Comments Posted By michael reynolds
Displaying 501 To 510 Of 839 Comments
OBAMA PULLS THE TRIGGER: NOW HOW ABOUT SOME FOLLOW THROUGH?
I suspect the "imminent execution" thing is a cover story. In other words, BS to make it seem we had a clear criminal justice sort of rationale for the shoot. Whatever, as the kids say.
Dave Schuler at Outside the Beltway has a good round-up on various responses. There don't seem to be a lot of good options. (Surprise!) The simple "blow their s**t up" option may be rather ineffective and harder to pull off than it seems at first blush.
But I wonder about a "no-swim zone," so to speak. Close down all shipping coming out of Somali ports. Harsh, particularly since it would probably result in blowing some innocent fishing boats out of the water, but within our capabilities in terms of resources.
By the way, the take-away is: Don't piss of SEALS. Three simultaneous shots, three bullseyes, from that distance off a moving ship, at a target that was bobbing around on the sea? Damn. Makes my performance winning a stuffed bear at a carnival shooting range look, um, not real impressive.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 13.04.2009 @ 16:11
This wasn't Obama's first trigger-pulling: Predator attacks continue in Af-Pak.
While some of the media may have fawned, Obama himself did not rush to the nearest microphone -- as some Commanders in Chief of recent memory did -- to play the hero. He gave credit to the Captain and to the Navy and took none for himself.
This is appropriate modesty on Obama's part. If this was a test it was a pretty easy one.
The White House played down Obama's involvement in the situation until it resolved itself favorably. Then they were all over the press patting themselvese on the back.
Yeah - real modest.
ed.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 13.04.2009 @ 08:19
The Beckian Wing of Conservatism
Rick:
There are a couple of places where you and people like you diverge from Beck/Limbaugh fans.
You want to win and they actually want to lose. You want to understand, they want to rage. You're trying to figure out how to draw a line from WF Buckley through to the 21st century and the Beck/Limbaugh crowd doesn't care.
They don't care because it's not about ideas or even politics for them. It never has been. Politics is just the theater in which they play out their personal psychodramas. For them it's about the primary emotions of rage, fear, hurt, resentment. Paradoxically they are happier now without the tether to reality that actual power imposes.
Your side won't get anywhere without splitting the GOP and the so-called conservative movement. You can't win when half your team wants to lose.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 12.04.2009 @ 08:51
GLENN BECK AND THE RADICAL RIGHT
I wasn't going to waste perfectly good arugula on these people.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 8.04.2009 @ 15:27
By the way, we are keeping track of all these comments so that we can round you all up in our secret FEMA camps. I don't know if I'm supposed to reveal this but the plan is:
1) Rescue the economy, salvage the war in Afghanistan, and give poor people access to health care.
2) Send ACORN workers around to trailer parks, retirement villages and rustic cabins to seize all guns.
3) Intern approximately 25% of the population (roughly 75 million people) in FEMA-built concentration camps. (Or we may just put a big fence around Kansas.)
4) Begin the forced marrying of male internees to other male internees.
5) Install cable in all FEMA-tration camps but block Fox News.
6) Intravenous tofu.
Pretty damned weak, Michael. Tofu? How so 90's of you.
ed.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 8.04.2009 @ 15:19
These comments are morbidly fascinating.
Obama didn't just beat the GOP, I'm starting to think he destroyed it. With a major assist from Mr. Bush, of course.
People: a party or a movement built around Limbaugh or Beck is not viable. You're committing political suicide, here. You're validating the Left's most insulting parodies of you. This is nihilism.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 8.04.2009 @ 12:22
Jude:
Here's one:
http://sidewaysmencken.blogspot.com/2008/03/oh-for-gods-sake-shut-up.html
March of 2008, more than a year ago. And today Alec Baldwin at HuffPo criticized Olbermann for wasting time "pissing on Bush," and took a swipe at Maddow, too.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 8.04.2009 @ 11:34
Rick:
No, you're not "too old" you're afflicted by rationality. You actually believe there should be some connection between reality and your opinions. This is heresy.
I'll repeat what I've said here before: conservatism and the GOP are both in very, very deep trouble. Neither shows any signs of working through problems. Conservatives haven't gone into exile to rethink, retool and re-emerge, they've gone fetal. They sit muttering angrily, the crazy street people of politics, raging at phantoms.
The danger is not primarily from armed right-wing nut-jobs -- we have cops and prisons for those people. The danger is that we will have no ideological counterweight in this country, that we will become de facto (not de jure) a one party nation, at least for a while. Right now conservatives and the GOP aren't even in the game. We need a two party system, and the two parties cannot be Democrats and Loonies.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 8.04.2009 @ 11:02
OBAMA'S FORIEGN APOLOGIES: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
Jackson:
As you say, I won't attempt to defend the foreign policy of the more liberal end of the Democratic party. In the great playground of life I tend to prefer pushing back over cringing.
I take the Islamic Republic Etc... as being merely the proper form of address, displaying respect. Young Iranians want to get along with us, and they will hold sway as time goes on. To show disrespect in the terms of our address while attempting to reach the people is self-defeating: it allows the regime to demonize us as disrespectful and leaves our many potential allies in Iran unable to defend us without seeming unpatriotic. They Khamenei regime needs the tension between us, we don't.
As for a military attack we'd better all hope it doesn't come to that. I seriously doubt the Israelis can pull it off without using their own nukes. And I don't think we're going to do it. Imagine the effect on the world economy if Iran closed the Gulf -- something they can do with a handful of impossible-to-locate anti-ship missiles or even simple artillery tubes. No one is going to drive a tanker through the straits of Hormuz if the Iranian army is lobbing shells or missiles.
Add to that the effect on our friends and allies, the effects of Iranian countermoves in Iraq and even in Afghanistan, the possibility of the Iranians offering facilities to Chinese or Russian navies . . . It ain't pretty.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 7.04.2009 @ 17:59
Jackson:
His "love letter" to Iran was perfect and in no way naive.
We are probably not in a position to confront Iran militarily -- not at a reasonable cost. The only real-world play right now is diplomacy. Obama's outreach was not primarily to Khamenei in the sense of expecting some immediate pay-off. It was to the Iranian people.
Khamenei and his butt boy Ahmadinejad predicate their actions on demonization of the great Satan. K and A need the US as villain to distract from their incompetence domestically. Soften that US image and you weaken the extremist's hold. Not a lot, but it's the thin edge of a wedge.
That's not naive, that's smart. It's playing the limited cards you hold as well as they can be played. We've blustered and threatened and gotten nowhere. Time to try the soft soap.
The long-term game, don't forget, is to ensure access to oil, to keep Israel secure, to keep the peace in Iraq, and to keep China and Russia out of the region. We need a strong, non-nuclear Iran because only Iran has the capacity to act as a regional power and maintain stability in the Gulf.
Comment Posted By michael reynolds On 7.04.2009 @ 13:30
