Month: November 2011

Andrew Exum asks what the neocons outraged by the upcoming Iraq withdrawal would have done differently:

Iraq is a sovereign nation, right? By our design, right? Well, if you are going to bust the Obama Administration's chops for not staying in Iraq, you then have to explain to me how we were supposed to stay in Iraq over the objections of the Iraqis themselves. My stance on staying in Iraq has always been that it was worth discussing — so long as Iraq's leaders were willing to explain our continued presence in Iraq, in Arabic, to their constituents on live television. Anything else would be perceived as a continued occupation, exposing remaining U.S. troops to continued violent attacks.

They were waiting and hoping for a Dolchstoss moment. He deprived them of it. This is their pathetic pale echo of the old party line.

Here's one way to deal with all those leftover Jack-o'-lanterns:

Top comments on YouTube:

thats a creepy fucking song

Y U NO put a song by the smashing pumpkins?!?

Chait explains:

Cain is executing a business plan. It’s an excellent plan. The plan involves Cain raising his profile as a conservative personality, which he can monetize through motivational speaking, book sales, talk shows, and other media. Cain’s selling point is that he’s a black conservative who can capitalize on the sense of white racial victimization that has mushroomed during the Obama era. Accordingly, Cain assures conservatives that they are not racist, as proven by their support for him. Indeed, it is the liberals who are racist, as evidenced by their opposition to Cain.

If Cain were campaigning to be president, the scandal would hurt him. Since he is instead campaigning to boost his profile, it will help him.

"[I]n the spirit of intellectual honesty, I need to concede that I got the Libya war wrong. Several Danger Room pieces under my byline ran this year predicting that Libya was an open-ended mission, lacked a clear plan for victory, and could lead to NATO peacekeepers battling post-Gadhafi insurgents. While reasonable people can disagree about whether the war was in the U.S. interest (or even legal), or whether President Obama portrayed it honestly, the fact is that the war successfully ended after eight months, contrary to consistent predictions on display here. We owe it to you to acknowledge forthrightly that we were wrong, and probably too blinded with fears of Iraq 2.0. It’s not just the Pentagon that has trouble with predictions," – Spencer Ackerman.

A reader writes:

I had to comment on this: "How this tub of white lard was such a lady-killer says a huge amount about the man's seductive skills." I worked in the '90s for a woman who was as politically conservative as anyone I’ve known. But she once told me of a time when she was visiting DC. After a long day, she sat on a bench to rest and soon a jogger with an entourage came upon her. It was Bill Clinton, who paused to speak with her (I should mention that she was an attractive woman in her mid to late forties), asking how she was doing, what she was doing in DC, how she was enjoying her visit. She related to me that although her politics remained unchanged, she found him, even sweaty in a t-shirt and running shorts, to be the most charming person she’d ever met.

Another shares a similar experience:

I can't tell you the exact nature of the Clinton magic, but I can tell you it wasn't about the body and it definitely worked. In 1992, I was 20 and spent several months volunteering for Patty Murray's first senate campaign. On a swing through Eastern Washington, we got the opportunity to meet Clinton, who was the presumptive nominee by then (I think it was late summer). My friend and I, both hard-bitten college feminists and terribly serious, had been for Tsongas, thank you very much.

But still, we stood in line to shake hands. When he got to me I said some silly thing like, "The young women of America are counting on you, sir" … and for a full five seconds I got the baby blues right in the face. "Thank you," he said in the drawl we came to know so well, "I need your support and I appreciate it very much." He clasped my hand the whole time – I was melted.

And he's seriously not my type. My friend, who already abhorred him for his rumored womanizing, got her turn and a few seconds later squealed and went dancing over the grass. She's embarrassed about it to this day, but there was no denying the magnetism.

Shadi Hamid explains a surprising new development:

Qatar's leaders, particularly the Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and the prime minister, Hamad bin Jassem, seemed to take pleasure in Qatar's scrappiness and, increasingly, the recognition it received as a key player in the Arab spring. They were, to use a phrase, ahead of the curve. And they may be adopting a similar model at home. Despite few domestic demands for democratic reform and virtually no visible opposition, the Qatari leadership decided to "preempt" and take the initiative before anyone thought to ask. It has now become even more difficult than it already was to envision a critical mass of Qataris attacking the government for ignoring internal reform. Top-down reforms are most effective in absorbing dissent the earlier they come. 

"Even though Cain won’t be the nominee, his candidacy tells us a lot about the psychology of GOP activists. Our team wants someone authentic, creative, fresh, bold and likeable. And we don’t have much tolerance for too many facts or too much information," – GOP operative Ed Rogers.

Huntsman smacks around Romney:

Frum attempts to defend Romney:

It’s not Romney who is the flip-flopper. It’s the conservative movement. It was only three years ago that Jim DeMint was praising the Massachusetts healthcare plan. Post-2009, conservatives have flip-flopped on individual mandates, they have flip-flopped on monetary policy, in these cases they have adopted ever more extreme positions. Yes Romney has had to shape-shift to keep pace, and that’s unfortunate. But don’t blame him – blame them.

A great October for us, traffic-wise. Without getting to highly dubious and varied data points, and using Sitemeter as a single measurement for the last several years, our last three months had 20 percent more pageviews than the same three months last year. The transition to the Beast was remarkably trouble-free, and we've been steadily gaining wider and deeper readership ever since. Thanks to all of you for following us following you. And yes, you. The amount of content on the Dish that is reader-generated keeps growing. The way this page has evolved into something close to collective has been as organic as it has been eye-opening for me.

We're grateful. Thanks especially to our 1.3 million fact-checkers.