And what do you get?
You get results from Buschco, that's what you get. That, and the free flow of anything and anyone across the border. Way to go, Bushie!
Palin/Joe The Plumber 2012: A Governor and an idiot. It'll be Bush 45!
Posted by phidipides at October 30, 2008 07:34 PM"Palin/Joe The Plumber 2012"
LMAO Phidipides. Good one.
Posted by Judith at October 30, 2008 07:40 PMAnd what do you get?
Obama's first foreign policy test?
Posted by iamcoyote at October 30, 2008 07:43 PMHmmm. A few theories.
1) This was part of the normal occupation plan in Iraq, nothing special, and that things will quiet down with Syria soon. Under this theory Petraeus is just trying to complete as much of the purge of the "bad guys" before the force draw down starts next year. I believe that is most likely.
2) This is an attempt to draw Syria into an international security incident just before the election, in hope of scaring people into voting for McCain. Certainly Bush's people are capable of doing something like this, but I'm guessing not as a) it won't work, and they know that (this isn't 2004, and the polls aren't neck-and-neck), and b) it would require Petraus' cooperation, which seems unlikely as that does not fit his style and it would destroy the good will he's built up with various groups in Iraq over the past 18 months.
3) The intent is not to influence the election but instead to use the last 3 months of Bush's term to create additional messes for Obama to deal with. Much as Bush 41 did to Clinton with Somalia. The Bush crime family is very capable of this kind of move, but again I doubt that Petraeus would go along.
Posted by Anonny at October 30, 2008 07:49 PMThe whole interview is fascinating, but the opening comes back to a theme we have debated here over the past few months:
MADDOW: Other Democrats, you will hear them talk about the GOP as the party that's been wrong on all the big stuff. Creating Social Security, civil rights, the War in Iraq. But, you don't really do that. Do you think there is a stark difference between the parties?
OBAMA: Well, I do think there's a difference between the parties, but here's my belief. That I'm talking to voters. And I think they're a lot of Republican voters out there, self-identified, who actually think that what the Bush administration has done, has been damaging to the country.
And, what I'm interested in, is how do we build a working majority for change? And if I start off with the premise that it's only self-identified Democrats who I'm speaking to, then I'm not going to get to where we need to go. If I can describe it as not a blanket indictment of the Republican Party, but instead describe it as the Republican Party having been kidnapped by a incompetent, highly ideological subset of the Republican Party, then that means I can still reach out to a whole bunch of Republican moderates who I think are hungry for change, as well.
Yes, as recently as a month ago there were those here who were arguing that Obama needed to hit harder at the Republican brand. Worse, those people were putting Obama in the same category as Kerry and Gore, for not having the guts to fight back. But he had his reasons.
And how did that work out?
MADDOW: And so, you have the opportunity to say John McCain, George Bush, you're wrong. You also have the opportunity to say, conservatism has been bad for America. But, you haven't gone there either.
OBAMA: I tell you what though, Rachel. You notice, I think we're winning right now so --
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: Maybe I'm doing something right. I know you've been cruising for a bruising for a while here, looking for a fight out there. But, I just think people are tired of that kind of back and forth, tit for tat, ideological approach to the problems.
Now, there is no doubt that there is a set of premises in the reigning Republican ideology that I just think are wrong. This whole notion, and then it's been captured by this back and forth about whether I'm a redistributor, I think is a great example. The notion that the progressive income tax, which was instituted by Teddy Roosevelt, supposedly John McCain's hero, is somehow un-American, I think is an example of how people have gone way off track.
The Republican Party has gone so right when it comes to how we think about our obligations to each other, how we pay for things. And as a consequence, because most people think it's pretty important to pay for roads and bridges, schools. What we've ended up doing is tax cuts, no spending cuts, huge national debt. There's a core hypocrisy to how they have governed over the last several years, that I think has to be reversed.
And so we're going to challenge those things. The important thing though is, I just want to make sure that I'm leaving the door open to people who say to themselves, well, you know, I'm a member of the Republican Party and I remember people like Chuck Percy in Illinois, or Abraham Lincoln, a pretty good Republican. That there's some core values that historically have been important to the Republican Party, but just have not been observed over the last several years.
Get that. Obama did not plan this campaign to just win the presidency. He planned to build an FDR-like coalition to transform America in a manner not seen since the New Deal. THAT was the goal from the start.
Audacity, indeed.
Posted by Anonny at October 30, 2008 08:39 PMAnonny, I was just looking for a video of that exchange. I was agog. I told my daughter yesterday as we watched Obama's infomercial - "That's what presidents looked like when I was a kid." Yes, it was audacity, and knowing when the time is right. It's really nice just to watch someone who knows what they're doing, after years of Dem flailing.
Posted by iamcoyote at October 30, 2008 08:48 PMthe bushivites don't really have to intend to make messes for the US and future foreign policy teams, they just do it naturally. it's part of the Empire Burlesque.
i will be curious to see how obama and biden deal with these sorts of things. it really is provocative for the US to be raiding other countries 9000 miles from home and from a country it has illegally occupiesd for the last 5 years. who oh why do they hate us?
Posted by michael72 at October 30, 2008 09:18 PMAnnony-
Does it help your theorizing to know that this was a CIA-ordered operation?
Posted by boom at October 31, 2008 05:10 AMAnonny:
misspelled your name.
sorry.
Posted by boom at October 31, 2008 05:12 AMboom -- Thanks for the article. But if you read closely you'll see the CIA link is based on pure speculation. Let's see if more info comes up.
Posted by Anonny at October 31, 2008 05:33 AMRemember when McCain called Palin his "soulmate" days after meeting/nominating her?
So yesterday McCain called Sam-the-Skinhead -- a.k.a. "Joe"-the-"Plumber" -- an "American hero" and "my role model".
McCain and Palin are doing something I had thought impossible. They are making Bush look adequate by comparison.
Posted by Anonny at October 31, 2008 05:40 AMActually, "orders from the White House" is speculation.
The CIA-ordered part comes from "quoted unnamed US officials"
Here's an earlier version (yesterday) in the Asia Times by one of the reporters from the team who wrote the Helsinki piece.
I believe there are clues in the earlier version as to who might have talked.
Posted by boom at October 31, 2008 05:48 AMAnd what do you get?
Um,Donchya know.... you get the Bushco/McPalin Bizarro world version of spreadin freedom with peace lovin terra-ist hatin domino democracy gubmints across the mideast we wuz promised 6 years ago...you betchya also.
My country tis of thee, from my porch I can see, Russia and such. Palin-2012.
Posted by emal at October 31, 2008 05:48 AMboom -- tx again.
If this was an attempt to get Syria to respond back it was an incredibly weak attempt. Anyone could have predicted that Syria would be cautious in response under any conditions, and especially now when they are expecting regime change in the US soon.
However, it may be laying ground for another event over the next few days.
Really, that's all the McCainiacs have left -- hoping for massive vote fraud or another 9/11 to happen the day before the election.
Posted by Anonny at October 31, 2008 09:03 AMOk, there may be a link between the Syrian attack and Petraeus subsequently leaking a report that he favors negotiating with Syria but Bush has blocked it (I linked to that in another thread).
Today much of Iraq is in turmoil because of the Syrian raid, although with US media mostly gone from Iraq you won't hear much about it here. Petraeus is apparently royally pissed off that the Syrian raid has damaged much of the good will he's built up and is trying to signal that it wasn't his idea -- looking ahead to an Obama administration when sane leadership will be possible again.
Posted by Anonny at October 31, 2008 12:50 PM