Month: January 2009

He was reading a book called "Wishful Thinking."

A German ad campaign – with impeccable placement – against bulimia:

Mark Murray:

Does the fact that Feinstein so quickly backed down make the point of those that thought she was mostly angry about Panetta because she wasn’t told in advance?

Or, as Harry Reid put it,

"I think you need better reasons for coming out against somebody than somebody didn’t call you."

In the US Senate? Surely he jests.

A three-some for Obama.

A three-some for Panetta.

Saletan fisks the Vatican. Ross gets this right:

I am bound to accept the Church’s moral judgment that the taking of innocent human life at any stage from conception to natural death is a grave evil (and would not have become a Catholic if I did not), but that I am not bound to accept a Vatican document’s summary of where the science stands regarding whether the morning-after pill does in fact take a life, by preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo.

The Vatican’s inability and/or refusal to understand the science of procreation is something I deal with in great detail in The Conservative Soul.

Here’s former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin:

"While intelligence experience is obviously desired, it is not absolutely essential. Other qualities are capacity to make decisions when there are no easy options and to take responsibility for them, situational awareness about the secondary and tertiary consequences of those decisions, good judgment about what is right, true, or advisable when presented with conflicting assessments — a common situation in a field where you are almost always dealing with incomplete information.  An instinct for dealing with people — at the core of the job.  The capacity to communicate clearly to a work force that needs an understanding of the larger picture in order to fit their discrete jobs into the broader mission. From what I know of Panetta, he should be good at most of these things."

It looks as if they’re retaining Kappes as his deputy. But remember: the direct CIA experience thing has to be balanced against the torture inheritance. It was never going to be an easy balance, between continuity and change at the CIA. But I fail to see how Panetta-Kappes isn’t about as good a combo as any.

"The African in him is the one who is making him ask, ‘What is the consensus?’ That’s the African way at its best. The good leader in Africa is the leader who keeps quiet and lets others speak and then says at the end, ‘I have heard you all, and this is our mind,’" – Desmond Tutu on Obama.

Duh.

Ezra Klein cites David Miller:

In these conversations, I always end up back at Aaron David Miller’s insight: It is very hard to reconcile the interests of a threatened nation and an occupied one. But it is impossible if you only understand the interests of the threatened and refuse to admit the grievances of the occupied. As Levy concludes, "American politicians need to find a language that at the same time is both staunchly supportive of Israel and its security but also able to convincingly empathize with the Palestinians and their predicament." Without that, you can’t broker peace. All you can do is take sides.

Yes, but Jeffrey Goldberg’s words from a few months ago also ring true:

…comprehensive peace will come about when the Arab side understands clearly that America has red lines of its own. The Palestinians suffer sometimes from the irrational hope that America’s support for Israel is mutable, and that the key to success is to bring about direct American pressure on Israel. This won’t happen for any number of reasons, and…American pressure will only encourage Israeli politicians to descend into the bunker.