Fifty Shades Of Red

The NY Times frontpages the angst of senior Administration advisors who fret that our President wandered off script when he spoke of Syria, chemical weapons and "red lines" last summer:

Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria

This is Obama's 'smart diplomacy in action:

WASHINGTON — Confronted with evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, President Obama now finds himself in a geopolitical box, his credibility at stake with frustratingly few good options.

The origins of this dilemma can be traced in large part to a weekend last August, when alarming intelligence reports suggested the besieged Syrian government might be preparing to use chemical weapons. After months of keeping a distance from the conflict, Mr. Obama felt he had to become more directly engaged.

In a frenetic series of meetings, the White House devised a 48-hour plan to deter President Bashar al-Assad of Syria by using intermediaries like Russia and Iran to send a message that one official summarized as, “Are you crazy?” But when Mr. Obama emerged to issue the public version of the warning, he went further than many aides realized he would.

Moving or using large quantities of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and “change my calculus,” the president declared in response to a question at a news conference, to the surprise of some of the advisers who had attended the weekend meetings and wondered where the “red line” came from. With such an evocative phrase, the president had defined his policy in a way some advisers wish they could take back.

“The idea was to put a chill into the Assad regime without actually trapping the president into any predetermined action,” said one senior official, who, like others, discussed the internal debate on the condition of anonymity. But “what the president said in August was unscripted,” another official said. Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the “nuance got completely dropped.”

Obama lost the nuance? The deepest thinker and shiniest star on the Presidential Christmas tree? C'mon, he knows more than his advisors. They should be listening to him, and clearly they have missed the nuance.

It's interesting, not to say unnerving, that today (if not back when he said it) the Times can find senior officials distancing themselves from the president. Who wants to board a ship the rats are abandoning?

And how the mighty have fallen - my goodness, back in the day Matt Yglesias wrote an article praising Obama's bold, creative Foreign Policy by Gaffe:

The Accidental Foreign Policy

How an early gaffe and an excruciatingly long primary season helped Barack Obama find a distinctive voice on foreign affairs

...

Barack Obama has always been an independent thinker. He of course opposed the war in Iraq, and he’s built a team of national-security advisers who disproportionately took the same, then-unpopular antiwar view. But as a presidential candidate articulating what he might do in office, his real break with convention may have begun with a gaffe.

Matt was not writing for the Onion or even the Daily Currant at the time. Any day now!

In any case, Obama's distinctive voice, coupled with his self-infatuation with it, has led to other bold foreign policy strokes. Late last summer (just a few weeks after his Syrian belly flop) Obama decided that, law and practice notwithstanding, Egypt was no longer an ally. And in 2008 did Candidate Obama really  favor an undivided Jerusalem. Move on.

Soon enough the world's foreign ministers will ask with one voice - Is that the President of the United States speaking, or did someone switch to the Comedy Channel?

THE BUCK STOPS WHERE? Blaming TOTUS. Hmm, any chance Barack will explain that Sasha and Malia misplaced his briefing book?

APPROACHING THE LIMIT: I love this from Obama's improv skit last August:

...a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.  That would change my calculus.  That would change my equation.

Hands up if you think Obama actually took calculus in high school or college. I don't see any hands...

But yes, it sounds so much tonier than "calculations", so Big Props to the First Wordsmith.

THE 'NAYS' HAVE IT: Obama said this at Hudson Valley Community College:

I was just talking to the Mayor of Troy, who was -- we were in a room, and he was saying how he had studied calculus in the room where we were taking a picture.  And I had to inform him I didn’t take calculus.  (Laughter.)  But he was testimony, he was an example of what you can do because of an institution like this. 

I guess the Syrians have figured that out.

SUNDAY REVIEW: The Times gives guest space to Daniel Byman, "a professor in the security studies program at Georgetown and the research director at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Mideast Policy". He says this about red lines:

The administration’s ultimatum now seems like cheap talk, and it illustrates the risks of carelessly drawing red lines and issuing highly public threats that won’t be enforced.

So far, at least, the Obama administration has put off both consequences and accountability and simply pushed for further investigation. Meanwhile, Mr. Assad has not blinked, and the president’s political opponents, like Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, argue that Iran and North Korea will draw the wrong lessons if the president lets Mr. Assad call his bluff.

Don't call his bluff.

Comments

[Clarice]

(To the tune of West Side Story's "Stick to your own kind")Stick to the tele, stick to the tele, do--This is what happens when Obama speaks off the cuff--there being an empty suit the cuff is attached to.

I put this on the other thread, but I really want people to read this
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/the_man_behind_the_benghazi_cover-up.html

[Steve]

SNL Spoofs Mayor Bloomberg and Fox and Friends in this Opening Monologue...

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/05/saturday-night-live-mayor-bloomberg-on.html

[James D.]

But, but, but...Obama is the smartest person ever to occupy the White House! So much smarter than Idiot Cowboy Warmonger Bush!

He made a gaffe? A mistake? Screwed up our foreiign policy and endangered lives? That's unpossible!

[peter]

His own mother abandoned him after 8 years; we as a nation can do so after 5.

[centralcal]

In Clarice's link above, I love the part about Ben Rhodes [snort] qualifications [snort]:

He earned a master's degree in fiction-writing from New York University just a few years ago . He did not have a degree in government, diplomacy, national security; nor has he served in the CIA, or the military. He was toiling away not that long ago on a novel called 'The Oasis of Love" about a mega church in Houston, a dog track, and a failed romance.

Actually, when you think about it, "fiction writing" is probably among the best of qualifications for being included in the Obummer administration.

[henry]

“The idea of a 23-debate traveling circus among moderators who are in the business of creating news at the expense of our candidates and our party, is going to end,” Priebus said.

Maybe the RNC is getting a clue, maybe not. Priebus claims his proposed changes do not make a fnork.

[rse]

I don't think he is either independent or a thinker. What he is is passionate about strategies to achieve fundamental Transformation. He is good at the idea of building electoral coalitions out of groups who are or can be made dependent on govt for their daily provisions.

We have unfortunately great Evil afoot around the world. It is always there but these clowns are using bellows to boost it and then wondering what is happening and why.

And as Clarice ably noted lying up a bluestorm about it lest it endeanger reelection then future political ambitions and then finally the legacy of Our First . ..

The only good to come out of any of this is how laughable it makes claims that government institutions can be made accountable if only future employees and politicians had the right kind of Quality Learning to get the right kind of mindset.

[Captain Hate]

Stephen Lynch must have drawn the short straw to go on FNS and defend the administration on Benghazi. He's really looking stupid.

[narciso]

Let try again, this is the poster boy against the death penalty in Texas;

http://crime.about.com/od/deathrow/ig/Texas-Death-Row-Inmates/Duane-Buck.htm

[centralcal]

I don't think I can watch FNS today, Captain - the Power Player of the Week is ... Mike Tyson?????

[peter]

OT, how often do you do a google search, and only see one hit? LUN

[henry]

CH, he just went to "shame" instead of facts or evidence. That means the left knows they are losing this one in a big way.

[Captain Hate]

Wow, even Stephen Lynch is tossing Susan Rice under the bus. Evidently there's a point where Howdy Doody look alikes won't venture.

[narciso]

Of course, you have to surf past the wurlitzer, seizing on a statement by a prosecution witness,
much like that bogus taped reprimand of a NYPD transit cop

[MarkO]

Jake Tapper was pointing out the nuance in Obama's statement, which seem more like a further revelation of his lack of education:

"a whole bunch of weapons."

What an intellect. What precision. What, to quote the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, a maroon.

[Captain Hate]

henry, the operative meme for the donks must be "Protect Rodham". The only thing that Lynch was animated about was that the Glacier in Pantsuits was unaware of the security problems because she was engaged in drunken lesbian carpet munching so many requests come into her office.

cc, worse than Mike Tyson; McRINO is now on.

[narciso]

No, Syria is typical of what the Arab Spring, like whizzo chocolates, is about;

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/03/how_syria_ruined_the_arab_spring

[Rick Ballard]

Bibi demonstrates what happens when you cross his line.

The President just shakes his Etch A Sketch a little harder.

[MarkO]

In light of this latest episode of having his bluff called, is there anyone left who does not realize that Obama was dragged against his will into killing Bin Laden?

[Threadkiller]

Makes this "gaffe" seem less like a gaffe and more like "self-infatuation".

Glaring admission that have simple explanations should always get a pass, right?

[Captain Hate]

Jennifer Rubin is playing "good cop" today. Just STFU and go away.

[narciso]

She's only general good on Israel, where they they've threatened to 'excommunicated her from the Body' elsewhere she's mostly blanc mange

[rse]

Congrats to Janet for the Golden statuette.

http://www.michellesmirror.com/2013/05/the-frocky-horror-picture-show-2013.html

And to JOM for showing a broad understanding of Chicago Way voting. Early and often and under as many names and devices as it takes.

[Ignatz]

--Barack Obama has always been an independent thinker. He of course opposed the war in Iraq, and he’s built a team of national-security advisers who disproportionately took the same, then-unpopular antiwar view.--

Independent of what?
Opposing something popular might demonstrate independent thinking or more likely it might demonstrate a knee-jerk, rigid ideology utterly dependent on adhering to its unwavering creed.
The inherent, habitual, automatic anti-American leftism this creep very thinly veils is about as independent as a Siamese twin.

[narciso]

From last night's thread, to Holocaust and Temple Denialism, Notre Dame, is introducing
Christian Martyr denialism, by an unfortunately named Candida Moss, even Dan Brown wasn't that blinkered.

[Threadkiller]

Forced to kill bin laden? What pushed him over the edge?

I am certain it had nothing to do with wagging the dog over a phony birth cert posted online two days prior to the news of his gutsy call. Equally it had nothing to do with redirecting news coverage of the 9th circuit eligibility trial the day after the gutsy call.

He waited 3/4 of a year after learning the location of bin laden to strike during that week for some other reason.

[narciso]

Yet he voted for funding it, the first two years, because his Baathist sponsor, had interests over there.

[Captain Hate]

Evan Bayh: These cooter discussions make me feel icky.

[Threadkiller]

Congratulations Janet!

Maybe you could make the award your avatar. Wear it proud!

[narciso]

There's actually another explanation, TK, the Quahtani Wikileaks with the mention of the Courier, and the tell tale signs of Abbotabad had leaked earlier in the week.

[narciso]

Despite what Dannenberg and Soufan, had told Mayer and Bergen, he was a BFD

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8489866/WikiLeaks-Bin-Ladens-courier-trained-911-hijack-team.html

[Clarice]

SNL was a funny when the players were all doped up, wasn't it? . That skit was less than juvenile.

[Cecil Turner]

Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the “nuance got completely dropped.”

Unless the "nuance" was "we have no intention of following through," it's hard to see what got dropped. Hey, what's a little nerve gas amongst friends? Just looks like amateur hour. I'd also suggest the smartest man in the room, in most rooms, actually took calculus at some point.

From Clarice's link:

Of course, this would cause embarrassment for the Obama team, especially in the few weeks before the election. They had been boasting for years that Al Qaeda had been decimated, the "tide of war" was receding;

That's it in a nutshell . . . along with the obvious corollary: a national strategy aimed at killing one man does not in fact make us safe.

A competent GOP campaign should have been trumpeting that sort of thing with one voice, and calling on the rest of us to chime in. And we did ourselves no favors with the laser stories and drone theories . . . which actually aided the Admin/MSM effort to cover up and obfuscate.

[Threadkiller]

I guess that would be an explanation for not wasting him at a later date (October surprise? ), but why not an earlier assault?

[narciso]

The drone was likely the source of the FBI pics,since the resolution is rather grainy.

[narciso]

They don't go after Morning Jokw, which is like filming an episode of the Walking Dead, except no 'BRAINZ' available, the dustup with Ferguson, has a little more to do with the fact that he pointed to 'Emperor's threadbare wardrobe, rather emphatically.

[Ignatz]

From Ferguson's dustup apology:

But I should not have suggested – in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation – that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay......As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise.

When did recognizing a simple fact become prejudice?
People who have kids, in general, have more invested in the future and consequently care more than those who don't.
I care more about how things affect future generations since I had kids than I did before and the same is true of most people I know.
Ferguson's a ponce.

[Ignatz]

--a national strategy aimed at killing one man does not in fact make us safe--

Nor even killing quite a few men.

If the left's cry about the Iraq war creating more jihadists was remotely true we now have the worst of both worlds.

At least in the Iraq war we got to kill thousands of jihadists and demonstrate [eventually] that we could crush them.

Now we assassinate a few individuals from half a world away with drones launched from Muslim states. We're inflaming the jihadists by shooting a few of them from armchairs in the USA without even the virtue of slaughtering thousands of them or smashing them.
It's the difference between poking a stick in a hornet's nest and spraying it with insecticide.
It's not even bad strategy; it's the opposite of strategy. They know it can't attain any useful goal but pursue it to avoid the political risks of trying to attain actual goals to protect the country.

[narciso]

Well it's the Tomahawk strategy of the mid 90s, updated, Brian D. Williams, T-Dog's favorite prof
was a resident expert on the subject, in addition to Central Asia generally.

[centralcal]

Let's see.

You make really ugly (fake?) blue suede shoes. The soles are imprinted with - "I'm an Atheist" and "Darwin Loves."

Your shipping boxes are covered with branding tape shouting "Atheist" and you wonder why your shipments aren't getting through to the USA?

Sounds like a real mystery to me.

[centralcal]

oh, and God works in mysterious ways!

Mr Bonney said he believes the company may have lost as many as 25 shipments on their way to American customers.

Asked what he thinks happens to them, he said: 'God knows. Maybe it is truly divine intervention.'

To forestall any further acts of God, Atheist shoes have since ceased using their branded tape on packages sent to the U.S.

Ya think? ich bin Atheist.

[matt]

Ferguson is an excellent historian, but he is also trapped in blue hell as one of the few conservatives.

In Civilisation, he points out that the social experiment has already delivered its verdict; East vs. West Germany; North vs. South Korea, and communist vs. non-communist China.

Obama's strategy to date in the Middle East has been "present", sort of like Kerry's.

I just hope the Republican clowns actually have something of substance on Benghazi rather than blowhard politics. The issue is not the "little people".

It is that the President checked out at 5:00pm as the incident unfolded. It is that the SoS ignored the please for help. It is that DoD ignored the please for help. It is the fact that while we had assets available the ambassador and his bodyguard and two contractors who happened to be nearby for all night and died when they ran out of ammo.

And it the fact that the coverup began instantaneously and that we were lied to time and again and again and are still being lied to.

I want blood. I want these people in jail. You can't do this in this country and get away with.

Or can you?

[Ignatz]

--Darwin Loves--

For some reason 'love' is not the first word that pops into my head when I hear the term 'Darwinian'.

[Magwa]

"I want blood. I want these people in jail. You can't do this in this country and get away with.

Or can you?"

Criminy. How's your short-term memory? Or have you suddenly become outraged?

[Clarice]

Janet--a special treat for you.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-y_N4u0uRQ&feature=share

[narciso]

Hoe many Bothans, I mean Smurfs were killed in the course of making those shoes.

The Solon of Scranton's top staffer is now in charge of the counterterror staff, she was TDYed
from Mueller's office,

[centralcal]

Lol, Clarice! I remember when every hospital room had the tray with the flip top and sundries for freshening up, and to the side of the bed a metal night stand with the strange plastic bin (in case you threw up?) and a glass ashtray!

[narciso]

He seems a very solid sort with two previous posting in Afghanistan and Bahrain;

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gregory-hicks/64/a2a/b63

So he would recognize rather readily what was happening.

[Walter]

Obama never took calculus? I read TM's quote with disbelief, because Lawrence Tribe famously cited Obama's excellent research skillz on his Constitutional Law and the Theory of Relativity paper in attesting to Obama's intellect.

To the extent that I have ever truly grasped Einstein's work, it has been through following his math. I always thought Tribe's compliments were overblown, but I didn't think it was that bad. (But then again, Tribe's writing has never been that persuasive to those who disagree with his premises.)

Anyhow, the calculus issue explains this paper:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1271310

Sheesh! Have these people no shame?

[Janet]

Hah! Clarice.
Just give it time...I'm bettin' they're gonna find out that some moderate smoking would have been less dangerous than all the meds people take now for depression, anxiety, whatever,...

Key word is moderate...which I cannot relate to at all. :(
Anything worth doing, is worth doing to excess!

[narciso]

Also keying off last night's thread, one of the biggest stumbling blocs to the Nazis not getting the bomb, was illustrated in the person of Johanes Stark, who I came across in Volpi's Klingsor's secret, He was a decent physicist,
had won some prize in 1915, but he was picked to head the program, because of the 3rd Reich's obsession with racial science, he is seem as the foil with the American Francis Bacon, and Heisenberg.

[Nick]

Wait until you get COPD and then tell us again that smoking in moderation (or second hand smoke) is okay.

[narciso]

A touch of irony, here;

It was Stark who, as the editor of Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik, asked in 1907, then still rather unknown, Albert Einstein to write a review article on the principle of relativity. Stark seemed impressed by relativity and Einstein's earlier work when he quoted "the principle of relativity formulated by H.A.Lorentz and A.Einstein" and "Planck's relationship M0=E0/c2"in his 1907 paper[2] in Physikalische Zeitschrift, where he used the equation e0=m0c2 to calculate an "elementary quantum of energy", i.e. the amount of energy related to the mass of an electron at rest. While working on his article,[3] Einstein began a line of thought that would eventually lead to his generalized theory of relativity, which in turn became (after its confirmation) the start of Einstein's worldwide fame.

[Threadkiller]

Tribe cannot be trusted, with one exception.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25457698/The-Tribe-Olson-Natural-Born-Citizen-Memo

[Threadkiller]

Ok, ok. I'll give it a rest.

[narciso]

So it's interesting, the original suspect in the Clement shooting, al Turki, was banking more cash then Andy Dufresne, that's why suspicion has been focused back on him.

[narciso]

Ah. Flathead, in Capt's verbiage, found a way to be even more absurd with the Syria question, if that was possible.

[AliceH]

--Now we assassinate a few individuals from half a world away with drones launched from Muslim states.--

Perhaps the numbers per day or per operation are not the 1000s that make headlines in papers, but every single day the service men and women in Afghanistan are up close and personal doing their jobs, which include capturing and killing insurgents, and finding and disabling IEDs.

[AliceH]

Yeah, yeah. I know I took some liberties with my interpretation of that comment. But it rankled. I guess, just as "People who have kids, in general, have more invested in the future and consequently care more than those who don't", I care more about what goes on over there than people who don't have a 21 yo nephew on his second deployment.

[narciso]

Well he was generally about as effective, that's why he chose another field like welding.

http://www.ohio.com/news/bill-ayers-defends-weather-underground-bombings-1.395109

[anonamom]

I recommend smoking!
I realized recently that the reason so many people are on antidepressants--which are brain toxins-- is that they aren't smoking.
I am totally for self-medicating with legal drugs--caffiene, alcohol, and nicotine. People need to titrate their own drugs.

[narciso]

Surprisingly art therapy didn't solve the problem;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324763404578428141862143714.html

[anonamom]

Nicorette gum is probably better than cigarettes, if you want to avoid the COPD/lung and oral cancer stuff.

[Captain Hate]

Stern can't leave too soon and I hope he takes his brainless toadies with him. By making the Oklahoma City/Memphis game the "early" game, there was no time for a shoot around and now 2 high scoring teams are tossing up clangers. And the game from NYC will be the "late" game.

Brilliant scheduling imo.

[Nick]

Yeah, right, and high doses of vitamins will extend your life after you get old, providing that black cats don't walk in front of you and you don't walk under ladders or break any mirrors..

[narciso]

This last fellow, suggests he is from Suweidi, that rather wretched sub division of Riyadh, from where many of AQAP arose,

[Captain Hate]

And to further illustrate the idiocy of Stern, the Golden State/San Antonio game was decided on Thursday yet they don't play until tomorrow and all four Friday teams play today.

[narciso]

True, Captain, consider if he was employed in an enterprise of significance, he would be truly dangerous, instead of merely annoying, he's also a member of the CFR.

[richatgmu]

So President Did I say that is getting the courtier press to erase what he said. NK and Iran have already taken his measure and this incident won't matter much to their strategy.

Great Pieces this morning Clarice. Great read with my morning coffee.

[narciso]

Well I think it's a little harder, because Syria they do sort of care about, as it is becoming a major theatre of opperations like Bosnia was a generation ago,

[Rick Ballard]

anonamom,

I tend to think of caffeine and nicotine as being unhelpful for good herd management. Alcohol belongs within reach of dope as a herd management tool and the anti-depressants are the SOMA necessary to face our brave new world. They're also necessary to make possible the sale of scientistic nonsense such as the danger of second hand smoke or the world catastrophe envisioned as being caused by SkyDragonbreath.

Then there's the obvious benefit of the thought thwarting, joint destroying, benefits of jogging versus the thought provoking stimulation of a nice walk.

Ain't scientism grand?

[DoT on iPad]

"nothing to do with wagging the dog over a phony birth cert"

Anyone who makes the effort to familiarize himself with the facts would be an idiot to conclude that the certificate is phony. I will explain why once more should anyone inquire.

[Baddog]

Somebody please find the quote by Christopher Whiton on TV last week. Something to the effect that, "You can't talk like Clint Eastwood when you're Judy Garland."

[David J. Stern]

Son, we live in a world that has basketballs, and schedules have to be organized by men with fancy algorithms. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Captain Hate? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Memphis and OKC, and you curse my tenure. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that the playoff scheduling, while ridiculous in many ways, probably made the league a shitload of money. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, makes me a lot of money. You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that ball. You need me on that ball. We use slogans like "Where Amazing Happens". We use these slogans as the backbone of a league intent on bilking as many people as possible for as much money as we can get on the backs of recent MBA graduates from top flight schools who work for next to nothing. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very product that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a ball, and back down on the post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to. By the way, check out nba.com. We have great deals going on with team logo key fobs.

[Threadkiller]

Nicorette gum is probably better than cigarettes, if you want to avoid the COPD/lung and oral cancer stuff.

Can 15 year olds buy Nicorette?

[Ignatz]

--Perhaps the numbers per day or per operation are not the 1000s that make headlines in papers, but every single day the service men and women in Afghanistan are up close and personal doing their jobs, which include capturing and killing insurgents, and finding and disabling IEDs.--

That operation and the strategy it represents, no matter how flawed, is being abandoned within a few months and being completely supplanted by the necessary but no-substitute-for-strategy of drone strikes alone. No offense was intended toward what I thought was obviously not Barry's favored strategy and one he has pledged to end.

--But it rankled. I guess, just as "People who have kids, in general, have more invested in the future and consequently care more than those who don't"--

The capacity to rankle doesn't indicate the truth or lack thereof of a statement.

Which world would care more about the future consequences of ones actions as opposed to the here and now; one in which no one could reproduce and there were no children or one where every man was married to a woman and they had 2.1 kids and eventually grandchildren?
The seemingly obvious answer confirms my generality, if not the many exceptions to it, of which you apparently are one.

[Sue]

LOL.

[DoT on iPad]

"Equally it had nothing to do with redirecting news coverage of the 9th circuit eligibility trial"

The 9th circuit doesn't hold trials. What occurred was an oral argument in which the lunatic appellants claimed that Obama was not born in the United States. The result, six months later, was a dismissal of the appeal, an event which rightly received even less press coverage than the argument itself. Both events were sparsely covered because they really aren't news. The same people continue to make the same discredited, losing arguments over and over, and complain of a newsconspiracy when very few people pay attention to them.

[richatgmu]

narciso-

Well I think it's a little harder, because Syria they do sort of care about...

My morning coffee hasn't kicked in so maybe my previous didn't come out quite right. I suppose it was that regardless of what Obama said he wasn't going to change the situation on the ground in Syria-Russia and Iran will though. It is par for the course though that he would stick his foot in his mouth with a grand pronouncement then send out his stooges to walk it back. Not sure what the plan will be now that the Assad dictatorship has succeeded in getting Israel involved.

[Gus]

You know, CHRISTOPHER STEVENS was GAY.

Does he get to attent the big fund raiser with the ugly first lady??

Our DEAD Ambassador isn't a gay hero. A has been basketball player is???

Obama called Jason Collins, and ignored Ambassador Stevens PLEAS for help.

Stevens DIED Obama/Rice/Rodham/Biden lied!!!!!

[DoT on iPad]

"why not an earlier assault?"

If you really think that the assault was timed roughly to coincide with the release of a phony pdf birth certificate, then you must explain why both could not have been done earlier.

Of course, simultaneously with the release of the pdf, the original document from which the pdf was made was circulated among the press, and handled and photographed by them. Photocopies of that document were distributed to the press. The nutballs who are making absurd claims about the pdf are maintaining a curious silence anout the hard copy, the photograph and the photocopies, every bit of information on which is identical to that on the pdf. Conspiracy among the Birthers?

[Thomas Collins]

Anonamon, I thought my pediatrician was a great man. I went to him until I was 22, and probably would have continued to see him but for the fact that I moved out of the Providence area. His white doctor coat smelled of cigarettes, and when I went into his main office to be weighed after the exam, he would typically be inhaling a nonfilter cigarette.

I think smoking bans on hospital grounds are ridiculous (except of course in areas where flammable substances are in use). If I am taken into the emergency room, I don't want the physicians and nurses and medical technicians focusing on their nicotine fit, and I don't want them worrying about whether a security camera caught them sneaking a Newport on their break.

[torquewrench]

"Confronted with evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, President Obama now finds himself in a geopolitical box, his credibility at stake with frustratingly few good options."

They keep using that word, "credibility".

I do not think it means what they think it means.

[Janet]

Our DEAD Ambassador isn't a gay hero.

That's a great point, Gus.

[narciso]

the Donilon manque, like Rhodes another Hamilton protege, sneers at the COS in ZD30, with the WMD
jibe, to which the latter respondes, if he is there, and you fail to get him again, how will that look.

[Threadkiller]

"the original document from which the pdf was made was circulated among the press, and handled and photographed by them"

False.

[Thomas Collins]

I think the good news is that Barry Clausewitz's red line remark did not damage his credibility. The bad news is that the reason his credibility wasn't damaged is because he already had dissipated his credibility among world leaders.

[richatgmu]

and the thread was Instalanched.

[Thomas Collins]

But I'm all for limiting ninny nannies like Bloomberg to one slize of pizza, and making them substitute tofu for cheese on the pizza. That hoax article was one I wish wasn't a hoax.

[Gus]

Obama has no credibility, he is propped up by the Media.
Economy? No credibility.
Military? No credibility.
Foreign Policy? No credibility.
Immigration policy? No credibility.

Obama goes from one attack on moral institutions at a time. Abortion, Homosexuality, Gun control, Religious institutional freedom, the Sequester that he created, etc etc etc. All Obama does is attempt to destroy the GOP. Think about it.
And. The GOP gladly goes along with him.

[maryrose]

TC:
His credibility being challenged on every front will cement Bammy's erstwhile legacy. Foreign leaders have his wussy number and will react accordingly. Why do you think they were hoping he would be re-elected? He's a wuss in sheep's clothing, he is an emperor without clothes, and he is already a lame duck president.
Janet for the win. Congrats girlfriend!
sailor:
Believe it or not because it is Hillary is why I think her part in Benghazi will have legs. the media really love Bill not her. You saw how they turned on her once Bammy decided to snatch the prize of the presidency away from her. The press were like rabid dogs in their haste to tear her apart.The last good press she got was the New Hampshire cryfest. Funny how after that she could endorse at the convention someone she thought was so incredibly incompetent.

[DoT on iPad]

By "original document" I refer to the hard certified copy of Obama's long-form certificate, bearing the raised seal of the State of Hawaii (the same document, with the same information, as the pdf). Savannah Guthrie of NBC News handled it and photographed it.

[Gus]

Maryrose, I'm not kidding, Rodham will probably come out of the closet, in order to get a boost. Bill Clinton is a dishonest hedonist, but Rodham is an ugly, mean, unattractive, drunken boor. What America needs to come to grips with, is that NONE of Obama's "department managers/cabinet members", were picked for experience, character or competence. They were picked as academics or willing yes men HACKS. We as normal people expect better. Don't expect anything from Obama. He is a cretin, and he doesn't view America like we do.

[Threadkiller]

By "Savannah Guthrie", an individual, you somehow meant "them"(plural) as well?

Please name other members of this group.

[RebeccaH]

Barack Obama really is a bull in a china shop, isn't he?

[rse]

Well in case you are looking for something else to read on Cinco de Mayo.

http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/as-powerful-as-a-religious-conversion-bestowing-deep-understandings-for-their-revolutionary-effects/ should go well with chips an salsa and cheese dip.

And especially cerveza with lime. Maybe two.

In addition to doing the Vygotskyian research on Hawaiian schoolchildren and funded by the Bishop Estate, we have it used with Navajo and LA inner-city kids. Now coming to a suburb near you soon.

The religious conversion mention is an actual quote.

[Jim Eagle]

Reading the Times article on Obama's "off the cuff" remark reminds me that amateurism isn't what it used to be. The Times should thank God that he is only the POTUS and not one of their editors.

Remember how verklempt the media went when Reagan used the term "evil empire" or when W used the phrase "axis of evil"?

[Clarice]

More on Wilkerson http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/05/05/lawrencewilkersons-shame-and-colin-powells-chemical-weapons/#more-824304

[Nick]

... scientistic nonsense such as the danger of second hand smoke ...

Posted by: Rick Ballard | May 05, 2013 at 02:19 PM

Nonsense, huh? Tell that extremely irresponsible, batshit crazy rationale to the millions of non-smokers who are now suffering from Bronchitis and COPD and whose lives have been cut short by selfish, self-centered and inconsiderate smokers, also. The spouses of smokers in many instances.

[matt]

David Stern:

Merchandise??? You can't handle the Merchandise!!!