He sits and personally decides who to kill? Americans don't think of their presidents like that. And they don't want to....
After the killing of bin Laden, members of the administration, in a spirit of triumphalism, began giving briefings and interviews in which they said too much. One of the adults in the administration, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reportedly went to Mr. Donilon's office. "I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend," he said. What? asked Mr. Donilon.
"Shut the [blank] up," Mr. Gates said.
June 14, 2012
"Why do the president's appointees think the picture of him with a kill list in his hand makes him look good?"
Asks Peggy Noonan.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
37 comments:
"'Shut the [blank] up,' Mr. Gates said."
That's about the level of discourse needed to get through to most of Obama's crew of SCOAMF's. (If anything can get through to them.)
Doesn't having a "kill list" project the sort of despotic image to Middle Eastern societies that his worst detractors here feared he'd project?
"Chief Strongest Horse" is some sort of Realpolitik for the New World Odor. I wonder what Henry Kissinger thinks.
What I dont understand is why are political people aware of these secrets in the first place.
Remember something about a wall between the CIA and the FBI before 9/11?
Looks like there is no wall between the career people and the political people in this administration.
I think they *do* think it makes him look good... to the blood thirsty neo-con war mongering bitter clingers.
But I also think there might be some sort of guilty secret "shades of gray" fetish that just really *likes* the dangerous, dominating, powerful expression.
I know I keep coming back to Elinor Clift and her praising of Pelosi as she took her seat as the queen of hearts of the House. She described the imposition of utter tyranny and vindictive retribution as the old guard brought the freshman class to heel. (Yes, I'm trying to shove as many mixed metaphors in there as possible, why do you ask?)
I thought it was utterly damning and the sort of thing an opposition hack would pen, but she was PRAISING Pelosi.
So I think that there is a secret love (that shall not be named) among the left for the reaper, the grimm hatchet man, the bloodless tyrant.
Someone who'd put a head on a pike, just to prove he meant it.
(Only... you know... not those icky Republicans that are many many times worse, of course, and can't be trusted in their tyranny because their hearts are not pure.)
I wish Gates would take his own advice.
Holder appointed a campaign donor to investigate the leaks?
What a joke.
Easier to kill these folks with drones--spares us all the messy due process stuff that was talked about during the Bush administration.
It's antiseptic. So clean. I recall a British Doctor Without Borders type wailing on Clinton for bombing cleanly from on high. That really got her goat. She had a goat, you see, and it was got by that. She dealt with the aftermath. As much as she criticized high altitude bombing she didn't explain how charging right in with an army, or allowing 'ethnic cleansing' was a moral improvement.
And that's the vernady 2 truth (w.v.)
It's an "on balance" thing. Will projecting an air of tempered bloodlust on balance attract more moderate votes than lose liberal votes? Probably. Liberals, on balance, probably like his approach. Unlike Bush, whose hamfisted approach to killing obliterated whole nations, Obama is calculating, precise, nearly surgical in his strategy. Even when killing he's couth! As with the federal budget, he goes line-by-line through those lists and decides what needs to be erased.
Was going to say that Obama might be the first Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list. But then I remembered that Yasser Arafat won one.
"Why do the president's appointees think the picture of him with a kill list in his hand makes him look good?"
Well, they're desperate to show him as competent at something, even if it is this thing.
There's no question that the U.S. Military, among all the federal departments, agencies, offices, services, commissions and whatnot, is among the best performing, if not the best performing.
Everything else Obama has touched as turned to shit; he might was well associate himself with the one thing he has yet to diminish. It helps, of course, the military is fighting a war and the previous SecDef served in the prior Administration. Undoubtedly that helps them push away the unwanted, micro-managing intrusions from the White House.
So, he exploits it for political gain. What else would he do? He has nothing else to point to.
I seem to remember hearing on the radio that a drone shot up a wedding party the other day..
Maybe somebody switched the list on him as a joke.
Synova,
"So I think that there is a secret love (that shall not be named) among the left for the reaper, the grim hatchet man, the bloodless tyrant."
Wherever did you get the idea that this was a secret love? Did you somehow miss, e.g., this choice little piece?
This brings back memories of another famous leader who kept a secret "Kill List"....
Stalin.
DaveO said...
Was going to say that Obama might be the first Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list. But then I remembered that Yasser Arafat won one.
===============
And Arafat's Nobel counterpart, Menachim Begin, was a terrorist with his own kill list of Arabs, Brits, and collaborating Jews when he was with Irgun and the Stern Gang terror groups.
"Shut the [blank] up," Mr. Gates said.
I say that so much, for my birthday, my ex had a t-shirt made with it on emblazoned on the front. One of the best presents I ever got. Didn't work, though:
The lamers are still yammering away,....
Coketown sez ...
Unlike Bush, whose hamfisted approach to killing obliterated whole nations, Obama is calculating, precise, nearly surgical in his strategy. Even when killing he's couth! As with the federal budget, he goes line-by-line through those lists and decides what needs to be erased.
You get such ideas from what? Where?
1. Bush has been retired for nearly 4 years, Obama is still in Afghanistan, even in Iraq with "mercenaries du jour contractors," and Obama is coasting along as the now unperturbed CIC.
2. Hamfisted obliteration of whole nations is generally how wars are won. Fail that, you lose. Rinse and repeat.
3. "Couth" and "killing" in the same sentence is an oxymoron when describing drone attacks directed by a guy sitting secure in his office without corners. Killing is brutal, but has to be done at times. Obama is the last guy who could possibly know that. The fantasy might make his dick hard, but if he faced it mano a mano, he'd learn a different purview, if he survived.
4. BUDGET? What budget. There has been no Congressional budget for 4 years. As some one else noted on another thread, no budget means Continuing Resolutions, which mean that what was expended 4 years ago now, is expended every year in between ... without a formal set of budget appropriations. The add the special interest spot appropriations. Work in federal governance for a will before you say silly stuff about budgets.
Crack MC ......my ex had a t-shirt made with it on emblazoned on the front.
Dang. I want one of those.
It's what they think about the voters.
"He loves me, he oves me not..."
It's the only way Choom can make a decision, as we've all been told.
iqvoice said...
This brings back memories of another famous leader who kept a secret "Kill List"....
Stalin.
It was a running thing.
And woe betide the apparachik who turned in one Uncle Joe thought too short.
Choom doesn't have a strong understanding of US history or imagery.
The idea of "enemies lists" (Nixon)
or "looking at maps in the Oval office to pick targets" (Johnson)
are not memes that conjure up positive thoughts in Inpedent voters.
PS: Bonus thought. When was the last time you saw AP carry a picture of Soldiers or Marines carrying a flag draped casket down a ramp at Dover? I thought that was supposed to be important news and vital to our understanding of the "real costs of war"
PPS: if the WH wants to leak something, it could leak that The Won is carrying on another Bush policy of offering private meetings with the families of all the war dead, as he travels around. Wait, Obama isn't? that of course isnt news...
edutcher and I seem to have had the same general idea of historical context and lack of memory
One of the adults in the administration, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reportedly went to Mr. Donilon's office. "I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend," he said. What? asked Mr. Donilon.
"Shut the [blank] up," Mr. Gates said.
Lest we forget, Mr Donilon the National Security Advisor, isn't a retired General with 4 combat tours, or an ex Foreign Service Officer wh has lived in 20 countries, or even a distinguished academic with books written on Geo-politics, or game theory, or whatever. You can sum up his professional quals as:
1. Lawyer/Lobbyist for Fannie Mae
2. State Dept PR weenie
3. State Dept Chief of Staff
4. Brother of a Biden buddy
5. Husband of Biden's wife's girlfriend
e.g. a political hack
If only more politicians, in all walks of life and parties followed Gates' advice.
So I think that there is a secret love (that shall not be named) among the left for the reaper, the grimm hatchet man, the bloodless tyrant.
"Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you..."
Everyone on the left - EVERY. ONE. - has weird Daddy issues, and sadly politics and oppression is the only therapeutic outlet they know.
That statement ranks right up there with General Honore's "Don't get stuck on stupid" remark during the local democratic party owned debacle of Katrina. These poseur's never take their responsibility seriously exploiting every opportunity to parade their impotence in full view of the public. Merely being observers does not make them manly men and women. They are self-neutered wannabes forever doomed to be outside the band of brothers they know they can never be a part of. They have no honor or principles.
"Why do the president's appointees think the picture of him with a kill list in his hand makes him look good?"
Maybe they subscribe to the philosophy of punch back twice as hard or If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun?
Just imagine if Bush did this? Would he be able to speak to the media and talk about any other topic?
GWB got roasted by the same yahoos praising 'Rambobama' for saying "Bring it on!" These people are the poster children of hypocrisy. Where the adults in this parade of children?
"Everyone on the left - EVERY. ONE. - has weird Daddy issues, and sadly politics and oppression is the only therapeutic outlet they know."
Maybe.
My own thought, based on experience and observation, is that the Left is comprised of those alienated from the larger culture, mostly because of personal failings.
So, they support expansive and growing government, the better to socialize and normalize their personal problems (Moynihan's "defining deviancy down") or wants.
"Everyone on the left - EVERY. ONE. - has weird Daddy issues, and sadly politics and oppression is the only therapeutic outlet they know."
Of course. Everyone knows this. Everyone also knows that everyone on the right- EVERY. ONE. - is a twisted closet case and sadly politics and oppression is the only therapeutic outlet they know.
No blood for re-election!
But the whole idea of killing instead of capturing is brilliant. If he captured Bin Laden, and the others, he probably would have had to imprison him at Gitmo and then he would have ad to deal with the mess of civil rights, due process, etc. that would drag on and on. By just killing him and the others, he avoided all of that inconvenience and the dragged out battles about prison conditions, rights, etc., that his base cares so much about
Stewart asks the same question.
Cook; It occurs to me that every democrat who votes for Obama this year will be responsible for willfully ignoring the serial failures of this administration. Where will they be when riots hit this country? These whiny economic illiterate dreamers will wake-up to the new reality and demand that the fiscal responsible save them from a cold winter with no food. Knowing them and the way they rationalize, they will be happy with allowing the country to go bankrupt because they have no money left to lose.
The very services they take for granted may well not be there for the taking at the rate we are going. Hopefully, with loose "medical marijuana" laws they will be to stoned to worry about food and water until they come down off a high with nothing to munch on.
when are you going to start worrying? When the debt equals the GDP of this country? When it exceeds the worth of all our assets? What collateral will be offer for those stupid enough to consider lending us money at usurious rates?"
So, Cookie, just curious. What is your problem with your own dad? You and I both know you have some problem with him. Otherwise, you wouldn't be on the left.
My advice is just to let go. Just - let go. The hatred and feelings of inferioruty are eating you up. You and I both know it.
I only want to help.
So has killing Bin Laden changed anything?
Post a Comment