Month: October 2011

Quote For The Day III

"I once stood before a Conservative conference and said it shouldn't matter whether commitment was between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and another man. You applauded me for that. Five years on, we're consulting on legalising gay marriage. And to anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it's about equality, but it's also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative," – David Cameron in a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. 

Did I pick the wrong country? I'd be so easily Tory in the UK. Republican in the US? No chance.

This Is What Journalism Looks Like

Al Jazeera reporter Abderrahim Foukara interviews Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq:

Notice that Rumsfeld has no answer to Foukara's question: does he take any responsibility for the tens of thousands of innocents killed as a result of his botched occupation of Iraq? And so he tries to make the conversation about al Jazeera. What I find staggering about these alleged conservatives: they refuse to take responsibility for anything but success, cannot admit error, and would rather engage in fantasy-world scenarios than face reality.

That's Cheney, as we have just seen, and also Rumsfeld. And I have to say that the US MSM, by refusing to ask these direct, relevant moral and ethical questions from these war criminals, is part of the problem. Rumsfeld is correct when he diagnoses these questions as "not an interview" – as long as that means an interview in the American media. The war crimes of the past administration were never treated seriously as such by the media. If they were, why would Cheney even be given a platform on the Sunday morning talkshows, let alone fawning respect?

Remember This Dude?

It was odd watching Jon Stewart’s rather inspired take-down of Mitt Romney last night. It was odd because the critique was mind-blowingly obvious and deeply familiar but nonetheless seemed fresh, after his re-tooling. I mean, we all knew that Romney was vulnerable to massive flip-flopping over the years but the visual evidence of it nonetheless devastates:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 – The Great Right Hope – The Manchurian Candi-Dad
www.thedailyshow.com

This embed is invalid
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

“This is beginning to hurt where my feelings should be”: funny because it’s true. Everyone should be allowed to change his or her mind. God knows I have, as events have unfolded. But if Romney’s shifts were connected to new facts, or new arguments, they would have some punch. But what’s amazing about him is that all of them seem clearly caused purely by opportunism in a party lurching toward fundamentalism in religion (the Bible), economics (no revenue increases ever) and politics (the Constitution, as viewed by someone in the late eighteenth century).

The record nonetheless shows Romney as once passionately pro-choice, a man who vowed a decade and a half ago to be more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy, a man who embraced and shaped universal healthcare on lines close to identical to Obama’s but now vows to repeal it, a man who opposed tax loopholes before Obama targeted them, a figure so shape-shifty it’s impossible to know how he’d govern, except by sticking a wet finger into the air. There’s a reason the GOP is uncomfortable with him, why Perry did so well in fundraising this past quarter, why the idiotic Christie-fever ran wild, and why Herman Cain, of all people, is now neck and neck with a former governor.

Where Obama is weak – lacking the kind of Jersey cred of a Christie or even a Biden – Romney is also weak. Where Romney is strong – experience, competence – Obama, as an incumbent president, is just as strong. What we’re talking about right now is simply a function of deep discontent at economic stagnation – and Mitt’s experience in the private sector. That’s really Romney’s core strength.

I suspect he’s more John Kerry in 2004 – one state away from the presidency – than Bill Clinton in 1992. But I also know that in this fluid environment, anything is possible.

“All Of These Women Fuck Arabs” Ctd

A reader writes:

I noticed that Goldblog quoted the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi, Yona Metzger, about the mosque torching. He conspicuously refrained from quoting the Chief Sephardic Rabbi (yes, Israel has two Chief Rabbis), Shlomo Amar. The latter said about the mosque torching that  it may have been a "blood libel", perpetrated by people ""who wanted to slander the people considered suspects in this act".

The "people considered suspects" are, of course, radical settlers. Burnings of mosques have been on the rise since 2009, but so far no one was indicted for them. Shin Beth notoriously finds it hard to penetrate Judaist (as per Christianist: Jews who believe in enforced Jewish supremacy) cells.

Can you imagine the uproar had a, say, Polish bishop said he condemns the burnings of synagogues, but cautions it may have been "a blood libel intended to slander the people considered suspects"? Needless to say, Amar – who was implicated but not indicted in the kidnapping and beating of a boy who dared to date his daughter – is a state employee.

 

Is Cain’s Polling Bump Real?

Intensity_score

Blumenthal is skeptical:

Only two presidents in American history have served without having held prior elective office or high military rank. And the two exceptions, Herbert Hoover and William Howard Taft, served as cabinet secretaries in prior administrations. Republicans are certainly in a mood for change, and the election of Barack Obama in 2008 proved that a relatively short political resume was not a barrier to the country's highest elected office. But a Cain victory in 2012 would represent a leap to a far greater degree of political inexperience.

Chart from Gallup, who compares Cain's support to that of other candidates:

Cain's very positive image is offset by his lower name recognition, though he has become better known in recent weeks, with 55% of Republicans now familiar with him. He still trails the five best-known candidates — Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, and Paul, all near 80% recognition. Santorum (54%) and Huntsman (43%) are less well-known.