Category: The Dish

By Patrick
Joshua Keating has a round-up on Zimbabwe, where Mugabe continues to cling to power.

He’s about scoops, and gets them. But once you realize that the Clintons’ tax returns and the Olympics ceremony boycott stories came from the Clinton camp, do you still believe that photo of Obama in a turban fell off a turnip truck?

A defense of democracy, playing by the rules, that kind of stuff.

Obama’s national lead over Clinton increases a little. Here’s the longer view, which suggests one of the longest periods of a sustained Obama lead since the campaign began. Still, they’ve been neck and neck since February:

More torture memo fall-out: a key member of the Bush administration’s torture-team, former Pentagon general counsel, William Haynes, has retained a top criminal defense lawyer in response to the Senate Armed Services Committee persistent inquiries about prisoner abuse. Isikoff:

Two sources familiar with the probe, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, say the panel’s investigators have grilled a number of key players—including Special Forces operatives and FBI agents—who were never previously questioned. The panel notified the Pentagon in early February that it wanted to question Haynes. Before receiving any response, investigators learned on Feb. 25 that Haynes was leaving for Chevron in San Francisco. "How often does somebody like that give two weeks’ notice and leave town?" said one government source familiar with the sequence of events.

A classic Mike Wallace interview: Henry Kissinger’s 1958 support of the concept of "limited war" against the Soviet Union. This passage can’t help but leap out fifty years later:

We must have the capability to react to Soviet threats at the same level of intensity at which they present it so that we don’t always have to choose between the destruction of the United States and the defense of the countries which may be threatened but rather that we can defend the areas which are threatened at the place where the threat occurs … It is a policy that we are ready to engage in a limited war that we have troop transports that … enable us to get into position quickly, that we have the forces to engage in a limited war which we do not now have …  At the moment we have 13 divisions where the Soviet Union has 175 divisions. If we had more divisions, and if we had air transport, then in case of a Soviet attack, say on Iraq, we could airlift a few divisions into the area and, together with local forces, attempt a defense.

Notice that Kissinger is very clear that he would not countenance launching such a limited war, merely acting if the Soviets attacked. Notice that his first thought of a place for a limited war was … Iraq.

Not an Obama strength.

More, please:

I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection. Because through revolution and slavery; war and depression; great battles for civil rights and women’s rights and worker’s rights, generations of Americans have shown their love of country by struggling and sacrificing and risking their lives to bring us that much closer to our founding promise. And as long as I live, I will never forget that I am only standing here because they did… That is the country I love. That is the promise of America.

Even better from almost a year ago:

[Obama] referred to the anniversary of the March on Selma, how he went and how he came back and someone (I don’t remember who now) said to him:

"That was a great celebration of African-American history."

To which Obama said he replied:

"No, no, no, no, no. That was not a great celebration of African-American history. That was a celebration of American history."

The patriotism and faith of the civil rights movement is Obama’s core message. He must never forget that – and the unifying, uplifting love of country it represents.

Better.

By Patrick
Publius summarises the Bush foreign policy mindset and the possible political consequences of withdrawal from Iraq. Jonathan Rauch wrote about the danger of a partisan withdrawal a few months ago.