Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Let’s finish the job.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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Reader Interactions

167Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    I figure we should complain about something, so…

    I don’t like the font they’re using on the “please hold” screen.

  8. 8.

    Smiling Mortician

    His pacing suggests to me that he’s gonna get around to a broader discussion of non-ISIL terrorism. Which might get interesting.

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    There must be a bit of an overload on people expecting to hear the speech. I’ve been waiting for it to load for over ten minutes. Looks like I’m going to miss it completely.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    I really want him to read the second amendment and say those that interpret that to mean assault rifles are not sane.

  25. 25.

    dmsilev

    After proposing to avoid getting involved in a land war in Asia, Obama reiterates that he won’t go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

  26. 26.

    Keith G

    Good balance. He could have said more about guns (and I wish he had), but that could drown out the other issues addressed.

    I am glad he is forcefully addressing the nomenclature debate. This needs to be on a continuous loop.

  30. 30.

    gene108

    Why had Obama not called ISIS / ISIL / Daesh “radical Islamic terrorists” ? Why is he covering for them?

    /snark

  35. 35.

    sm*t cl*de

    The battle to reserve “momentarily” to mean “very briefly” has been lost, if Betty Cracker has gone over to the wrong side.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    I loved it when Obama said Ich bin ein Muslim, or words to that effect. Does the GOP get to deliver an official rebuttal, or do we just wait for Trump to start speaking in tongues?

  43. 43.

    JPL

    Earlier I was talking to a friend about bumper sticker that Hillary should use. Instead of United We Stand, Divided we fail… flip it..

    Divided we Fail
    United we stand.

    The repubs want to divide us.

  44. 44.

    Brandon

    Somehow, someway, Ron Fournier’s takeaway from this will be that it shows a lack of leadership.

  47. 47.

    sharl

    #TCOT/wingnut Twitter has been getting all warmed-up for this for at least a couple days.

    Will Erick Erick Erick Erickson shoot more newspapers?

    Will Kurt Schlichter write another glorious short story featuring “The Wildman” for neocons and keyboard kommandos to fap to?*
    *[Certain lefties and online media folks sure hope so! They loved this post madly. (And Biddle never fixes his damn mistakes; Schlichter is on the left in that second photo.]

    STAY TUNED!
    Or, y’know, instead go read or do something useful, or at least more fun…

  49. 49.

    Chris

    @redshirt:

    My satisfaction with having him in the oval office is slowly giving way to dread as I realize that in barely a year, he’ll be gone. Even under the most optimistic scenario, I doubt if I’ll feel the same way about the next one on foreign policy.

  50. 50.

    Keith G

    Okay, this is nit picky, but I have hated this for over a decade.

    Whenever a Prez sez his most important duty is the security of Americans (or words to that effect) my head gets all throbby – and Obama is not the first.

    President’s swear to defend the Constitution and there is a BIG difference.

  51. 51.

    Ruckus

    @JPL:
    The repubs want to divide us. Actually many of them do.
    They are mad at Daesh over the beheadings, they wanted to save that trick for themselves on liberals.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Brandon: I’m sure Fournier is relieved he didn’t hear the words of Leadership he wanted to hear (tonight, I am resigning in favor of Joe Biden, who will in turn resign in favor of Vice President McCain, so that John McCain may assume his rightful place in this Office…) that would have required him to rewrite the response he wrote this morning

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @Keith G:
    They take an oath to defend the constitution. I’ve taken one as well. So has everyone else that joined or was drafted into the military.
    Towards that end an insecure country isn’t one that can defend it’s constitution very well. It’s how it is protected and what is done to do that which that makes the difference.

  57. 57.

    Chris

    @Brachiator:
    I loved it when Obama said Ich bin ein Muslim, or words to that effect. Does the GOP get to deliver an official rebuttal, or do we just wait for Trump to start speaking in tongues?

    Watched the speech with my parents. When he was doing his “they are our friends, they are our neighbors,” Dad added something that I wish he’d ended with; “they are us.”

  58. 58.

    Keith G

    @Ruckus: Yet as has been exemplified in the recent past, a drive to security finds temptations to run over provisions in said Constitution.

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    @BruceFromOhio:
    Would be nice wouldn’t it?
    I generally don’t like to be friends with people who are actively trying to kill me. Allowing unfettered access to guns, defunding the VA, screwing up SS, willfully spending throwing money at the military for crap it doesn’t need (F35) while screaming about having a war they refuse to sign a bill to authorize………
    Want me to go on?
    (Yes I know you didn’t really mean it)

  63. 63.

    Chris

    @Ruckus:

    They are mad at Daesh over the beheadings, they wanted to save that trick for themselves on liberals.

    LMAO, well spotted. That does add a whole new meaning to the phrase “they want to divide us.” Yes. Preferably at the neck.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I made the mistake of following Cole’s twitter to Joe Scarborough’s who probably speaks for the Village in his conviction that only invading a country that had nothing to do with any of this is the answer. Who’s left?

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Keith G:
    In a government such as ours we need all three branches to actually do their jobs. One and around a half of the other aren’t doing that currently. Congress seems to actually agree on fighting Deash but won’t do their job to fund that because it just might make the current president look good to some of their constituents and they can’t have that. That’s not what they signed up for and is why I think you are [mad?] at the president. Your point is misplaced.

  66. 66.

    scav

    @Ruckus: The Free Speach zones were especiallly cuddly examples of true naighborliness that they actually managed to set up — the zones of Muslim Religious Freedom are just promised further exemplars of their good hearts.

  68. 68.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    Also the security theater as currently practiced started during the last administration. Do you actually think President Obama could do anything to change it without suffering a mortal political blow? Doesn’t matter if it’s totally or mostly ineffective, our political scene is so fucked up now that the status quo is probably better than any risk of trying to fix it.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    I watched the speech on CNN and had to switch to the football game right after. The analysis from Tapper, Blitzer & co. was infuriatingly inane.

  70. 70.

    Suzanne

    I love you, President Obama. Seriously. I love you so much. I am so proud that I voted for you, in the primary and both generals, and I gave you money and time for your campaigns. We do not deserve such a great leader. I wish you a long, healthy, full life, and a great post-presidency. Maybe Chief Justice of the SCOTUS Obama? A girl can dream.

  71. 71.

    debbie

    I like that he referred to the failure of Iraq when dismissing the notion of launching a large land war against ISIS. Take that, Tailgunner!

  72. 72.

    D58826

    OK as I listened to the President and the talking head reaction I have yet to hear what the critics would do differently. Richard Engle had a 4 point fact check that I tend to agree with. But lets just look at point 2. Point 2 involved the training of local forces to act as the boots on the ground. It’s true that the program hasn’t been a smashing success but what is the alternative? It’s either local boots or American boots. Surely we should have learned from Vietnam if the locals won’t fight to defend their country then American/NATO troops can’t do it for them, esp. when it is war of ideas. This is not a conflict that will have maps where the front lines move inexorably toward Berlin or Tokyo.

    In a previous thread I said that we have to fight this both militarily and at the level of the ideology. .Before the president spoke one of the MSNBC reporters mentioned that the state dept. has been running a propaganda program. They invited in a group of experts (the reporter didn’t identify the experts) to evaluate the program. State was told that it wasn’t working and it was never going to work and the best thing State could do is shut it down.

    So at the end of the day no one has come up with any better ideas.

  79. 79.

    Chris

    @D58826:
    It’s either local boots or American boots.

    And as I said in an earlier thread, I might actually be willing to consider American boots if I thought the post-war would be handled properly – like it was after 1945, not after 2001 or 2003. But it wouldn’t. It would be the latter. So it’s a moot point, and staying the hell out of the Middle East while strengthening homeland security seems like a far better option than whatever the hell the right wingers have in mind.

  82. 82.

    Elie

    @Suzanne:

    Beautiful thoughts… positive, wonderful. Alls we can have sometimes is to acknowledge and affirm and know the leadership that we see. We at least recognize it! Praise be.

  86. 86.

    sharl

    @Ruckus:

    Also the security theater as currently practiced started during the last administration. Do you actually think President Obama could do anything to change it without suffering a mortal political blow? Doesn’t matter if it’s totally or mostly ineffective, our political scene is so fucked up now that the status quo is probably better than any risk of trying to fix it.

    ~
    Pretty much all of this, except I think it goes back well before Dubya and Darth Cheney; they just activated that Dark Id circuit that was already there in our national character.

    We had – maybe – one opportunity to jump the tracks and get on a new path, and that was when the phrase “peace dividend” was popular. It sure seems that phrase disappeared as quickly as it appeared back in the…what, early 90s?

    I wonder about that a lot. Did lobbyists and political aides quietly whisper in the ears of national politicians something like “you know you will cede your power and reelection prospects if you willingly reduce the funding you oversee”. That wasn’t it solely, of course, but it had to be a major part of how that noble initiative was throttled in the crib.

    Pax Americana, glory to the Empire!

  87. 87.

    D58826

    @Chris: I’m not sure the post WWII example is relevant. First of all in Europe you had a country, Germany, with a cohesive national identity and some degree of experience in self government. They were well integrated into the larger ‘western civilization’ for want of a better term. In effect all we had to do was scrape off the Nazi paint and you had a functioning country. In Japan, if nothing else you had the Emperor who told the people that they had to endure the unendurable. I suspect things would have been different if he had advised people to take to the hills and fight to the death.

    The other difference is the cold war settled in fairly quickly after the end of WWII. The US had a ready made boogie man. IN effect we could say learn English or learn Russian.

    Neither factors apply in the middle east. even if we know how to do nation building.

  88. 88.

    Elie

    @Chris:

    There is no reason — none — for boots on the ground in the ME anymore. I cannot envision a scenario where that would be the case. Holding territory there should be 100% up to other ME nations/interests. We need 1) suppression/containment – like bombing and some special forces operations 2) major international and national policing and 3) intelligence.
    Possibly 4) social marketing (dunno fully what I mean here except figuring out how to influence people who have hostile ideas that they want to act on)

  90. 90.

    D58826

    @Baud: Some of the commentators were good and some were bad bad. Jon Alter was the one who made the crack about Churchill. I really wish people would get over the fact that Obama is not Churchill. He isn’t FDR. He is no drama Obama and he isn’t going to give those kind of rah rah speeches. I would rather have a president who thinks thing thru and has a long term game plan than one who simply points in the direction of San Juan hill and yells ‘charge’. Great as a battlefield commander but not so good as commander in chief.

  91. 91.

    Chris

    @D58826:

    That’s why I only say “might.” I don’t say it’s necessarily a plausible idea since, if nothing else, obviously the Middle East in the 2010s isn’t Europe in the 1940s. But I’d be willing to entertain the possibility if I thought the people in charge were actually thinking seriously about the aftermath, about how to rebuild Iraq and Syria into functional societies that wouldn’t just re-collapse immediately and probably engender another version of Daesh or al-Qaeda. Since I don’t think that, though, I don’t even entertain the possibility.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The Villagers like Scarborough and (I’m willing to bet) Fournier, whether they know it or not, want what Richard Cohen called (when admitting after the fact his support for the war was not Tony Blair’s muscular humanitarianism) “therapeutic violence”. They want Daddy to go beat up the Daddy of the kid that pushed them off the swingset.

  94. 94.

    D58826

    @Elie: I think you item 4 covers the use of social media and the internet. Daesh is cleaning our clock with their social media recruiting and propaganda tools. We have to be able to counter that but it has to be done by people who understand the local cultures. We can’t laugh at the idea of the caliphate and think the caliph is the guy in the turban from kismet.

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    @Chris: If you put American boots on the ground, there will never be a post war, only ongoing, perpetual war. There is not even agreement by local powers that ISIS is really a threat. And the lack of any reasonable approach to ousting Assad and installing any stable alternative adds to regional dilemmas.

    There is a breaking news story that IS is behind the murder of the governor of Aden in Yemen, and that IS is taking on Al Qaeda there, even though Al Qaeda is supposedly more powerful.

    In short, American or international forces could be vulnerable to attacks by “friends” who could switch sides at the drop of a hat. The Kurds are reliable, but neither or allies nor our opponents in the region want to see the Kurds emerge as an independent regional power.

  97. 97.

    JMG

    All commentators acceptable to US media, whatever their alleged ideology, love war and American military power, because without it, what are we but a country driving itself into the ground due to the greed and stupidity of the people who pay said commentators salaries.
    Also, without war, nobody gives a damn about cable news.

  98. 98.

    Keith G

    @Ruckus: I am mad at this president? No. Been annoyed a time or two.

    Your point is misplaced.

    There is no excuse for not being true (in rhetoric and deed) to the Constitution and the processes created by it. When a president uses the sound bite,” I have no greater responsibility than the security of the American people.” I think it leaves a door open that I wish were closed.

    I am not beating up on Obama, so there is no need to defend him. I am just noting that words spoken by the leader of our government matter a lot. And one way to counter the pressure that many of our leaders have felt to engage in Constitutionally problematic activities, is to speak out definitively about the primacy of the Constitution and it’s values.

    That is among the strongest ways to answer the demagoguery of Trump and Cruz as they advocate security first and Constitutional values (and common humanity) a distant second.

  99. 99.

    D58826

    @Brachiator: Saw an article the other day that as NATO and the US have stepped up the air campaign our ME allies have quietly scaled back on their air contribution to the campaign. I believe John Cole said that the Saudi national anthem during Desert Storm was Onward Christian soldiers. Nothing has changed.

    I suspect the GOP response will be ‘we can pound our chest harder and bay at the moon louder so elect us’.a

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid: No, this is a special address. But the GOP has got to be eager to try to get their own views out there.

    It will also be interesting to see what Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have to say, whether they would continue Obama’s approach in their own administration or have some new direction to suggest.

    By the way, I cannot pretend that I am interested in what the Republican candidates have to say. They are either incoherent or belligerent.

    Or both.

  102. 102.

    Liberal

    @D58826: Churchill was in many ways not great in WWII. My understanding is that the U.S. had to really push for the Western allies to invade Normandy. Churchill wanted to screw around and dither.

  104. 104.

    Keith G

    @Brachiator: I figure, that I might start pay attention to the details of what a GOP candidate is saying sometime around the summer solstice.

    It really frees up time and lowers tension.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Liberal: my recollection is he wanted invading troops to come from the Mediterranean, “the soft underbelly of the Axis”

  108. 108.

    Keith G

    @Liberal: Churchill, like Stalin, had a list of needs that often did not agree with what the US saw as good strategy.

    Add to that that WC was a shit military strategist AND tactician.

  109. 109.

    JMG

    If only he had started the speech with, “you want me to do something about ISIS. Here it is. You’re all drafted!” We’d see martial fever cool off in a hurry.

  110. 110.

    Liberal

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gabriel Kolko’s book on the war made it seem like he really wanted to dither, and in some ways was more concerned about the Empire (or whatever was left of it by then) than defeating the Axis. FDR looked much better in comparison.

  111. 111.

    Liberal

    @Keith G: what were Stalin’s needs that you allude to? Remember, the USSR did almost all of the work of actually defeating Germany. By my count, 5/6 of German casualties were inflicted by the Soviets.

  112. 112.

    max

    It was a fine speech, a bit short on details but football is on and I had no interest in watching Chris Matthews.

    @Liberal: Churchill was in many ways not great in WWII. My understanding is that the U.S. had to really push for the Western allies to invade Normandy. Churchill wanted to screw around and dither.

    Strictly speaking, Churchill did not want to go all in on an assault against the northern French coast. In 1942! Which is what Marshall was agitating for. As far as I can tell, Churchill was right and Marshall was wrong, because we barely got on board in ’44. In ’43 or ’42 we would have been repulsed.

    It would have been better to go after the soft underbelly of Europe, in certain places. Unfortunately, we allowed ourselves to get hung up on advancing up the Italian boot instead of settling for what we could take initially. And that was bloody. (Roughly speaking, the southern French coast was the best target, and in the end we went for it, but had we had a slightly different orientation in 1942-43 we might have been able to hit it in ’43, rather than from the other side of France which the Germans were much better prepared.

    Alas, ’twas not to be.

    max
    [‘So it goes.’]

  113. 113.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Liberal: Stalin’s needs were a buffer zone between the USSR and western Europe and a warm water port. You know, Russia’s tradition foreign policy needs.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    @max:

    As far as I can tell, Churchill was right and Marshall was wrong, because we barely got on board in ’44. In ’43 or ’42 we would have been repulsed.

    I’m not nearly as well read on WWII as most here, but I have always heard the opposite.

  116. 116.

    Keith G

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sadly, Churchill never gave up on the “Soft Underbelly” notion even after its first iteration ended in the lives wasted by his plan for the WW I attack on Gallipoli.

    The blow back form that tragedy caused WC to loose his position as First Lord of the Admiralty.

    But wrong or right, the truly blood thirsty never quit.

  117. 117.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Yo, Liberal simpletons, here’s the bold, decisive, can’t-fail action your Barry Soerto doesn’t have the balls (or maybe the desire… hmmm?) to make

    Ted CruzVerified account
    ‏@ tedcruz
    If I am elected President, I will direct the Department of Defense to destroy ISIS:

    Of course, I would tell the Pentagon to annihilate ISIS.

  121. 121.

    liberal

    @Omnes Omnibus: Great way to entirely miss the point.

    The needs you mention, at least the “buffer” part, were a byproduct of actions that were productive in defeating the Axis (regardless of their implications for the post-war world). The needs of Churchill, like pissing our time away in North Africa and other places, were not.

    But thanks for playing.

  122. 122.

    Chris

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I was gonna say the same thing, but then it occurred to me he might be referring to more than just American conservatives (who, indeed, probably have no idea). I could see British right wingers remembering him fondly, though.

  123. 123.

    Keith G

    @max: Hmm 1942 does not ring accurate.

    Operation Torch, my dad’s introduction to combat, was in Nov 42 and it was the US Army’s first major combat operation since 1919. In 1943, dad and friends invaded Sicily and then Italy. I think that reflects the influence of Churchill.

    You might want to recheck sources.

  124. 124.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodinger’s cat: You are over analyzing. Tories like Sully like him because he was a patrician Tory who spoke well. They also paper over his time as a Liberal and the fairly radical things he was a part of achieving as a member Loyd George’s cabinet.

  126. 126.

    liberal

    @D58826:

    …if the locals won’t fight to defend their country …

    There are such locals, at least in Syria. They’re called the Syrian Army.

  127. 127.

    liberal

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    They also paper over his time as a Liberal and the fairly radical things he was a part of achieving as a member Loyd George’s cabinet.

    Not to mention his support (at least for awhile) of land value taxation, which is too pinko for many of the dolts who post on this comment board.

  128. 128.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @liberal: No sport, those Soviet needs trace back to the Russian foreign policy of Peter the Great’s days. Churchill was PM of a government that ruled a rather large empire. He was necessarily going keep those interests in mind. A war that went a little longer and preserved the empire could be a rational strategy for a person in his position.

  130. 130.

    leeleeFL

    @Baud: No better. He kept misquoting the President, saying he called the terrorist threat a cancer. OMG, says Tweety. That’s the headline! Not what he said. Said people ask IF terrorist threat is a cancer and proceeded to explain it was not. Had to shut him off…I only have the one tv set after all

  131. 131.

    Brachiator

    @Liberal: Yemen has been pulled apart by a civil war in which extremists tried to seize an opportunity to gain more power. Bin Laden’s family was originally from Yemen , as were many of bin Laden’s bodyguard and helpers. Even without Saudi intervention, Yemen would likely be a mess.

  132. 132.

    Keith G

    @Liberal: Stalin’s needs were as you alluded. He was demanding military campaigns on the mainland of Europe (Western Front) ASAFP.

    Problem was: In 1942 we did not have enough Armies (men and supplies) to pull that off. And then there is the detail of tactical experience. Africa was a good way to quickly bring the US into the fight against Germany instead of waiting for another lengthy build up and training for an invasion on France or points north. At least that was FDR’s take, IIRC.

  134. 134.

    mai naem mobile

    Okay,so I have not watched the address yet. In what manner did the black man not serve the GOP today? Was the moon behind him at the White House not crescent shaped enough to call him out on picking Musleemy Moon night for the special address?

  137. 137.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mai naem mobile: In what manner did the black man not serve the GOP today?

    No vicarious machismo, not emotional viagra to make the frightened feel macho. A total failure of leadership.

    @efgoldman: Dude, we levitate the Pentagon, float it across the seas, and drop it on al Bagdadi. Duck soup.

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    @schrodinger’s cat: I was trying to say that many conservatives, and many Americans, don’t have much understanding or knowledge of India at all. But they may know that Mother Teresa lived there and maybe that the Beatles went there in the 60s to get high. Conservative ignorance is highlighted by their dismissal of India as being a Commie sympathizer nation during the Cold War era (which is part of the reason that the US was a longtime supporter of Pakistan).

  142. 142.

    Suzanne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: My very very very right-wing boss occasionally makes statements about how the American people are just so so so hungry for strong leadership, that we need somebody like Putin who is tough and decisive and “macho” (his choice of words, not mine). My eyebrows were in my hairline by that point. Who honestly sees these thuggish tough guys and thinks, “MAN, that’s quality leadership right there!”?

  143. 143.

    sharl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That is a good twitter TL segment on the whole mess in The Levant. And if that is representative of the work of NYT reporter Rukmini Callimachi, I’m sorry I haven’t seen her name before.

    As far as bossing Turkey around – suggested elsewhere upthread – good luck with that! As the War Nerd explains here, Turkey is still all pouty and angry about losing their mighty Ottoman Empire (almost 100 years ago!). Nationalism runs bone-deep there (kinda like here, and in Russia, etc., etc.), and they’re never in any mood to compromise on their agenda; ask the Kurds about that. Kinda makes one wonder just whose agenda NATO was serving when they agreed to back-up Turkey on that (IMO) unnecessary shooting down of the Russian bomber. The Russians of course are no saints, but that is hardly a sufficient condition for taking down their aircraft for flying over a sliver of Hatay Province (the War Nerd provides the history of that sliver of formerly Syrian/Arab land).

  145. 145.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I used to joke that if we wanted the insurgents in Iraq to surrender we’d invite them to a planning meeting. After six or seven hours of death by powerpoint in a conference room where the A/C couldn’t keep up with the 125 degree heat outside, we’d then tell them if they didn’t stop fighting us and the Iraqi government, we were going to bring them to two of these meetings a week. I always thought they’d capitulate immediately.

  146. 146.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: When I was clerking at a federal court, I knew a judge who would do settlement conferences and ply the parties and counsel with water and coffee. He would then decline to permit lavatory breaks. It worked. He only did this with cases where people were a short distance apart and couldn’t close.

  147. 147.

    ogliberal

    @Brandon: He said Obama said all the right things but too late…and nobody trusts him so it won’t matter.

    Can’t win. The freaking piss pants Beltway d-bags want shoot from the hip immediate responses – and Obama keeps fvcking wtih them by continuing to do things at his own pace. I swear he does it to troll them. (and, also, because he’s rational and careful – but can’t have that in a president – need a bellicose reactionary daddy)

  148. 148.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I watched GEN Dempsey do this during a five hour meeting. All the parties not at Fort Monroe were in via VTC. The folks that did the scheduling on him had scheduled five hours – no breaks. As you know, usually there’s a ten minute break every hour to hour and a half. At the two hour mark he got up announced he was going to the latrine, but as no breaks had been scheduled on the official agenda everyone was to carry on. It was deliciously evil!

  149. 149.

    Brachiator

    @schrodinger’s cat: I ran across this in reference to the first World War.

    As many as 400,000 Muslims made up one-third of the Indian Army of 1.3 million, along with 100,000 Sikhs, and up to 800,000 Hindu soldiers. Yet when asked to estimate how many Muslims fought on the British side in 1914, only 2% of those surveyed by British Future correctly placed the number at between 250,000 and 500,000.

    There was a History Today article about wounded Indian soldiers recuperating in England and being treated warmly by the ordinary people, during World War I. Until some idiots started worrying that local women were being too friendly.

  152. 152.

    mtiffany

    @Chris:

    When he was doing his “they are our friends, they are our neighbors,” Dad added something that I wish he’d ended with; “they are us.”

    And Fox ‘News’ would have breathlessly ‘reported’ the ‘fact’ that Obama had finally, at long last, admitted he was a Moooslim.

  153. 153.

    Chris

    @mtiffany:

    They hold that truth to be self-evident, anyway.

    Quoth Calvin and Hobbes: “If I’m going to get clobbered, I like to deserve it.”

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Great tweet storm. Especially this:

    The cities that need to be taken back (Mosul, Raqqa etc) are mostly Sunni, not Kurdish, and the U.S. has yet to find a Sunni proxy force

    Also a BBC news reporter on the ground there noted that the US advisors trusted the Kurds. Other groups, not so much. And other forces were jealous that the Kurds got the best US weapons.

  156. 156.

    Brachiator

    @Omnes Omnibus: Churchill could be on the receiving end of bigotry. This from the diary of the Soviet ambassador to London.

    Maisky was a keen listener when it came to gossip. It resulted in vignettes strewn throughout the more historically significant entries. In October 1939, Maisky was shocked by the “snobbery and racism” he encountered with his Socialist friends, Beatrice and Sidney Webb (who founded the London School of Economics):

    “I mentioned what Churchill said to me the other day: ‘Better communism than Nazism!’ Beatrice shrugged her shoulders and noted that such a statement was not typical of the British ruling elite, and I would tend to agree. But then, for some reason, she found it necessary to add: ‘Churchill is not a true Englishman, you know. He has negro blood. You can tell even from his appearance.’

    “Then Beatrice Webb told me a long story about Churchill’s mother coming from the South of the USA and there being some negro blood in her family. Her sister looked just like a ‘Negroid.’ ”

  162. 162.

    catclub

    @sharl:

    they’re never in any mood to compromise on their agenda; ask the Kurds about that.

    I usually agree with this. but there was something at Juan Cole’s place just recently
    about the Turks and the Kurds cooperating.

    It is very strange. Turkish Army based in Iraq, with Kurds, training Kurds. Partly because the Iraqi Kurds are more conservative than the Syrian Kurds.

  164. 164.

    Karen

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    tonight, I am resigning in favor of Joe Biden, who will in turn resign in favor of Vice President McCain, so that John McCain may assume his rightful place in this Office…)

    More like, “Tonight I am handing myself over to police for being a black man and Joe Biden will resign so President Trump can start his reign.”

  165. 165.

    sharl

    @catclub: I had read about the overt Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, and the complaints from Baghdad about it, but hadn’t connected it to a temporary alliance with the Kurds there; thanks for that link!

    The thing that Turkey is trying to do, as far as I can tell, is to carefully coordinate, negotiate with, and play off against one another the players in that area, including us. For the longest time they refused our requests for access for our military aircraft to Incirlik Air Base, with all the advantages in logistics that would come with that. When the Turks finally agreed – and I’m guessing they felt they couldn’t delay that any longer – they also started attacking the Syrian Kurdish anti-Assad resistance groups, and their associated Syrian minority allies, all the while making noises about attacking terrorists. They knew that the U.S. would be limited to complaining quietly to Turkey about them attacking our ground force allies there, if we wanted continued access to Incirlik.

    The Turks will play nice with the Kurds in northern Iraq as long as they have to, and as long as it they don’t feel threatened by those particular Kurds – unlike the Syrian Kurds who were (are?) making significant strides in taking land, but too close to the Turkish border for the latter’s liking. And of course the PKK flavor of Kurds are totally out, classified as terrorists by the Turks, the U.S., and western Europe nations. Presumably the northern Iraqi Kurds and their Peshmerga military force will know not to publicly make nice with the PKK crowd.

    I see that Juan Cole has some good posts on Turkish political dynamics, I need to follow that more often, and maybe find one or more English-language analysts who look at politics in Ankara with the same skill as Joel Wing does with Baghdad.

  166. 166.

    sharl

    @sharl: While closing a mess of tabs before my browser crashes – a race I often lose – I thought I’d look at the Talk section of the Wikipedia page I had opened for Hatay Province. Damn if there haven’t been Turks, Syrians and Kurds – or their surrogates – going at it there too.
    I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess.

  167. 167.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Brachiator: You are probably right in your assessment.
    @Omnes Omnibus: He was in a position of power, and his callous decisions lead to millions of deaths. So the comparison to the other bigoted mass murderer of the era is not besides the point. This does not take away his achievement of leading his country in WW II.

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