Friday, December 28, 2007

Wesley Clark Versus Barack Obama

TalkLeft notices the wheels turning within wheels. Wesley Clark takes up the cudgels for Hillary against Obama.

This is a time for leadership, not politics. Senator Obama's campaign seems to believe that Senator Clinton's actions led to the tragic events in Pakistan. This is an incredible and insulting charge. It politicizes a tragic event of enormous strategic consequence to the United States and the world, and it has no place in this campaign.

For a background on this dust-up, see this timeline of how Obama has linked Hillary's 'poor judgment' to Bhutto's death.



One of the things a campaign does is let you look into the mental furniture of the candidate's minds. If you step back it provides a view of how each candidate's organization reacts to the others. Right now, it shows, in relatively harmless form, how one campaign reacts to the others. But one day these same staffs, these same thought processes will direct the Ship of State. Occasionally one is awestruck not by how large their vision is, but how small.

23 Comments:

Blogger El Baboso said...

This is why I have such a hard time with qui bono arguments. Opportunists (good and bad) sometimes (oftentimes?) profit more from the event than those that planned and executed it.

12/28/2007 08:14:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

Sometimes I don't have a clue what to think about a particular situation. At those times I'll check to see what Joe Biden thinks because he can usually be counted on to be a wrong way peach fuzz. So what ever he thinks--I will typically think the opposite is the better way to go. Here is Joe Biden talking about talking to Bhutto

12/28/2007 09:02:00 PM  
Blogger Valentine Smith said...

I just wonder what's being dangled in front of Clark.

12/28/2007 10:37:00 PM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

I tried to read some of the quotes, but I just can't stand to read the fecal fountain that issues from the mouths of those yucks.

Can anyone splain succinctly what Hillary is supposed to have uttered that would have had any influence whatsoever on the terrorists who've been dogging her path and planning their dirty business?

Pretty Please?

12/28/2007 11:07:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

Someone back in '00 or shortly before talked about how our nation doesn't do nation building. How things change especially when you make it to the inside. It is easy to say things on the campaign trail.

Obama's comments regarding Pakistan are stunning. If Obama's ideas on Pakistan start looking reasonable I am quite certain the US Government will be paying me to get in better physical conditioning and I will be hoping my computer programming skills are a lot more valuable than my rifle skills.

The AQ assassination plot called Benazhir a US asset, but I think way too much weight is being placed on her actual importance and that fact, did not the first attempt occur before Hillary's comment?

Obama's YAIC (yet another ignorant comment) accords way more power to us than we actually have. Kinda like dude who submits a job to run and a little bit into the job the system crashes, dude then wonders, what did I do?

12/29/2007 04:39:00 AM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

Mad Fiddler,

I think it was when asked what nations are the most dangerous or concerning Hillary answers Pakistan. Obama answers Iran.

Did you read the commentary?

12/29/2007 04:41:00 AM  
Blogger hdgreene said...

Obama is counting on a left friendly media that takes certain "truths" as self evident. He can imply that he had "a secret plan for Pakistan" without having to produce.

The natural question to ask Obama here: Since hindsight is 20-20, tell us the program you would have pursued that would have defeated Islamic extremism in Pakistan?

My guess: they haven't thought that one through. Still, the answer would be interesting. And here it is: "If I wasn't preoccupied with helping bring on defeat in Iraq (a war I never supported and still don't) I would've had time to figure out Pakistan. It's all Bush and Hillary's fault!"

12/29/2007 04:49:00 AM  
Blogger hdgreene said...

Here's the sort of "Obama" quote I thought the Clark statement responded to:


“Those who made the judgment that we ought to divert our attention from Afghanistan to invade Iraq and allow Al Qaeda to reconstitute and strengthen are now having to assess the wisdom of that judgment as we may be seeing yet another manifestation of Al Qaeda’s potency,” said Susan Rice, a top Obama foreign policy adviser who was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, in an interview with Politico.

12/29/2007 04:57:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Reza,

If he wants to follow that logic then you can do that with Obama's drug use.

He bought drugs so he contributed to the US's drug problem, the money made by bringing the drug into the US and selling it probably went to drug cartels which in turn may be helping terrorists and we know terrorists commited 9/11!
So there you go he is connected to that!
Go figure!!

I think the Iraq war did cause us to have to partner up with the "devil" so to speak instead of trying to stop their nuclear program.

But I think somewhere down the line we would have had to deal with them one way or another with the war going on or not.

Either partnering with them to keep an eye on the nukes or by war to stop them from making them and selling them to the highest bidder. It was a no win situation in my book.

Cynthia, Covington,

12/29/2007 09:15:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

12/29/2007 09:20:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

12/29/2007 09:21:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Mad Fiddler said...
So Colonel Peters wants us to feel scorn & contempt for Benazir Bhutto because she was a wealthy land-owner in a country with impoverished peasants.

Sorta reminds me of how we were s'posed to abandon Reza Shah Palavi back in the 1970's because he had secret (gasp) police who brutalized, tortured, and murdered his opponents. Now that we see the vast hemorrhage that is the Revolutionary Islamic Government of Iran, we begin to understand just exactly WHY the shah needed secret police.

Sure, the use of brutality is bad. But you still have to make distinctions between restrained use of violence --- i.e., a few hundred victims of the Shah's SAVAK over three decades on one hand, and the wholesale executions of tens of thousands of citizens each year by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Courts. Those courts have been rounding up, imprisoning, maiming, and executing Iranians for being practicing Catholics, Baptists, Bhuddists, Zoroastrians, Baha'i; for being union organizers, Communists, Leftists; for being fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals; for women being insufficiently modest, wearing too-revealing Western styles or walking on a public street without an accompanying male family member; for being a victim of rape or incest.

Well, jeez. Come to think of it, every SINGLE successful politician in the U.S. is rich rich rich.


I suppose by extension, we're expected to feel contempt and scorn for U.S. politicians and leaders, since they have enormous wealth in a country where there are MILLIONS of people without Health Insurance, without retirement plans, without multiple vacation homes, without seven different flavors of mustard in the fridge.

In other words, we are not allowed to make distinctions between degrees of evil or shadings of righteousness.

Anyone know any un-tainted and infallible politicians for me to give my vote to?

I suppose by extension, we're expected to feel contempt and scorn for U.S. politicians and leaders, since they have enormous wealth in a country where there are MILLIONS of people without Health Insurance, without retirement plans, without multiple vacation homes, without seven different flavors of mustard in the fridge.

Doug said...
"(US Citizens) without seven different flavors of mustard in the fridge."
---
THE MUSTARD GAP!

12/29/2007 09:31:00 AM  
Blogger Deuce ☂ said...

The western border of Pakistan has seven tribal areas, North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Bajaur Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai and Mohmand, all of which are inhabited by Pashtun tribes. Pashtuns make up 40% of Afghanistan.

Prior to the Russian invasion, and then Charlie Wilson's war, the Pashtuns made up 50 plus percent of the Afghan population. Pashtuns are overwhelmingly Sunni. 85% of the 6.2 million Afghan refugees who fled to Iran and Pakistan were Pastun. The Taleban is their choice of party.

That said, make a deal with the Taleban. Use Petraeus to broker the deal with some of his new found Sunni allies. Part of the deal is they have to give up bin Laden. That can be done and it simplifies part of the Paki problem.

12/29/2007 01:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doc99 said...

"That said, make a deal with the Taleban. Use Petraeus to broker the deal with some of his new found Sunni allies. Part of the deal is they have to give up bin Laden."

The Taliban refused to hand over Sammy in 2001. Why would they do so now?

12/29/2007 02:18:00 PM  
Blogger Deuce ☂ said...

times change.

12/29/2007 02:22:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The Shooter

12/29/2007 11:52:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

This video gives more detail than we have seen before

12/30/2007 05:11:00 AM  
Blogger al fin said...

I have nothing but contempt for the politicians trying to take political advantage over the death of a foolish and corrupt woman, halfway around the world in an impoverished and hopelessly violent place.

Neither of these Senators has the experience or substance to lead the most powerful nation on earth. [Note that the US President is not the most powerful person on Earth due to constraints within the US government structure. The current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is the most powerful single person on Earth at this time]

12/30/2007 10:42:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

Here's the assassination from a new angle which shows Bhutto's hair being raised as she is hit. Not too much left to the imagination here.

Why would the government put out ridiculous lie about bhutto hitting her head.

12/30/2007 05:18:00 PM  
Blogger DanMyers said...

Al Fin,

Is it the whiplash effect of war?

Or, the opportunity to politicize taken by the "loyal opposition" that drives the Czar forward? Interesting discussion there....

12/30/2007 05:58:00 PM  
Blogger DanMyers said...

To avoid confusing Dan's excellent posts, changed my Display Name

12/30/2007 06:02:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I write Dan's posts for him, but I'll just continue to post under "Doug."

12/31/2007 01:22:00 AM  
Blogger LarryD said...

"That said, make a deal with the Taleban. Use Petraeus to broker the deal with some of his new found Sunni allies. Part of the deal is they have to give up bin Laden."

"The Taliban refused to hand over Sammy in 2001. Why would they do so now?"

"Times change."

First of all, this assumes that bin Laden is still alive, rather than being a construct of the aQ media propaganda dept.

Second, why would the Taleban, currently ruling Waziristan (an independent state in all but name), want to deal? And what makes you think they keep any deal any longer than they find convenient?

12/31/2007 07:39:00 AM  

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