Hitting the Panic Button
 

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Where the F is Mickey??

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

No doubt, looking for Obama's vertebra of the week.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

You know, the fact that the surge has worked so well in Iraq might suggest to the public that we have a similar surge in Afghanistan. In people's minds we've come up with the winning tactic for dealing with low-intensity wars in Islamic countries, namely the Petraeus plan. So it looks like this new problem in Afghanistan benefits John McCain, who supported the Petraeus plan from the beginning.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Walk tall Heather!! David Letterman and Lauren Hutton would be proud.



Bob,

I'm ahead of ya man, I posted at Althouse to comment on the 'Gang Of Seven'. They did not treat me as a liberator though, they seemed to have a much greater sense of freedom than you give them credit for. I saw no indication that Ann prohibited cell phones, kite flying or freedom of speech.


And I totally agree that 'benign' is apt. 'The sun shining benignly on the plants' completely captures not only BJK but almost everyone in the Gang who seem to receive philisophical nourishment (psychosynthesis, if you will) from each other here. The warm glow of shared beliefs is hard to beat as a medium for growing comments.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

While some of the lessons learned, on COIN tactics in Iraq, are probably directly transferable to Afghanistan they are radically different places and new specific tactics will need to be developed.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

And a sure path to remaining in ignorance!

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Did Heather still leave the option on the table here?

OK, Bush, one more John Yoo and it's "curtains"

I think Heather has a greater appreciation for Republican concerns about the ICC, but Bob's rhetoric and Heather's response doesn't seem to really shut the door.

Conservatives are often extremely sensitive about the language of equivalence, and the way it can come back to bite us in international circles. But there's an implied "or else" at the end of what Heather is saying here.

On an off topic, this is another good example of an extremely enjoyable Left/Left edition of bloggingheads. I found it interesting and fruitful. But are there many examples of Right/Right episodes? I suppose the Free Will series counts.

Just curious.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

I haven't listened to this one yet, but since I'm always saying that Bob needs to talk to someone more interesting than Mickey, and that I've said how great I think Heather is, decency requires me to say thanks for this episode.

So, thanks Bob!

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

The formulation, "there should be a two state solution, but" could also be interpreted as a preamble to a call to avoid an overly insular 'solution' which would be the way Ms. Hurlburt's analysis could still make sense.

Bob is a great world leader
 

Not only does Bob offer to send the peace brigade into Althousestan to liberate the commenters over there from tyranny, but in a Nobel Peace Prize worthy stroke of diplomatic genius he also responds to his progressive base by making Mickey a virtual desaparecido and by bringing in yet another brilliant woman commentator after we protested for several days about lack of gender parity.

¡Bravo!

Re: Bob is a great world leader
 

Mickey Kaus = Emmanuel Goldstein

With no shade of metaphor excepted.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Where is Mickey?!? We need him to bring the conversation back down to earth.

The ICC
 

Heather gets tough on Bob for his suggestion that Bush could be an indictment target of the ICC, saying that such an action is precluded on the grounds that the USA has a "fully functioning court system."

My understanding of the ICC is that it can indict if -- for any reason -- the judicial system of a (member?) nation fails to prosecute a legitimate case.

In other words, the impediment is not the mere existence of a system that should respond to international law, but rather it's the behavior of such a system, which may simply be to deny such law applies or to weasel out of it on other grounds.

I grant that this may be a distinction without a difference, but I'd like some further clarification on it.

It seems to me that the big problems in prosecuting the war criminals of the Bush years are political and include all the maneuvering Bush did to weaken, descredit and destroy the ICC. The ICC is too young and weak to take down a Bush or Cheney, but it's not theoretically impossible.

I agree that the Obama administration could restore the rule of law within the US judicial system, but is the ICC necessarily powerless if the US continues -- for example -- to torture prisoners and let the perps skate?

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Now, I have been following presidential elections fairly closely since 1980. My question is has any contender flip-flopped as much as Senator Obama? I am not a supporter of either candidate so I am not putting him down for it but am curious if this is the norm. Personally, I can't remember anyone doing it as much; however, I could be wrong.

John

PUMA?
 

Party Unity Maybe Approaching?

Thanks for this, Bob.

Overall, a great diavlog. Very informative to hear clear statements of how Democrats could approach the main foreign policy problems at hand.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Just bush
and Mccain
Sorry, the Mcgeezer one has Gaffes included, Ok, I'm not sorry.... sorry.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Handle, yuo beat me to it!

Here's a slightly easier-to-read version of the "straight-talk express":

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com...ves/15924.html

Re: PUMA?
 

Thanks for grabbing that clip, at the risk of continuing my somewhat south of civil history:
That was F'n awesome, couldn't agree more.
I promise to sit out the Althouse invasion, at least until I can smell the flowers..

Re: PUMA?
 

Brendan, kudos on the shout-outs from Heather. You should be pretty honored. "More than Mickey" for certain.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

That's why my links aren't as good as yours, thanks for the new and improved ones.

Don't tell me words don't matter!
 

In keeping with my nature, I will let pass the thought that hearing gracious or favorable the first time around might have avoided this latest firestorm.

I gotta say, though, I never mean to cause fear.

--Agent B9
(A Proud Member of the World's Only Public Six-Person Secret Gang of Twelve)

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Sure. We don't even need to go back in time. What about John McCain? Sixty-one major items and counting.

Re: The ICC
 

Did I miss something here, or is this a broad presumption of guilt?

Why is it that Bob and Heather agree [sort of] that the Right is paranoid about the possibility of the ICC targetting sitting or ex-administration officials?

Wonderment, it sounds like you think the Right has every reason in the world to fear this sort of legal harassment.

Re: The ICC
 

Defining it as "harassment" a priori seems a little premature.

Re: The ICC
 

I'd add that we hardly need to indulge in a "broad presumption of guilt" to think that Bush has committed crimes against humanity.

Re: Don't tell me words don't matter!
 

Ask anyone who has ever had a close run-in with cancer just how wonderful the word "benign" really is.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

How do you make the link say "McCain" (or whatever) rather than the URL address??

Re: The ICC
 

of course it's premature! We're not signatories yet. And your side is making a piss-poor case with this assumption of guilt rhetoric.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Oh my, 61, that makes 2 flip-floppers. No wonder people are cynical about politics. Well, Obama like Dan Dresner said has it pretty much in the bag so who cares? Once he's in office we'll see where he stands on the death penalty, second amendment, campaign financing, Iraq, FISA, education (you know his kids aren't going to attend the DC public schools), what church he will now attend (by the way, the church alone had at least 2 flip-flops). Also, no matter who wins where are they going to get all the money to finance their promised programs? I would think the "Freddie/Fannie" bailout alone would bankrupt the country for generations.

John

Re: Don't tell me words don't matter!
 

Uh huh. Well, if you want to think medically, I suppose I should also be happy to be labeled negative.

Re: The ICC
 

What part of invading a country based on cooked-up intelligence, sanctioning torture, and kidnapping and throwing innocent people into secret prisons do you not understand?

Oh, wait. Okay for Bush to have presumed guilt in all those cases, isn't it?

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

It's pretty easy if you are just using the little "insert link" button because after you paste the URL, the code goes in your post with the link title already highlighted and if you just start typing, the text for your link goes right where it should be between the left bracket (])and the [/URL] as in: (link) ]here[/URL] where "here" would then be the text containing the link.

Re: The ICC
 

Prior to diavlog: not paranoid about ICC

Following diavlog: ever-so-slightly paranoid about ICC

Wondering if Wonderment and Bj are representative of Left opinion: paranoid indeed.

Seriously, what was Heather thinking?

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

One variation is to highlight the text you want to linkify first, then click the hyperlink button in the toolbar. And if you've already got the URL "on the clipboard," it's just a matter of CTRL-v to fill in the pop-up window.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

I wouldn't want my kid going to a public school with President's kid, way to much of a circus, and I don't approve of spending extra on security, when it's probably cheaper to home school or find a nice private setting.

Picking a church and changing ones' mind hardly qualifies as a flop in the political sense IMHO.

If the SNL bailout during the last Republican reign didn't bankrupt us, I doubt this one will. Clinton reversed a huge deficit buildup, that he inherited, one that many thought could never be halted, let alone turned into a surplus, but the result is history.

Re: The ICC
 

I think we are, if we're talking about what we wish for, in our dreams. But it ain't gonna happen, and I think most of us are resigned to that, too.

The thing that we're arguing about, it seems to me, is how else we might impose at least a modicum of accountability, on Bush, and on many in his Administration. I've been leaning towards a sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but I think that's pretty much of a dream, too.

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Nice, oh and thanks, that was the word I was searching for... "linkify"!

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Neologisms rule! (When appropriate.)

Re: Hitting the Panic Button
 

Just use your mouse to select the text you want to turn into a link, and then click on the little "Insert Link" icon on the little toolbar above the text area. It's the blue one.

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/6462/image3al9.png