Excellent piece in the New York Times today about the perils and potential of counterinsurgency tactics. All hail Corporal Peter Callahan, who isn’t sure he supports the war, but is doing his best to calm things down and save lives.
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The Clinton Playbook
When George W. Bush takes the podium in the House tonight, he will peer into an audience of scowling, hostile faces. He will see lawmakers made bitter by the failure of his Iraq gambit, and by his call to risk compounding that failure by adding more U.S. troops to the lethal sectarian stew in Baghdad. He will see members of both the …
What else is on tonight?
If you aren’t in the mood to watch the State of the Union address tonight, here’s what the cable movie channels are offering:
ABC Family: Big Fat Liar
BET: Getting Played
Disney: The Country Bears
Lifetime: Devil’s Pond
AMC: Dances with Wolves
Showtime Too: Scream 2
The Rahm Primary
I a fan of Rahm Emanuel. I don’t care if he’s an “Alpha Democrat” or an asshole (perhaps redundant?), I just love him. Mostly because he curses more than I do, also because he has a worse temper. I love that he has never taken his own best advice: “as influence grows, so should humility.” And I want to cover the campaign of whoever …
Do What We Say, Or Else!
Just when we thought liberal Democratic activists had figured out that practicing litmus test politics guaranteed minority status, a terrible beauty – “They Work For Us” – has been born!
Two months after a sweeping mid-term victory that saw Democrats of all stripes — from Jon Tester in Montana to Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Heath Shuler in …
Hillary Care, Bush Care, Wyden Care
I’m going to have a lot more to say in a few weeks about the importance of proposing a universal health insurance plan if you’re running for President. But if you are going to make a health care proposal, certain minimal parameters seem obvious, especially The Two Mandatorys:
–an individual mandate, which requires everyone to buy into …
Re: Disgusting
The humorless but dedicated folks at Media Matters have been on this scurrilous Obama-the-Bomber story for days, but I’m sad to say that this is one instance in which they seem quite right about the truth still getting its boots on while the lie does the herky-jerky during the credits of “24.”
What’s especially brilliant about this …
Disappointing
I certainly hope that Hillary Clinton has more to say about health care than this.
Disgusting
The effort to slime Barack Obama has begun in the slimiest possible way. I received the following from an outraged reader, who had received it from a friend:
Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born
in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Muslim from
Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a
…
Re: She’s in.
One thing for sure, this race is going to be a far different one from what HRC might have anticipated even a few months ago. Here’s what I wrote on that score for Time.com.
It also strikes me that her disastrous foray into health care might not be the political liability it once was. These days, she talks about it almost apologetically, …
She’s in.
Here’s the link.
Insert Bombing Pun Here
After a mixed reception to Stephen Colbert’s performance at the WHCA dinner last year, the association is giving new meaning to the word “safe” by choosing as its entertainment this year one “Rich Little.” First, apparently he is still alive. Who knew? But he’s not alive enough to cause anything more than a titter. He apparently was …