK]

"Without looking it up I know Pete's is going to be clever."

Not me.But you should look it up,it really is clever on several levels.

[kim]

Ooh, yes, 'tis, and thanks for squaring me away.
============================

[PeterUK]

It's also an anagram.

[windansea]

by the way

lets give TM props for the mostest musical and cinematical metaphors in the blogosphere

face it...the guy rocks

exit question: how many did he get in on this post alone?

[narciso]

Wilson was the other brilliant wiz on the policy staff (Sudan, Rwanda. Congo, Zaire,
that's a record to write home about)It's small confort that he's on Clinton staff.
That usually means that they haven't drunk the moonbat koolaid. Obama's self selected
group of advisors, Malley,who rationalized the intifada in the pages of the NYRB, Powers who exhibits an eerie nonchalance at the consequences of abandoned, victimized
populations (Rwanda, Cambodia, Iraq)McPeak
who was the good for nothing time server at the Air Force. Lake who did the putative
Powers thing, with regards to Nicaragua &
Iran; which gave us Khomeini and the Sandinistas. We'll leeave out his temper tantrum for now on Cambodia; which was a first step to the Year Zero. All these rally to Obama, because he's the more pure
liberal, undiluted by the need for
compromise (well of belief if not means). He's the law professor with an organic view of constitutional development. The community
organizer (gang appeaser and law enforcement
opponent)who instead of following the Powell model of immigrant assimilation; has internalized the separatist memes. Hillary is Humphrey, and no one wants to admit to have been for Humphrey; despite his role in Civil Rights, medical reform, et al. He believed in the war in Vietnam, upto a point; although he was doubtful of the means to that end. Consequently, Nixon won,
despite the fact, that no one Pauline Kael, Anthony Lewis, or Tom Wicker knew voted for him.

[PeterUK]

BTW,Why does Barrack Hussein Obama want to talk to all these losers,madmen and gangsters? He can get all that in the Senate and Chicago.

[Chester White]

"Chester, (Larry?), we love you.
==================
Posted by: kim"

Nope, not Larry. Someone you will never identify.

[kim]

'Hillary is Humphrey', brilliant, N, like the rest of that comment.

Never mind, Chester; a case of mistaken identity. We love you anyway. Ayers and Obama have a little mutual stomping to do, just as Obama and Wright did.
=============================

[JM Hanes]

Back OT, DoT:

I knew the Anglosphere was heads and tails above the Eurozone, but I didn't realize just how far out in front of 'em we were.

[clarice]

chester white is a famous swine breed.

[Neo]

Sen. Obama did give his word of honor that if elected president, he would retain corruption-busting U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, no easy vow, given that Daley is threatened by Fitzgerald, and that the corruption case against Rezko is about to be handed to the jury.

[vnjagvet]

Neo:

I suspect if Fitzie goes forward against those prominent Illinois Dems like Daley, our opinion of him will be confirmed by many who thought him a hero for dogging Scooter.

What could be more fun?

[JM Hanes]

Liked the article, Neo, but had a laugh when I got to that assessment. No easy vow? Democrats across the country would have eaten Obama alive for even hinting that St. Patrick might be expendable.

[lotoflowers]

Chicago's not at fault. Fitz is a nutbar who went for that five year law suit, which was what Plame violated, which, for some reason, is a continued set up with no answers at the beginning or end; except that the agencies have moved to five year budgets like Bush's PEPFAR, etc.

Plame was a nice ending to Clinton. Mystery with a limit. Remember all those operations officers in Iraq after 'Vanity Fair'.....

[Robert]

The Omen is five years too. Mr Bourne doesn't 'know who's child he is raising,' but they do know:
The devil's child shall create revolution, the essence of temptation.

Mr. Bourne had a child, he doesn't know who, so if she/he was a clone what was he/she; an unknown child too? Mr. Bourne was that and unknown too. So, the adopted son is dead and replaced. Murderers..............

The Omen is complicated.

[Robert]

Oh meant Thorne, not Bourne. Type pad is shit.

[Elliott]

Sen. Obama did give his word of honor that if elected president, he would retain corruption-busting U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald...

After indicating that he and John McCain would both take public financing should they receive the nominations of their respective parties and backtracking regarding what he had heard uttered by the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, I'm tempted to say this is "just words (of honor)."

Of course, if by retain he means maintain Mr. Fitzgerald in a position of equal or greater prestige within the Department of Justice, he can be true to his vow by bumping him upstairs. I'm thinking a recess appointment to head the DOJ's National Security Division would allow all most of Obama's distracting acquaintances to breathe easy.

[Elliott]

****Obama having indicated that he and John McCain****

Sorry for making a mess of that. My attempt at an absolute construction was inspired by the excellent Latin palindromic quotation from our British representative.

[Jane]

Good Morning! and Happy MOther's Day to all the mothers. And a special shout out to Michelle Obama, clearly the mother of the year.

[clarice]

Good morning to you, Jane!..She is a mother all right.

[Jim]

Two a day now is tolerable but it's going to become annoying if it gets up to ten.

Send new keyboard, Rick, or hear from my lawyer.

[kim]

Re: Obama's requisite two a day exercises. His campaign may recognize this and try to muzzle him, restrict him to prepared messages. If he's just a mouthpiece, it may work. If he's as portrayed by the staffer, egoistically involved, or his appeal depends on the expression of his mind, muzzling will fail. Either way ought to be fun to watch.

Of course, either of these two clowns is capable of detonating the immediate political landscape without notice. Yeehah!
=================================

[centralcal]

Happy Mother's Day! Dittos Jane and Clarice on the Mother of the Year - ha.

[centralcal]

Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times re: First Lady to be Michelle Obama:

"I'm used to seeing Michelle deliver stemwinders -- she can be fierce, persuasive, charming, mocking and sarcastic -- but on Friday she was businesslike and read from a text, sort of first lady like. It also made political sense since the crowd included Clinton backers."

Reading from a prepared text? Well, it seems like someone got the message that Michelle shouldn't speak "off the cuff" any more. She can be -- whiny, bitter, down on her country, mocking and sarcastic --.

Just sayin'.

[centralcal]

Sorry, forgot - LUN - as Jane would say.

[Jane]

I thought Carly Fiorino - on Stephanopolus rocked. And I think she is in play for McCain's VP.

[SunnyDay]

Is anyone going to ask the messiah about his 7% solution? It's out of committee, and on the calendar, from what I can tell.

[Danube of Thought]

As the great Stephen Potter once said, "Where equal mind, and contest equal go."

[RichatUF]

SunnyDay-

Is anyone going to ask the messiah about his 7% solution?

Is that BHO's UN foreign aid bill?

[Pagar]

Might want to ask Alice Palmer about Obama and words of Honor

"There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot."

"Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens."

"But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer."

IMO, Knocking off four opponents all by the same method of challenging their petitions, smells of dirty politics. How hard would it be to put names known to be ineligible on those petitions? How hard would it be to make sure they were given out of date rosters? I just don't believe one can swim in the cesspool of Chicago politics and stay clean. Apparently Obama supporters believe that he did. IMO, history will proof he did not.

[richard mcenroe]

Oh, hell, Obama ain't even original on this.

Back before the special election in CA, the Dems sent around a mailer, with FDR, Truman and Kennedy epitomizing 'Democratic values.'

No LBJ.
No Carter.
For DAMN sure no Clinton.

In other words, no Democratic President of the last fifty years.

[sbw]

"Where equal mind, and contest equal go."

DoT, I don't know the great Stephen Potter. Help me understand this.

[clarice]

sbw--Potter wrote the old gamesmanship books and DOT's quotation is an example of "plonking" in one of his works:

Plonking’ of a kind can be made by the right use of quotation or pretended quotation. (See under Conversationship, p.88.) Here is the rough format:

MILITARY EXPERT (Beginning to get into his stride, and talking now really well): There is, of course, no precise common denominator between the type of mind which, in matters of military science, thinks tactically, and the man who is just an ordinary pugnacious devil with a bit of battlefield instinct about him.

YOURSELF (Quietly plonking): Yes, ... ‘Where equal mind and contest equal go.’

This is correct quotation plonking (a) because it is not a genuine quotation and (b) because it is meaningless. The Military Expert must either pass it over, smile vaguely, say ‘yes’, or in the last resort, ‘I don’t quite get...’ In any case, it stops flow, and suggests that whatever he is saying, you got there first.

[boris]

Or as the great War Gamer once said: "All your base are belong to me"

[SunnyDay]

Rich - yes. Scheduled for the 24th.

[sbw]

Re: plonking

Damn, I learn some amazing sh*t on JOM!

[TM, you can keep that phrase in reserve if nothing surfaces as a follow-on to "balloons" and "kids".]

[kim]

Speaking of base belonging to whom, Gerecht claims Sistani is the most revered cleric in Iran as well as in Iraq. He has a fine article about Persia in the Weekly Standard available through RCP.
========================

[RichatUF]

SunnyDay-

A least they have truth in advertising: its called the "Global Poverty Act". Nice to know that BHO is the preferred candidate of the Do-Gooder Mafia™.

Also saw this bit of gloom via Drudge, "Beijing and Riyadh will call the shots on ailing dollar's future". Did a speed read on it and I'm still trying to figure out why he had the bit about Russia tucked in at the end. Maybe the author got some lessons from DoT.

[RichatUF]

Seems quiet in here, a bit too quiet...

Ooops-Its Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day!!

[SteveMG]

Re Obama's bill: it's .7% of GDP, not 7%.

US GDP is ~$14 trillion; so we're talking about $100 billion.

Seven percent would be a cool $1 trillion.

[bjufg]

What if he meant GNP? The federal agency budgets have switched to five year budgets like the PEPFAR 'emergency sustainable budgets' that hire the agencies employees. So, is the budget a one year budget or a five year budget? 100 billion or 1 trillion the first year for a total of half a trillion or 5 trillion. If we change our minds about the percentage like Canada did and England didn't, then we already have made a five year budget and can't bail after the second year or whatever.

[JM Hanes]

Kim:

I don't know about anybody else, but I've offered up a lot of prayers for Sistani's safety, followed by knocking on wood, ritual sacrifice and sundry promises of good behavior or eternal gratitude.

[clarice]

That's two of us,jmh.

[kim]

Three and counting. He is special, that one.
=========================

[narciso]

It's Thorn without the e; Thorne with the e was Kerry's Brahmin first wife, whose father
owned the CIA directed paper in Rome. The book not the film suggested a demonic riff
on the Kennedy's. Patriach was a Catholic industrialist who ends up Ambassador to Great Britain. The movie flubs up the timeline by setting it in the panic ridden
1970s filled with Ehrlichian doomsday; although the sequel set in the 60s seems prescient about a grain based famine. Thorn seems to presage Archer Daniels Midland in that regard.

[SunnyDay]

Rich - Portugal, too. :D

Are we doomed?

[RichatUF]

SunnyDay-

HEH...

Are we doomed?

Yes.

[Danube of Thought]

Thanks for offering up the explanation, Clarice. The key to it all, SBW, is the fact that it truly is meaningless, but hints just a bit at something profound.

Potter also wrote a follow-up entitled "Oneupmanship," which offered more of the same. The subtitle of Gamesmanship was "The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating."

Another plonk I recall was to interject the phrase "Yes, but not in the south" whenever any charactristic was attributed to a country.

For Anglophiles only.

[HoosierHoops]

Clarice:
This is correct quotation plonking (a) because it is not a genuine quotation and (b) because it is meaningless.

First of all.. Happy Mothers day..
and 2nd of all...I've never heard of Plonking but that is amazing stuff you know..It kind of reminds me of something they would do to george on Steinfeld. At first i thought i'd try to plonk the mrs. just for fun, but then she'll get that look and say somthing like, " tell us that story again about how you slid through college..We'd all love to hear it again."
Then she'd plonk me.. :)
Again, I wish you and all the other fine mothers here a great day...

[richard mcenroe]

The extra seven states Barry mentioned were OBVIOUSLY the ones Roosevelt talked to Stalin about...

[LifeTrek]

Hey, the other night I posted a comment on your previous post as a trackback to my post that made these very same thoughts almost point by point.

I couldn't get anyone to link mine -- but Mr Kelly got plenty of attention.

By the way, I posted mine at 2:38AM May 8th and trackbacked here at 4:39AM and posted it around the web like Say Anything at 3:38AM.

RCP published Mr. Kelly's on May 9.
DKK