Everyone should calm down and let things settle. No one should be firing anyone. Let the voters figure it out.
Posted by nyc at December 27, 2007 07:21 PMhaha. Hillary should fire Evan Bayh then. whats good for the goose is good for the gander. hahaha. its really silly season.
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/hillary_backer_bayh_assassination_reminds_us_that_we_need_hillary_lest_gop_paint_dems_as_weak.php
John Edwards should have fired David Axelrod. Fernando Ferrer should have fired Axelrod. But Obama said it. Unless he's a talking puppet he should take responsibility for mit. What losers. Embarrassingly amateur.
Posted by jeter at December 27, 2007 08:00 PMJohn Edwards should have fired David Axelrod. Fernando Ferrer should have fired Axelrod. But Obama said it. Unless he's a talking puppet he should take responsibility for it. What losers. Embarrassingly amateur.
Posted by jeter at December 27, 2007 08:03 PMThere are two other serious problems with Axelrod's remarks which no one else has commented on.
First of all, implicit in Axelrod's criticism of Hillary is that Hillary is powerful and Obama is weak. He is saying that Hillary could have done something---not just in 2002, but more recently if she had not voted for Kyl-Lieberman (what the fuck that has to do with Pakistan I don't know). Well, Obama was in the Senate too, and has done nothing to take troops from Iraq and put them at the Pakistan border.. or whatever it is Axelrod thinks Hillary should be doing. Take him at face value and he's asserting that Obama is weak and Hillary is strong (though she misuses her power).
That's a purely political observation.
The second has to do with intelligence and judgment.
Do you remember 4/19/1995? I sure do, and I well remember that everyone assumed Arab terrorists were behind this---except for the one reporter who pissed of Reno by asking "What about Waco?".
We don't know why Bhutto was killed or who killed her. Axelrod shows his stupidity by assuming that the assassination has something to do with our Iraq war policy, rather than waiting for the facts.
Obama has made this election about judgment.
Fine, give me Hillary or Edwards, but not Obama.
I'm quite impressed that Musharraf chose to call Edwards. This was a good day for Edwards; a so-so day for Clinton, and a horrible day for Obama.
oops, the 9:07 comment was mine.
Posted by MarkL at December 27, 2007 09:16 PMAgree with most of what you're saying here. Assuming that al Quaeda was involved in this assassinaton -- is as bad as assuming that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Blaming the Senators who voted for the 2002 bill (much less Hillary alone) is ridiculous.
If anyone has been recently 'destabilizing' Pakistan, it's Obama.
If there's any direct line of connection between the assassination and any US Dem candidate, it points to Obama, whose threats of invasion upset the Pakistan people and led to calls for a 'state of emergency' (and to Pakistanis burning Obama in effigy in August 07 -- great photo at Fox News).
http://www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,2164,00.html
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08092007/news/worldnews/barackistan_alert_worldnews_matthew_pennington__ap.htm
August 9, 2007 -- ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Citing recent comments from Barack Obama about possible U.S. military action inside Pakistan, the government of embattled President Gen. Pervez Musharraf warned yesterday it may impose a state of emergency due to "external and internal threats."
....
That set off ripples of resentment in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad, prompting Pakistani officials to warn against U.S. incursions into their country.
Obama also threatened a ground invasion of Pakistan at his own discretion if elected.
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/obama_vows_to_hunt_down_terror.php
August 01, 2007
[....] he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists even without local permission if warranted
....
Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion
....
remove troops from Iraq and putting them "on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
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However as to 2013, both HIllary and Obama support "2 brigades per month" withdrawal with "almost everybody" out within a year.
Posted by 1950democrat at December 27, 2007 10:10 PMObama reminds me of the current WH occupant. Never say sorry or apologize for anything. When boxed in, Obama threw his staffers under the bus.
If Dems vote for Obama they would be voting for another stubborn, arrogant, in-experienced robot.
I am becoming most distressed about Obama. Never did I imagine his campaign could be so God awful. Worse, his supporters are purposely blind to it. The Kyl-Lieberman vote was the last straw for me. He conveniently failed to be there to vote against it, in addition to conveniently never making public pronouncements against the bill, and, of course, having co-sponsored S 970. And then he blasts Clinton for voting to go to war with Iran.
I am not a Clinton supporter--at all. I can't stand Obama b/c his record is the same as Clinton's on major issues, especially foreign policy (see: Iraq). I fear nothing Obama could say or do will force his rabid supporters to see him for the fraud he is.
Posted by Nathan at December 28, 2007 01:42 AMMarkL,
FYI, Musharaff did not contact Edwards directly but, rather, returned his phone call, according to CBS News:
"I have a call in to President Musharraf who I also know. I want to talk to him about the importance of continuing on the path to democratization."
Both Edwards and Obama (quote from WaPo follows) inappropriately inserted themselves into a situation of which they knew less than anyone outside of the State Department or anyone else at this point like it or not.
"Aides said the senator from Illinois made several Pakistan-related phone calls between events, including to Anne W. Patterson, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, and to Donald Kerr, deputy director of national intelligence. Obama also talked to Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, and urged his country to proceed with democratic elections. But mainly the Bhutto assassination was an undercurrent. No one in Obama's audiences asked him about it, although when a man in Nevada, Iowa, asked about Obama's plan for ending the Iraq war, the senator used it as a segue to lambaste the war for detracting from other regional problems, namely defeating al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Posted by B Merry at December 28, 2007 05:36 AMFire Axelrod? I think OBAMA should resign from the campaign, or at least drop out of the January contests!
Obama's camp goofed this week, but what was worse was Obama's prepared speech in July that got him burned in effigy in Pakistan in riots there, after he threatened to invade Pakistan!
As Chris Matthews and others pointed out, to watchers from overseas a good Obama showing in Iowa next week will send a powerful message to the world. But they didn't realize that the message will be that a man who threatened to invade Pakistan has just won an important election.
We'll be lucky if the Pakistanis don't hit us with preemptive nukes! Obama should resign from the race, or at least apologize and recuse from any contests till he improves his reputation in Pakistan and elsewhere in world opinion.
cites and photo at 1950democrat.livejournal.com
Posted by 1950democrat at December 28, 2007 11:27 PMI want to vote for a President who is not afraid of bad men such as Osama bin Laden. How can I vote for Hilary who is still scared of a common rodent as the house mice.
Posted by Pollard at December 29, 2007 05:11 PMThe assination was utterly terrible. But the possibility of it not happening was in probability higher if the U.S military had been used properly to go after Ben'Laden in Pakistan instead of proping up the Oil $prices.- From $27 to $97/ barrel, and Iraq is now producing HALF of what it did before the War. World Opinion is much more Negative about America because of Bush invasion mismanagement. Ben-Laden must be smiling about how little consideration was given him compared to how much for Oil by Bush group.
Posted by J. Ward at January 1, 2008 11:22 AM