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May 24, 2007
Dems Slammed by Olbermann
Keith lays into the Dems for backing down on the Iraq troop withdrawal. (MSNBC) I won't bother putting in a little excerpt. You should read the whole thing.
It seems about right to me. They are cowards.
Posted by Chip Spear at 11:07 AM
May 22, 2007
O.I.L Hits One "Outta Here"
O.I.L (Our Illustrious Leader) smacked a big one out the park when the Dems backed off the timetable withdrawals. More than 3 weeks ago Pat Buchanan said on Hardball that the Dems would cave, and guess what? THEY DID. Anyway you spin it, this is another win for the Pres to keep on, keepin' on. To say that they are going to tie funding to Iraq benchmarks is garbage. That is putting the onus on an external player that we do not control in any way. In fact that player is playing another game, in another stadium. Forget that. This game is between Congress and O.I.L., and the slimy one smacked it.
Posted by Chip Spear at 2:42 PM
May 16, 2007
The Huge Falwell Legacy
I listened to David Gregory interview Chris Matthews yesterday morning while driving into work. Chris described Falwell's political impact on national politics. Matthews said that Falwell was responsible for bringing a huge group of fundamentalists into the political arena by appealing to their concerns that liberal attitudes were destroying the country. Matthews said that almost 30 million of the 127 million who voted in the last election were right wing fundamentalists somehow related to the Falwell movement. Matthews suggested that most of these people would not have voted if it had not been for Falwell. Think about that, almost 25% of the last election. That is an astounding number. 25% of voters were followers of a guy who said that the reason the terrorists flew those planes into the World Trade Center was because of our liberal values. He blamed the gays, liberals and anyone who believed in a woman's right to choose. They were the ones to blame. Hmmmmm.
Posted by Chip Spear at 7:21 AM
May 9, 2007
Kansas, a Katrina Replay
Well, the game seems the same, a big disaster, a slow response by the Feds and local agencies and a lot of blame. So what's at play here? Many state officials throughout the country have been warning the Feds that they were short of both manpower and equipment because of Iraq. Many asked the Feds to replace missing equipment taken for war duty. That has not happened. (NYT)
For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Then, last Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks of the small farming town destroyed, Ms. Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.
And the White House response?
Ms. Sebelius's comments about the slow response prompted a debate with the White House on Tuesday, which initially said the fault rested with her. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the governor should have followed procedure by finding gaps after the storm hit and asking the federal government to fill them - but did not.
"If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it," Mr. Snow told reporters on Tuesday morning.
The debate was reminiscent of the Bush administration’s skirmishes with Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, also a Democrat, after Hurricane Katrina.
The states warn they there are potential troubles ahead in the event of a disaster. There is a disaster, the response is slow from the Feds and the White House blames the state for the problem. Sound familiar? Will the White House manage to convince the electorate that it was really on top of things? Who wins in this little blame game? It sounds so reminiscent of New Orleans that it is hard to expect a different conclusion.
Posted by Chip Spear at 8:37 AM
May 4, 2007
Kim Keeps Playing
I am almost thinking that the whole North Korea thing is a joke. Have you been following it? The recent deadline, March 15th, for North Korea to start shutting down its nuclear reactors, came and went with no action. The North Koreans complained that they were still unable to get $25 million held in a Macau bank. The U.S. indicated that they had arranged to get all the funds released. According to the North Koreans that has still not happened and as a result, they refuse to shut down their nuclear program. Unbelievable, really. The U.S. is saying there are "technical difficulties". That is a joke. We are talking about $25 million, chump change in terms of the U.S. budget and the world economy. It is like holding up negotiations because of a nickel. It there were a real problem the U.S. would get on the phone, or the North Koreans would get on a phone, make a couple of calls and get this resolved. But that is clearly not happening. The North Koreans, as I have repeatedly suggested, have no intention of shutting down their program.
Hill [Christopher Hill, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs] was hopeful that illicit North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank and scheduled to have been returned by March 15 under the nuclear accord would be freed up soon. The process was said to have been held up by "technical issues."
I have not found any major U.S. newspaper following this story.
Posted by Chip Spear at 7:49 PM
May 2, 2007
The Withdrawal Game
It is certainly no surprise that the Congress sent O.I.L. a bill calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. And it is certainly no surprise that O.I.L. vetoed the bill, his second veto in six years. (NYT) The real fun begins now. I am very curious to see how the two players, O.I.L. and the Democratic leadership, find a way to resolve the impasse so they both can claim victory. Can we assume that they will agree to Iraqi benchmarks? That seems to be the prevailing projected scenario. How boring that would be. I am hoping for a surprise here.
Posted by Chip Spear at 7:55 AM