Category: The Dish

A reader writes:

Your dissenter wrote:

"I am certain that a hasty and dangerous withdrawal is more likely under an Obama or a Paul presidency than a McCain one.  And so I must back the senior Senator from Arizona."

Perhaps this is true, but so far Iraqi politicians have done nothing with the lull in violence.  Instead, it appears to have bolstered their ill-founded faith in the US’ ability to restore order if things get out of hand. They’re behaving like an investor taking on more and more risk for their faction (being aggressive in their demands) under the idea that if there’s a serious reversal (anarchic violence) that the government (us) will bail them out. An impending Paul or Obama presidency would make it clear that we’re not going to wait for one side or another to gain ascendancy before leaving them to sleep in their own bed.  We owe Iraq a lot for our past mistakes, but in this case I don’t see anything else to do but to take a tough-love stance.

No one is explicitly arguing that we should occupy Iraq for ever. But that is the obvious inference from our current strategy if nothing is done to shake it up. The next president will be trying to get out, whoever he or she is. The question is: who will be best at marshalling the diplomatic energy, the military nuances and the political unity required to pull it off as quickly and as prudently as possible? I’m not sure that McCain, for all his many virtues, will ever be able to persuade the Iraqis to kiss and make up. He’s an insurance policy for their continuing to fight.

Wow:

Here’s what it is:

This composite image shows the jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy striking the edge of another galaxy, the first time such an interaction has been found.

Hat tip: Popsci.

I blame these ads – Obama’s here, Rudy’s here – on the too-early Iowa caucus. I could do without the Obama choir as well.

A man is convicted of cutting down 27 old-growth cedars, each between 400 and 700 years old.

Science’s latest frontier:

That, at least, is the conclusion of a recent study showing that teens overestimate the riskiness of things like unprotected sex and drunk driving, yet choose to do them anyways.

This seems to be the consensus:

DNS doesn’t quite work the way that the Whois and the reverse IP make it appear. Just because barackosama2008.org resolves to the same IP address as hillaryclinton.com doesn’t mean that hillaryclinton.com is actually "serving" that domain.  All it means is that someone who owns barackosama2008.org decided to point that domain name at hillaryclinton.com’s IP address.  It doesn’t imply ownership.  Anyone who would be slimy enough to register barackosama2008.org would be slimy enough to point it at Hillary.

Another reader adds:

The site was registered using a proxy company that registers the domain with their information, instead of the individual having to enter theres.  This is a fairly common practice, especially when someone does not want their domain to be traced.

But it is probably not affiliated with the Clinton campaign.

If you notice, the domain originally pointed to GOP.com, they were essentially using it is as a domain alias that routed users to a different site.   Then someone pointed it to the Hillary Clinton website.  Now it points to Google.  The domain was registered way back in January of 2007.

For all we know, it could have been a tech-savvy Obama supporter, just as much as it could be an Edwards or Clinton fan.

Thanks for the emails.

Ezra makes a valuable point:

Paul’s candidacy is an indictment of the system, not an argument for who would best administer it.

Peter Suderman asks:

What’s the breakdown of issues that matter to his supporters, and after the campaign is over, are there lessons to be drawn for other candidates or issue-oriented groups? Why and how, in other words, did this unassuming country doctor – a man who, between his personality and his positions, is almost the antithesis of the modern American politician – become a political cult hero?

My suggestion: Paul’s candidacy is a moment of protest from all those who once saw the GOP as their home and who have become enraged at what Bush and Rove have done to conservatism. So many of us feel like refugees – forced out of our homes by Christanist intolerance and neoconservative fanaticism. The Paul campaign is a refugee camp, pitched temporarily at the border of old-school conservatism, as we wait to see if our politics is really over in the Republican party, and whether a freedom agenda can still have a future in America.

Chris Orr is worried.

That was Romney’s boast. Is it true? Or was it a Grosse Pointe Blank? Money quote:

Asked about the specifics of George Romney’s march with MLK, Mitt Romney’s campaign told the Phoenix that it took place in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. That jibes with the description proffered by David S. Broder in a Washington Post column written days after Mitt’s College Station speech. Broder, in that column, references a 1967 book he co-authored on the Republican Party, which included a chapter on George Romney. It includes a one-line statement that the senior Romney “has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit.”

But that account is incorrect. King never marched in Grosse Pointe, according to the Grosse Pointe Historical Society, and had not appeared in the town at all at the time the Broder book was published.

“I’m quite certain of that,” says Suzy Berschback, curator of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society. (Border was not immediately available for comment.)

Berschback also believes that George Romney never appeared at a protest, march, or rally in Grosse Pointe. “We’re a small town,” she says. “Governors don’t come here very often, except for fundraisers.”

In fact, King’s only appearance in Grosse Pointe, according to Berschback, took place after Broder’s book was published.

That was for a March 14 speech he delivered at Grosse Pointe High School, just three weeks before King was assassinated. But there was no march, and George Romney was not there.

Hmmm.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

Romney unveils a new ad. JPod’s unimpressed by the story of how Mitt allegedly saved some lost soul, proving what a Great Leader and Commpasionate Statesman he is:

a) she wasn’t in need of “saving” in the way the ad’s narrative implies and b) there’s no evidence in the open record that the Bain Capital search, wonderfully well-intentioned, was responsible for Melissa’s safe return to her family.

Maybe it’s time for Romney to cry on TV again.