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Some very fine stand-up, much of it highly barbed, from Mitt Romney at the Al Smith Dinner tonight. H/T Doctor Sanity
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Showing posts with label Biden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biden. Show all posts
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Romney: Stand Up Comedian
Friday, October 12, 2012
Is It Getting Warm Yet, Joe?
I am not sure what the eternal penalty is for lying about the Catholic church, but let's just say that Joe really tempted fate last night with his whopper about Obamacare not being part of a war on religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Here is what Biden said:
With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.
Well, as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) pointed out in oh so tactful language today, that "is not a fact." Actually, as they go on to explain, it's a complete falsehood. You can read the entire response Bishops here. It's one thing to spin the truth, but another matter entirely to make out right false claims. Joe was doing the latter last night on several topics, but this one really stands out. I think he better pack some ice and fireproof undies for when it comes time to make that final trip off the mortal coil. Just saying.
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Saturday, October 6, 2012
A Reminder To All Readers
We are fast approaching Oct. 11. If you have not done so already, you need to insure that you have a comfortable seat readied in front of the television and that you are fully stocked up on popcorn and chips (beer and pizza are optional). This will be a show you do not want to miss.
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Saturday, September 22, 2012
Biden On Cheerleaders - "The Stuff They Do On Hard Wood, It Blows My Mind"
I really have nothing to add to the quote above, except to note that Biden is, in equal measure, a buffoon and an insightful observer of the human condition. That said, his quote, made to a group of high school students, probably should have been addressed to a more mature audience.
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Thursday, April 22, 2010
Utterly Shameless - & Fraudulent
You might have caught this bit of seemingly good news today if you saw this commercial . . .
Or you might have heard the news from an ecstatic White House. This from CBS News:
No one was cheering louder than the White House about General Motors' repayment of $6.7 billion in loans from the federal government.
First thing this morning, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alerted his 56,000 followers on Twitter of "BIG NEWS."
"GM pays back US $6.7 billion used to save jobs," Gibbs exulted. But he had more.
"BIGGER NEWS," he trumpeted. "Payment was 5 years ahead of schedule."
. . . Later at his daily press briefing, Gibbs didn't wait for a reporter to ask him about the GM payback. He portrayed it as a vindication of President Obama's decision to provide a federal bailout to GM and Chrysler . . .
The amount repaid by GM is less than 13 percent of the $52 billion in federal bailout funds provided to the automaker. The remainder of the bailout was converted into stock, which GM still intends to pay off. Gibbs concedes, "obviously, we're not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination." But he thinks the payback demonstrates that GM is on a path to renewal. . . .Vice President Biden added his voice to the White House chorus, hailing the GM payback as a "huge accomplishment."
"The President of the United States took a lot of heat for that effort," said Biden of the GM bailout, saying it kept the company alive while it was transitioning.
"And I would just like to point out that I am proud to be associated with the guy who saw the necessity to do this," boasted the VP about his constitutional boss.
Biden said the rapid GM payback "exceeded our expectations."
White House economic advisor Lawrence Summers came closest to telling the critics of the bailout "we told you so," without actually using those words.
"This turnaround wasn't an accident of history," said Summers in a blog on the White House website. "It was the result of considered and politically difficult decisions made by President Obama to provide GM and Chrysler - and indeed the auto industry - a lifeline, if they could demonstrate the will to reshape their businesses and chart a path toward long-term viability without ongoing government assistance."
But the payback also gives the White House ammunition in defense of future government bailouts, should they be needed. Gibbs said it's the White House hope they won't be.
Great news for Obama and GM indeed - until you get the rest of the story. This, courtesy of Jamie Dupree via Q&O:
The issue came up yesterday at a hearing with the special watchdog on the Wall Street Bailout, Neil Barofsky, who was asked several times about the GM repayment by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who was looking for answers on how much money the feds might make from the controversial Wall Street Bailout.
“It’s good news in that they’re reducing their debt,” Barofsky said of the accelerated GM payments, “but they’re doing it by taking other available TARP money.”
In other words, GM is taking money from the Wall Street Bailout – the TARP money – and using that to pay off their loans ahead of schedule.
“It sounds like it’s kind of like taking money out of one pocket and putting in the other,” said Carper, who got a nod of agreement from Barofsky.
“The way that payment is going to be made is by drawing down on an equity facility of other TARP money.”
Translated – they are using bailout funds from the feds to pay off their loans.
This is absolutely unreal. This is nothing more than a shell game with taxpayer money, yet it is being presented as if GM is actually becoming a profitable organization again. Its been a long time since I looked at securities law, but I would be willing to bet this incredibly bit of misleading news from GM and its primary stockholder, the Obama administration, easily crosses those regulatory lines that define fraud under SEC regs. This is GM and the Obama Administration colluding to perpetrate a massive fraud on the American people.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
You Have Got To Be Kidding
First this from Biden . . .
Then this today from Gibbs . . .
Iraq was and is a success wholly because of our military and the Bush Administration. If the Obama administration are going to claim credit for Iraq when they spent five years in a treasonous, let me repeat that - treasonous - rear guard action to destroy our military effort solely for the purpose of gaining political power, they have no shame and they think us complete idiots. Even the fact that our troops are leaving Iraq, having achieved - in a word never to pass Obama's lips - victory, was in fact negotiated by Bush.
Time to let George Bush have the final word on behalf of all of us.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Knee JERK Reaction Of Progressives (Updated)
Modern progressivism, like its progenitor, classical Marxism, views the world through a deeply distorted lens. They see all through the prism of the oppressor and oppressed, of the victimizer and victim. It is an ideology formed in identity and grievance politics and founded upon a rewrite of history. It is, in practice, a form of paternalistic racism, and the prime breeding ground for many of the ills it claims to oppose.
If you happen to be a member of one of the progressive's recognized victim classes and you refuse to embrace your victim status, then you become a traitor to whatever it is that defines you as a victim, be it your race, gender, etc. If you publicly criticize a member of a victim class, or for that matter should you tell a narrative that challenges a victim classification, then as sure as the sun rises each day, you are going to get the race card tossed at your head. Regardless of the merits of your criticism, regardless of the reality of your narrative, all is recast by progressives as racism. And today, we have three prime examples.
First up is Andy Sullivan. To give you the background, Instapundit started a caption contest for the below photo, taken from the White House Flickr Page.
This is not exactly the type of photo one would expect the White House to be publishing. It hardly shows the President being presidential, for lack of a better term. To me, it shows a President who is not exactly in love with his V.P. Indeed, Biden, who is a gaffe-o-matic when allowed to roam free before microphones, has seemingly been kept in a secret bunker, away from all media, for the past several months. Other people saw various things in this, ranging from how tired Obama looked to how much he resembled 007.
This is not a photo that was photoshopped by Prof. Reynolds. It is not a photo taken by anyone with an axe to grind with Obama. It is a photo published by the White House. But the mere republishing of this photo by Prof. Reynolds leads Andrew Sullivan to throw the race card. This from Mr. Sullivan:
Photo-Smearing Obama
Glenn Reynolds finds a photo in the White House Flickr basket and publishes it to, er, point out how bad the White House's p.r. is, or how blind they are to perceptions of Obama or some such thing. I tried to puzzle this one out and can just about see how an elusive photo of a tired Obama reacting to something unknowable might make him look tired or arrogant or something.
And then I realized why this photo immediately strikes some people are damning. Obama is a black man who looks as if he is condescending to a white man. That's political gold. . . .
Progressives have for decades been using unfounded charges of racism to silence any unwanted voices while ignoring sexism (Clinton, Palin), paternalistic racism (Ricci) and rabid reverse racism (Jeremiah Wright) in their own camp. At least until recently, it has been incredibly effective. That Mr. Sullivan makes such unfounded charges here merely marks him as one of the progressive camp. What makes this example particularly telling is that the racism Mr. Sullivan finds comes not from anything said by Prof. Reynolds, but rather arises explicitly from the imagination of Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan then projects his imagined racism onto Prof. Reynolds and those who innocently took part in this caption contest. Mr. Sullivan's immersion in the toxic world of identity politics is complete and his lack of intellectual integrity is palpable.
Another recent example of this toxic brand of identity politics comes from Armed Liberal at Winds Of Change:
Browsing the LA Weekly, I was scanning for a movie to go to this weekend, and saw this review of 'The Blind Side':
Another poor, massive, uneducated African-American teenager lumbers onto screens this month, two weeks after Precious and obviously timed as a pre-Thanksgiving-dinner lesson in the Golden Rule. But unlike the howling rage of Claireece Precious Jones, The Blind Side's Michael "Big Mike" Oher (Quinton Aaron) is mute, docile, and ever-grateful to the white folks who took him in.
Based on a true story recounted in Michael Lewis's 2006 book of the same name, Blind Side the movie peddles the most insidious kind of racism, one in which whiteys are virtuous saviors, coming to the rescue of African-Americans who become superfluous in narratives that are supposed to be about them. Steel magnolia Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock, frosted and thickly accented) welcomes the homeless Big Mike into her family's Memphis McMansion, later explaining to him how to play left tackle. In every scene, Oher is instructed, lectured, comforted, or petted like a big puppy; he is merely a cipher (Aaron has, at most, two pages of dialogue), the vehicle through which the kind-hearted but imperfect whites surrounding him are made saintlier. "Am I a good person?" Leigh Anne asks her husband non-rhetorically - as if every second in this film weren't devoted to canonizing her. - Melissa AndersonAnd I was kinda annoyed at this.
Why? Well, for starters because the story is - as the reviewer notes - true. A white family did take in an essentially homeless black child, raise him, and see him succeed.
And so for Ms. Anderson, it's a story that can't be told. Or if it is told, it must be told through the lens of oppression and blind rage - or something.
Now, there are so many problem here that I'll freely admit that we won't address them all. But I want to focus on one, small issue.
And that is that the concept of 'truth' as enjoyed by someone like Ms. Anderson is a kind of cartoon; an Isaiah Berlin hedgehog, Hollywood 'high concept' kind of a thing where the essential truths are few and huge and relatively uncomplex. The story of race in her world in America is the story of oppression by whites of blacks and other people of color; repression that is physical, economic, cultural, and goes to the heart of the character of every non-white American. . . .
Do read the whole post.
And lastly, we have the Teaparty movement, a group fed up with the big spending and big government of not just Obama, but both parties. It is a group the left has, since its inception, attacked as racist. Most recently, we have Chris Matthews furthering that narrative with his outrageous description of the "teabaggers" as "all white." Hot Air has the video.
The race card has manifold purposes. Ultimately, it is meant to keep victim classes sacrosanct, since they are the alpha and omega of progressivism's power base. It is used as a tool in individual instances to circumvent argument and dispense with facts by simply delegitimizing and demonizing the target. Who can take anything Prof. Reynolds says as worthy of serious consideration, since he is obviously a racist with a hidden agenda? Should anyone ponder the post-racial themes of the movie Blind Side since, despite its origins in reality, the mere retelling of such a story is racist? Should anyone give consideration to the issues raised by the tea party movement, since they are an all white group animated by their racial animus towards a black president? All, we are told by progressives, are to be dismissed out of hand.
Identity politics is a virulent and distorting toxin in our society. This is 2010, and America has elected a black President. This is not 1952, and Democrats like Bull Connor are not using fire hoses on civil rights marchers in Alabama. Identity politics is, at this point, a purely political tool as damaging to the "victims" it purports to champion as it is to society as a whole. Much more on this topic in an older post here.
Update: Soccer Dad pointed out an article in USA today on Michael Oher, the subject of the book "Blind Side" referenced above. Here is a snippet:
Another pivotal moment occurred during his first Thanksgiving break, when Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy spotted Oher as they drove past a bus stop near the school. It was snowing. Oher, then 16, was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts.
Sean, then a volunteer assistant basketball coach at the school who had met Oher at the gym, says Leigh Anne grabbed the wheel. Next came a U-turn.
"She cried the second she met him, and it was over," Sean recalls.
The Tuohys took in Oher, allowing him a safety net in their home in upscale East Memphis two blocks from the school. For months he came and went as he pleased, and Leigh Anne worried when he didn't spend the night. They hired a tutor to address severe academic deficiencies, paid his tuition and gave him a wardrobe and other essentials. Sean says the generosity was not the result of any epiphany or even as much as a family meeting.
"We think God sent him to us," Sean says. "Earthly explanations don't make sense."
About a year later, Oher moved in permanently with the wealthy white family. Before Oher's senior year in high school, the Tuohys — with daughter Collins at Briarcrest and a younger son, Sean Jr. — became his legal guardians.
"They've got big hearts," Oher says. "To take somebody from my neighborhood into your house? Nobody does that. I don't think I'd even do that. I'd help you out, but with a daughter and with all the violence and drugs where I come from ... they didn't have to do that. I owe a lot to them."
Oher is within 15 credits of a college degree in criminal justice and he is expected to go in the first round of the NFL draft.
Update 2: And here is what TNOYF saw in the picture of Obama and Biden above. Heh. I think they are spot on myself.
Welcome to Larwyn's Linx readers.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Iran 7/7 - The Pot Simmers (Updated)
The Iranian tyrant, Ali Khamenei, told his cluster of top advisers two days ago that it was time to totally shut down the protests, and he ordered that any and all demonstrators, regardless of their status, be arrested (although there is no longer room for new prisoners in Tehran’s jails; they are now using sports arenas as holding areas). He further ordered that all satellite dishes be taken down (good luck with that one; there are probably millions of them in Tehran alone). He ordered that the crackdown be done at night, to avoid all those annoying videos. By Sunday night, hundreds of new arrests had been made, including the regime’s favorite targets: students, intellectuals, and journalists. The regime was apparently so worried that the general strike would show massive support for Mousavi that they took the step of ordering the businesses and offices to close for three days. The Telegraph is reporting that most businesses in Tehran's Central Bazaar are closed, though there is no word coming out on the rest of the country. Millions of pounds in private wealth has begun flooding out of Iran in the wake of mass demonstrations which have paralysed commercial life after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 4. The IRGC is a corrupt organization whose leadership has a fully vested interest in seeing the theocracy propped up. The leadership of the IRGC is getting as rich from corruption, graft, and business interests as have many of the politicized members of Iran's clerical establishment. Thus it is no surprise to find that the IRGC is now running the internal security to brutally crush the protests. This from the LA Times: The top leaders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security during the post-election unrest and warned late Sunday, in a threat against a reformist wave led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, that there was no middle ground in the ongoing dispute over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It should be noted that the basij, Iran's version of the Nazi brown-shirts, who have played a central and bloody role in repressing the protests, are under the command of the IRGC. Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran? Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about "the liberation of Iraq," he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread. One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome. Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself. I will be amazed if, once all is said and done, we find out that Iraq's model did not play a significant role in promoting the discontent of Iran's rank and file. I have been saying for years that the greatest single threat to Iran was a border with Iraq's secular, Shia dominated democracy - and indeed, that the two could not possibly coexist. But don't expect Hitchen's question to get asked by our MSM. Instead, we have the MSM regurgitating the Obama administration's laughable claim of credit for being a cause of the uprising, pointing to the Cairo Speech. That would be the speech wherein Obama signalled a retreat from promoting democracy in the Middle East. And it would be the speech that was not broadcast in Iran. The theocracy actually jammed the signal to prevent people from picking it up on satellite dishes. . . . Republican congressman Mark Kirk has claimed there is growing support for a bill he is sponsoring which would strip American support for foreign companies supplying refined petroleum to Iran. Iran's economic problems are severe. Their per capita GDP is only slightly over $3,100, inflation is running almost 25%, and their unemployment rate is well into double digits. These are not transitory conditions that just came about as a result of the global economic meltdown, but are the result of years of misrule by clerics and now Ahmedinejad. Real sanctions, particularly ones that attack the theocracy's dependence on foreign refined fuel products, could prove very effective in furthering unrest in Iran. But with Obama seeking to derail international sanctions over Iran's brutal repression, it is unlikely he would ever sign such bills. Thanks to Mousavi’s decision to fight back, the current crisis has already produced at least one positive result. It has clarified the situation by exposing the composite noun Islamic Republic as an oxymoron. The space allocated to the "republic" has shrunk to its smallest since the start of the Khomeinist regime. This throws into stark relief the paucity and imprudence of the Obama administration's decision to minimize sanctions against the regime. Khamieini is set on his path and beliefs. Nothing Obama could possibly do will light a fire in the regime that was unlit before. To the contrary, the best hope of limiting the repression against those braving it in a fight for democracy would be to significantly increase the external pressure on the regime, making the regime's already noticable faultlines into crumbling chasms. As is becoming a regular pattern, Obama is doing the polar opposite.
(A great music video from Cyrus Mafia on Iran's uprising, with some English subtitles / Hat Tip Michael Ledeen)
A summary of the current situation in and about Iran:
1. Mousavi called for a 3-day strike leading up to a major rally planned on Thursday, 9 July.
2. Khameini ordered another crackdown, with hundreds more arrests and orders to confiscate all satellite dishes. He also has ordered most businesses closed, apparently in an effort to prevent a wide scale general strike being portrayed as a show of support for Mousavi
3. Money is flooding out of Iran as Iran's rich read the writing on the wall
4. The Commander of the IRGC has publicly announced that they have taken over all internal security missions since the election
5. A major development two days ago was the decision of Iran's most influential clerical body to condemn the election and the repression of protesters. Christopher Hitchens speculates that the hands of Rafsanjani and Grand Ayatollah Sistani were behind the move. He further ponders whether the example of Iraqi democracy played a substantive role in the current Iranian discontent.
6. The utterly spineless and wrongheaded Obama regime has come out against any international sanctions against the bloody theocrats for their repression, reasoning that any sanctions "might backfire." Fortunately, Congress is acting independently of Obama.
7. Biden has greenlighted Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and Saudi Arabia apparently will do its role to assist Israel. That said, this should not be Israel's burden to carry alone. Unfortunately, with Obama at the helm, it will be.
Update: 8. Amir Taheri writes on the likelihood that Khameini is likely to be far more brutal than the shah in attempting to put down the current unrest. He also writes on the fact that Ahmedinejad is now unwelcome in most parts of Iran.
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1. Mousavi, facing calls from supporters of Ahmedinejad for his arrest and punishment for treason, has called for a 3 day general strike leading up to a major planned protest on Thursday, "the 10th anniversary of a 1999 attack by pro-government militiamen on the dormitories of Tehran University that led to weeks of political unrest." Mousavi is not backing down. While some rumblings are being heard about arresting Mousavi, there can be little doubt that this ham-handed regime would already have done so if they were fully confident of their ability to weather the unrest.
2. According to Michael Ledeen, Khameini has ordered another round of arrests, as well as the confiscation of all satellite dishes:
His deadline: July 11th. He told his minions that if that were accomplished, the rest of the world would come crawling to him.
He may be right about most of the rest of the world, which has distinguished itself by its fecklessness, but he is certainly not right about his own people . . .
3. File this one under "rats deserting a sinking ship." Underscoring the continuing seriousness of the unrest in Iran, the Telegraph is reporting on the mass movement of money out of the country:
Fears of a new round of crippling sanctions are also thought to have fuelled the movement of money out of the country.
Western intelligence agencies have reported that prominent private businesses and wealthy families have moved tens of millions of dollars out of Iranian banks into overseas accounts. . . .
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said the guard's takeover of the nation's security had led to "a revival of the revolution."
. . . "Today, no one is impartial," Gen. Yadollah Javani said at the Sunday news conference, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. "There are two currents -- those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it."
The uniformed Revolutionary Guard leaders, joined by the turbaned cleric Ali Saedi, Khamenei's representative, said they would play a more active role in defending the Islamic Republic's core values . . .
5. I blogged here on the recent major development of Iran's most respected clerical organization, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, who issued a statement that condemned the regime for their repression of the protests, called the regime illegitimate, and challenged the Guardian Council for certifying the election. Related to this, Abbas Milani has written an exceptional article at TNR giving the history of the split among Iran's clerics over the theocracy itself that we now see spilling out into the open.
Christopher Hitchens, writing at Slate, makes the point that the impetus for the Association's statement - a group that normally stays out of politics - was likely prompted by Mousavi's backer, Rafsanjani, and the most popular cleric in Iran, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Hitchens goes on to ask a salient question:
6. As I posted here, Obama has come out against any international sanctions against the theocrats for their bloody repression because of concern that any sanctions "might backfire." As Robert Averich cogently points out on his blog, such a move could not be more counterproductive, nor more useless.
Fortunately, Congress is acting independently of Obama. McCain and Lieberman announced two weeks ago that they were sponsoring a bill to require the U.S. to assist with the communications into and out of Iraq - perhaps the most critical area where we can assist the nascent revolution in Iran. Unfortunately, that also tells us that if we are having to legislate such actions, Obama must have our covert operators sitting on their thumbs, doing nothing to assist the protests. That, if true, is an atrocity. But it would comport with Obama's simply mystifying continued push to hold talks with this illegitimate and brutal theocracy. The Telegraph also reports on more legislation in the U.S. pipeline:
Iran is a large oil producer but decades of financial isolation means it must import petrol and other end products from abroad.
Reliance, the Indian operator, provides one-third of Iran's daily needs while also enjoying a massive trade loan from the US.
Another bill that would exclude companies involved in the trade from doing business in the US was put on hold earlier this year as a gesture from President Barack Obama to improve relations.
I recommend that you take a look at how Obama has long approached such issues to evaluate their effectiveness. We learned today that Obama was highly critical of Reagan in 1983 for going ahead with the deployment of new nuclear missiles in the face of Soviet opposition and opposition in Germany - the so-called nuclear freeze movement. Obama was very much on the wrong side of history there, and if his policies were then in place, we might still be facing the Soviet Union. Let us hope Obama does not manage to throw a lifeline to our own modern "evil empire," Iran's bloody theocracy.
7. VP Biden has greenlighted Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, stating that Israel is a "sovereign nation" entitled to make its own decisions on security without U.S. interference. Given the current state of Iran, Israel would be foolish to pull the trigger yet. If they strike Iran, they may put back Iran's nuclear weapons program by a few years but unite a country on the verge of toppling. Conversely, if Iran's theocracy falls, the threat to Israel would likely vanish overnight.
That said, it is also being reported that Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow Israel to overfly Saudi airspace to attack Iran. It is now being denied, but I do not doubt that this is true. For all of the vile hatred Wahhabists preach against Israel and the Jews, the bottom line is that Israel is no threat to the House of Saud. Iran, however, is not only a religious enemy of the Wahhabis because they practice Shia'ism, but Iran also poses a major threat to the Sauds. Iran has long been reaching out to all Shia in the Middle East in an effort to expand their influence. The House of Saud rules over a substantial and strategically placed Shia minority. Anything that the Sauds and most of the other Sunni countries could do informally and covertly to assist Israel against Iran has probably already been considered and discussed.
To go one further, Daled Amos, blogging at Soccer Dad, ponders the question of whether it is time for there to be a Sunni-Israel alliance directed against Iran and what it would take to achieve such an alliance. I doubt that a formal alliance would ever coalesce until the Sword of Damocles visibly appears over the Arab Sunni world. But it is a sign of the times that such an issue is even being discussed with seriousness.
Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon was one issue that President Bush clearly wanted to deal with on his watch. It was only vociferous intervention led by Obama, Reid and Pelosi against even the threat of force, coupled with the release of a highly politicized NIE, that tied Bush's hands. Now Obama owns the Iranian problem and is responsible for countering the mad theocracy's rush for a nuclear arsenal that will threaten the U.S. every bit as much as Israel.
During his campaign, Obama said he would consider using force to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That was then, this is now. In light of totality of Obama's approach to Iran, it is fair to assume that Biden's statement was, if not a public punting of the ball to Israel, then at least an acknowledgement that Israel is on its own in this.
The Obama administration has given us many things things already - a record debt, rising unemployment, a failing dollar to name but a few. What they haven't given us or the world is anything remotely approaching leadership. Apparently, that is now Israel's job. At least the House of Saud seems to recognize it.
8. Iranian columnist Amir Taheri has several recent articles on Iran. In "For Mousavi: Three Roads Ahead," Taheri points out that Khameini is no longer even making a pretense that Iran has a "republican" system of government and that Khameini will not shirk from using all of the violence necessary to stay in power:
On Tuesday, the official Islamic News Agency (IRNA) published the text of a long sermon by the "Supreme Guide" in the province of Kurdistan and for the staff of the elite 27th Division, spelling out the nature of the regime.
This is what Khamenei says: "Islamic society is the society of the imamate. This means that the imam is at the head of the system. {The Imam is} a man who exercises power because the people follow him as their leader from their heart and because they have full faith in him."
Khamenei makes no mention of the presidency or any other organ of state because the system he is defending has a single, all-embracing institution: the imamate.
With pretensions about democracy and popular will gone, the current system in Iran is closer to models such as the imamate in Yemen and the "Islamic emirate" in Afghanistan under the Taliban, than to a republic in which Mousavi, or anybody else, could claim a mandate based on victory in an election.
Khamenei's sermon also contains a clear warning that the regime is prepared to provoke a bloodbath to maintain its hold on power. Khamenei says that had the Shah killed half a million people he would not have been overthrown.
He criticizes the Algerian Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS) for not having called the masses onto the streets and provoked a bloodbath by confronting the army. "Had they brought the crowds onto the streets there would have been an Islamic government in Algeria today," he says. "But they were afraid and showed weakness."
With admiration, the "Supreme Guide" recalls the massacre of one million Communists in Indonesia under General Suharto that he claims saved the system in that country.
A reluctant hero, Mousavi has succeeded in drawing the true battle lines in Iran's politics. Whether he wishes to be present on those lines, for how long, and with how much determination remains to be seen.
Taheri also writes in a seperate article, A Suddenly Most Unwelcome Guest, that Ahmedinejad has been cancelling most of his travel plans inside Iran because of the likelihood of his presence leading to mass protests. Ahmedinejad is, writes Taheri, a very diminished figure whose "legitimacy is challenged at all levels of Iranian society, including every segment of the Khomeinist establishment." I don't see this ending well for Ahmedinejad.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Foreign Policy Folly Take 2
Vice President Biden warned Iraqi officials Friday that the American commitment to Iraq could end if the country again descended into ethnic and sectarian violence. . . . Read the entire article.
To describe Obama and Biden as bumbling amateurs would be to give bumbling amateurs a bad name. Today's monumentaly counterproductive act - Iraq.
Iraq is a nascent democracy whose importance to the world as the only Arab democracy in the Middle East cannot be overemphasized. It could well revolutionize the Middle East and it is a huge threat to the mortal enemy of civilization that is Iran's theocracy. Iraq is a democracy that still faces significant internal challenges, particularly the Kurdish issue, as well as challenges from a host of individuals, groups and nations that want to see Iraq's secular democracy fail. The biggest external challenge comes from Iran's theocracy that wants to see the U.S. out and Iraq turned into a giant Lebanon, where the dominant power is a Shia militia controlled from Tehran. So Obama sends Biden to Iraq and what does he do:
One official said the vice president made it clear that if Iraq returned to ethnic violence, the United States would be unlikely to remain engaged, “because one, the American people would have no interest in doing that, and as he put it, neither would he or the president.”
Obama and Biden may look askance at Iraq since success there is a validation of the polar opposite of Obama's foreign policy beliefs. But like it or not, Obama and Biden now own Iraq. If it fails on their watch, they can give all the excuses in the world, but the bottom line is they will have thrown away the most important development in the Middle East in the past three decades. And the statements from Biden could not highlight that any more.
Biden's statement has to demonstrate to all Iraqis that the U.S. is not a loyal ally. Indeed, in the calculus of the Middle East, where the end of a government traditionally comes in a massive slaughter, Obama-Biden just told Iraqis to hedge their bets.
The only reason Iraq is where it is today is because of Bush's absolute committment to protect the nascent democracy. Obama and Biden just announced the polar opposite. Perhaps most insidiously, Biden's statement is an open invitation to all those who want to see Iraq fall to pick up the violence and mayhem. The last time a public figure did anything this dumb was 1950. Obama says he is a "student of history." I'd love to know what books he has studied from, as his texts apparently do not extend back to Jan 12, 1950, when Sec. of State Dean Acheson, gave a speech indicating that we would not defend South Korea. North Korea, backed by Russia and China, took that as a green light to invade South Korea. Obama and Biden have just given the green light to Iran, al Qaeda, and all others who want Iraq's democracy to fail.
It would be hard to imagine anything more counterproductive from our two idiots in the White House - nor anything more dangerous for our soldiers in the country. These jokers have yet to take one action on any major foreign policy issue that is in America's interests. The bottom line, 2012 cannot come fast enough.
Friday, October 3, 2008
She's Back
Biden - strong out of the gate, charging the last eight years with being the cause of today's economic crisis. Palin's answer to this was very poor. Like McCain last week, she wholly failed to rebut this charge. Best line of the night – Palin: “Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.” 1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.
The Palin-Biden Vice Presidential debate is in the history books. You can find the transcript here. My overall impression – Biden did well and did not hurt himself; Ifell did a reasonable job as moderator; Sarah Palin did very well. She had a grasp of most of the issues and got much stronger as the debate progressed. She was confident and she was Reaganesque in her ability to communicate with clarity and optimism. This was not the woman that I saw stumble with Katy Couric or assume the deer in the headlights position with Charlie Gibson.
Tonight was make it or break it for Gov. Palin. She made it. That said, her performance was not uniformly good. She was weak in response to the first few questions on the economy. She was strong in response to the foreign policy questions.
Some thoughts –
Palin - her populism is fine, but the economic problem is much more systemic than simple greed and predatory lending. The subprime crisis is a systemic crisis created by Fannie Mae and CRA.
Biden - was telling tall tales indeed about Obama and the subprime crisis. While McCain, two years ago, was sponsoring legislation to reign in Fannie Mae, Obama was AWOL. He was at the bank cashing Fannie Mae campaign contribution checks. Palin just completely miffed the response to this.
Palin - missed the opportunity to talk about deregulation. Her answer should have been regulation is neutral. Over-regulate and you shrink the economy. Under-regulate and you bring the economy to the brink of crisis. That is the perfect lead in to the subprime crisis which McCain and Palin have to educate the public on if they are going to win.
Biden - his claim to have always supported clean coal technology is just ridiculous. He’s given several interviews were he has spoken against clean coal – during his presidential campaign and again as recently as two weeks ago.
Palin - her support for carbon emissions caps left me shivering.
Biden - nothing is more counterproductive than a windfall profits tax on oil. It would only further punish an energy sector and increase the cost of energy. That combined with Obama's embrace of high prices for gas would be a knife in the heart of our economy. Palin never supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska. That is a gross mischaracterization.
Palin - very strong in the Iraq argument, though she could have quoted Biden from 2005 when he was still saying that we had to win in Iraq because the cost of failure would be unimaginable.
Palin - she should have eaten Biden alive over his claim that McCain voted against funding the troops when he voted against a plan that would have legislated surrender. That was weak.
Palin - forgot the name of the leader of al Qaeda – though she didn’t get called on it.
Biden - pointed out that Ahmedinejad does not control the power in Iran. Palin did not know enough to respond that, while Supreme Guide Khamenei holds true power, his mouthpiece is Ahmedinejad. It would be naive bordering on ludicrous to believe that, in theocratic Iran, the policies of Ahmedinejad vary from those of the Supreme Guide.
Biden – Hezbollah has been driven out of Lebanon? To the contrary, they are a state within a state the likes of which Iran has been trying to establish in Iraq also. That was a potentially major gaffe, but Palin did not call him on it.
Palin – I am pretty sure that Palin got the name of the commander of the ISAF in Afghanistan wrong. Gen. McClellan hasn’t said anything about counterinsurgency since he was relieved of command by Lincoln. Gen. McKiernan, on the other hand, may well have said that the general principles of counterinsurgency strategy are applicable to Afghanistan.
Palin – allowed Biden to claim as a strength what he has done as the head of the Senate Judiciary committee. She really missed a perfect opportunity to discuss how its been Joe Biden, more than anyone else, who has turned judicial appointments into a partisan circus and to discuss Obama’s embrace of activist judges.
Biden – Article I of the Constitution pertains to the Executive Branch? Wow.
Dick Morris, in the video below, gave this as a hands down win for Sarah Palin, making the comparison to Reagan in her ability to communicate. Its also fun to watch as Morris goes for the throat of Alan Combes.
(H/T Stop the ACLU)
According to a Frank Lunz focus group of undecided voters, Palin was the clear winner – to the extent that Luntz said there should be a significant movement in the polls over the next 48 hours.
Over at TPM Central, they note that a CBS snap poll of 473 undecided voters gave Biden a clear victory. Obviously, one of these two findings is incorrect. Polls over the next few days will tell us.
Protein Wisdom has posted a McCain camp response noting 14 half-truths or untruths uttered by Joe Biden tonight
2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.
3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”
4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.
5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.
6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.
7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people’s health insurance coverage — they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false
8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska — she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it’s not a windfall profits tax.
9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.
10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation — he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.
11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.
12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.
13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”
14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won’t pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
McCain-Biden Ad Attacking Obama On Iraq Funding Vote
In last night's debate, McCain raised the issue that Obama's vote against funding for out soldiers in Iraq was putting poitics ahead of the lives of our soldiers. This ad highlights that again. The fact that Biden is the one making the impassioned charge against Obama make this ad all that much more effective.
(H/T Stop The ACLU)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Coal Miners
McCain is having fun with the dynamic duo opposing him:
The people of Scranton ought to really appreciate this ad. Coal was the lifeblood of that area. My progenitors mined a lot of that coal and, while I have not been back to Scranton for many years, I am pretty sure Pennsylvanians would like to see that industry reignite. Biden may have been born in Scranton, but he left that land long ago.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Swamp Theater
From Instapundit:
Rangel refuses to step down as Ways & Means Committee chair. This could hurt -- if I were the GOP I'd put together an ad featuring Biden's credit-card connections, Dodd's sweetheart mortgage scandal, and Rangel's ongoing problems and run it all over. I can't believe they won't do something like that, since it's a gimme, and I'm surprised that the Dems couldn't get him out of the picture. . . .
I would add to that list Franklin Raines - the CEO of Fannie Mae who pulled in $100 million while overseeing an accounting scandal as bad as ENRON's. He is, if I am not mistaken, an economic advisor to Obama. And I would also add that the two largest recipients of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Senators Dodd and Obama.
As an aside, its been two years since Nancy Pelosi and the far left road to power on a promise to drain the swamp. Instead she's filled it with fetid water and now the monsters are emerging from the muck.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The NYT Comes Out Flinging
The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything. (Emphasis added)In other words, don't trust to this woman's highly successful track record, her reformist credentials, or her 80% approval rating after two years in office. She may have tons more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined, but it doesn't count because _________. The NYT leaves it to you to fill in the blank from the ton of material they provide. Pick your favorite. Among other things you will learn: Read the entire post. Jennifer Rubin has an equally scathing commentary on this tsunami of scatalogical minutia from the NYT: The New York Times does the all-so predictable Sarah Palin bill of indictment for its Sunday front page. It certainly sounds compelling in the paragraph called the “nut graf”: Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials. But what is so remarkable is how little there is in the page after page of minutiae thrown against the wall by the Times. And indeed there’s plenty of favorable material there. Up front we learn: Ms. Palin has many supporters. As a two-term mayor she paved roads and built an ice rink, and as governor she has pushed through higher taxes on the oil companies that dominate one-third of the state’s economy. She stirs deep emotions. In Wasilla, many residents display unflagging affection, cheering “our Sarah” and hissing at her critics. In just the first few paragraphs you have testimony that she was “effective and accessible.” So where are we going here? Well, despite the testimony that she was ”accessible,” others find her “secretive” and inclined to put a premium on “loyalty.” The evidence? The Governor’s office declined a request for emails that would have cost over $400,000. Proof positive. Oh, and the records sought (about Polar Bears and such) were in fact obtained. Read the entire post. You'll find more blogs talking about this at Memorandum. 
Following the Washington Post's front page non-story of Gov. Sarah Palin's per diem expenses a few days ago, the NYT follows with an equal non-story of its own on Gov. Palin - this one being an all out effort to diminish her highly successful executive experience - you know, that bit on the resume missing from both sides of the Democratic ticket. It ends up being nothing more than an effort in throwing a bevy of tiny flecks of manure at the large wall of Gov. Palin's tenure in office and hoping that a piece or two might stick.
________________________________________________________
You can find the entire article here. Lest you not get the premise, the NYT spells it out half way through the article, after fertilizing the ground with the first half of their article:
But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.
Tom Smith's analysis of this NYT article is probably more cogent than my own. Here is how he puts it:
-- Upon getting elected, Palin fires people who have held jobs for years ("professionals") and puts in people she has known for years, often going back to her high school days. Why a reform-minded politician would do this in a notoriously corrupt state is, of course, baffling.
-- Palin bears grudges and takes them personally. This is a rare fault in politicians and not to be endured. The Clintons, for example, have set a fine example in letting bygones be bygones.
-- Palin is an evangelical Christian who went so far as to inquire about taking the inoffensive book "Daddy's Roommate" out of the public library.
-- Todd Palin called somebody and let them know he and his wife were unhappy that he had hired somebody or other who had broken up with somebody or other over something. This one made a deep impression on me I will not soon forget.
-- Sarah Palin when she was mayor put pressure on the town council to fire the town attorney, whom she did not like, possibly because he was not pro-development enough. I earnestly pray this is not true.
-- Sarah Palin often uses lots of notes when she speaks, even going so far as to use tabs and different colors of notecards. This is just so unbelievably tacky and small town I am considering killing myself.
-- Not only Governor Palin but members of her staff sometimes use their personal email accounts to do public business. This charge is perhaps the most deeply shocking of all. Then, these same officials have sometimes resisted turning over their personal emails on public business to their opponents in political disputes.
All this, taken together, goes far beyond Maureen Dowd's searing revelation that Sarah Palin wears shoes that are really intended for much younger women. Now we know that far from a pit bull with lipstick, Governor Palin is a merely human politician who rewards friends, punishes enemies and plays "hardball" just like one of the guys. Who does she think she is? And, she's ambitious. She confided to a friend that she wants to be president someday. Should such a person be allowed inside the White House?
Then there is the ” she blurs personal and public behavior” charge. The evidence? A phone call from Todd Palin to a state legislator about the latter’s chief of staff, which Palin denies was mentioned. Pretty thin gruel.
Next we have her tenure as mayor, where again all heck breaks loose because — are ya sitting down? — she brought in her own team. No! Unheard of. Jeeez. Next she’ll be firing the town museum director. Oh no– it’s true! Palin says (”Oh yeah, she says,” you can hear the Times reporters hrrumphing) she was cutting the budget.
This is pathetic, really. Is there something illegal here? Is there something nefarious? What is the point? . . .
Other than those on the far left, there is nothing in this article that will resonate with the sole exception of Palin's choice to head the state's Agriculture department, and that will make one night at Comedy Central and be gone.
If this is the best the NYT can do after combing through her life with a microscope, they have problems and I am feeling a bit more confident this morning. Oh, and stay tuned, I understand the NYT, in an effort to be fair, is finally going to get around to do a similarly detailed piece on Obama. Its slated to go to the presses on or about Nov. 6.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Dershowitz Warns Obama On Criminalizing Political Differences
I don't agree with a lot of the Bush administration's policies in the war on terror, and I plan to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden in November. But during a recent campaign rally Mr. Biden gave a wrong-headed, if well-intentioned, answer when asked whether he would "pursue the violations that have been made against our Constitution by the present administration?" This is how he responded: "We will not be stopped from pursuing any criminal offense that's occurred." Read the entire article.
The photo above is of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, imprisoned in Russia's gulags for disagreeing with Stalin. In a prior post, I wrote that it is unthinkable that political differences would ever be criminalized in this country. Yet, Obama, Biden, and many of the people most likely to populate an Obama administration have made no secret of their intent to use the police powers of the nation to prosecute the prior administration - with many seeking something akin to war crimes indictments against the Bush regime. How serious is this threat and how much of a danger does it pose to the fabric of our democracy - in today's WSJ, Obama supporter and Harvard Prof. of Law Alan Dershowitz writes to warn Obama and the far left from considering this course of action.
This from Mr. Deshowitz writing in the WSJ:
After praising Democratically controlled congressional committees for investigating these matters -- "collecting data, subpoenaing records . . . building a file" -- Mr. Biden continued: "If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued -- not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, [but] out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law."
Mr. Biden's comments echoed what Mr. Obama had said in April when he pledged that, if elected, he would have his attorney general investigate the actions of his predecessor to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies." Mr. Obama moderated his statement by stating that he would not want his first term "consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt," because his administration would have many other problems "we've got to solve."
No reasonable person can disagree with the important principle underlying these statements by the democratic nominees that "no one is above the law." But there is a countervailing principle at play here that is equally important -- namely that the results of an election should not determine who is to be prosecuted. These principles inevitably clash when the winners of a presidential election investigate and prosecute the losers, even if the winners honestly believe that the losers committed "genuine crimes" rather than having pursued merely "bad policies."
. . . We simply cannot trust a politically appointed and partisan attorney general of either party to investigate his political predecessors in a manner that is both fair in fact and in appearance. Nor would the appointment of "independent" or "special" counsel solve the structural problems inherent in our system. These ersatz functionaries bring problems of their own to the criminal justice process, as evidenced by the questionable investigations that targeted President Bill Clinton, vice presidential chief-of-staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby (full disclosure: I consulted with both of them, without fee, about their cases) and others over the past decades.
The real question is whether investigating one's political opponents poses too great a risk of criminalizing policy differences -- especially when these differences are highly emotional and contentious, as they are with regard to Iraq, terrorism and the like. The fear of being criminally prosecuted by one's political adversaries has a chilling effect on creative policy making and implementation.
Noam Chomsky -- the MIT professor of linguistics who has become a sort of guru to hard-left America bashers -- typically overstated his point when he asserted that "if the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every postwar American president would have been hanged." Among the crimes committed by American presidents, according to Mr. Chomsky, were the counterinsurgency campaign in Greece (Truman), the overthrow of the Guatemala's government (Eisenhower), the Bay of Pigs (Kennedy), the Vietnam War (Johnson), the invasion of Cambodia (Nixon), the attack against East Timor (Ford), the increase in Indonesian atrocities (Carter), support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (Reagan) and on and on to the current administration.
For those hard-left Democrats who have been pressing their candidates for a promise to prosecute, the list of crimes allegedly committed by the Bush-Cheney administration grows longer and thinner every day.
A politically appointed prosecutor, imbued with partisan zeal, could find technical violations of the criminal law in some of the envelope-pushing policies of virtually every administration. One does not have to be as ruthless as Laventri Beria -- who infamously assured his boss Joseph Stalin "show me the man and I'll find you the crime" -- to come up with "a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation" (as Mr. Biden put it).
Even the most well-intentioned and honorable partisans may see "genuine crimes" on the part of their political adversaries, where a more objective prosecutor would see nothing more than "really bad policies." Most "political" crimes are matters of degree, hinging on "mens rea," the mental state of the alleged perpetrator. The criminal law is a blunderbuss, not a scalpel, and in the hands of a partisan prosecutor it is too blunt an instrument to distinguish "genuine crimes" from "really bad policies" on the part of defeated political enemies.
Our constitutional system of checks and balances provides numerous mechanisms for dealing with "really bad policies," even those that may be seen by some as bordering on criminal. Congress may investigate, expose and legislate, but it has no authority to prosecute. In extreme cases, impeachment is available. Prosecution should be reserved for the extremely rare situation where the criminal act and mens rea are so apparent to everyone that no reasonable person would suspect partisanship. The best remedy in other cases is to campaign against and defeat those who supported the bad policies.
That is among the important reasons why I will vote for the Obama-Biden ticket, and that is also why I will try to persuade them, if they win, not to conduct criminal investigations of their defeated opponents.
Both Joe Biden and Obama represent the hard left of their party. Biden, during his tenure as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has turned the process for Supreme Court nominees into a partisan circus. Even that, however, does not even show up on the radar in comparison to the proposed course of criminal investigations for political differences. One of Obama's gifts is to make radical left positions seem completely mainstream when he speaks of them. But read between the lines and you see just how far to the left he is. Little is or would be more radical in a democracy than show trials over political differences. It is a measure of the control the radical left has over the Democratic party - and it is an indicator of just how much of a fundamental change an Obama administration poses for America.
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