But this, now up at Talking Points Memo,* says volumes about just how badly one party’s candidate handled the role of presidenting this week:
From a Foreign Service Officer …
It’s probably not a surprise. But can I just say that if Mitt Romney wins in November, he is going to have a very chilly reception from his employees every time he goes abroad? I don’t think I can quite state the rage we’re all feeling towards him.
We already know how much Romney’s ongoing catastrophe of a reaction to the Middle East crisis has revealed about his limitations as a potential president. Knee-jerker, undisciplined, obsessed with the politics and not the job and so on. This is a reminder of his other great liability. He’s no one anyone with a brain and self respect would ever want to work for.
*I don’t usually grab someone else’s post in its entirety. But I can’t see cutting that, really, and the point is worth hammering home, IMHO.
Image: Adriaen Brower, The Bitter Drunk, before 1638.¹
1: If I could paint, this might very well have been a youthful self-portrait.
Mnemosyne
I’m sure that this is going to be a simple and obvious point that has occurred to many people before, but I suddenly realized why none of the US government’s denials of involvement in the video are getting any traction in the Middle East. Most of the countries that are outraged have pretty heavy-handed government censorship of movies and TV, so I think it’s very difficult for the people there to understand that the US doesn’t have that kind of censorship.
If everything you see on your TV has been pre-approved by your government, I can see that you would scoff at the claims by other countries’ governments who claimed that, no, really, they didn’t approve that video’s release.
jheartney
But would american foreign service officers still remember this gaff a year from now if president Romney went on a foreign trip? I think not; by that time he would have said something even more stupid and outrageous for them to be livid over.
Patricia Kayden
The smirking after his press conference also reveals that he’s not even taking this whole thing seriously. He’s enjoying being in the limelight and running his mouth.
Ben Franklin
Sobriety does nothing for Romney. Maybe he’s one of those who should drink, heavily. It could improve his chances of becoming….something.
scav
One tends to remember the first kiss or the first blow: later ones might get a little muddled. I very much doubt these are the enemies or simple opponents it is healthy to have. These people can think.
Dennis SGMM
@jheartney:
That’s not a worry. After one year in office president Romney wouldn’t be able to set foot on foreign soil without being accompanied by a battalion of Marines.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, I can’t think of any Presidential candidate in my lifetime who has so casually pissed off so many people as Mittens has, and had not the slightest clue that he was doing so while doing it.
He’s just the most tone deaf and politically unsavvy politician, ever.
Oh, yeah. That’s his problem. He’s not a politician! He’s only been running for office for 20 FUCKING YEARS!
Ed Drone
You know, with the GOP talking points about Obama’s ‘weakness’ and ‘Jimmy Carter foreign policy,’ it strikes me that this anti-Islam film might just be an actual rat-fuck. The makers of the film seem to be doing everything possible to inflame the Middle East, from pissing off the Muslims to pissing on the Israelis (and truly endangering the Coptic Christians in those countries), and it seems to me that they could not have been unaware of the effect. Yes, they may just be particularly nutty whack-jobs, but:
Who funded them?
Who advised them?
Who benefits if the world blows up in the administration’s face?
If there turns out to be ANY connection between Rove or Koch or Adelson or any of that crew and the film-makers, I call treason! If any of those conniving sons-of-bitches (my apologies to actual canines) aided or abetted or had prior knowledge of this, they should be condemned and driven from the public square, and all their works, money, financial holdings, and property confiscated and distributed to the people of Egypt, Lybia, Palestine, etc.
Then they should be punished.
Ed
Milord
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/7780/rawsewage.jpg
Dennis SGMM
@Villago Delenda Est:
For the longest time, I could not fathom how Romney was able to become the Republican nominee. Then it hit me; he’s there to make George W. Bush look good and thus free 2000-2008 to become a part of the national memory.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGrrrl)
@jheartney: I don’t think it is so much the stupid things he says….which are annoying and could make one livid…particularly Romney using the death of a beloved State Department employee, the Ambassador, to score political points before rigor mortis had probably even set in….
I think it is also and more importantly a matter of his stupidity literally putting their lives in jeopardy. As one of the BJ headliners said yesterday (can’t remember which, sorry), international politics requires a great deal of control, thought and subtlety because one wrong word and Americans overseas can get killed. G.W. was bad enough and Romney is worse. He’s already shown that he has no control or care for the welfare of State Dept Employees and we’re only in September!
Ash Can
I’ll never forget seeing on TV, back in 2009, the sight of Hillary Clinton walking into the State Department building for the first time as Secretary of State (IIRC, it was on Inauguration Day). Granted, she was a familiar face in DC, but it really struck me how many State Department employees crowded into the lobby and welcomed her with applause and cheers. I knew I was happy to see her there (along with all the other members of the Obama Administration assuming office that day), but the enthusiasm of the State employees really said something, very loud and clear.
Ben Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’s not a politician! He’s only been running for office for 20 FUCKING YEARS!
He is a celebrity. Celebrities like Charlie Sheen, get to believing the bullshit their entourage feeds them in order to curry favor. Mitt has been getting 20 years of huzzahs from those least likely to help him develop any perspective.
Citizen_X
@Ben Franklin: Between teetotaler Romney and dry-drunk Bush, I’m starting to appreciate drinking politicians. Here’s to our brewmaster President! (Eh, it’s late enough for a toast, right?)
Dennis SGMM
@Ed Drone:
I am opposed to the suppression of free speech. I am more opposed to throwing lit matches into a powder keg. The people who made that thing deliberately and with malice aforethought created that abomination with the intent of causing death.
What they did is grounds for hanging but, not grounds for prosecution. I would be satisfied to hear who they are and who funded them.
EDIT: I want them to spend the rest of their miserable lives looking over their shoulders.
TheMightyTrowel
@Citizen_X: it’s 16.51 here in the UK. that’s cocktail hour.
Amir Khalid
@Ed Drone:
I wonder what we are to make of the fact that “Sam Bacile”, real name Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is himself a Copt. Self-hating or incredibly stupid?
...now I try to be amused
@Villago Delenda Est:
I had been associating Romney and Bush since both were called CEO-politicians, but Bush never would have put his foot in it like this. That’s because Bush was a politician who dabbled in business, but Romney is a CEO who dabbles in politics, like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman.
Ash Can
And I also keep thinking about the fact that we haven’t even had any debates yet.
JGabriel
I think every single employee of a every company taken over by Bain Capital knows exactly how he feels.
.
TooManyJens
@Amir Khalid: I’m going to go with “has an agenda and doesn’t really care how many of his fellow Copts get hurt in the pursuit of that agenda.” But honestly, I feel like right now we maybe have 5% of the story.
Citizen_X
@TheMightyTrowel: Thank you for the needed perspective. Bottoms up!
Dennis SGMM
@Ash Can:
I have a vision of Romney smirking and dissembling, punctuating his performance with awkward pauses for the applause that never comes.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
No. Something else is at play here. Despite his cheerful bluster, Romney behaves like someone who is totally out of his depth and fears that any moment now, he will be called on his BS and pulled back down to earth.
He lies and double downs on lies, and once challenged he has no choice but to keep on lying because he doesn’t have the intelligence to modulate his statements, to reconsider them or temper them. He’s got to be the bully to mask the cowardice.
He’s the rich kid who could always be brought to heel because he was the Mormon weirdo.
Romney reeks of desperation. The irony. Even though he wants to be elected president so bad that he will say anything, he will probably be relieved when he is defeated in November. And he will forever be able to tell himself and anyone who might listen that he was the better man, but will privately be thankful that he never had to try to do the job for which he knows he is spectacularly ill-suited.
The country will be doing Romney a great favor in voting against him.
TheMightyTrowel
@Citizen_X: There was a Pimms* ad for a long time over here with the slightly tongue-in-cheek tag line ‘It’s 5pm somewhere in the empire’. My other half, along with many of his countrymen, took that to heart as a motto.
*For the uncivilised: Pimms
lonesomerobot
MSNBC, please stop killing me with Paul Ryan. The man is an infuriatingly annoying mega-douche. He never thought of himself as part of the government. Except, all those paychecks he’s gotten for the majority of his adult life.
Dennis SGMM
@lonesomerobot:
Ryan’s career is a continuum. He started by handing out baloney for Oscar Meyer. Now he’s handing out baloney for the GOP.
shoutingattherain
@Ed Drone: Then they should be punished hanged.
chopper
@Amir Khalid:
i just like how someone named ‘Nakoula Nakoula’ needed an alias.
bet he’s a real pick-up artist at the bar. hi, i’m Nakoula Nakoula. can i buy you buy you a drink a drink?
shoutingattherain
fywp
Villago Delenda Est
@Dennis SGMM:
And all the Marines will be watched by Secret Service agents very carefully, or won’t be allowed live rounds.
Because in a way it was very wise for Mittens to avoid service in Vietnam, just as it was for the deserting coward and the Dark Lord.
He would have come back in a body bag, Doug Niedermayer style.
DBaker
Remember that when Hillary came on as Secretary of State, she got a standing O from the staff when entering the building. Sort of gives you an idea what the State Department thinks of the Neo-cons and their policies.
Ben Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
He would have come back in a body bag, Doug Niedermayer style
Heh…fragged.
johio
Well, I’m a former foreign service officer and I was mad enough to spit tacks. I’m still mad enough to spit tacks. His smug, self-serving willingness to criticize a perfectly straightforward and CORRECT denunciation of a piece of crap designed solely to inflame public opinion in the Muslim world is unforgivable. From the safety of his mink lined campaign office, he denigrates those in the line of fire to make himself look tough. May he rot in hell forever.
ericblair
@Amir Khalid:
And this is what I presume a whole buncha people at a number of intelligence agencies are spending evenings and shortly weekends figuring out. The Libyans dragged in some people, who knows whether they’re of any real interest. I’m assuming that Nakoula is an agent-provocateur for some group or other, and now it’s time to figure out who and why, and also think there may be a few odd bedfellows.
japa21
The question that is continually asked is to look at who benefits from the movie being made, put out there, and specially suddenly dubbed into Arabic.
There is obviously little doubt that it would cause unrest in the ME, although suprisingly to some degree, it took a while to take hold, which leads me to the thought that there was some additional incitement to riot taking place.
Today it all came into focus for me. Probably the only thing that can prevent Obama from winning right now is a major economic problem. The mere rioting wouldn’t be enough to create enough of a negative.
However, whenever there is unrest in the ME, what happens? Oil prices go up, gas prices go up, and that impacts the economy.
And we see that today, with oil now close to $100/barrel.
Connect the dots. And yes, I am a conspiracy theorist, although I don’t put the Romney campaign into the conspiracy. But the big money behind Romney, Adelson, the Koch brothers? I doubt if the loss of a few lives would bother them in the least.
GregB
I think that a bombing campaign against Iran at the behest of Bibi Netanyahu will cool the region down.
Dennis SGMM
@Villago Delenda Est:
Where I was, we were fortunate enough to get only one officer who was such a danger to us that the idea of eliminating him became a real topic. Someone blew up his jeep one evening just as a friendly sort of heads up and he was subsequently transferred back to Saigon.
shortstop
@Patricia Kayden: Look a little closer at that smirk. It doesn’t seem to me to be at all the same quality of smirk he used to sport. Throughout that press conference, his eyes were darting, his face was visibly tight, and his smile kept flashing on and off like a tic. That was one nervous man; he knew he’d stepped in it and he was trying to brazen it out while panicking underneath.
Bernard Finel
I’m going to have to dissent here. This is no different that when guys in the military made similar arguments about, say, Obama because he’d been opposed to the Iraq War. Or back in the 1990s when one base commander down South cracked that Bill Clinton was so unpopular he could not guarantee his security on base. Bullshit.
If you are in the Foreign Service (or military) and you hate the president who is lawfully elected to the point that you feel rage toward him, you resign. Otherwise, you follow your lawfully elected leaders with good cheer and to the best of your ability.
Cermet
@Dennis SGMM: Really? Who would be protecting that shithead from the Marines?
Ben Franklin
@ericblair:
Nakoula is an agent-provocateur for some group or other, and now it’s time to figure out who and why,
Muslims burn Coptic churches and kill Christians throughout the ME without much Media coverage. Not defending, just saying what the possible ‘why’ might be.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid:
I only just now got that “Bacile” and “Basseley” are homonyms. I guess he didn’t go with “Nick” because that would be too obvious?
Cermet
@Bernard Finel: Really? Wow, we all had such concern about this issue. Thanks so much for clearing that sooooo confusing point up for the BJ’ers. We really did believe that danger – not. Get a grip if you want to post here and not look really …uh, not to bright.
Villago Delenda Est
@ericblair:
I think Nakoula may just be a total idiot, hellbent on pissing off Muslims, without any regard to the consequences of said pissing off, because, after all, he’s in California, not in Benghazi, or Cairo, or Sana’a.
The locals in Benghazi who wanted Chris Stevens dead saw their opportunity to use a demonstration as a distraction and cover, and acted.
The “Sam Bacile” story was designed to throw off the scent to the usual villains of militant Muslims everywhere, the Jews. Even with the story unfolding, there’s going to be some who will hold on to the meme. It’s not like guys like Sheldon Adelson aren’t craven enough to do something like this, after all. It’s plausible.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Honestly, I think they think the US government backed the picture is because they were told that. Also it didn’t really matter what the Danes told them either.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel talked about that last night.
the Conster
I imagine daily meetings at Obama campaign headquarters where they have all of this stuff ready to roll out against Willard, but Mitt keeps stepping on his own dick before they get to use it. It must be awesome and frustrating to watch your opponent self-destruct when you’ve got all this great oppo in your pocket. One of the pundits said that what killed Mitt in Ohio was that ad about the laid off workers building the stage for Bain to announce that they were done, like building your own coffin. I hope we get to see some more like that before this is all done.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bernard Finel:
Just a point. Senator Jesse Helms was the guy who made the crack about Fort Bragg. I can’t think of any commissioned officer saying shit like that who would not expect to get the Singlaub treatment and find his active duty days over.
And out.
Bernard Finel
@Cermet: I’m not sure you actually understood my point… but whatever.
Bubblegum Tate
I’m pretty sure I can predict the wingnut reaction to this:
“Of course the career liberal bureaucrats who’ve spent their lives leeching off government largesse are going to dislike Romney–he’s going to root them out and return government to the people. So who cares what they think?”
scav
@Bernard Finel: They’re smart and disciplined enough to do what needs to be done for the good of the country and lay little non-critical traps etc. Diplomatic and Sneaky are fairly close in my dictionary at least.
TheMightyTrowel
@Villago Delenda Est: Call me a cynic and a snob (many do), but I generally believe that the majority of the population are too dumb for any of the conspiracy theories ones reads ever to have come to fruition. There is always a weak link when a large group conspires and there are a whole heck of a lot of weak links in the human gene pool. Occam’s Razor and all that – it’s much easier to imagine 2 or 3 people acting like morans with no sense of the consequences of their actions than to picture a shady cabal of 10 or more successfully working in concert to achieve a huge and long-lasting result
Mandalay
@GregB:
The only good thing about the events of the past three days is that at the moment nobody cares about Netanyahu, and his temper tantrums, and his red lines.
shortstop
@the Conster: Don’t you worry, friend. What we have here is an embarrassment of riches, but nothing will be wasted.
shortstop
@scav: You’re not saying that like it’s a bad thing, are you?
The Moar You Know
@Ed Drone: Pat Lang, no liberal himself, is saying the same thing, but without the “strikes me”.
I think it’s obvious as hell that this is a straight-up ratfuck, the idea of some desperate Republicans and Armageddon-bent God Squad killers.
scav
@shortstop: Nev-ah.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@…now I try to be amused:
Fixed. Let’s not kid ourselves, Dubya was a wastrel until he was around 40 and afterwards, everything he touched turned to shit, including his Forgotten Presidency.
And he did, on many occasion, stick his foot in his mouth like this. What’s different now from then:
1) He had a compliant set of Villagers. I know from talking with my friend the former WH reporter that with the exception of Tony Snow, Dubya’s WH communications staff bent over backwards to accommodate the Villagers. As such, they were far less likely to go hard on him whenever he stuck his foot in his mouth. Rmomney, it’s pretty clear how the Villagers are turning on him.
2) Dubya was liked, as a person, by not just the Villagers but by a large segment of the public. Rmoney is a dick plain and simple. As such, it colors how people react when they stick their foot in their mouth.
3) No *effective* pushback by the grass roots. The rise of blogs like this one and the GOS occurred precisely because of all the passes Dubya got from the Villagers. The right had been working the media refs for years before we got into the action via the internet. We’re here and we’re established now, thus, the Villagers don’t control the narrative near the way they did just a short 10 years ago.
Ben Franklin
@Bernard Finel:
Otherwise, you follow your lawfully elected leaders with good cheer and to the best of your ability.
There’s been an erosion of respect for diplomatic missions, of late; notwithstanding the Ecuadoran Embassy in London. That is a slippery slope for us, but in the ME there is little respect, to begin with.
bcinaz
@Ben Franklin: So best course of action is to frame the US?
Villago Delenda Est
@TheMightyTrowel:
Oh, I agree with you there. Back in the 90’s when that TWA plane crashed into Long Island Sound, and the conspiracy theorists (spurred on by Pierre Salinger, of all people) claimed it was an errant missile test that went wrong and was hushed up (on Bill Clinton’s direct orders, of course!)?
Come on, people, you can’t swear an entire guided missile frigate’s crew to secrecy on something like that and expect it to hold up unless you sequester them all for…well, like forever or something.
Bernard Finel
@Villago Delenda Est: You’re right it was Helms. But there were also plenty of cracks about Clinton from military folks during the 1990s. Point holds though about professionalism in the military and foreign service not allowing for this sort of sentiment.
Ash Can
Gotta run and haven’t read the whole thread, but over at LGF the commenters are discussing a spate of additional violent protests that have popped up in several ME countries, as well as bomb threats phoned in to the Universities of TX and N. Dakota. Something really strikes me as off here.
Hal
My question is, are Romney’s advisers telling him to go down this path, or is Romney so full of himself that he’s doing this all on his own with his various advisers sitting back in exasperation?
It’s going to be very interesting to hear the inside story of this campaign when all is said and done. I’m thinking Mitt’s going to be thrown under the bus by his entire campaign staff.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Ed Drone:
One of my tag lines: “Conspiracy theories tend to assume too much competence on the part of the PTB to be true.”
However (and IMO), what we may have here is an example of an incompetent conspiracy. As we’ve seen, inflaming the middle east doesn’t take much. So I am forced buy into the ‘ratfuck’ theory. Hopefully it comes out soon. I bet the initials “P.G.” and “J.B.” will figure prominently.
That said… WTF is the Romney camp thinking? Ok Mitts, let’s say your helpers manage to set the middle east on fire and get you elected… what then? You declare war on two billion people?
This is real life, not some fucking 1980s movie or Mormon prophecy or whatever narrative is driving you at the moment. Serious people, worthy of office, don’t think along those lines. They just don’t.
Sully of all people pegged it the other day: Unqualified. Utterly unqualified.
WereBear
@…now I try to be amused: This highlights the HUGE problem with CEO-Presidents; despite its appeal to mammon-worshipers, CEOs are the most sucked-up-to entities in our modern world.
They don’t hear the bad news until the ship is sinking.
Robin G.
@the Conster: Ooh. I hadn’t seen that one. Do you have a link?
Villago Delenda Est
So you looked a lot like Mick Jagger (pardon me, SIR Mick Jagger) in your younger barfly days?
Nina
Nakoula’s a front man, a bright shiny object for the press to chase. He got out of prison days before production began on the film. Someone else did all the planning and the prep work for this thing.
Christian Dominionists was the guess I saw swirling about yesterday, seems pretty likely. Folks need to take the focus off Im Bacile and look deeper; we might be able to uncover something truly toxic before it does more damage.
I’m guessing the FBI is on the case, given the international implications. Someone, somewhere in this mess broke a law. There’s always tax evasion – it got Al Capone, maybe it’ll get Terry Jones.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@FlipYrWhig:
Good catch.
MikeJ
NY Magazine now says protesters in Lebanon are attacking KFC. Is it wrong to hope they have a Chik-fil-a?
Ben Franklin
@bcinaz:
It’s such an badly made film I can’t imagine the makers to have a clue about what they wanted to do except slam Muslims. But that doesn’t mean there were not ancillary players who knew the last thing it would accomplish, is the cessation of Coptic persecution. Nakkoula did try to cover his coptic identity with ‘Jimmy Israel’ and many thought this a mossad op.
Not likely, they would be a part of such rank amateurism.
Enceladus
FWIW, and apropos of nothing:
Dancin’ Dave Gregory has now added Gangnam Style to his repertoire:
http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49031539#49031539
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal:
It’s been well established over the past 9 months that CEO Mittens is fully large and in charge of this entire fucking mess, and fires people who try to make things better, because they get mentioned and this causes a klieg light or two to wander off Mitten’s abfab to die for visage.
Also, the dumbshit seems to be totally uncoachable, and has made efforts to fill his staff with nothing but yes-men (and women) who will reassure him that he’s on the glide path to something other than an electoral debacle that will be studied for generations to come as the thing NOT to do. You know, sort of like the introduction of New Coke.
Hal
John Cassiday at the New Yorker, via Daily Kos:
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/09/mitt-romneys-libya-blunder-reflects-larger-failings.html#ixzz26Sl4ez8W
gelfling545
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGrrrl): It is very worrying to think that he will soon be receiving national security briefings. Just think what a mess he can make blundering about with classified information.
the Conster
@Robin G.:
linky
Ben Franklin
Mittens is fully large and in charge
His entourage; ‘make it so’.
Raven
@The Moar You Know: His initial post about the embassy put the statement and the breech in reversed order in the headline.
lonesomerobot
Following this, has anyone else gotten this email?
I’ve gotten it twice, from two different spam addresses (I run a business with an “info@” email address). And it’s not about the same video, even.
Villago Delenda Est
@gelfling545:
I wouldn’t be too concerned. These briefings at the Presidential level are pretty generic, and unless the President is one of these wonk guys who likes to talk about the sources in code (“Oh, so the source was RAGING HAMSTER on this one?”) you don’t to into the seriously classified stuff that if revealed would actually cause damage to the nation’s security. As Bernard has stated in the past, overclassification in endemic, so a pretty bland bowl of porridge has “GUATEMALAN INSANITY PEPPER” stamped on it top and bottom.
Southern Beale
Mitt Romney completely lacks empathy. That’s basically it in a nutshell.
scav
To a certain extent, everyone in the ME with a grievance and half a brain would be jumping all over this opportunity when the ‘Mercan media is suddenly paying actual attention to events in the ME during a campaign cycle where real live ‘mercans might actually be watching the news. I very much doubt one motivation fits all events at this moment.
Tom Levenson
@Bernard Finel: I think you’re misreading the Foreign Officer’s comment.
I don’t read any sense that they would cease to do their jobs. They serve the country, and, through the Secretary of State, the Presidency.
But you know as well as I that the people who occupy the jobs of diplomats are, in fact, people. That they loathe their top boss won’t stop them from serving the government and country which he leads — but no amount of loyalty to institution will alter the fact that Romney will receive exactly the correct social responses to his presence…and not one jot more.
Think of the Pete Seeger song “Big Muddy.” Those guys followed the leader they knew was taking them deep into the shit — and got the hell out only after that idiot died. You can have an opinion and do your job.
The real issue for me is that this is a flag: we know now more clearly than before that Romney does not evoke loyalty or enthusiasm from those who serve under him (except for his limited circle of partners and immediate staff, presumably). It’s a fair question to ask during an election if that’s a good thing for someone who wants to be president.
Asking the question answers it, of course.
hueyplong
Romney’s antics over Libya/Egypt this week have John Bolton written all over them. The only difference between the two guys is that Bolton’s eyes wouldn’t have been darting (as shortstop noted) at the press conference, because Bolton wouldn’t have given a flying f*** whether the assembled media types bought what he was selling.
If a candidate’s positions are indistinguishable from John Bolton’s, then he ought to be diqualified to be president without further inquiry on any subject.
Amir Khalid
@gelfling545:
I presume those national security-briefings will be prefaced with warnings about the penalties for inappropriate disclosure. Do they by any chance include criminal sanctions like heavy fines or jail time?
Tom Levenson
@Villago Delenda Est: Not so much. But the glory of paint is that one may gild a lily.
GregB
The government in Iran was toppled in 1953 with the help of ginned up anti-government protests bought and paid for by a foreign governments.
Let’s not kid ourselves that this kind of act is unprecedented.
scav
Only a fool thinks because he commands the knee, he commands the heart.
Funny, closest I can find to that is “Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee, Command the health of it?”
Southern Beale
And now I read that Romney has apologized to our “enemies” for the anti-Muslim film.
So it looks like he’s got all sides of the issue covered.
Joey Giraud
@TheMightyTrowel:
Imagination is the limit of understanding.
FlipYrWhig
@Hal: It really is amazing to see all the daft Dubya Bush arguments come roaring back. Like “Bush kept us safe, except for that one time, but since then, no attacks.” “What about attacks overseas?” “Those don’t count.” “Wait, but the attacks you blame on Clinton before 9/11, those were also overseas attacks, right?” “Yes, and he didn’t stop them.” “But Bush didn’t stop 9/11!” “Because of Clinton.” “Aaargh, two by four, apply directly to the forehead.”
pete
@Dennis SGMM: After one year in office president Romney wouldn’t be able to set foot
on foreign soiloutside his bedroom without being accompanied by a battalion of Marines.Fxd
the Conster
@Southern Beale:
His previous comment was pre-9:11 a.m. thinking.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Dennis SGMM:
(Think ‘Rupert Pupkin’ in The King of Comedy…)
Bernard Finel
@Tom Levenson: Again I disagree. It was not a legitimate line of argumentation when used against Clinton and Obama in terms of military support, and I don’t think it is a legitimate line of argumentation now.
Or, did you think it is appropriate when Republicans claimed that the military supports their candidate (or conversely hated their opponents) in past elections?
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: That is a huge part of it. The other part of it is that they have cortorted views of our power. They really do believe that the country that can rain bombs down anywhere on earth can control every single thing that happens in the world.
I met a guy in Afghanistan who was convinced that my Oakley sunglasses could see through clothing and that I was using this capability to ogle the women and girls in his village. When I gave him the glasses and told him to keep them he was then certain that I had disabled the function and that the controls were hidden from him.
Now, most of the Arab world is more sophisticated than that, but that kind of magical thinking permeates the culture and is observable in the Arab world (in my admittedly limited experience) to varying extent.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
That’s kinda my point, though — because they live in countries where the government tightly controls the media, it’s completely plausible to them that the US government or the Danish government was complicit in releasing the offensive materials despite any hand-waving denials by those governments because it happens all the time where they live. Remember, the offensive trailer wasn’t just something people found on YouTube and got pissed off about — it was broadcast on national television in Egypt with the permission of their government.
If you don’t have freedom of speech for yourself and your government is controlling your access to information, you’re going to assume that’s how most places operate and the idea that this video would be released without the permission of the US government would be laughable.
I’m just saying that it’s a non-religious cultural difference that a lot of people don’t really think about.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Bernard Finel: Unless you consider your job as a foreign diplomat more important than your feelings for the pres. I can hate any number of my bosses for being idiots and still think that the job is important. And I can give them a cold welcome when we have to meet, cold meaning the minimum required interaction.
scav
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): that’s been pointed out several times — at this point, he’s deliberately ignoring the difference. I think he’s read one too many airport books on management.
WereBear
Holy interrobang, Bain did what?! There aren’t enough swear words in the world to cover the depth of that assholishness.
And then the Obama Campaign dug it up and used it? They are GOOD.
Villago Delenda Est
@Soonergrunt:
They are, in short, dilettantes. They have no appreciation how HARD it is to deploy troops as a sustainable combat force anywhere AT ALL. They think that they magically fall out of the sky (think the opening scenes of the original Red Dawn) and take everything over just like that, no muss, no fuss, with dinner served three hours later.
All tactics, no logistics.
The teatards and neocons, too, subscribe to magical thinking of this nature. “Tax cuts will make everything better”. “Our troops will be showered with flowers and candy.”
Dennis SGMM
@the Conster:
Romney’s voters are doing the same thing.
Amir Khalid
@Soonergrunt:
Don’t you remember the ads for “X-ray specs”, among other novelty items, they used to put in American comic books? The guy must have figured your Oakleys were the latest military version.
Tom Levenson
@Bernard Finel: I believe we are talking past each other.
You seem to say that foreign service officers cannot express rage at what they see as disrespectful and dangerous comments in the wake of the deaths of colleagues. That to do so globally impinges on their ability to serve their country under leaders they may personally despise to such a degree they would have no choice but to resign if Romney were to take office.
I say that’s nonsense. People make that kind of leap all the time: love the institution, loathe the temporary occupant, do your best out of loyalty to your organization, your comrades, and your own sense of self worth.
Do I expect that career FSO’s would be little more than formally polite to Romney and his appointees, assuming the latter are cut from the same cloth as their patron? Yup. Do I think that’s disqualifying. No. YMMV
The best counter argument that would bolster your side, I think, is the experience of that guy who is the acting head of one of the agencies at the choke point of mortgage refinancings. He’s only there because Senate Republicans have blocked Obama’s appointment to head the agency, and he’s taking the GOP austerity line that nobody gets out alive. So the duty of loyalty to the political leadership does matter. But I don’t think the FSO above was advocating an undermining of policy. Rather, he was just expressing the human reality: Romney disgusted a lot of people this week, and they will remember. How not?
Dennis SGMM
@Soonergrunt:
When I was over in that ol’ Vietnam I met Vietnamese who believed that, because we operated 24 hours a day, Americans didn’t sleep.
Joey Giraud
@GregB:
It’s also quite inexpensive overall.
Roger Moore
@Soonergrunt:
IOW, they fail to grasp the difference between the power to control and the power to deny. That’s odd, considering that they’ve used denial tactics so successfully in Congress.
Roger Moore
@Tom Levenson:
Or, in the alternative, imagine what will happen if the foreign service really takes Mr. Finel’s advice seriously and wind up resigning en masse, leaving the State Department crippled from lack of experienced personnel. That might do more real harm to the institution than mere grumbling and ill-will. For a real world example, look at how badly the CIA was hurt by resignations during the Bush II administration.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Bernard Finel: Bern: You’re right up to a point. I entered Fed Service under Nixon and of course endured Reagan & Bush I. I had no love for any of them (altho’ on my reporting date Nixon gave me a 15% raise). But there’s a job out there that needs to be done so you do it and forget about the idiots in charge. It’s my main reason for working 18 years as a Federal Union Rep. and for most of that time, full-time (a very large internationally scattered local). I hated the managers, too, but sometimes felt sorry for them and represented them under-the-table when I saw them getting screwed. Resign, Hell! I was so hated that I wasn’t even invited to my own retirement party. Brings to mind FDR’s comment, “I welcome their hatred.”
elftx
oh all those poor State Dept people need not worry..for they will be applying for unemployment should Rmoney be elected as he will just outsource those jobs to well India maybe.
catclub
I think if you told many people that the new president would be disliked by the Foreign Service, they would take that as a big point in his favor.
I also think that once he is in place, about 99% of them will simple keep their heads low and buckle under. My sample set is what the Foreign service and Military did when GWB had wacky ideas. Mostly asked, how high, sir.
Joey Giraud
@Tom Levenson:
Senate Republicans have blocked Obama’s appointment to head the agency,
I wonder how many federal agencies are still under the control of Bush appointees.
And how many liberals are angry at Obama over enforcement policies that he has little to do with and has less energy to fight.
Obama knows that, for him, complaining is a political non-starter. And the media certainly won’t remind us about Republican obstruction.
A decade ago there was some reporting over Bush administration packing federal agencies with so-called “deep moles.”
Chris
@johio:
FSO brat here, agreeing completely. “Nice to know what Mittens would’ve used Dad’s body for if he’d died when he went to places like this!” was one of the first things that popped into my head.
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: To me, the smirk at the end of his press conference screamed “Nailed it!” I think he really thought he did a good job with that and that this would turn the presidential race in his favor.
...now I try to be amused
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
All I’m trying to say is that Dubya was a much better politician than Mitt. This, simple as it sounds, is why.
trollhattan
Willard and congress would zero out those moocher lefty furrin’ “service” folks anyway. I’ve got yer diplomat corps right here [points to Pentagon].
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Something like this already happened in Vietnam, when most of the experts on the region were purged from the State Department in the Red Scare era. That ended well.
Don’t get me started on the amount of harm the hard right has done to the CIA in the last sixty years. Oy. Bush was probably the absolute worst of the lot, though.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Only very slightly O/T: I heard this morning that there were riots on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, but haven’t heard or seen anything since about 8:00 this morning. What’s happening over there, and more to the point, please stay safe. We need your wise perspective!
Chris
@catclub:
Oh, sure. And most of those people are wingnuts. Still worth pointing out that they deserve better, especially those of them serving in places like Benghazi.
@Joey Giraud:
I think the DOJ was the biggest one – one of his big projects, I believe, was to basically eliminate the Civil Rights Division by staffing it with loyalists and redirecting it to protecting the evangelizing rights of fundies rather than the civil rights of minorities. I wager they’re all still there.
I wonder about the national security state. A lot of the politicization that went on under Bush was done by Rumsfeld, who ended up with egg all over his face – from all the reports I heard, things got much more meritocratic under Gates (as the political pressure went from “serve me, minions!” to “help, please, GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS MESS!”) I still think being a wingnut in that part of the government’s generally good for career advancement, though.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
That word always looks like an adverb to me.
gene108
@Southern Beale:
So do most Republicans and right-wingers…I fail to see this as a flaw in a modern Republican politician…
Joshua
You say that like his first action as president wouldn’t be to downsize the entire Department of State and outsource all of our diplomacy to some guy he was roommates with at BYU.
Nina
Some rightwing whackaloons are spreading a rumor that Obama ordered Marine embassy guards to take all the bullets out of their guns.
That’s the kind of rumor that’s going to get a Marine, or some misguided angry foreigners, killed proving it false.
Yet another case of legal to say it, but morally reprehensible to keep saying it.
different-church-lady
@WereBear:
Except that CEOs are the only people in the world who get to leave a sinking ship by using a golden parachute.
sm*t cl*de
Wikipedia’s translation of the painting’s title is incorrect. It’s not “The Bitter Drunk”, but “The Bitter Drink” (or Draught). The dude has just sculled down something really nasty.