Tom Clonan of The Irish Times has studied a document published by the US military that outlines its plans for the next 30-40 years. The Pentagon envisages a protracted struggle with radical Islam, accompanied by an ever increasing burden placed on resources, the liklihood of stiff competition with China and Russia, with the distinct possibility of resource wars. Additionally, the military concedes that it is dangerously overstretched.
This is hardly novel thinking on behalf of Washington. These trends in world politics appear to be rather obvious. How they plan to deal with them, however, is quite striking and innovative. As Clonan writes:
"The document reveals that new US tactical doctrine provides a template by which air, naval and field commanders will no longer just secure traditional strategic targets such as airspace, seaports and bridgeheads, but will, of necessity, also deploy and fight amongst and against the target population itself to win wars.
The document refers to this euphemistically as "commanders employing offensive, defensive and stability or civil support operations simultaneously".
The remainder of the document is devoted to describing in detail how a downsized all volunteer US military - numbering approximately one million soldiers, aircrew and sailors - could maintain an ever-present, international, offensive posture in many countries across many time-zones.
It describes how information communication technologies and digital technologies will create a new "networked" human soldier - the 'Future Force Warrior' - who will deploy among the target population and will operate simultaneously several remote, unmanned ground and air weapons systems."
Monday, 22 September 2008
Sunday, 21 September 2008
What happened to John McCain?
These days it seems everyone is asking the same question: what on earth happened to John McCain? Where is the forsaken warrior, the strangest of all political beasts, who vowed to fight an honourable campaign, to never succumb to the temptation to smear, to project an honest platform, and let the American people adjudicate.
That John McCain, if he ever existed, has long since vanished in the Beltway dust, and if McCain is fighting a war inside himself, there is no evidence to suggest it. Any pretence of honour in this campaign disappeared amidst the screams of “celebrity” last July.
Needless to say, the Barack Obama of the campaign trail is the evil twin of the Barack Obama of the 2004 convention speech. Despite the panicking of the Democratic establishment who fear Obama is not responding to attacks with enough haste – because they still believe that’s why John Kerry lost in 04 – Obama has proven himself to be well capable of launching offensives of his own, and by the latest count Obama had actually pedalled more negative ads than McCain. In fairness, McCain was first down the low road. Obama took quite some time to follow him, but follow him he did, and he seems perfectly comfortable there.
However, Obama’s negativity is still largely reactive, his offensives generally counter-attacks. Contrary to the whines of the GOP establishment, when Obama goes negative he rarely appears as cynical and vindictive as McCain. For starters, Obama does not lie nearly as much. Obama’s campaign, now even bereft of much of the idealistic bi-partisanship he is famous for, is far more honest than McCain’s. Obama’s candidacy is still premised on a vision and a hope. The McCain candidacy has changed its raison d’être so many times, it is physically impossible to assess where he actually stands at any given time.
For example, once upon a time McCain opposed offshore drilling. He came around to supporting it, as is perfectly reasonable, when conditions on the ground changed. However, thereafter “drill, baby, drill” became one of the fundamental tenets of his campaign. Such a reversal stretches the imagination and insults the voters’ intelligence.
Just this week, McCain said he opposed any more federal bailouts of America’s troubled financial institutions. The next day, when AIG received federal assistance, he supported it lest he appear out of touch with the needs of the American people. Then McCain, apparently assuming voters have the memories of goldfish, said that Obama had not taken a stand on the financial crisis. That allegation is absolutely false as Obama has been discussing it continuously all week. Just yesterday, McCain said in a thoroughly unintelligible speech that the Fed should cease being the source of bailouts. Following the various political stances of John McCain is liable to leave one with motion sickness.
All the while this political merry-go-round is flanked by incessant attacks on Obama.
There are countless other examples of the chameleon-like political persona of John McCain. John Kerry, who knows a thing or two about being a “flip-flopper”, pointedly made note of them all in his convention speech. The most disappointing of all is immigration. McCain, who has always been the champion of the immigrant at great political risk, abandoned his position during the primaries in favour of irrational and iterative GOP orthodoxy. McCain, who was once the standard-bearer of reason on this subject, now supports “strong borders” as if the Arizona desert, Black Hawk helicopters, US Customs and Border Protection patrols, and, perhaps scariest of all, patrolling “minutemen”, do not serve as enough discouragement to stop the hopeful from striving for freedom and prosperity. It will never work, so logically the US should opt for a practical solution that does not sell-out the American people or American values and America’s promise. There is clearly little hope for such a resolution when once rational voices now parrot the logic of insane and impractical immigration control. Clearly a significant portion of Americans never consumed the lesson that America assimilated the Irish, Poles, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and Jews, and so too it will assimilate Mexicans- of which millions are already flag-waving Americans.
McCain’s duplicity on immigration is so lurid he even accused Obama of scuttling an agreement in a Spanish-language ad. This could not be further than the case. The elephant McCain represents trampled all over immigration reform.
Unfortunately, Obama’s response to this was a spectacular own-goal. Rather than take the opportunity to illustrate McCain’s insincerity to Hispanic-Americans, he poured fuel on racial fires, and attempted to draw an untenable link between McCain and Rush Limbaugh on immigration. Despite McCain’s disappointing change of heart on immigration, no such link exists. However, in what is perhaps one of the more bizarre moments of this campaign, Rush Limbaugh himself emerged from his radio studio to accuse Obama of “stoking racial antagonism” in the Wall Street Journal. Yes, Obama did take Limbaugh’s quotes out of context, and Obama should not have run the ad. But the fact that Limbaugh can write such an article and make such claims with a straight face proves that the shamelessness of the hypocrite is boundless. Limbaugh has famously pedalled fear on the subject, which makes his apparent outrage all the more striking. How can a figure that spends so much time spewing abuse and vitriol be so childishly sensitive? Surely, such a character, who spends his entire time at the coalface, expects to get muddied.
But that’s the modern incarnation of the GOP. They claim Obama is igniting class warfare but really they are yet again igniting cultural warfare. Representatives of the Republican Party stood on stage in St Paul and hurled insults at the Democrats, few of which were actually witty, most of which were downright mean-spirited and cynical. They explicitly sought to play on the fears of Middle America. The theme that most clearly came out of the GOP Convention was “small town mayor” versus “community organizer”; or rather “American” versus “cosmopolitan.”
The Republican Party is a veteran of such tactics. Nevertheless, the incumbent crop is not seeking to build consensuses like Nixon and Reagan did. Rather, they are trying to divide and conquer. They are on a quest for 50.1% and they are totally apathetic about the condition of the country afterwards. As is plainly evident, governance is not the GOP’s strong suit anymore. They are purely focused on elections, and though electorally adept, they are pushing the electorate closer and closer to the wire each time.
Meanwhile, McCain and Palin have transformed politics from a spin machine to an outright lie machine.
Almost every facet of their collective platform is founded upon a falsehood. McCain ceded the experience argument when he picked Palin, and by making the pick he effectively ceded the judgement argument too. However, Barack Obama clearly had some worthwhile advice: running for office on the mantra of change has huge potential for success. Thus, the new merchants of change were born: John McCain and Sarah Palin. They are going to reform Washington it is claimed. How exactly they will manage the task is unclear and, like everything else, subject to change.
Ignoring the incredulity generated by McCain/Palin’s assertion that they are the change ticket; the stream of lies and nonsense being advanced actually beggars belief.
Palin, according to McCain, is America’s foremost expert on energy. If that’s the case, God help the US. For an authority on energy, she sounds strikingly shallow as “drill, baby, drill” will hardly rescue America from a carbon famine and herald an age of energy independence. Palin has displayed scant knowledge of the other sources of energy, which the US will need to be independent, while her statements on oil and gas have hardly been professorial.
The governor has a habit of saying “I told Congress “thanks, but no thanks, on that bridge to nowhere”. This is sheer fantasy. During her gubernatorial campaign Palin was decidedly in favour of the bridge, even telling residents that she didn’t think they were “nowhere”. It seems unclear exactly why she turned against the bridge, and it is unlikely she’ll present the truthful answer, but it was either because Alaskan opinion at large felt the money could be better spent, or because Congress itself said “thank, but no thanks.”
McCain likes to present has running mate as some sort of inveterate soldier of fortune in the battle against earmarks. But really McCain is trying to construct the political version of The Lord of the Rings. As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a Washington lobbyist – one of the same ilk she is supposedly going to destroy – to help procure earmarks. Under her reign Wasilla received so much in federal goodies, its resident were among the highest per-capita recipients of federal earmarks in the United States.
Palin might also be heard telling cheering crowds that she sold the Alaska Governor’s luxury jet on E-Bay. Yet, she did no such thing.
As governor she claimed to undertake a world tour of sorts, visiting Kuwait, Iraq, Germany, and Ireland. Except the extent of her trip to Iraq was a mere a stop at the border, while her visit to Ireland actually consisted of a pit-stop in Shannon Airport where she never even disembarked. It was the first time she had ever received a passport.
It is on foreign policy where Sarah Palin’s failings are most glaring and the attempts to taper over them most extravagant. As Andrew Sullivan has repeatedly pointed out, there is no evidence of Palin ever taking a stand on any issue pertaining to international relations, yet it is claimed she will bring a tough brand of straight-talking diplomacy to the global stage. What are the foundations of the Palin Doctrine of US diplomacy? What intellectual assumptions does she make? What principles guide her view of the world? Where have they previously been exhibited? There has been no meaningful attempt on behalf of the McCain camp to address these questions precisely because there is no answer. Rather, it has been claimed that Palin is an authority on Russia by virtue of Alaska being the closest US state to the largest country in the world. Many once plausible commentators lost any pretence of credibility when they supported this claim. Of all the lies and distortions that have been advanced since Palin’s nomination, this is the most outrageous and also most disrespectful to the people of the US and the world. The tempatation to utterly mock this claim is all too easy to succumb to. But in actuality, it is no laughing matter. It is highly possible that Sarah Palin might soon be involved in summitry with Russia and China, or in talks with Iran. The next president will almost certainly have to deal with a crisis in Pakistan. The next president will also have to confront a world that drifts closer and closer towards power-political, rather than ideological, configurations. It is has been said over the last two years that the American people are reluctant to elect a foreign policy novice. Yet there is now a very palpable chance that they’ll elect a vice president and would be president, who is not a novice but exists outside the realm of reality altogether. She inhabits a world where proximity confers knowledge on foreign affairs. She lives on a parallel plane where coming from a state with oil and gas renders you an expert on energy. And she demonstrates a belief that lying makes something true.
This is the woman that John McCain picked to be his deputy. This is the web of lies that now binds the McCain campaign together. Every time they get called into account for their dishonesty they simply cry sexism or snobbery, and the lies just get repeated. When members of the media dare to question Palin’s experience, the spectre of sexism is always used to patch over the governor’s lack of basic fitness for the White House. Simultaneously large crowds are continuously treated to the thoroughly discredited line, “I told Congress thanks, but no thanks.” Not only are Palin’s claims overwhelmingly disproven, but John McCain too is now completely discredited. Of all the reversals McCain has pulled off due to political expediency this is the most damaging. McCain wishes “to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.” Lately he has been setting a poor example. In his most important “presidential decision” so far, he opted for someone with a fundamental lack of experience, no demonstrated intellectual curiosity, and no qualms about being dishonest. Indeed, what on earth happened McCain?
On the campaign trail McCain likes to say of his running mate: “I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington.” But has she ever been introduced to John McCain?
That John McCain, if he ever existed, has long since vanished in the Beltway dust, and if McCain is fighting a war inside himself, there is no evidence to suggest it. Any pretence of honour in this campaign disappeared amidst the screams of “celebrity” last July.
Needless to say, the Barack Obama of the campaign trail is the evil twin of the Barack Obama of the 2004 convention speech. Despite the panicking of the Democratic establishment who fear Obama is not responding to attacks with enough haste – because they still believe that’s why John Kerry lost in 04 – Obama has proven himself to be well capable of launching offensives of his own, and by the latest count Obama had actually pedalled more negative ads than McCain. In fairness, McCain was first down the low road. Obama took quite some time to follow him, but follow him he did, and he seems perfectly comfortable there.
However, Obama’s negativity is still largely reactive, his offensives generally counter-attacks. Contrary to the whines of the GOP establishment, when Obama goes negative he rarely appears as cynical and vindictive as McCain. For starters, Obama does not lie nearly as much. Obama’s campaign, now even bereft of much of the idealistic bi-partisanship he is famous for, is far more honest than McCain’s. Obama’s candidacy is still premised on a vision and a hope. The McCain candidacy has changed its raison d’être so many times, it is physically impossible to assess where he actually stands at any given time.
For example, once upon a time McCain opposed offshore drilling. He came around to supporting it, as is perfectly reasonable, when conditions on the ground changed. However, thereafter “drill, baby, drill” became one of the fundamental tenets of his campaign. Such a reversal stretches the imagination and insults the voters’ intelligence.
Just this week, McCain said he opposed any more federal bailouts of America’s troubled financial institutions. The next day, when AIG received federal assistance, he supported it lest he appear out of touch with the needs of the American people. Then McCain, apparently assuming voters have the memories of goldfish, said that Obama had not taken a stand on the financial crisis. That allegation is absolutely false as Obama has been discussing it continuously all week. Just yesterday, McCain said in a thoroughly unintelligible speech that the Fed should cease being the source of bailouts. Following the various political stances of John McCain is liable to leave one with motion sickness.
All the while this political merry-go-round is flanked by incessant attacks on Obama.
There are countless other examples of the chameleon-like political persona of John McCain. John Kerry, who knows a thing or two about being a “flip-flopper”, pointedly made note of them all in his convention speech. The most disappointing of all is immigration. McCain, who has always been the champion of the immigrant at great political risk, abandoned his position during the primaries in favour of irrational and iterative GOP orthodoxy. McCain, who was once the standard-bearer of reason on this subject, now supports “strong borders” as if the Arizona desert, Black Hawk helicopters, US Customs and Border Protection patrols, and, perhaps scariest of all, patrolling “minutemen”, do not serve as enough discouragement to stop the hopeful from striving for freedom and prosperity. It will never work, so logically the US should opt for a practical solution that does not sell-out the American people or American values and America’s promise. There is clearly little hope for such a resolution when once rational voices now parrot the logic of insane and impractical immigration control. Clearly a significant portion of Americans never consumed the lesson that America assimilated the Irish, Poles, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and Jews, and so too it will assimilate Mexicans- of which millions are already flag-waving Americans.
McCain’s duplicity on immigration is so lurid he even accused Obama of scuttling an agreement in a Spanish-language ad. This could not be further than the case. The elephant McCain represents trampled all over immigration reform.
Unfortunately, Obama’s response to this was a spectacular own-goal. Rather than take the opportunity to illustrate McCain’s insincerity to Hispanic-Americans, he poured fuel on racial fires, and attempted to draw an untenable link between McCain and Rush Limbaugh on immigration. Despite McCain’s disappointing change of heart on immigration, no such link exists. However, in what is perhaps one of the more bizarre moments of this campaign, Rush Limbaugh himself emerged from his radio studio to accuse Obama of “stoking racial antagonism” in the Wall Street Journal. Yes, Obama did take Limbaugh’s quotes out of context, and Obama should not have run the ad. But the fact that Limbaugh can write such an article and make such claims with a straight face proves that the shamelessness of the hypocrite is boundless. Limbaugh has famously pedalled fear on the subject, which makes his apparent outrage all the more striking. How can a figure that spends so much time spewing abuse and vitriol be so childishly sensitive? Surely, such a character, who spends his entire time at the coalface, expects to get muddied.
But that’s the modern incarnation of the GOP. They claim Obama is igniting class warfare but really they are yet again igniting cultural warfare. Representatives of the Republican Party stood on stage in St Paul and hurled insults at the Democrats, few of which were actually witty, most of which were downright mean-spirited and cynical. They explicitly sought to play on the fears of Middle America. The theme that most clearly came out of the GOP Convention was “small town mayor” versus “community organizer”; or rather “American” versus “cosmopolitan.”
The Republican Party is a veteran of such tactics. Nevertheless, the incumbent crop is not seeking to build consensuses like Nixon and Reagan did. Rather, they are trying to divide and conquer. They are on a quest for 50.1% and they are totally apathetic about the condition of the country afterwards. As is plainly evident, governance is not the GOP’s strong suit anymore. They are purely focused on elections, and though electorally adept, they are pushing the electorate closer and closer to the wire each time.
Meanwhile, McCain and Palin have transformed politics from a spin machine to an outright lie machine.
Almost every facet of their collective platform is founded upon a falsehood. McCain ceded the experience argument when he picked Palin, and by making the pick he effectively ceded the judgement argument too. However, Barack Obama clearly had some worthwhile advice: running for office on the mantra of change has huge potential for success. Thus, the new merchants of change were born: John McCain and Sarah Palin. They are going to reform Washington it is claimed. How exactly they will manage the task is unclear and, like everything else, subject to change.
Ignoring the incredulity generated by McCain/Palin’s assertion that they are the change ticket; the stream of lies and nonsense being advanced actually beggars belief.
Palin, according to McCain, is America’s foremost expert on energy. If that’s the case, God help the US. For an authority on energy, she sounds strikingly shallow as “drill, baby, drill” will hardly rescue America from a carbon famine and herald an age of energy independence. Palin has displayed scant knowledge of the other sources of energy, which the US will need to be independent, while her statements on oil and gas have hardly been professorial.
The governor has a habit of saying “I told Congress “thanks, but no thanks, on that bridge to nowhere”. This is sheer fantasy. During her gubernatorial campaign Palin was decidedly in favour of the bridge, even telling residents that she didn’t think they were “nowhere”. It seems unclear exactly why she turned against the bridge, and it is unlikely she’ll present the truthful answer, but it was either because Alaskan opinion at large felt the money could be better spent, or because Congress itself said “thank, but no thanks.”
McCain likes to present has running mate as some sort of inveterate soldier of fortune in the battle against earmarks. But really McCain is trying to construct the political version of The Lord of the Rings. As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a Washington lobbyist – one of the same ilk she is supposedly going to destroy – to help procure earmarks. Under her reign Wasilla received so much in federal goodies, its resident were among the highest per-capita recipients of federal earmarks in the United States.
Palin might also be heard telling cheering crowds that she sold the Alaska Governor’s luxury jet on E-Bay. Yet, she did no such thing.
As governor she claimed to undertake a world tour of sorts, visiting Kuwait, Iraq, Germany, and Ireland. Except the extent of her trip to Iraq was a mere a stop at the border, while her visit to Ireland actually consisted of a pit-stop in Shannon Airport where she never even disembarked. It was the first time she had ever received a passport.
It is on foreign policy where Sarah Palin’s failings are most glaring and the attempts to taper over them most extravagant. As Andrew Sullivan has repeatedly pointed out, there is no evidence of Palin ever taking a stand on any issue pertaining to international relations, yet it is claimed she will bring a tough brand of straight-talking diplomacy to the global stage. What are the foundations of the Palin Doctrine of US diplomacy? What intellectual assumptions does she make? What principles guide her view of the world? Where have they previously been exhibited? There has been no meaningful attempt on behalf of the McCain camp to address these questions precisely because there is no answer. Rather, it has been claimed that Palin is an authority on Russia by virtue of Alaska being the closest US state to the largest country in the world. Many once plausible commentators lost any pretence of credibility when they supported this claim. Of all the lies and distortions that have been advanced since Palin’s nomination, this is the most outrageous and also most disrespectful to the people of the US and the world. The tempatation to utterly mock this claim is all too easy to succumb to. But in actuality, it is no laughing matter. It is highly possible that Sarah Palin might soon be involved in summitry with Russia and China, or in talks with Iran. The next president will almost certainly have to deal with a crisis in Pakistan. The next president will also have to confront a world that drifts closer and closer towards power-political, rather than ideological, configurations. It is has been said over the last two years that the American people are reluctant to elect a foreign policy novice. Yet there is now a very palpable chance that they’ll elect a vice president and would be president, who is not a novice but exists outside the realm of reality altogether. She inhabits a world where proximity confers knowledge on foreign affairs. She lives on a parallel plane where coming from a state with oil and gas renders you an expert on energy. And she demonstrates a belief that lying makes something true.
This is the woman that John McCain picked to be his deputy. This is the web of lies that now binds the McCain campaign together. Every time they get called into account for their dishonesty they simply cry sexism or snobbery, and the lies just get repeated. When members of the media dare to question Palin’s experience, the spectre of sexism is always used to patch over the governor’s lack of basic fitness for the White House. Simultaneously large crowds are continuously treated to the thoroughly discredited line, “I told Congress thanks, but no thanks.” Not only are Palin’s claims overwhelmingly disproven, but John McCain too is now completely discredited. Of all the reversals McCain has pulled off due to political expediency this is the most damaging. McCain wishes “to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.” Lately he has been setting a poor example. In his most important “presidential decision” so far, he opted for someone with a fundamental lack of experience, no demonstrated intellectual curiosity, and no qualms about being dishonest. Indeed, what on earth happened McCain?
On the campaign trail McCain likes to say of his running mate: “I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington.” But has she ever been introduced to John McCain?
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Pigs, lipstick, toasters, and elitists
In a world marred by incessant conflict, poverty, disease, and now financial meltdown we have all been praying for some comic relief. Yesterday, the gods of humour, with their infinite wisdom and boundless mercy, propitiated.
Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, wife of British banking mogul Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild, prominent support of Hillary Clinton and member of the DNC, endorsed John McCain. Following McCain’s slogan almost to the letter she said it was time “to put country ahead of party”. Though worth an absolute fortune, de Rothschild insisted that she’s simply a middle class girl from New Jersey. Yeah, and Barack Obama’s an elitist.
Well, apparently he is. That was essentially the logic of de Rothschild’s endorsement. Straining the limits of credulity, de Rothschild said, “I don’t like him, I feel like he’s an elitist.” It was clearly beyond a middle class New Jersey girl, who, as chance would have it, happens to be worth well over $100M, to support an arrogant elitist, who, as chance would have it, was raised by a single mother, of modest means, and by grandparents, of even humbler origins, and who put himself through college before turning down top dollar jobs to work in South Chicago.
As one blogger put it, “Irony truly is dead.” But we’re all missing the point. De Rothschild put it best when she said “to be privileged is not elitist.”
“An elitist is someone whose state of mind is that they’re better than the rest of us,” she said.
Thankfully, there are such people around to square these pressing matters for us.
So Barack Obama, the elitist, has lost the stamp of approval of the House of the Rothschilds. It remains to be seen how the de facto endorsement of Britain’s premier financial family will help John McCain in the wake of “meltdown Monday”. It’s unlikely to seriously affect Obama’s sleep, even though de Rothschild has vowed to campaign for McCain between now and November 4.
The McCain camp has yet to confirm where the campaigning will take place. But de Rothschild, who divides her time between New York City and a British country estate, may have a couple of suggestions. Perhaps it was learning that McCain had seven homes that swung it for the forsaken Clintonite. Now that she is the source of ridicule from just about everybody with one home or less, she conjured the image of great anti-elitists before her. “Ronald Reagan might have said it right,” she contended, “the Democratic Party left me, I didn’t leave the Democratic Party.”
Whether this is racism, classism, or sheer patriotism, it simply beggars belief. However, there is nothing quite as odd, and strangely satisfying, as watching one of the planet’s privileged few paint his/herself with the brush of the commoner, or better yet the victim.
With that in mind, one eagerly awaits these campaigning events.
“In your places or mine John?”
Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, wife of British banking mogul Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild, prominent support of Hillary Clinton and member of the DNC, endorsed John McCain. Following McCain’s slogan almost to the letter she said it was time “to put country ahead of party”. Though worth an absolute fortune, de Rothschild insisted that she’s simply a middle class girl from New Jersey. Yeah, and Barack Obama’s an elitist.
Well, apparently he is. That was essentially the logic of de Rothschild’s endorsement. Straining the limits of credulity, de Rothschild said, “I don’t like him, I feel like he’s an elitist.” It was clearly beyond a middle class New Jersey girl, who, as chance would have it, happens to be worth well over $100M, to support an arrogant elitist, who, as chance would have it, was raised by a single mother, of modest means, and by grandparents, of even humbler origins, and who put himself through college before turning down top dollar jobs to work in South Chicago.
As one blogger put it, “Irony truly is dead.” But we’re all missing the point. De Rothschild put it best when she said “to be privileged is not elitist.”
“An elitist is someone whose state of mind is that they’re better than the rest of us,” she said.
Thankfully, there are such people around to square these pressing matters for us.
So Barack Obama, the elitist, has lost the stamp of approval of the House of the Rothschilds. It remains to be seen how the de facto endorsement of Britain’s premier financial family will help John McCain in the wake of “meltdown Monday”. It’s unlikely to seriously affect Obama’s sleep, even though de Rothschild has vowed to campaign for McCain between now and November 4.
The McCain camp has yet to confirm where the campaigning will take place. But de Rothschild, who divides her time between New York City and a British country estate, may have a couple of suggestions. Perhaps it was learning that McCain had seven homes that swung it for the forsaken Clintonite. Now that she is the source of ridicule from just about everybody with one home or less, she conjured the image of great anti-elitists before her. “Ronald Reagan might have said it right,” she contended, “the Democratic Party left me, I didn’t leave the Democratic Party.”
Whether this is racism, classism, or sheer patriotism, it simply beggars belief. However, there is nothing quite as odd, and strangely satisfying, as watching one of the planet’s privileged few paint his/herself with the brush of the commoner, or better yet the victim.
With that in mind, one eagerly awaits these campaigning events.
“In your places or mine John?”
The gift that keeps on giving
Speaking to CNN, America’s new Robin Hood, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, denied that she was bitter over Hillary Clinton’s loss to Barack Obama.
Indeed, with the word bitter dangling in front of her nose, she just could not resist taking a swipe at Obama for his, endlessly repeated, “Bitter Americans” remark. However, the world of effective political quips seemed to evade de Rothschild yet again. Hot on the heels of her failure to understand the definition of irony, de Rothschild struggled to consider that the people she sought to defend might not appreciate being called...“rednecks”.
"Barack Obama went and called the people who have guns and cling to their religion bitter. The people out who are the rednecks or whatever are bitter," she said.
Obama never actually called anyone a “redneck”, so it’ll be difficult for her to claim she was paraphrasing him. Is it a case that the middle class girl from New Jersey is so in tune with the sentiments of Middle America that she feels their anguish over being called “rednecks”? Or rather is the multi-millionaire, who divides her ornate internationalist life between the UK and New York, so out of touch she can’t help but insult those she’s trying to defend?
Who knows? In any case, maybe they’re all now “bitter” about being called “rednecks”.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, not wanting to be outdone by the competitive Rothschilds raced to endorse John McCain last night. The premise behind the endorsement was Trump’s “knowledge” of McCain to be “a great guy, a tremendous guy”.
He also railed against Obama’s decision not to select Hillary Clinton as his running mate, and used a neat little anecdote of the incredulity of his foreign friend to diminish the fact that Obama even won the Democratic Primaries. Furthermore, not wanting to back the losing horse Trump said, “It looks to me like McCain is probably winning.”
Of course, Donald Trump did not try to use his endorsement to stoke the fires of class warfare. In fact, his real motivations were fairly implicit. “This is not the right time for tax increases,” Trump argued. “And Obama is going to raise your taxes drastically.”
That’s right Mr Trump, he is going to raise your taxes drastically.
Thus, McCain has gathered for himself quite the high-profile and wealthy coterie. Now, to cement the appearance of being gloriously aloof, McCain only needs the endorsement of President Bush. Oh wait, he has it.
Indeed, with the word bitter dangling in front of her nose, she just could not resist taking a swipe at Obama for his, endlessly repeated, “Bitter Americans” remark. However, the world of effective political quips seemed to evade de Rothschild yet again. Hot on the heels of her failure to understand the definition of irony, de Rothschild struggled to consider that the people she sought to defend might not appreciate being called...“rednecks”.
"Barack Obama went and called the people who have guns and cling to their religion bitter. The people out who are the rednecks or whatever are bitter," she said.
Obama never actually called anyone a “redneck”, so it’ll be difficult for her to claim she was paraphrasing him. Is it a case that the middle class girl from New Jersey is so in tune with the sentiments of Middle America that she feels their anguish over being called “rednecks”? Or rather is the multi-millionaire, who divides her ornate internationalist life between the UK and New York, so out of touch she can’t help but insult those she’s trying to defend?
Who knows? In any case, maybe they’re all now “bitter” about being called “rednecks”.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, not wanting to be outdone by the competitive Rothschilds raced to endorse John McCain last night. The premise behind the endorsement was Trump’s “knowledge” of McCain to be “a great guy, a tremendous guy”.
He also railed against Obama’s decision not to select Hillary Clinton as his running mate, and used a neat little anecdote of the incredulity of his foreign friend to diminish the fact that Obama even won the Democratic Primaries. Furthermore, not wanting to back the losing horse Trump said, “It looks to me like McCain is probably winning.”
Of course, Donald Trump did not try to use his endorsement to stoke the fires of class warfare. In fact, his real motivations were fairly implicit. “This is not the right time for tax increases,” Trump argued. “And Obama is going to raise your taxes drastically.”
That’s right Mr Trump, he is going to raise your taxes drastically.
Thus, McCain has gathered for himself quite the high-profile and wealthy coterie. Now, to cement the appearance of being gloriously aloof, McCain only needs the endorsement of President Bush. Oh wait, he has it.
Hannity takes Palin for a brisk walk through her talking points
Sarah Palin last night stumbled her way through the softest, most favourable, if not downright choreographed, interview with Sean Hannity.
Hannity has been hailed by many on the right this year for his tiresome phrase "2008 is the year the media officially died in America" (or some derivative of that sentence). Indeed, it has. Not once did Hannity ever try to challenge Governor Palin. Not once did he try and lure her out of her comfort zone (where she remains strikingly uncomfortable). There was absolutely no critical analysis of any of McCain's positions, and it seemed like every question began with a little teaser of why Obama is unfit bordering on treacherous, allowing Palin the perfect opportunity to launch into one of her rehearsed, dishonest talking points.
There you have it. The American media in it's death-throes in 2008. Sean Hannity was the fatal symptom.
Hannity has been hailed by many on the right this year for his tiresome phrase "2008 is the year the media officially died in America" (or some derivative of that sentence). Indeed, it has. Not once did Hannity ever try to challenge Governor Palin. Not once did he try and lure her out of her comfort zone (where she remains strikingly uncomfortable). There was absolutely no critical analysis of any of McCain's positions, and it seemed like every question began with a little teaser of why Obama is unfit bordering on treacherous, allowing Palin the perfect opportunity to launch into one of her rehearsed, dishonest talking points.
There you have it. The American media in it's death-throes in 2008. Sean Hannity was the fatal symptom.
Weapons and Taxes
Barack Obama writes, in a USA Today op-ed, “The only way to end the petty partisanship that has consumed Washington for so long and make a difference in the lives of ordinary Americans is by bringing Republicans and Democrats together to get things done. That's what I've done throughout over a decade in public office.”
He cites tax-cuts and charter schools in Illinois, as wells as ethics reform and weapons non-proliferation agreements as examples of his bi-partisan record.
The latter two are dubious examples of bi-partisanship. Weapons proliferation is hardly controversial and the ethics reform bill actually led to a split between Obama and McCain, before passing the Senate 96-2.
Obama certainly has a better bi-partisan appeal than a bi-partisan record. This image has been his most successful political approach since his convention speech in 2004, and it is doubtless the best avenue for him to pursue now.
Meanwhile, John McCain released another ad repackaging his incessantly repeated claims that Obama will raise taxes and dramatically increase spending in Washington.
Aside from the mendacity of such claims it is difficult to fathom how any government could possibly build on the level of spending seen by the Bush Administration. The most profligate European leftist party has a better sense of fiscal responsibility than the GOP at the moment.
One certainty is the fact-checkers will have their heads spinning today.
He cites tax-cuts and charter schools in Illinois, as wells as ethics reform and weapons non-proliferation agreements as examples of his bi-partisan record.
The latter two are dubious examples of bi-partisanship. Weapons proliferation is hardly controversial and the ethics reform bill actually led to a split between Obama and McCain, before passing the Senate 96-2.
Obama certainly has a better bi-partisan appeal than a bi-partisan record. This image has been his most successful political approach since his convention speech in 2004, and it is doubtless the best avenue for him to pursue now.
Meanwhile, John McCain released another ad repackaging his incessantly repeated claims that Obama will raise taxes and dramatically increase spending in Washington.
Aside from the mendacity of such claims it is difficult to fathom how any government could possibly build on the level of spending seen by the Bush Administration. The most profligate European leftist party has a better sense of fiscal responsibility than the GOP at the moment.
One certainty is the fact-checkers will have their heads spinning today.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
And the winner is...Arizona
The American Legislative Exchange Council have designed a competitiveness index for American states based on similar global indices.
The winners are Arizona, Florida, and Texas while Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio are losing it. Accordingly, this should serve as a model for what the US would look like under either Obama or McCain. So the reasoning goes (naturally for this logic to be successful you have to completely ignore the fact that Bush has been President for almost eight years and the consequent outsourcing and credit crunch as well as ignore the diversity of the American states in everything from population to geography to industrial potential) an America under McCain will look like one giant Arizona, however, under Obama the US will resemble...Illinois.
Phil Gramm whines to Wall Street Journal readers: “We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.”
The winners are Arizona, Florida, and Texas while Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio are losing it. Accordingly, this should serve as a model for what the US would look like under either Obama or McCain. So the reasoning goes (naturally for this logic to be successful you have to completely ignore the fact that Bush has been President for almost eight years and the consequent outsourcing and credit crunch as well as ignore the diversity of the American states in everything from population to geography to industrial potential) an America under McCain will look like one giant Arizona, however, under Obama the US will resemble...Illinois.
Phil Gramm whines to Wall Street Journal readers: “We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.”
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Back in a week
The Rhino is currently having its horns sharpened and will return after September 12.
GRQ
GRQ
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