Month: February 2010

No they didn’t says Nick Baumann:

The key quote, in the sixth paragraph of the story, explains that “No principal advocated the use of force.” It’s both appropriate and unsurprising that Bush and Cheney’s national security aides—or the national security aides to any president—would lay out all the potential responses to a crisis like the invasion of Georgia. And it’s only responsible for the pricipals—actual decisionmakers like Bush, Cheney, and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley—to discuss all the options. But if none of the actual decisionmakers ever pushed to use military force, it’s hard to argue that it was seriously considered. This really seems like a non-story.

Larison follows up on another element of the story. A reader agrees with Baumann:

According to the linked Politico article, staffers for Cheney and Stephen Hadley “considered” “surgical strikes” to close the Roki Tunnel, thus cutting Russia’s supply lines.  Hadley thought the resulting war with Russia “too risky” but brought it to the table so that principals – specifically Cheney – would take a clear position on the options.  The principals all declined.

The Bush/Cheney regime loved war.  Of that there is no doubt.  They were crazy about military escapades abroad.  But even they were not crazy enough to start a shooting war with Russia.

Would John McCain have been that crazy, as you suggest?  Maybe.  His campaign rhetoric suggests so, but campaign rhetoric tends to cool when you’re actually holding the office, so he may have curdled back into the Bush/Cheney “only wars with tiny nations that can’t really harm us over here” theory. But this story is not the “OMG WE ALMOST BOMBED RUSSIA!” lede people are making it out to be.  Staffers did their jobs and brainstormed options for responding the Russia/Georgia war.  In a pique of sanity, the principals of the administration opted or the sane, non-military tact.  This isn’t news.  This is Politico trolling for hits.

But this was during Obama’s ascent in the middle of the campaign. I agree that this story, as I reported it, suggests that clearer heads prevailed and contingency plans are just responsible. But I also suspect the full story has yet to emerge.

A reader writes:

DON'T color your beard. You're only fooling yourself.

I'm about your age. My beard is going gray too. Here's the deal. Coming out as gay and any identification with the "bear" community is a healthy sign of welcome acceptance of who you are and how God made you.  Think about the folks you admire: is it the ones with plastic surgery and fake color hair? You say that only your cattier acquaintances have noticed.  Not true. The polite ones just don't say anything and hope you'll give it up.

Coloring your hair is like trying to stuff yourself back in the closet. And about as successful.

Montreal, Canada, 1.48 pm.

The book, The View From Your Window, with 200 of the best window views published by the Dish over the last three years, beginning at dawn and ending at dusk with a foreword by Andrew Sullivan, can be previewed here and ordered here.

A reader writes:

The trouble with the argument advanced by Suderman is that it assumes a unified opposition to the bill. In reality, there's a wide variety of reasons people oppose the bill — too liberal, too conservative, obstructing a jobs agenda, presence of kickbacks, etc. Not passing the bill — which also means not passing any bill — means the Dems will take heat from everyone, including those who don't want the bill to be passed because they think it's too liberal.

On the other hand, passing the bill and removing the kickbacks, along with some other budgetary changes, via reconciliation while still demonstrating a strong push on jobs — which will likely pass before any movement on health care, just to make that clear — will draw heat from those who think the bill is too liberal (who almost certainly don't vote Dem, anyway) but should at least soften the criticism of the other blocks enough for the Dems to be able to trumpet the subsequent law for what it is — a triumph of historic proportions.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is refusing to vote for Obama appointees until he gets a couple big earmarks for his state. Josh Marshall thinks that this marks a new low. Ambers' two cents here.

Chait tackles Keith Hennessey.

Tom Ricks gets an e-mail from a Navy submarine officer:

The debate may exist in the media, and certainly exists in Congress, but on the ship, if it's talked about at all, it's with a little bit of confusion about what the big deal is. Don't get me wrong, there is homophobia and there are a few loud, mostly uneducated, mostly very junior, and mostly still well-meaning people who would tell you they think it's wrong — but they're the kind of people who are just saying it because its what they were brought up to say, and even they aren't saying it with much fervor. I can tell you with certainty that if the ban were lifted tomorrow — no year of preparation — life would go on exactly as it did before.

Which is what has happened in every other military that did the right thing, including Britain's and Israel's. It's only six-deferment Christianists like Saxby Chambliss who get the vapors.

You don't have to be gay to be put to death under Uganda's pending bill.

Now, Palin mouthpiece Meg Stapleton is reported in Politico as saying that Greg Sargent was taking her response about Rush Limbaugh’s “retard” comment out of context:

Stapleton told POLITICO that the comment given to The Plum Line was not specifically aimed at Limbaugh. “The Washington Post is trying hard to take the pressure off the White House by creating a side controversy, but it is missing the point,” Stapleton said. “As the governor has said, it doesn’t matter who says the ‘r’ word. It should no longer be part of our lexicon.”

As usual with the Palin camp’s lies, this is belied by, you know, what most sane people call proof. Here’s Greg’s explanation of the exact series of events, and the email to Stapleton that prompted her statement:

Palin seems to believe that if she just keeps lying about things that are demonstrably untrue, they become true. She’s bonkers and dangerous, because there are too many people prepared to follow her fantasies out of resentment than the facts in the public domain.

Michael Moynihan claims I was inconsistent in calling out Limbaugh and lauding Reagan:

As Reagan biographer Richard Reeves wrote, "Reagan and [Vice President George H.W.] Bush had had lunch most weeks, eating Mexican food, telling dirty jokes, and talking sports most of the time." In his anti-Reagan book Sleepwalking Through History, former Washington Post columnist Haynes Johnson writes that among "his vast repertoire of stories were innumerable raunchy ones that he told with pleasure and at great length." In Dutch, Edward Morris relates that Reagan used to tell rude jokes—"gross stuff"—in front of women.

But, as Michael concedes, there is a big difference between private jokes and public broadcasts. Show me a broadcast or public statement where Reagan even approached the Limbaugh style.