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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Fables Of The Reconstruction / The Song Remains The Same

The Song Remains The Same

by Zandar|  February 18, 20151:11 pm| 106 Comments

This post is in: Fables Of The Reconstruction, Getting The Band Back Together, Bring on the Brawndo!, Our Awesome Meritocracy, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.

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Everything you need to know about Jeb Bush’s foreign policy:

So, yeah.  Also, his foreign policy speech today?

Jeb Bush starts talking about Iran, calls it “Iraq”…

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) February 18, 2015

I can’t imagine why anyone would think Jebbie’s foreign policy would be just like his dad’s or his brother’s.

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Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    C.V. Danes

    February 18, 2015 at 1:18 pm

    F’n Paul Wolfowitz…

    What more do you need to know?

  2. 2.

    Big ole hound

    February 18, 2015 at 1:19 pm

    Do they teach this shit at Andover or is learned from Addelson’s fireside chats?

  3. 3.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    February 18, 2015 at 1:22 pm

    The good news is that because John E. Bush isn’t a member of S&B, he isn’t obligated to prosecute a war.

  4. 4.

    Zandar

    February 18, 2015 at 1:25 pm

    @C.V. Danes: The dude is EVERYWHERE.

    He’s the Reagan/Bush equivalent of herpes, only he kills hundreds of thousands.

  5. 5.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 1:25 pm

    Ugh… those scoundrels again. I don’t recognize half the names. But Hadley, Wolfowitz, Chertoff and Mukasey.. ? Ugh..
    The only (still unacceptable) people with an ounce of sense on that list whom I recognize are Baker and Shultz, and they are too old to do much anymore.

    ‘ Jeb Bush starts talking about Iran, calls it “Iraq”… ‘

    Go Jeb! And he is supposed to be better than Mitt? Doesn’t look like it so far.

  6. 6.

    Bobby B.

    February 18, 2015 at 1:31 pm

    Venn diagrams are good for setting up jokes, like in “Big Bang Theory”. But I don’t understand why they’re used to make points. Same with Schrodinger’s Cat references.

  7. 7.

    mai naem mobile

    February 18, 2015 at 1:31 pm

    Is this Igor Bobic tweet for real or snark? Serious question.

  8. 8.

    Zandar

    February 18, 2015 at 1:35 pm

    @mai naem mobile: No, he actually said that today.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    February 18, 2015 at 1:37 pm

    @Bobby B.:

    Venn diagrams are good for setting up jokes, like in “Big Bang Theory”.

    It’s a bad Venn diagram, too, because it includes only the people on Jeb’s foreign policy team. It would be more correct to include one that shows people who were on those other foreign policy teams who aren’t on Jeb’s. The point about Jeb’s team would still be made, but it would also give you an idea about who from those previous administrations was being included and who was being left out. That would give a more accurate idea if he was trying to get the good people or the bad ones from previous administrations.

  10. 10.

    sharl

    February 18, 2015 at 1:39 pm

    This is GREAT news for my new Start-Up: manufacture of Nutella-infused combs. Plenty of likely customers among the US NatSec nomenklatura and Da’ish recruiters alike!

    Gonna be the next Milo Minderbinder, I am!

  11. 11.

    boatboy_srq

    February 18, 2015 at 1:42 pm

    I keep trying to write something sufficiently snarky, but I keep tripping in the Shrubbery.

  12. 12.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 1:44 pm

    I don’t recognize all those names, but of the ones I do, the only one who doesn’t deserve to be put on a leaky rowboat to Siberia is Baker. And he’s not exactly a shining star of enlightenment himself.

  13. 13.

    mai naem mobile

    February 18, 2015 at 1:44 pm

    I personally have such a massive dislike for the Bushes, I just cannot get .beyond the issue of the MSM.and the GOP thinking that a Bush can be a viable.candidate? I can’t even think.of the equivalent on the Dem side. Running Kwame Kilpatrick for Michigan governor? Running Anthony Wiener or Rod Blagojevich for president? Seriously, a Bush? You.have absolutely nobody better?

  14. 14.

    Belafon

    February 18, 2015 at 1:46 pm

    @Bobby B.: We’re talking about Jeb. There’s not that much difference between making a point and making a joke.

    More seriously, we’re visual creatures, and this does a good job of showing the overlap between the parts. Jeb did describe himself as being his own man, a thinker independent of his dad.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 18, 2015 at 1:46 pm

    Every single name on that chart is that of a war criminal.

  16. 16.

    srv

    February 18, 2015 at 1:47 pm

    Don’t you people deny that he is his Own Man.

    Teh Bar said so.

  17. 17.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 18, 2015 at 1:48 pm

    @Turgidson: Baker is one of the worst of the lot. He was the “fixer” that Poppy sent to Florida to assist the deserting coward and Jeb in blocking any meaningful recount of the vote there that might see Florida’s electoral votes go to Gore.

  18. 18.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 1:48 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    True, but I’m having trouble thinking of many non-bad people in the greater Bush orbit. Scowcroft I guess, but like Baker he’s no angel. Just not demonstrably insane. Colin Powell passes for reasonable in this group, and we know how that turned out last time he was muscled into that role.

  19. 19.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    February 18, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    What, no Doogie Feith?

  20. 20.

    catclub

    February 18, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    If Elliot Abrams is not there, that is progress.

  21. 21.

    Buddy H

    February 18, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    @srv:

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/barbara-bush-reverses-stance-on-enough-bushes-in-w,38040/

    “It’s so crucial to have a mother’s last-minute vote of confidence.”

  22. 22.

    Mike E

    February 18, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    @Bobby B.: You may or may not have a point…I’ll have to chart it out and see.

  23. 23.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 1:51 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Good point about him, but I was thinking more about foreign policy judgment, where Baker leans more realist than neocon. Realists are remorseless bastards with a lot of blood on their hands too, but not on the scale of the monumentally stupid bloodthirsty monster neocons. Or as Rob Delaney famously said about Rumsfeld, “blood-gargling psychopaths.”

    Anyway. They can all go the fuck away forever in any event.

  24. 24.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    February 18, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    Wolfowitz, Baker, Shutlz and Negroponte have been running US foreign policy (and a fair amount of domestic policy) since 1980.

    That every member of the Reagan/Bush crime syndicate (most of Reagan’s people were HWs folks on loan) is showing up on JEB’s team is the opposite of “surprising” or “shocking”.

  25. 25.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    @Belafon:

    ” Jeb did describe himself as being his own man, a thinker ”

    Except for Shultz an Baker, no evidence that the people I recognize on that list can do what most people would recognize as ‘think’, so could be some truth in what Jeb! claims.

    If that is a good picture of his foreign policy team, other issues arise, like ‘Oh God, what new disasters would that crew cook up?”

  26. 26.

    srv

    February 18, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    @Turgidson:

    Colin Powell passes for reasonable in this group, and we know how that turned out last time he was muscled into that role.

    Reasonable if you think My Lai and Iran Contra were reasonable.

  27. 27.

    Buddy H

    February 18, 2015 at 1:56 pm

    Nine Jeb Bush quotes turned into motivational posters:

    http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/if-jeb-bush-quotes-were-motivational-posters

  28. 28.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 1:56 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Baker is one of worst in sense of being a ruthless, effective, realist ‘fixer’. He is not an idiot. The others I recognize on that list are worse in that latter sense.

    I realize that is not saying much for any of them.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 18, 2015 at 1:57 pm

    @srv: Powell earned his way into the club with his work on My Lai.

  30. 30.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 1:57 pm

    @mai naem mobile:

    Somehow that fucking family is like a phoenix. Vox wrote a classic slate-pitch article about how Jeb is smart to emulate GWB at this stage, and though I couldn’t make it through the whole thing without stroking out in rage, it did include a claim that 50+% of the country now has a favorable opinion of his asshole failure brother.

    I know that ex-presidents always become more popular as their presidencies recede into memory, but this country is more hopeless than I ever thought if more than half of this country has already forgiven/forgotten what that miserable piece of shit’s slow-motion atrocity of a presidency is still putting this country through. Un.fucking.believable.

    It doesn’t help that the elite media still hasn’t figured out why people stopped adoring the guy (they never really did and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to his tanking poll numbers), so they’ve done yeoman’s work repairing his image. But he was such a historic calamity that it should take longer than six years.

  31. 31.

    Debbie

    February 18, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    @C.V. Danes:
    Hopefully, the socks are less holey.

  32. 32.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 1:59 pm

    @srv:

    It’s a relative scale.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 18, 2015 at 1:59 pm

    Right to Rise. Jeb’s PAC.

    More like “Rise to Rule” or “Rise to Reich”.

    Something that Leni Reifenstahl would use for a propaganda film title.

  34. 34.

    srv

    February 18, 2015 at 2:05 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Reich to Rise works for me.

  35. 35.

    Mayur

    February 18, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    “Right to Rise”?

    Someone made a DKR Bane joke already I take it?

  36. 36.

    JGabriel

    February 18, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    Wow. That’s like a Venn diagram of Hell’s circles.

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 2:07 pm

    I am paying no attention to Jeb! or Rand! or any of the Klown Kar.

    2016 will get here soon enough, and there are better things to do with one’s time than read about those fools or worry over much. Who thought Barack Obama would be the nominee at this point in 2007?

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    February 18, 2015 at 2:09 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Right to Rise. Jeb’s PAC.

    He just left the “My” off the front.

  39. 39.

    WiscoJoe

    February 18, 2015 at 2:10 pm

    Hey, everyone, lets keep this stuff in mind when some among us inevitably start with the bullshit “Clinton=Bush” rhetoric come 2016.

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 2:11 pm

    OT: One downside to being the newly crowned beagle Westminster champion: I see Miss P was scheduled to meet with Donald Trump today.

    But she got lunch out and plenty of snacks. Chances are he’s not talking trash about her, or her papers.

    Miss P was likely very nice to Donald Trump; she’s a champion after all. But she prefers Elizabeth Warren.

    Sadly, she cannot vote. (1) She’s Canadian (I think) and (2) she is a beagle.

  41. 41.

    Amir Khalid

    February 18, 2015 at 2:12 pm

    I couldn’t help but think of the “gangland execution” fantasy sequence (I think that was band manager Peter Grant’s fantasy) from the Led Zeppelin concert movie.

  42. 42.

    Kropadope

    February 18, 2015 at 2:14 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s a bad Venn diagram, too, because

    It’s a bad Venn diagram because it’s not a Venn diagram. That there is set theory.

  43. 43.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    @Elizabelle: You telling me that beagles and Canadians cannot vote in this country? But Trump can? Good Lord! No wonder we are in a such a mess.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 18, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    @srv: The Bar. The Ma Barker of late 20th/early 21st century American presidential politics.

    Well, at least the Ma Barker as J. Edger Hoover invented her.

  45. 45.

    Bob In Portland

    February 18, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    How is his foreign policy different from Hillary’s?

  46. 46.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    February 18, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    Boy I thought Jeb was supposed to be a smart one, but if he can’t tell Iraq from Iran at this point, saying he’s the smart one is assertion without the support of evidence.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 18, 2015 at 2:22 pm

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Too much viewing of Faux Noise by Jeb, obviously.

  48. 48.

    dmsilev

    February 18, 2015 at 2:25 pm

    @Bob In Portland: No no no. This is a Zandar thread; your trolling assignment doesn’t begin until later today.

  49. 49.

    shelley

    February 18, 2015 at 2:26 pm

    From Mitt to Jeb; the sense of entitlement just oozes from these guys.
    ******

    do we know for sure that Romney is NOT running again?

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    February 18, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    @Turgidson: Personally, I strongly approve of W not being President and mostly keeping his stupid pie-hole shut. Maybe 50+% of Americans feel the same way.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    February 18, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    I can’t imagine why anyone would think Jebbie’s foreign policy would be just like his dad’s or his brother’s.

    Is there any possible Republican Presidential candidate, who will not have his foreign policy team staffed to the rafters with neo-cons?

    Neo-cons are what Republican foreign policy has been and will be.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    February 18, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    @Elizabelle:
    I’ve been very disappointed so far by the Republican Klowns’ failure to properly entertain. They’re simply not acting very Klownish. Where is 2016’s Herman Cain, or Rick Perry? Even Governor Chris Harkkonen has let us down. And he’s usually the one who lives up in every way to his namesake Dune character’s example of a middle-management hoodlum out of his depth in the big leagues.

  53. 53.

    trollhattan

    February 18, 2015 at 2:32 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    I prefer the Shelley Winters edition.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    February 18, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    @dmsilev:
    Trolls should really unionize and then follow the contract.

  55. 55.

    dmsilev

    February 18, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    @Amir Khalid: It’s still pretty early. Wait until this summer when the campaigns are actually overtly campaigning and the debates have started and so forth. Also, I’m pretty sure Ben Carson is this year’s Herman Cain and Rick Perry is this year’s Rick Perry.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    February 18, 2015 at 2:34 pm

    JEB would hire the exact same neocon hacks and courtiers that Rmoney employed. And how did John Bolton not make the list?

  57. 57.

    Mike in NC

    February 18, 2015 at 2:37 pm

    @shelley: It’ only the middle of February 2015. Plenty of time for Mitt the Shit to jump back in and out of the Klown Kar several times.

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 2:38 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Yeah, they don’t seem to be really trying.

    The 2016 race is anathema to me. I never watch MSNBC — they seem to be always discussing GOP candidates when I flip past — and have become a Law & Order rerun junkie instead. And movies.

    No interest in ISIS either. That’s shorthand for “it’s a scary world out there, folks.”

    What scares me is that in January 2017 Obama will no longer be president, and we have a not zero chance of a Republican in the White House.

  59. 59.

    catclub

    February 18, 2015 at 2:40 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    And how did John Bolton not make the list?

    As long as Bolton makes noises that he might be running, he won’t be on the list of advisors.
    Bolton would sort of be this year’s Tom Tancredo.

  60. 60.

    PurpleGirl

    February 18, 2015 at 2:42 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    … and have become a Law & Order rerun junkie instead.

    And there are so many L&O episodes to watch. I think you can find at least one at any time of day. (I’m a rerun junkie too. And while they are on, I can still concentrate on my on-line reading or puzzle making.))

  61. 61.

    David Fud

    February 18, 2015 at 2:43 pm

    Meat puppets will be meat puppets. The real competition will be to see who has his hand up Jebbie’s ass. Who gets to run Jeb’s transition team?

  62. 62.

    daveNYC

    February 18, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: At least he’s an effective asshole. Most of the other names on that list shouldn’t be trusted with an ant farm, much less any sort of foreign policy position.

  63. 63.

    bemused

    February 18, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    Ugh, not enjoying memories of Bush years popping up just seeing some of those names. One who I haven’t heard mentioned in years is Scooter Libby. What ever happened to that guy? Usually they end up in some rightwing welfare outfit somewhere, don’t they?

  64. 64.

    gene108

    February 18, 2015 at 2:46 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    That every member of the Reagan/Bush crime syndicate (most of Reagan’s people were HWs folks on loan) is showing up on JEB’s team is the opposite of “surprising” or “shocking”.

    The real diagram needs to show how many of these flunkies trace their roots back to Nixon and how many think Nixon’s problem with Watergate is he got caught.

  65. 65.

    sharl

    February 18, 2015 at 2:49 pm

    Hey, let’s not forget to bring back the old supporting cast as well!

    Bad lieutenant: American police brutality, exported from Chicago to Guantánamo

    Exclusive: At the notorious wartime prison, Richard Zuley oversaw a shocking military interrogation that has become a permanent stain on his country. Part one of a Guardian investigation reveals he used disturbingly similar tactics to extract confessions from minorities for years – as a police officer in urban America

  66. 66.

    trollhattan

    February 18, 2015 at 2:51 pm

    Speaking of everybody’s favorite Bushies, Condi actually leads Harris in the latest Field poll for Boxer’s seat.

    Ain’t that a treat to ponder?

  67. 67.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 2:54 pm

    So JEBbie’s only friend he didn’t inherit is a Cuban-Republican from a South Florida GOP dynasty that has like 5 family members in the Lege at any one time?!

    Okay.

  68. 68.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 2:57 pm

    @trollhattan: Isn’t that more of a Cali GOP pipe dream thing? If the GOP block-votes, they make it to runoff against whoever the strongest Dem is and then the Dems run the table, unless something has changed that I don’t know about. The article was interesting, sounds like California Dems have a lot of candidates. To bad they can’t, you know, have a primary. Because libertarians.

  69. 69.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    @sharl: I’m glad the Guard is telling this story. I don’t really think it’s gotten a national airing. What’s killing me is that all of these was going on without a peep in the media for years while the press was investigating corruption by cops in NYC, Philly, and Miami. The Federal government was brought into LA. While this was going on in Chicago. It’s outrageous, so outrageous you don’t want to believe it’s real. And nobody’s getting prosecuted or if they do it’s nothing more than a slap on the wrist. God damn, America.

  70. 70.

    SRW1

    February 18, 2015 at 3:02 pm

    No Dick Cheney. The terrists have won.

  71. 71.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 3:07 pm

    @trollhattan: @Another Holocene Human:

    I heard an interview with the pollster. He just listed a bunch of high profile names and subjects could tick off whether they would be likely to vote for the person or not. He said the results looked more like name recognition than anything else, and it didn’t work out like he expected. Said he thought results for Villaraigosa were absurdly low.

    So, my take is it is a crappy poll, but the guy released it to get some press. That’s part of how he makes money.

  72. 72.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    @dmsilev: That is so unfair to Herman Cain. At least the Cainmeister knew to dazzle ’em with bullshit–and put on a show. Ben Carson not only has turned into a sad and pitiable case study of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but he gives off true believer vibes when he rants about so-con topics.

    Herman Cain was selling a wink-wink, nudge-nudge shuck-n-jive act to a bunch of bigots who desperately wanted to be told they weren’t racist. Ben Carson is running for Rick Santorum and he can’t out-Santorum Santorum.

    1) Not weird enough
    2) Sorry, Ben, never ran for anything, never held office
    3) Talibangelicals WILL pick the white, right-wing Catholic over the Black Protestant, and if you don’t believe me, just keep going, Ben, and find out for yourself
    4) You can’t out-anti-abortion Santorum. He’s the ultimate guy on this issue because he is a giant hypocrite and a fetus fetishizer and he’s had way more practice than yourself
    5) The secret to Rick’s sweater-vested je ne sais quoi is that suppressed sexual desire (for men) right under the surface. When he drags out his whole family the suppressed and subverted desire just rolls off of all of them, the kids because of how their lives are controlled and the wife because duh. Ben, the only answer here is to develop some sort of bizarre sexual fetish until it takes over your brain, then set on a quest to never think about it ever again. Then you will have the personal magnetism of Rih Santorum

  73. 73.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 3:14 pm

    @Amir Khalid: @Elizabelle:

    Hope this was a crummy poll too, but read about one that found Rand Paul does best against HRC in swing states. That will give him a boost. Rand will provide some excitement.

    And the grifters will start getting creative as more eyeballs start concentrating on the race, and their absurd BS has high payoff in terms of contributions and sign-ups for mailing lists they want to sell.

    Have some patience, please. Trump is barely warming up.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 3:14 pm

    @PurpleGirl: Yesh. And they’re not kidding about “ripped from the headlines.” You can kind of figure out when some of the episodes aired. I didn’t see most of them in original run. They hold up well.

    Plus: commercials. Refresh your drink and get a snack. I like that.

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 3:16 pm

    Appears C-Span 1 will air President Obama’s speech on combating extremism at home live at 4 Eastern. Believe that’s when it’s scheduled.

  76. 76.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:17 pm

    @trollhattan: The troll union would collapse when none of them would pay dues, 50% would be screaming “I AM YOUR LEADER” while the other 50% would be gadflying to the grave whoever was the leader, and the contract would be shredded as each of them took a piss on solidarity and tried to make a separate peace with management because their personal problem is speshull and the contract should really be read this way, in their benefit.

    Then the employer would lock them out and hire scabs just to be rid of them.

  77. 77.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:19 pm

    ETA: Oops, my bad, didn’t read entire thread and thought UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH was back.

    Does the right really pay trolls? I can see companies paying trolls/shills. But you could do a reverse auction on right-wing trolling and not stop at zero.

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 3:22 pm

    @jl: I see Rand! doing pretty well if he can tamp down the oddities.

    We saw from Joni Ernst that national corporate-owned media salivates at someone new and “refreshing.”

    Libertarians are basically Republicans whom circumstances have not punished enough to realize government can be an asset. They don’t see the value of community. They call it collectivism.

    They don’t see the actual path to becoming a serf, via corporations not hiring or paying fairly and tax avoidance leading to very poor public services and infrastructure (education, for one).

  79. 79.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 3:22 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: Maybe paid trolling for GOP is one of those fake ‘earn big money at home’ scams that their mailing list customers pitch to the rubes. Those guys know how to make bank on anything, as long as it is not actual productive work, that is one thing they are competent at.

  80. 80.

    Shana

    February 18, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    @gene108: I have long said that anyone associated with Nixon’s presidency should have been permanently barred from ever working in government again. Nothing in the Reagan, Bush I or Bush II administrations has caused me to change my mind about that.

  81. 81.

    Cckids

    February 18, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    I can’t link because I’m on my phone & have no clue how to make it happen, but:

    Check out Andy Borowitz’s New Yorker column.
    “Jeb Bush Says He Will Harm Nation Differently From His Brother”.

    Good for laffs.

  82. 82.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Wolfowitz, Baker, Shutlz and Negroponte have been running US foreign policy (and a fair amount of domestic policy) since 1980.

    Exactly. They, with some Soviet assistance, are the fathers of the Mideast mess and the Central American human rights crisis that Obama has been so desperately attempting to repair. The latter with little institutional help.

  83. 83.

    Gravenstone

    February 18, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    @trollhattan: Name recognition. One would hope, anyway.

  84. 84.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    @Elizabelle: In my experience, libertarians do see the path to becoming a serf (it’s one of their obsessions) but they believe they can opt out by right think, right eating, right actions.

    So, basically a cult.

  85. 85.

    mai naem mobile

    February 18, 2015 at 3:31 pm

    @Elizabelle: i hope Miss P either bites his pecker, his tongue or chews on his hairpiece like she did the ribbons last.night. Jeez,I knew there was another reason I wanted the Springer to win last night. The Springer would have mistaken the hairpiece for a bird and grabbed it off right off the.bat.

  86. 86.

    trollhattan

    February 18, 2015 at 3:33 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: @jl:
    My calculus at this early date is she (Rice) is the only establishment Republican who has a ghost of a chance to snag a rare open Senate seat and they’re very willing to throw ginormous amounts of money giving it a try. She’s going to be hounded to run but even if someone else snags the nom, it will be the nation’s most expensive statewide election campaign by a large margin.

  87. 87.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 3:34 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Somehow, being a lying incompetent has hurt Condi even less than the rest of the Bush Fail Parade of War Criminals.

    But it sounds from the article like it was more of an informal “could you imagine voting for this person” canvass than an actual poll. Condi has better name recognition than Harris or any of the other potential Dem candidates.

    Still disheartening though. In a sane world, anyone that deeply involved with the Bush Administration would poll no higher than 27%, no matter where, for what office, or when. It ain’t a sane world however.

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    @mai naem mobile: Somebody should do a spoof of Donald Trump as a weatherman, out in the wild winds with his, uh, hair.

  89. 89.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    @trollhattan: It seems like a stupid choice to me, I mean the “bidnis leaders” can always appeal to moderate whites by pretending to be something they’re not but Condi Rice can’t run away from being Bush’s SOS. Seems like she would be mobilizing some Millennials to turn up at the polls just to vote against her.

    Plus I wonder if she could handle the rigors of campaigning without the nasty coming out. Getting softballs weekly on Beat the Meat is completely different from getting challenged on your record. I’ve seen video from how she treated student protestors … whoa baby. Fangs.

    But it’s all good for the consultants, with that pedigree GOP donors will be obligated to give money, not that it would be grudging, the saps will be lining up and all over the country, too.

  90. 90.

    Another Holocene Human

    February 18, 2015 at 3:39 pm

    @Turgidson: I share your dream.

    I would caution not to get too down about a poll this early. The predictive power is about nil.

  91. 91.

    trollhattan

    February 18, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    @Turgidson:
    Well said. Am probably exposed to her more than most because of her perch at (relatively) nearby Stanford. (If a trip through the Hoover Institute’s list of fellows doesn’t make send chills down one’s spine they’re fashioned of molten lava.)

    At least in this region she keeps a pretty high profile for a disgraced bureaucrat.

  92. 92.

    Cckids

    February 18, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    @Cckids: okay, trying a link

    Yay! I can be taught. Spending 1.5 hours in a docs waiting room is paying off

  93. 93.

    Doug r

    February 18, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    @Turgidson: I guess old white people have piss poor memories

  94. 94.

    jl

    February 18, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    @trollhattan: @Turgidson: Trollh’s link says Rice still not interested in Senate. From evidence available from her career, that makes sense to me: if she tried, or was forced to by her limitations, to slide by doing very little work with less thought, Senate seat repping CA would be unpleasant experience.

    I’ve seen no evidence that Rice is a GOP version of Boxer, or Harris or Sanders.

  95. 95.

    jonas

    February 18, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    Was John Bolton left off because Jeb hasn’t tapped him, or was that an oversight?

  96. 96.

    catclub

    February 18, 2015 at 3:58 pm

    @bemused: How about David Addison?

  97. 97.

    Just One More Canuck

    February 18, 2015 at 4:04 pm

    The Song Remains The Same? I would have thought “Dazed And Confused”

  98. 98.

    Sherparick

    February 18, 2015 at 4:05 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: The political press in this country now approaches political campaigns as a kind of combination of drama criticism, story telling, and celebrity gossip. The substance of what these people’s policies and appointments will do to citizens of the country and their well-being is irrelevant. Related to Bush and the Neocon threat, and really, the guy with the most talent for political darkness since Richard Nixon, is SteveM’s appreciation of Scott Walker’s mastery of the dark arts of resentment and portrayal of his victimhood at the forces of Liberals. http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-cornponevictimization-combo-thats.html

  99. 99.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 4:09 pm

    @jl:

    Yeah, I don’t think she’ll run, for the reasons you give. I also don’t think she’d actually win if she ran. Kamala Harris as the nominee, in a presidential turnout year with Hillary (beat Obama in CA in 2008) at the top of the ticket…unless she gets hit with a monumental scandal, she’s pretty much a sure thing. Any GOPer who thinks s/he could win a statewide race should hope DiFi retires and run for that open seat in 2018, a midterm year. The Dems are due to blow a race like that here soon by sleepwalking through it or putting up a shitty candidate. Plus, we might be stuck with Gavin Newsom as the Democrat at the top of the ticket running for governor. In which case, who the hell knows. He could easily lose a high profile race in a midterm year as long as the GOP puts up someone with an IQ above room temperature (which is asking a lot, I realize).

    Plus, Condi’s never really had her views and past performance (or lack thereof) held up to the scrutiny a Senate race in a blue state would require. Even when she was up for Secretary of State in 2005, her confirmation hearings were a farce and only Barbara Boxer, coincidentally enough, asked her any difficult questions about her utterly failed time as Security Advisor. And she had all kinds of withered old GOP Senator farts ready to hit the fainting couches on her behalf at the first hint of critical questioning.

    A Senate race in California, where the media, while shitty, isn’t entirely in the GOP’s pocket, is too much for her to deal with, particularly in a presidential year. And why should she? She has a sweet gig now and can hop on and off the wingnut welfare train as she pleases.

  100. 100.

    Turgidson

    February 18, 2015 at 4:10 pm

    @jonas:

    He’s made noises about running for president.

    (I’ll wait until you stop laughing to continue)

    Until he says he’s not running, he won’t be anyone else’s advisor.

  101. 101.

    Tree With Water

    February 18, 2015 at 4:18 pm

    Were the beasts returned to power, their appetite would be whetted with an insatiable thirst to war. There were consequences inherent in looking “forward, not back”, all of them bad. This is one of them. Democrats should acknowledge that blunder as being one, but also as water under the bridge, and act accordingly in confronting the beasts as they plot their return to power. Those who failed to hold the Bush-Cheney administration to account for their war crimes, all committed in the name of the American people, have been proved wrong.. but now, there’s bigger fish to fry.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    February 18, 2015 at 4:20 pm

    President Obama just beginning his speech. C-Span 1.

  103. 103.

    mai naem mobile

    February 18, 2015 at 4:27 pm

    Harris would have to run one single ad with one of the many Richard Clarke interviews where he says he told Condi she was going to be dealing with Al Qaeda a lot and she was like “Al Who?? We already beat Al Gore.” And then how she refused to set up a meeting with him to talk about OBL and AQ. That’s all it would take to send her polls down to single digits.

  104. 104.

    tones

    February 18, 2015 at 7:57 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: my thoughts exactly -this is a list for future prosecutions…

  105. 105.

    Zinsky

    February 20, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    @catclub: “How did John Bolton not make the list?” – oh, you mean the guy who thinks you solve problems by yelling at them?

Comments are closed.

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    […] such a perfect resource like that for the wetwork at Gitmo?  And of course, the best part is the brain trust behind all that is now on team Jebbie.  That’s going to be […]

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