I have really slacked lately on the pet pics, so in honor of the new First Dog, here are some of your pets:
Claim your pets and consider this an open thread. I will be back later on today.
by John Cole| 84 Comments
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads
I have really slacked lately on the pet pics, so in honor of the new First Dog, here are some of your pets:
Claim your pets and consider this an open thread. I will be back later on today.
This post is in: Military, Politics, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
This pirate crisis appears to be another one of those political Rorschach tests that shows how detached from reality some people can get when it comes to defending or attacking a politician. Over at the DKOS, there are multiple glowing diaries all but calling for a CMH for Obama:
“Obama Approved Special Forces mission to save Captain!”
PR disaster for the GOP: Republicans bet against the United States and lose
And at the Washington Post, this diabetes inducing story:
An Early Military Victory for Obama
It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president — a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences.
Clinton’s efforts to land a small contingent of troops in Haiti were rebuffed, for the world to see, by a few hundred gun-toting Haitians. As the USS Harlan County retreated, so did the president’s reputation.
For President Obama, last week’s confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.
But the result — a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces — left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.
Folks, this was not the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Meanwhile, over at alt.fantasy.wingnut.redstate, they are doubling down with their alternate history of the event:
The Story of a Successful Rescue (and a Democratic Administration’s Attempt to Claim Credit)
After four days of floating at sea on a raft shared with four Somali gunmen, Richard Philips took matters into his own hands for a second time. With the small inflatable lifeboat in which he was being held captive being towed by the American missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, and Navy Special Warfare (NSWC) snipers on the fantail in position to take their shots at his captors as soon as the command was given, the captive Captain of the M.V. Maersk-Alabama took his second leap in three days into the shark-infested waters of the Indian Ocean.
This diversion gave the Navy Special Warfare operators all the opening they needed. Snipers immediately took down the three Somali pirates still on board the life raft, SEAL operators hustled down the tow line connecting the two craft to confirm the kills, and a Navy RIB plucked Philips from the water and sped him to safety aboard the Bainbridge, thus ending the four-day-and-counting hostage situation.
That was written last night, after everyone on the planet was aware that the initial reports about the Captain jumping a second time were inaccurate. From the Navy Times:
U.S. Navy snipers opened fire and killed three pirates holding an American captain at gunpoint, delivering the skipper unharmed and ending a five-day high-seas hostage drama on Easter Sunday.
Capt. Richard Phillips was in “imminent danger” of being killed before snipers shot the pirates in an operation authorized by President Barack Obama, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said.
He said the pirates were armed with AK-47s and small-caliber pistols and were pointing the rifles at the captain when the commander of the nearby destroyer Bainbridge gave the order to open fire.
From the NY Times:
Two of the captors had poked their heads out of a rear hatch of the lifeboat, exposing themselves to clear shots, and the third could be seen through a window in the bow, pointing an automatic rifle at the captain, who was tied up inside the 18-foot lifeboat, senior Navy officials said.
It took only three remarkable shots — one each by snipers firing from a distance at dusk, using night-vision scopes, the officials said. Within minutes, rescuers slid down ropes from the Bainbridge, climbed aboard the lifeboat and found the three pirates dead. They then untied Captain Phillips, ending the contretemps at sea that had riveted much of the world’s attention. A fourth pirate had surrendered earlier.
It is pretty safe to say that Red State is doing what they do best, which is to “make shit up.”
Maybe I am alone, but I hardly view this as a test of the President. Unless I am mistaken, all he had to do was sign off on rules of engagement and stay out of the way, and I don’t mean that to denigrate Obama, but because that really is all any President could do. We have a massive Navy with several hundred ships, highly trained professionals in the SEALS, highly trained professionals in the FBI and in the crews of the naval vessels tailing (and in one case towing) the raft, and you just need to let them do their job. This didn’t happen because heroic efforts by Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod in consultation with Obama produced a dashing plan a la the The West Wing. This happened because our very entrenched military and national security apparatus can handle little things like this without flinching.
That isn’t to take anything away from what the guys on the scene did, as that appears to have been one helluva shot they took. They also deserve real credit for their prior restraint, and waiting until the right moment to make things happen. They really acted like, well, professionals. But heaping all sorts of praise on Team Obama seems to me to be just as silly as flaming them for this. They acted prudently and cautiously, as anyone who has watched the President for any period of time would have expected him to behave.
This post is in: Open Threads
That 60 Minutes piece on prosthetic limbs was pretty amazing. I can’t believe they are able to pick up a grape or hold a soda with those. Really incredible.
Watching the piece on guns now.
*** Update ***
Now a puff piece on gambling. Unlike the last couple of shows the past few months, they are talking about Vegas and not Wall Street or the mortgage industry.
BTW- The usual suspects should be quite rich tomorrow, since Angel Cabrera won the Masters and then proceeded to accept the Green Jacket while speaking something other than English.
This post is in: Clown Shoes
Probably the best observation ever from Megan McCardle was the following:
Jane’s Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.
Red State, today:
Captive Captain Saves President Obama
Playing pansy politics with pirates put the Captain’s life at increased risk. His first escape attempt was thwarted by the thugs as Phillips remained adrift from the aid and cover of the US Navy, which sat restrained by an administration too cowardly to let slip the dogs of war. Each day the tension and humiliation of a nation grew. The emboldened pirates fired upon our men of action, who thus restrained could not yet act in kind. The terrorists’ defiant lack of fear inspired their fellows to target other American vessels. All while the community organizer in chief flipped through his conflict resolution handbook.
But here, at long last, the captive captain is free. He leapt clear and our faithful Navy, apparently at last free to take the safety off, rid the world of three contemptible degenerates and have the fourth in custody to question. So the bold leap into the sea frees the President of the burden to act.
President Obama granted two separate requests from the Defense Department to go forward with a military operation to rescue Captain Richard Phillips, an administration official tells CNN.
Obama granted the authority to use appropriate force with the focus on saving and protecting Phillips’ life. The requests were made by the Pentagon Friday and Saturday. For technical reasons, authority was granted two different times, according to the official, because different U.S. forces moved in the region near the coast of Somalia.
These people are no longer operating in a reality shared by the rest of the world, and have not been for a long, long while.
BTW- I detected a desire to fap around the “men of action” portion of that gibberish.
*** Update ***
And I am too lazy to find all the links, so let me just issue this blanket statement: Anyone who thinks that several most likely illiterate Somali thugs, armed with AK’s and probably geeked to high heaven on khat, decided to attack a flagged American container ship as a test because there is a perception that Obama is weak, is just a full-fledged idiot and should be institutionalized.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
The good Captain is safe:
The American captain of a cargo ship held hostage by pirates jumped overboard from the lifeboat where he was being held, and U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed three of his four captors, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation.
Capt. Richard Phillips was helped out of the water off the Somali coast and is uninjured and in good condition, the official said. He was taken aboard the USS Bainbridge, a nearby naval warship.
At the time of the shootings, the fourth pirate was aboard the USS Bainbridge negotiating with officials, the source said. That pirate was taken into custody.
Apparently, there are dozens of hijacked ships in that area right now.
*** Update ***
BTW- I found the whole notion (as advanced by a few simpletons) that this was somehow a test of Obama to be laughably absurd. Our military budget is a half a trillion dollars a year. If we can not handle a couple pirates without the hands on involvement of the President, we need to just disband the Navy. Is it going to be a test of Obama every time some criminal somewhere takes a hostage?
Seriously.
by DougJ| 67 Comments
Joe Klein, in an excellent put-down of Charles Krauthammer, writes:
<blockquote><p>And there was–oh. my. God.–the failed North Korean rocket launch. The Gates Defense budget is cutting anti-missile defense systems in Alaska. More Obama wimposity! Except that Gates has decided not to spend tens of billions on an anti-missile system (that doesn’t work) to counter a North Korean rockets (that don’t work) carrying North Korean atomic bombs (that have, so far, fizzled when tested). The real North Korean threat, created by George W. Bush’s first-term ineptness, is the nuclear fuel that was produced in the past six years–fuel that the wildly impoverished North Koreans could sell to terrorists or rogue states (as they sold their nuclear plant design to the Syrians). That is a threat that doesn’t yield easily to the empty bluster of neocons–indeed, it was accelerated by US bluster.</p><p> The point is that Krauthammer’s nonsense–the whole neoconservative project–proved an utter failure during the Bush years and now exists well outside a vast, stable, liberal-moderate consensus on foreign policy that includes most Democrats, the Bush 41 realists and the leading strategists of the U.S. military.</p></blockquote>
He may be right about the foreign policy community, but it’s foolish to think that neocon tropes haven’t thoroughly infected our national dialog. Broder’s comments about how Obama had to bomb or attack…or I’m not sure what, frankly…the pirates and the North Koreans are a case in point.
As happy as I am that Obama has put American diplomacy back on the right track, we need to admit that idiotic neocon ideas still have tremendous sway. The idea that we can and need to “get somebody” the moment something goes wrong is still very powerfully ingrained in the punditocracy.
by John Cole| 81 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Good morning and Happy Easter.
Looks like a beautiful day here in WV, so after the morning workout and CBS Sunday Morning, I might go get some prep work done on the garden. Here is a thread for you.
*** Update ***
Keeping up with the hard hitting news, it appears that the first dog has been selected.
It just occurred to me- they have their “in” now. I was wondering how the Malkins and the Red States were going to get their two minute hate on over a puppy, and now that Kennedy is giving it to the Obamas, they now have an excuse to hate… a puppy. Just watch.