Category: The Dish

Grim new evidence of our miscalculation:

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The current main goal of the war in Iraq is to defeat an enemy we didn’t have in Iraq before we got there. It is a war that has generated its own rationale. How many more will it generate?

Together at last – in the imagination of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.

“To those thinking about "sitting it out," or "supporting a third party" now, consider an analogy. We are facing a burning building. There is a day-care center full of children burning down and we have three options before us.

A. We have a candidate named John who will rescue most everyone in that building. He hasn’t pledged that he’ll get everyone out just yet, but the vast majority of those kids are going to be carried out alive with his pro-life policies and judges.

B. Or you can protest (with a third-party candidate). Pick up a sign and march because you didn’t get the candidate you wanted chanting, "Rescue all the children! Rescue all the children!" while the building burns and all the children die.

C. Or you can sit it out. Don’t endorse. Don’t vote. And Clinton or Obama will deadbolt the fire exits and rip out the sprinklers. They will then lock arms and prevent any of us from entering the building to rescue the children inside. They will also prevent notification of parents whose children are about to be burned alive,” – Janet Folger, World Net Daily.

A reader writes:

Over the past several days, you’ve described Hillary as a “sociopath” (who knew you were a psychologist and had interviewed Ms. Clinton in such depth), agreed with the term “monster”, continued to publish exclusively anti-Clinton commentary/assessment, and presented us with testimonials from individuals who’ve had the “scales fall from their eyes” in her regard. 

Your blog is beginning to resemble nothing so much as a born-again Christian website reducing the whole issue to good vs. evil, the benighted vs those who have seen the light.  This is the antithesis of the careful, fair-mind conservatism you have so consistently promoted.  I, for one, cannot wait until the Democratic nomination is decided – hopefully for Obama – so that I can begin again to read your blog without having to skim over so much venomous commentary.  Assuming, that is, that you can recover perspective.

A Greg Craig Obama memo on Clinton’s foreign policy record this morning sums up the facts pretty well. One highlight on Rwanda:

At no time prior to her campaign for the presidency did Senator Clinton ever make the claim that she supported intervening militarily to stop the Rwandan genocide. It is noteworthy that she failed to mention this anecdote – urging President Clinton to intervene militarily in Rwanda – in her memoirs. President Clinton makes no mention of such a conversation with his wife in his memoirs. And Madeline Albright, who was Ambassador to the United Nations at the time, makes no mention of any such event in her memoirs.

So much insomnia, so little time:

The phone rings. Hillary Rodham Clinton picks it up.

"Yes?"

"Hillary, it’s Silda Wall Spitzer. Sorry to call so late. Eliot’s still not home. Based on your experience, what should I do?"

Insert hysterical laughter here:

With all the talk about possible June primaries or caucuses in Michigan and Florida – the two states that violated Democratic National Committee rules by scheduling primaries prior to February 5 – The Field has learned that, had the two states originally scheduled their votes for May or June, they would have been entitled to a "bonus" of 30-percent more elected delegates.

"The road to Denver, as it currently exists, is dotted with intra-party explosive devices (IEDs) with the potential to blow away our party’s very real chance to capture the White House. The Michigan and Florida predicament . . . could explode at the convention and cause more casualties than we could imagine," – Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver writing to Howard Dean last Thursday.

Orlando Patterson believes there is a racial sub-text to the Clintons’ red phone ad. The more I think about it the more I can see his point. It strikes me that the ad was primarily aimed at white and Latina women. It makes no sense as a national security experience ad; it is all about very powerful memes of mothers and children, danger and security. And yes, plenty of Latina and white women may harbor inchoate fears about black men at large in the middle of the night.

I cannot know the motives of those who made the ad. I do know the Clintons are perfectly capable of subliminal or subtextual use of bigotry and racial fear. More significant, it’s a purely emotional appeal. The idea that the Clintons are the rational ones in this campaign, that they are the mature adults capable of managing the country soberly and reasonably, has been detonated by this campaign and by the emotional roller-coaster the Clintons always force us to ride with them.

There is still no explanation for the delay and plenty of reason for people to ask questions of the Clintons:

Since 1999, the couple’s net worth has increased from somewhere between $1.25 million and $5.7 million to between $10 million and $50 million, according to filings… Clinton earned an unspecified amount as a consultant for InfoUsa, a data company run by longtime friend and fundraiser Vin Gupta, according to the filings. The forms also showed ten of thousands of dollars invested in funds with the Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm run by another close friend, Ron Burkle.