Leadership That's Shirking

We are not talking about Roosevelt and Churchill with the current crop of world leaders.

Comments

[Neo]

I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office. A lot of hemming and hawing ensued. …

“Smart Diplomacy” in a nutshell

[And George Soros, too.]

He's got a strong personal relationship with the only world leader worth having one with; himself.
================

[Neo]

speech is great, silence is greater -- Thomas Carlyle

[Danube of Thought]

I've loved Johnson since Modern Times back in the 80's.

[Clarice]

Vee don't need no stieenkin' leaders.

[Neo]

I bet Gordon Brown has watched those DVDs of 25 classic American films ('a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks') over and over again.

[bgates]

name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship

Benedict has claimed one - though I guess that predates Barry's time in office.

[matt]

there is an absence of leadership and talent at the top of Western Civilization in general these days.

The marrow has been sucked out the gene pool at the top in the arts, science, music, and especially politics, leaving bleached white bones. It's smoke and very little substance.

[bunkberbuster]

Hey give him time. Maybe he'll match Reagan's record of appeasing Iran's mullahs, defending Saddam Hussein against sanctions, apologizing for white supremacists in South Africa and arming, training and directing faux-Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan.

Or maybe not...

[Old Lurker]

Matt did you see the Paul Johnson Forbes piece on just that, which I LUNed on another thread?

[Danube of Thought]

Accordging to a poll by James Carville's Democracy Corps, Obama has already succeeded in lowering the US in the eyes of the world below where it stood when he took office. Read it here, and hoot with joy.

No one can accuse Reagan of matching that record.

[Danube of Thought]

"...match Reagan's record of appeasing Iran's mullahs."

Yeah, it's been inspirational to watch the way Obama has faced those guys down. They didn't get nukes on Ronnie's watch, or even on W's. Anybody taking bets on this clown?

[Clarice]

Take a couple of minute break and watch this amazing year old kid perform:

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/drummer.html

[Clarice]

LUN

[Danube of Thought]

"...defending Saddam Hussein against sanctions...training and directing faux-Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan..."

Remember Iraq vis-a-vis Iran? Afghanistan vis-a-vis the Soviet Union?

This requires deep geopolitical thinking--kind of like that which caused FDR to ally the US with the Soviet Union, remember? It's partly a matter of price elasticity of demand, you see...

[Danube of Thought]

Democracy Corps:

"On the national security front, a massive gap has emerged, with 50 percent of likely voters saying Republicans would likely do a better job than Democrats, a 14-point swing since May. Thirty-three percent favored Democrats.

"'The erosion since May is especially strong among women, and among independents, who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin,' the pollsters said in their findings."

Failure of leadership? Nah--he just needs to give another speech or two, and we'll all be shouting "Yes We Can" again. (Remember those heady days? Does it seem like an eternity ago now?)

It's hard for me to figure. He was so great a leader as a community organizer and Illinois State Senator, why would anyone expect that he wouldn't be up to the job of President of the United States?

[Clarice]

Why , indeed. Off course if you've lost that genius Chris Brinkley........

[Rick Ballard]

"there is an absence of leadership and talent at the top of Western Civilization in general these days."

Since when have the brothel keepers at the summit of the political dung heap been the sine qua non of leadership? I keep thinking about the collapse of the USSR. The current "extend and pretend" mania regarding Western economies which are actually bankrupt is just as believable as the last 5 year plan issued by the Supreme Soviet.

I'm rather curious as to what the reorganization plan is going to look like but I'm not too worried about any of the prog bastards responsible for the charade being left in positions of responsibility in the aftermath. They're going to be "former Politburo members" for the rest of their rotten existence. Some will steal enough to live well until stripped of their assets, just as the thieves did (and do) in the USSR but they won't be in power.

[bunkberbuster]

Politics almost never leads the way. As Molly Ivins put it (though I'd bet she got it from somewhere else) if all the crooks, liars and imbeciles resigned from the legislature, it would cease to be a representative body.
Before we can expect to improve the honesty and effectiveness of the people at the top, we'll have to raise those for the lowest-common-denominator. That's the thing about democracy, it gives you the Big Mac, not the whole-wheat houmous, tomato and tabuli pita sandwich or the filet mignon.
Consumerism is the disease that poisons individualism, turning into a celebration of self, rather than the self-reliance that can strengthen commmunity, rather than destroy it. It's what turns the salutary values of true conservatism into the macho-insecure blend of self-aggrandizement, self-pity and self-obsession that drives the wingnutosphere and hamstrings the Republican party.
To be fair, consumerism also turns liberalism from a belief in freedom and the unalienable rights of man into an exercise in moral narcissism.

[Captain Hate]

As Molly Ivins put it

The world is a better place now that Molly's not stealing my oxygen. Almost as unfunny as Garrison Keillor but just as snottily faux populist as illustrated by that surely purloined quotation above where she winks at the idiots that listen to her in a "We're better than the common folk but let's keep it to ourselves" kind of way.

[JM Hanes]

"Before we can expect to improve the honesty and effectiveness of the people at the top, we'll have to raise those for the lowest-common-denominator."

I bet you see yourself as part of the "we" in that equation, don't you? I'd suggest that paternalistic conceits poison individualism.

Let them eat houmous! LOL. Is that like a fast food combo of couscous & humus?

[MikeS]

They're going to be "former Politburo members"...

I think you're right Rick. These guys are making history.

[Porchlight]

To be fair, consumerism also turns liberalism from a belief in freedom and the unalienable rights of man into an exercise in moral narcissism.

Yeah.

[Clarice]

wanting things is good, bb..it's what drives us to do more,to be better.....People who have small desires--like Buddhist monks for example--are never forced to consume more, but quit trying to persuade yourself and others that there's something intrinsically wrong about consumerism. I travelled quite a bit in Eastern Europe and the old USSR when they were still behind the iron curtain and run by folks who pretended consumerism was bad (they, of course, lived well, like the eco-hypocrites of the West now do). Trust me. Live was grey, miserable, unpleasant.People were ecstatic to get the colorful magazines and makeup and perfume samples I always carried to give out. Just to see color, wonderful packaging, imaginative design...you cannot imagine winter in northern lands, lit only by greenish yellow fluorescent lighting.

[bgates]

Before we can expect to improve the honesty and effectiveness of the people at the top, we'll have to raise those for the lowest-common-denominator.

Hm. Let's try a couple of variations:
"Before we can expect to improve the wealth and income of the people at the top, we'll have to raise those for the lowest-common-denominator."

-That violates a cherished lefty nostrum, donnit? Of course wealth can be increased at the top! Let's have another:

"Before we can expect to improve the health and well-being of the people at the top, we'll have to raise those for the lowest-common-denominator."

-And just like that, there's no need for socialized medicine; no one would throw away extra money on health care for themselves if they knew they couldn't expect to improve outcomes for themselves, right?

if all the crooks, liars and imbeciles resigned from the legislature, it would cease to be a representative body.

Yes, but it would have the saving grace of voting down the Senate health care bill by about 115-3.

[bgates]

Politics almost never leads the way.

That's why the government needs to take over health care.

That's the thing about democracy, it gives you the Big Mac, not the whole-wheat hummus, tomato and tabuli pita sandwich or the filet mignon.

The free market makes all three available.

[centralcal]

Clarice - great find! I like Howard the drummer boy!

[Jim Ryan]

...Senate health care bill by about 115-3.

How? Kucinich can't vote three times.

[bunkberbuster]

Clarice: It really depends on why we want these "things." Do we want a higher salary to pay for pectoral implants, a Hummer and a fifth assault weapon, or to make sure our children can afford medical care and the best possible education?
There's a world of difference between those "things" and the unwillingness to distinguish is part of what's making contemporary conservatism into a parody of itself.
There's also the question of what we're willing to do to get them.
Traditional conservatism offers an important critique of government. But that's mostly been given over to self-aggrandizing simpletonism and the embrace of ideology as, above all, self-justification.

[Clarice]

No it doesn't,bb. I could wear sack cloth and ashes and forego all but bread and water and it would make not a whit of difference to the education and medical care of those kids here or abroad who are in need of medical care of better education. In fact, people in poorer countries would look at what you have (or even those classified as "poor" in the US) and think you are overwhelmed with foolish, unnecessary consumer items.You, dear friend, are a dictator posing as a morally superior human being.

(If we are being completely honest, in the US the largest problem with medical care and education is bad choices by the people involved. No matter what I do to improve the education of those attending publi school in DC, I cannot make any difference. Their parents do not know or care about good or bad and vote into power those who do the worst job of it. Long ago, I decided that rather than wate my time, I'd try to help kids get out of those prog hells--even then it takes parents who know and care to do their part.

[Rick Ballard]

OL,

This piece on the repeal of Okun's Law is rather interesting. I've recently spoken with a couple of loan officers (Chase and Wells) who indicated that banks are actually stiffening loan requirements, especially concerning documentation. Have you (or anyone else on the board) run across similar information?

It seems as if the vise is actually tightening rather than loosening. In anticipation of ....?

[Danube of Thought]

"Do we want a higher salary to pay for pectoral implants, a Hummer and a fifth assault weapon, or to make sure our children can afford medical care and the best possible education?"

It is absolutely none of anyone's business why or whether anyone else wants any or none of those things. Recognizing that very fundamental fact is the merest beginning of wisdom.

I don't care why or whether you or anyone else wants any of the things you have mentioned, and I ask that you refrain from considering such questions on my behalf.

It's really easy: just butt out.

(As you can see, you are very welcome to live in my world, and I won't interfere with you. The world you feel you are entitled to impose on me is simply intolerable.)

[narciso]

This idiot really deserves to live in Cuba or Venezuela, with a ration book for the most
basic of staples, with abysmal medical care. and all the accoutrements of a one party state

[bunkberbuster]

``You, dear friend, are a dictator posing as a morally superior human being.''

While I'm flattered that you see me as all-powerful, I wonder where you get that I see myself as morally superior. Remember, I'm not the one slagging our leaders as moral midgets -- you are. I'm not the one condemning the school system as woefully ideologically incorrect -- you are. I'm not the one imagining everything would be better if everyone share me ideology -- you are.
My point is simply that we are very unlikely to consume our way out of our economic, environmental and political problems. It's much more likely to require saving and, while certainly not sack cloth and ashes, a renewed appreciate for delaying gratification. Conservatism used to embrace that, now, in America, it seems to be dominated by people who take Ayn Rand seriously without really understanding her.

[Clarice]

I work and save and buy what I want and contribute to those things that interest me--like (as I said) paying manumission (private tuitions) for the children stuck in prog hell.I don't care how you spend your money as long as you don't whine and come to me to meet the needs you didn't pay for when you wasted your funds.

If you chose, i.e., to major in area studies or the collected works of the post modernists, don't bitch that engineers and doctors make more than you do or should give up some of their income to subsidize you.

Do you bake your own daily bread? I do.If you don't, I don't care, but you've no idea who delays gratification and who doesn't , who spends and who saves,or why.Or why people spend their money on things you consider foolish, while you, i.e., take trips to Thailand which I take it you consider a necessary or at least worthwhile expense.

You are constantly talking in idtiotic generalities and are quickly becoming boring. It's like being locked in a dorm with sophomores yapping about the meaning of life...when in fact that haven't exactly lived enough to know what they are talking about..

[WalMart's gonna gitcha gitcha gitcha.]

Yep, bb, it's that high standard of living that is the problem. Ask any third-worlder.
============

[laura]

bb doesn't seem to understand we have churches that deal with moral questions such as these.

Oh, wait a minute, he doesn't believe in any Judeo-Christian tradition; he has moved beyond that into some ersatz and sophomoric new age philosophy and moral code that the government can best enforce.

[Mad Jack]

I'd say you just "schooled" the sophomore, Clarice. Great job.

[Danube of Thought]

"Remember, I'm not the one slagging our leaders as moral midgets -- you are."

When did we do that? We just think they're intruding into our lives far more than we ever entrusted them to do. And we understand that you think our "leaders" are moral collossi, and that it is we who are the midgets for wanting another Humvee. We are perfectly content to allow you to have five or none, and we won't hector you regardless how you choose.

"I'm not the one condemning the school system as woefully ideologically incorrect -- you are."

If you contend that it is not precisely that, please explain.

"I'm not the one imagining everything would be better if everyone share me [sic] ideology -- you are."

If you aren't such a person, we would love to introduce you to Obama, Pelosi and Reid, so perhaps you could persuade them to leave us alone. For my part, I have no idea whether things would be better, worse or indifferent if everybody shared my ideology. But I am very confident that they and I would be able to determine for themselves and ourselves what is better or worse for each of us, and we could do so without interference from those who have no business interfering.

[windansea]

BB hasn't traveled much

[Captain Hate]

I'm not the one condemning the school system as woefully ideologically incorrect -- you are.

You're such an imbecile. Some of us have had our children immersed in the petri dishes of good intentions and false esteem known as public schools. It wasn't just my wife and I that considered them unwilling or unable to impart the requisite knowledge to function at the next level (not "ideologically incorrect", you third-rate dabbler in obfuscation); Bard College, a school with an Alger Hiss chair (ie. not my political soul-mate), found her English "skills" inadequate at the college level without the intercession of a tutor. This after annual discussions with her high school English teachers complaining about her lack of writing skills. Our other daughter attended a private school at the same urging that I gave to both children. I regret that all children who want to learn aren't removed from those hellholes but those are the decisions their parents make.

[Pofarmer]

[i] Have you (or anyone else on the board) run across similar information?[/i]

If you are talking about home or business loans, absolutely, those are being looked at more closely. If you are talking about things like car loans, that is a hodge podge, but not as easy as the good ole days.

[matt]

De Toqueville wrote of the uniquely American trait of enlightened self interest back in what, 1830? This did not exist in England or in France. In those countries, they had zero sum games.

Our current "leadership", in adopting all things European and modern in politics and philosophy has fostered the implosion of any form of standards in their false inclusiveness.

We are losing our prime characteristics. As the intelligentsia adopted marx and Sartre and Derrida and Nietzsche and Foucault, they forgot the concept of excellence and order and embraced chaos and ugliness. You can see it in our art and literature and music.

Something that was beautiful is being lost, along with our civic virtues.But this shall pass.

[Melinda Romanoff]

"My point is simply that we are very unlikely to consume our way out of our economic, environmental and political problems."

Aside from the schoolyard name calling that followed this utterly ampty missive, you expose your inability to even comprehend the human condition.

Unfortunately, we share some things in common.

We are human.

The second might be a bit more problematic.

As humans, we consume to survive.

The third is even more of a challenge.

We survive, as humans, by choosing the most efficient way to consume.

Always.

With respect to others, as would be expected upon ourselves, the right to consume, through free choice, is the polite demand of free peoples.

You have offered no such choice, ever.

Hence, we differ. Insist on your ways, I will ignore you. Impose your will, I will elude you.

[Melinda Romanoff]

clarice-

I think you left out the sophomore issue of "too much beer".

Nicely done.

[Jim Ryan]

You can either view the political landscape from above and design ways in which to rearrange it and the people who compose it, or you can view it from on the ground shoulder to shoulder with everyone else.

Of course, everyone does a little of both, as they should.

Those who engage in a little of the former and mostly find yourself doing the latter, you're normal. Design and reform are important, but taking the design stance too much is a bad thing. The political substance of a society is not clay for a sculptor to do with as he likes because it belongs to no one.

If you find yourself mostly engaged in radically redesigning the political landscape of your society, you see the people on the landscape as puppets. Politics to you is a question of designing a society and making the puppets live up to your design. You have an abnormal psychology. You are a totalitarian. You share the same approach to politics as Mao, Hitler, Trotsky, Stalin, Marx, Mussolini, and the rest. They may have bee a bit more bloodthirsty, but you would use violence, too, through the various levels of law enforcement we have in America.

[Rick Ballard]

Pofarmer,

I know it was business loans (I didn't catch the actual start of the conversation). They both mentioned having to tell business owners that audited statements were going to be required for relatively small (<$500K) loans, even though the customers had long standing relationships with the banks. Audits ain't exactly cheap. No wonder total loans outstanding continue to drop like a rock.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Po-

How much Dept. O'Labor analysis do you want?

The January release was the one with all the corrections (at least this is the source link)
and started allthe fuss about an extra 2 million jobs lost last year.

If you want to wade through it, I'll e-mail you the links.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Rick-

When the Feds demand higher capital levels, that means no money for loans.

After that it's just printing up the excuses after the examiners have screwed all your capital (deposits) to the wall so as to cover their (examiner's) butts.

[bunkberbuster]

Mel: Without production, there is no consumption. The data show Americans are rather large over-consumers or, perhaps, under-producers, depending on how you want to slice it.
This has nothing to do with the government taking your cigarettes or guns or public Bible showings away, it has to do with the culture of consumerism.

Clarice: no one's accusing you of not baking your own bread. My point is simply that, as a society, we've become too focused on instant gratification. Thus the investment banks insist they're fine with unlimited leverage, then beg the government for a handout when they go bust.
It's funny that, like Pavlov's dog, some commenters here slobber that I'm calling on government to correct this errant direction in society.
I'm calling for the opposite: rather than fault our political leadership, who tend to be focused like a laser beam on giving us what we demand, we need to spend more time looking at ourselves and our culture and the institutions that can bring it to a better balance.
Saying you don't care whether your neighbor borrows themselves into financial oblivion to pay for Hummers and online poker is just a cop-out.

[Rick Ballard]

Mel,

It's in the Benchmark Adjustments - Seasonally Adjusted or Not Seasonally Adjusted. The birth/death hokum flows from the Ten Year Projections which rely upon Census projections which are cross tabbed with SSA databases.

I believe there was a conflation of two years worth of adjustments to reach the 2 million number. I also believe that the repeal of Okun's Law mentioned above is due in part to Census desperately trying to be rid of their Mythical Mexican over count. The "surge in productivity" comes in part from disappearance of jobs that never existed. Kinda plays hell with the GDP per capita and total income per capita calcs as well.

BAD algorithm - no soup for you.

[Clarice]

bb, Seems to me you are trimming the sails of your argument considerably ..But your facts are still flimsy--we are big consumers but we are also big producers.

Per wiki, for example:
he U.S. economy maintains a very high level of output per person (GDP per capita", $46,442 in 2009, ranked at around number ten in the world)"

Compared to most western industrialized countries, we work longer hours and more days. and more years to retirement.

[Pofarmer]

Thanks Mel.

I think we hashed the numbers out pretty well here, but, I did ask one question that got lost. Is the two million difference in the adjustments indicative of that many lost jobs? (No, I really shouldn't expend the time to go through 40 pages of raw financial data.)

Rick.

I don't know about business loans, but I know that Ag loans are getting a little tighter. At one point, you could go out and get a loan on your word and the fact that you had 80% CRC crop insurance, up to the total amount of the crop insurance coverage, with nothing else. That doesn't happen now. Now they want my wifes W2, income tax statements, etc, etc, which, previously, it had just been the business info, and, at least in my case, we ain't talking large numbers by any means.

[bunkberbuster]

Clarice: the data are in. We're overconsuming, and rather grandly. That's why were in debt to the Chinese, Japanese and Germans.

The solution to that can't be ever more consumption, whether you back your own bread or buy it at Wal-mart.

[matt]

bullshit bunky;

We don't make things any more. The corporate insiders outsourced and offshored manufacturing to less expensive areas. The United States has some of the most productive workers in the world, but they are marginalized by management.

But when the company wants to escape the overregulation of California or Washington state taxes, the opportunities offered by incentive packages in other states and the Chinese, through their currency distortion, prove hard to resist.

It's all about quarterly profits and the next bonus cycle to American management these days.

[JM Hanes]

"My point is simply that, as a society, we've become too focused on instant gratification."

So, do you believe you've become too focused on instant gratification, or is it just everybody else? "As a society" is a lazy thinker's formulation.

[JM Hanes]

"Clarice: the data are in. We're overconsuming, and rather grandly."

LOL! You should tell Paul Krugman and let Obama know, because it's not conservatives who are are desperately trying to jump start consumption in a void again.

[bunkberbuster]

JM: without a doubt, I'm far too focused on instant gratification. But where I would distinguish myself from some others is that I'm not trying to blame the president or the media or Hollywood or the school system for that. I'm willing to live with it and to acknowledge that without changes to that lifestyle, it's unlikely any political arrangements will prove successful.

Matt: read my comments again. My point is that the U.S. is overconsuming. The point isn't so much that we're underproducing, because we're not, unless you compare it to our consumption levels.
Globalization is more or less a force of nature in that it's driven by technological advances and political stability -- two things we should be happy to have plenty of. It's not all win-win for everyone, though, so, of course, there is a cost for outsourcing manufacturing jobs. But don't forget the benefits.
By the time the Chinese economy gets to the comfortable level of the U.S., so much of the land, air and water in the country will be ruined -- unless, of course, they find better ways to compete than simply to outproduce countries that take more aggressive steps to protect the environment.

[bunkberbuster]

``It's all about quarterly profits and the next bonus cycle to American management these days.''

I certanly agree with that. There is too much emphasis on the short term, ie instant gratification.

[JM Hanes]

"But where I would distinguish myself from some others is that I'm not trying to blame the president or the media or Hollywood or the school system for that. I'm willing to live with it and to acknowledge that without changes to that lifestyle, it's unlikely any political arrangements will prove successful."

You can find "some others" who believe almost anything.

You may be willing to live with the president, the media, Hollywood and the school system as they are. You'll find that the folks complaining about schools here, however, are also the ones bestirring themselves to address the problems they see both in the political sphere and on the ground. Clarice helps give students and families choices through assistance with tuitions, Jim Ryan homeschools his children and shares that experience with others.

You simply roll on by every shred of evidence, much of it staring you in the face, which does not accord with your facile generalizations and your own continuous plaints about conservatives who have putatively strayed from the path into some ideological Never Never Land. Perhaps you should step off your pedagogical soapbox and have a real look around.

[bgates]

I wonder where you get that I see myself as morally superior.

Could be your smirking about what you take to be Reagan's moral failures, your pronouncement that "we" have to improve the "honesty and effectiveness of...the lowest-common-denominator", your pose of magnanimity in allowing that conservatism does have certain virtues given as a preface to the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger diagnosis of the "disease" that afflicts the "wingnutosphere" (who could possibly suspect you feel morally superior to a group you describe like that?)....

That's from the first half of this batch of comments alone. Take away the moral preening, and there would be nothing left of you at all.

I suggest you try it anyway, because that's a sacrifice I'm willing for you to make.

[bunkberbuster]

JM: If the shoe fits, wear it. I'm referring to the subject of the post, which is:

``At the very top we have a sad bunch of flawed mediocrities.

--President Barack Obama. To quote Benjamin Disraeli, "A sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity." If only he would talk less, and think more.

--Chancellor Angela Merkel. A well-meaning hausfrau with the steely will of a dishcloth.

--President Nicolas Sarkozy. An operator who is clever at everything except what matters most.

--Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A machine politician whose own machinery is visibly breaking down.

--Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. A splendid advertisement for Viagra, a man whose antics would have afforded us much amusement in a time of normal prosperity.

The collapse in leadership is a serious matter, made worse by the fact that none of the main central bank chairmen is well known, liked or trusted.''

It's hilarious, and telling, that I'm the one who's supposed to be up on my high horse somehow, when the essay in question is nothing but flippant dismissals of top government figures, as if they don't represent the people who elected them.

bgates: where you getting that I'm "smirking"? I think Reagan's foreign policy record was disastrous. And that assessment has zilch to do with my morals or his. I'm sure Reagan believed that helping Saddam get away with gassing the Kurds was the morally correct path. I disagree, but I don't question his morals, I question his politics and his judgment.
Why is that so hard for you to understand?

[JM Hanes]

Your flippant, often deliberately insulting, dismissals of conservatives as a wayward political class being the very measure of humility, eh?

"If the shoe fits..."

The only shoes you seem to be fashioning here are your own -- unless you're counting the little slippers you weave for your generic strawmen.

[bunkberbuster]

JM: straw men? "the very measure of humility" You're a hypocrit, and ham-fisted one at that.

My comments on this blog are far more polite and less insulting than the average, and you know it. I'm sure you would welcome even more dismissiveness and more insult from me, were it only directed away from your pet ideology.

I have a very high tolerance for dismissiveness and insult, otherwise I'd have no cause to read this blog, which is packed to the gills with it. What I can't abide is hypocrits who can't come clean that their real issue with me is simply that I disagree with their politics.

[bgates]

where you getting that I'm "smirking"?

"Hey give him time. Maybe he'll match Reagan's record" - I find that "hilarious and telling", given your protestations. It's somewhat of a "flippant dismissal", too.

I have a very high tolerance for dismissiveness and insult

Giving and taking both. The latter is well-earned.

[bunkberbuster]

bgates: a smirk is a facial expression. I was being sarcastic. I'm sure you know the difference but choose to ignore it out of desperation and low standards. And like I said before, this blog is packed with all manner of sarcasm, insult, etc. and none of it bothers you, until it's directed at your own ideological insecurities.

[bgates]

straw men? My comments on this blog are far more polite and less insulting than the average...What I can't abide is the macho-insecure blend of self-aggrandizement, self-pity, self-aggrandizing simpletonism, and self-obsession that drives the members of the wingnutosphere who can't come clean that their real issue with me is simply that I disagree with their politics.

I don't think you understand how you come across any better than you understand anything else you've been preaching about.

[bgates]

a smirk is a facial expression.

I do love learning new things. What's a hypocrit?

I was being sarcastic.

Oh, and here I thought you were affecting a tone of superiority.

I'm sure you know the difference but choose to ignore it out of desperation and low standards.

"ignore it out of desperation"? How does that work?

[JM Hanes]

bb:

I can certainly see how someone might find it hard to understand how you could actually believe Reagan aided and abetted Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, and not question his moral as well as his political judgment. But never mind.

Folks here could hardly be more upfront about disagreeing with your politics, such as they are! My own ideology differs in substantive ways from that of many other JOM commenters, and yet we somehow manage to engage productively. Who'd a thunk it? They've certainly proved willing to pay you more than a little considered attention, which makes a odd basis for complaint. If the rough and tumble offends your sensibilities, that's your problem.

[Neo]

The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin -- 51 percent to 41 percent -- Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama's presidency.

[Jane]

Some days are so worth waking up to.

[narciso]

He's a troll and a not very effective one, JM,
I have him on killfile. More often than not. we discover the left's pretense to integrity
is a false front; ie; Galbraith's cleaning up on oil futures, due to his flacking the Kurds, while pushing for us to abandon Iraq.

[Captain Hate]

rather than fault our political leadership, who tend to be focused like a laser beam on giving us what we demand

Slicing like a hammer to give us the death of health care that is demanded by very few.

[Or three.]

Have a cheeto, bb.
==========

[Not the little strawman slippers.]

They're orange.
========

[bunkerbuster]

JM: I've got nothing against rough and tumble. Bring it on. Just don't whine about me thinking I'm superior when I fire back, ie don't be a hypocrit. And don't expect me to let misrepresentations of what I say go unchallenged.

You write: ``how you could actually believe Reagan aided and abetted Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, and not question his moral as well as his political judgment.''

Has nothing to do with belief. It's unassailable historical fact that the Reagan administration defended Saddam's regime when Democratic congressmen sought the imposition of sanctions, specifically in response to the poison gas attacks on the mostly Kurdish population of Halabja. I specifically said Reagan helped him get away with it.

Depending on how broadly you want to interpret U.S. aid to Saddam's regime, there can be an argument that the U.S. enabled him to commit the atrocity, though I'm more inclined to believe he didn't need any help for that one. Saddam did need help, however, to avoid the wrath of Americans -- including some Democratic congressmen -- with a more finely tuned moral sense and better geopolitical judgment.

And I said that I questioned Reagan's judgment, that would certainly include his moral judgment, but that's different from questioning his morality and even further afield from any attempt to diminish his morality relative to my own.

A moral misjudgment requires the existence of a moral baseline to begin with, which Reagan probably had. We may never know for sure, since he did rack up a rather consistent record of poor judgments that beautiful American boys and girls are still dying for in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the way to supporting Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, the Reagan administration also resisted Democratic demands that aid to Pakistan be cut off given evidence the country was producing a nuclear weapon. The Reagan administration (along with a few key conservative Democrats) pulled out all the lobbying stops to kill that idea and keep the aid flowing, appeasing the Islamic fundamentalist elements in Pakistan's security service that armed and advised the Taliban while funneling U.S. and Saudi funds to establish the regime that would eventually aid and abett those who attacked us on 9/11.
And now, while we hyperventilate about Iran, Pakistan, a country that generated the movement and literally educated the men who attacked us on 9/11, has nuclear technology AND a record of sharing it with Iran, Algeria, North Korea and probably others. It's hard to overestimate how catastrophic Reagan's strategic blunder of supporting the Islamic terrorists was, even if he had the mainstream media support, along with many conservative Democrats.
Clearly, Reagan was operating with he believed to be a moral blank check. That check -- and the unlimited government power it confers -- is what the Republican party so longs to obtain again. It is why they know the end of the cold war was really the
GOP's demise as well and, were it not for 9/11, they'd have been the shrinking, divided minority party they are now 10 years earlier.

Narco: Please teach me how to be an effective troll. Or maybe you can teach me what a troll is. As far as I can see "troll" is a synonym for anti-wingnut.

[bunkerbuster]

Bgates writes: ``I thought you were affecting a tone of superiority.''

"Tone"? Get over yourself, Bg. It's not my fault that what I have to say makes you feel inferior.

If you have a riposte, bring it on. If not, stop whining!

[bunkerbuster]

Narco: you're dead right! If I had a "pretense to integrity'' it would definitely be a "false front."

[I'm so amused by the left's dissonance about Saddam.]

Wait, I thought the left is sorry that the US went to the effort to depose Saddam.

And Halabja, well, that was probably Iranian gas blown off a battlefield in a War for Water. Sure, Saddam gassed Kurds, but maybe not at Halabja.
===================

[Jane]

It's not my fault that what I have to say makes you feel inferior.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I don't think BGates was suggesting you were good at it Bunky.

Tell me, are you here to teach us all a lesson, for the camaraderie or because no one else will have you?

[narciso]

It's ironic, Kim, because State's great contribution at the outset of the Iraq of the Iraq war, was to put in the ORHA the same officials, Eagleton and Bodine, who had
served as Ambassador and provincial official
respectfully, during the Anfal campaign, their
preferred candidate for leadership was Adnan Pachachi, a real dinosaur who's previous appearance was flacking the UN resolution that thought to punish Israel for the gall of winning the '67 war

[Rob Crawford]

Tell me, are you here to teach us all a lesson, for the camaraderie or because no one else will have you?

The clue is in his claim that he makes us "feel inferior". The only person telling him that is himself.

[rse]

Here's a continuation of yesterday's discussion on making one academic track for all the safe harbor to avoid being sued for civil rights discrimination.

LUN

Even if K-12 isn't a concern, it is silly to base US policy on a study of what works in Finland.

That country of diverse cultures and backgrounds.

You'd also never know from this study that both campuses are La Raza academic research centers.

[Captain Hate]

O/T because the Oscars thread is dead: Arun Venugopal weighs in on The Hurt Locker at LUN.

Like other post-9/11 pictures about Iraq and the global war on terror, Kathryn Bigelow's was weighed down by dull historicity and an obsession with America's conduct in the war. Such movies often fail to address the core issue: Islamic radicalism. Enter Bollywood.

One of the things I like best about my Indian SIL is his ability to see the rock worshipers for what they are. Having a grandfather that was almost killed in the partition of Pakistan will do that.

[Rob Crawford]

You'd also never know from this study that both campuses are La Raza academic research centers.

Anyone else long for the day when "La Raza" elicits the same revulsion as "Klu Klux Klan"?

[centralcal]

Dearest bad: wish you were here right now so that you tell bunkerbustedballs "You suck!"

[Janet]

LUN a comparison of Calif. vs TX.

I like how the TX legislature meets 90 days every 2 years vs. Calif. year round.
These politicians in DC need to go home. They just dit around and think up "stuff" for us to have to do and ways to spend our money. I'm even sick of the "Official Turnip Day" edicts and crap like that. What a waste of time. Just go home and leave us alone.

[Janet]

**sit** but dit has a nice ring to it.

[narciso]

You got it Janet, they rarely can get the funding bills on time, or properly fund the troops, in any reasonable interval. They didn't do anything of note about the dreadful Kelo decision, something only King John could have imagined. They abetted the sabotage of the nation's well being with the whole subprime mess, one of the latest brilliant projects in the stimulus project, discovering how monkeys react to cocaine,

[Janet]

discovering how monkeys react to cocaine,

Why don't they just go to a rehab facility? or NA meeting? or Hollywood party? Isn't this the same group that thinks monkeys are just their 2nd cousin or something?

[Sue]

Molly Ivins is the one that gave me the greatest nickname for a governor ever. Governor Goodhair Perry. I love it. I suspect he does too.

[Sue]

I'm telling ya', the troll is too familiar with us to be a troll that just fell into JOM midstream.

[Sue]

I have a very high tolerance for dismissiveness and insult

So does someone else that posts here under another name. Weird how much like him you are. Tell me, troll, what are your thoughts on Sibel Edmonds?

[Captain Hate]

I like how the TX legislature meets 90 days every 2 years

I suspect that's in part a traditional thing owing to just how large Texas is when transportation wasn't as easy as it is now, particularly in some isolated areas. Visiting the Austin State Capital is very interesting in view of all the vivid characters that served there.

[Sue]

Actually, speaking of Sibel, I really expected a blockbuster of a story after her deposition. But all we got were crickets. Well, except for the few blogs that still believe she has credibility.

[Sue]

I suspect that's in part a traditional thing owing to just how large Texas is when transportation wasn't as easy as it is now

Maybe. It could also be we don't like government interference. Hence a governor that has very little governing powers.

[Extraneus]

RAS -19 today.

[narciso]

Well when the stories turned on Grossman and the unraveling of Brewster Jennings, three
years before Armitage or Libby ever spoke of
Valerie Plame, well the interest faded

[Sue]

narciso,

Not for some. The dedicated. The loyal. The stupid. They still follow her like she is the Pied Piper playing their tune.

[Clarice]

rse, I wonder if Arne's first suit shouldn't be against Berkeley which is about to scratch physics from the high school curriculum because not enough black students enroll in it.