We’ve been hearing a lot of empty but heated rhetoric from Obama and McCain on Iran. Now, listen to the words of a consummate diplomat and expert political operator—SecDef Robert Gates [e.a.]:
The top uniformed US military officer told Congress Tuesday that Iran is directly jeopardizing peace in Iraq, prompting fresh calls from senators that the US pursue diplomatic talks with Teheran. …
Gates said he supports sitting down with officials from Teheran, but only after the US has developed significant leverage. In such cases as Libya and North Korea, these countries were seeking to relieve economic pressures imposed by sanctions, Gates said.
“The key here is developing leverage, either through economic or diplomatic or military pressures on the Iranian government so they believe they must have talks with the United States because there is something they want from us, and that is the relief of the pressure,” Gates said.
See how easy it is to demand preconditions while sounding reasonable? Obama should pay attention.
Whenever bad news crops up about the Kennedys, I always think of Caroline, and I wonder how she keeps going with grace and dignity, but she does.
Soon her last remaining confidant from her father’s generation—her moral support—will be gone.
Sad.
Who’d have thought that, during our sixth year in and with more than 150,000 Americans in-country, Iraq would barely register as a blip in the public consciousness?
[A]nti-war activists are also trying to keep the war in the public eye. Last month, nine protesters gathered in front of the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown, where U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey have offices.
“Please think about this. It’s important,” Lynne Flavin, 60, of Lawrenceville, told passersby. She held a blood red sign that said, “Support the Troops. End the War.”
Few people gave more than a glance.
Ralph Peters addresses the same issue in today’s New York Post, but from a different angle:
Do we still have troops in Iraq? Is there still a conflict over there?
If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines.
Want a real “inconvenient truth?” Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.
But that fact isn’t helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily.
You won’t see that above the fold in The New York Times. And forget the Obama-intoxicated news networks - they’ve adopted his story line that the clock stopped back in 2003.
On November 2, 2007, the New York Times, once known as the “newspaper of record,” published a story about Barack Obama’s intended foreign policy. The story was based on a lengthy interview with the candidate. It was headlined as follows:
Obama Pledges ‘Aggressive’ Iran Diplomacy
Here are the relevant excerpts, which detail in depth the kinds of things Obama said he was willing to offer Iran:
[H]e asserted that Iran’s support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region, including talk of a possible American military strike on Iranian nuclear installations.
Making clear that he planned to talk to Iran without preconditions, Mr. Obama emphasized further that “changes in behavior” by Iran could possibly be rewarded with membership in the World Trade Organization, other economic benefits and security guarantees.
“We are willing to talk about certain assurances in the context of them showing some good faith,” he said in the interview at his campaign headquarters here. “I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hellbent on regime change, just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior. And there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior.”
The reporters sought clarification about the “sticks.”
Mr. Obama declined to say if he would consider military action if Iran did not abandon its presumed nuclear weapons program or if he would settle for a strategy of deterring and containing a nuclear-armed Iran.
“My decision making, with respect to military options versus diplomatic options, a containment strategy versus a strike strategy, is going to be informed by how is that going to impact not just Iran,” he said, “but how is that going to impact the stability of the region and how’s that going to impact our long-term security interests.”
To underscore the point, Obama’s then-top foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, gave an interview to the New Statesman in which she confirmed Obama’s views about aggressive diplomacy:
The way to do it, according to Power, is “to be in the room with the bad guys but not to check your principles in at the door”. Obama would engage with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. He would sit down with North Korea and Syria. Is there anyone he wouldn’t talk to? “Not among elected heads of state. He won’t talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas.”
This morning, Jennifer Rubin described the Obama campaign’s efforts to blot out Obama’s words—and intentions—: to rewrite history and to cover up the truth with lies, as Bob Dylan once wrote (except that he was castigating the media, whereas I am castigating the slippery and increasingly untrustworthy and unreliable Barack Obama).
Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisor, is at it again. She is on a mission to save Obama from himself, insisting that he never promised to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad–and that he never said without preconditions.
The bizarre additional explanation this time is that it was some other unnamed leader of Iran he may have had in mind for a get together. Two problems :1) it is a lie and 2) huh? As to the first, there is ample documentation–from Obama’s own mouth–that it was Ahmadinejad he had in mind and that he would meet without preconditions (in the first year of his presidency, no less). The media has been reporting as much for a year and it was a prime source of disagreement with Hillary Clinton. If his campaign persists in this line of defense, he risks not just losing the foreign policy debate but his reputation for practicing the New Politics. (In other words he will, in the eyes of the public, not simply be a novice in foreign policy, but a liar.)
One commenter’s remarks are worth reprinting (almost) in full:
Its interseting that the Obama campaign is spinning out of control this early. Did we only have to scratch the surface? I thought it would take more.
James Rubin’s original claim that McCain was “smearing” Obama didn’t seem to take hold. It was about the 5th time I have seen a reporter or professor use the term “smear” to protect Barack Obama from analysis.
Obama doesn’t know if he should appeal to his liberal base, or start running in the general election. As he is getting his act together, these writers have invoked “smear” to anyone who would dare challenge his flip-flops. [Jamie] Rubin, of course, wants to ignore very simple facts. He used a partial quote!
Now, as Jennifer Rubin points out, Susan Rice claims Obama has been on the bandwagon the whole time. Except for the inconvenient truth called documentation. This is really getting strange. I wonder how the Obama campaign is going use the words “snippet” and “smear” to get out this mess. Well, it so happens that Ahmadinejad is another strange uncle that Obama can’t disown or never talk to.
Another commenter, considering today’s political climate and the fact that the media is now an open player in presidential (and even world) politics (which I wrote about here), offers a word of warning:
Obama has really backed himself into a corner here. Watching him try to get out of it is thoroughly enjoyable. When it’s all said and done, however, I don’t think he’s quite going to be able to do it.
But I admit he just might. I know the MSM isn’t as powerful as it used to be, but it is still formidable, and every drop of leverage and influence it can muster will be mobilized on Obama’s behalf for the next 24 weeks. That is a great advantage to have, and we who oppose Obama’s candidacy should not be naive about the MSM’s potential to make the difference for him.
Another commenter makes a funny:
The question of who speaks for the Obama campaign - supporters in the media, advisors like Susan Rice, endorsers like Gary Hart, or the candidate himself - is even more difficult to figure out than who speaks for Iran.
When all else fails, seek laughter. It helps.
Oh yes, and compare and contrast this kerfuffle with what is happening in the real world, where, the Jerusalem Post reports (and the White House strenuously denies), President Bush is considering attacking Iran’s nuclear installations before the end of his presidency.
See lots of interesting back-and-forth about the advisability (or inadvisability) of confronting Iran here and here.
This, in particular, is worth contemplating:
Nuclear capability will give Iran the kind of umbrella of impunity that will allow it to double its mischief in the region without fear of retribution. Do you like the way Hezbollah and Hamas behave in their respective domains? You will love it when Iran has nukes! Do you find it hard to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict now? Try when Iran’s nukes enable its proxies to up the ante. Are you worried about Shia unrest in Kuwait and Bahrain? Prepare for more trouble when Iran’s nuclear bomb casts a shadow on those countries. Do you think oil prices are too high? Save for a cold winter, when Iran’s speedboats swarm the Gulf and harass supertankers. Do you really think anyone will risk a nuclear showdown for any of the above?
Consider this as well: Iran might lend its nukes and ballistic missiles to friends like Venezuela, to get San Francisco within range. It would not be overstretching–Hugo Chavez will surely pick up the bill to pay the costs of the exercise. Unbelievable? Why?
The left, committed pacifists, and increasingly unself-confident and paralyzed liberals are embroiled in a massive failure of the imagination. Good people find it hard to imagine that real evil exists in the world. This kind of thinking needs to end. One way or the other, it will end.
I am a born fighter, and I want to nip it in the bud before it happens. Where do you stand?
(via the Georgetown Book Shop)
I’d be a total hypocrite if I said I was surprised by this (my blog is called Infotainment Rules, after all), but it seems that PBS’s NewsHour—one of the last remaining outposts of in-depth, not-hysterical, and thoughtful daily coverage of current events— is not long for this world.
On May 1, salaries were frozen at the newscast, and company contributions to 401(k) retirement funds were suspended, cutbacks suggested by the staff. “NewsHour” still has two corporate sponsors — Chevron and the Pacific Life Insurance Company — and it receives support from PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But only part of the Archer money has been replaced, leaving the budget several million dollars short.
“NewsHour,” along with other PBS mainstays, may have a longer-term problem. Not only are corporations cutting back on all forms of advertising during the current economic slowdown, but public television’s model — soliciting long-term commitments — is also increasingly out of step with the changing needs of corporations, which no longer sponsor public television programs for purely philanthropic reasons.
Indeed. Unless you’re “green” and can give Corporation Big Foot a nice reflecting green glow and the moral superiority that goes along with it, your outstretched hands will stay empty. Be gone! There’s no money in corporate coffers for philanthropy.
Not that providing the news to the public should be left to philanthropists. But nor is receiving “the news” an entitlement of the people. If we expect those who profit from the public airwaves to offer us the people a public service by telling us “the news,” then we the people must demand it (rather than shrug and accept the circus performances on offer at the “cable news” shows as “news”).
Of course if we are no longer the audience but are rather the people formerly known as the audience, then that has to be factored in, too.
Either way, those who want to know what’s going on in the world around them will need to do more than sit passively in front of a box—or a flat panel. They’ll have to interact, and look around, and read, and judge for themselves the veracity and reliability of what they’re reading. Critical-thinking skills will be more important than ever in this brave new world.
Threaten them—and that’s exactly what Barack Obama did the other day:
Democrat Barack Obama said on Sunday he would pursue a vigorous antitrust policy if he becomes U.S. president and singled out the media industry as one area where government regulators would need to be watchful as consolidation increases.
“I will assure that we will have an antitrust division that is serious about pursuing cases,” the Illinois senator told an audience of mostly senior citizens in Oregon.
“There are going to be areas, in the media for example where we’re seeing more and more consolidation, that I think (it) is legitimate to ask…is the consumer being served?”
Matt Stoller sets up a likely scenario under an Obama administration [e.a.]:
It’s going to be really interesting to see how Obama’s administration takes on the media, and frankly, if I were a network executive, I’d be worried. The White House and Brian Williams may find the Pentagon Pundit scandal to be nothing more than what happens on liberal blogs, but Obama is wondering if their business model is really “serving the consumer,” and what the Justice Department might have to say about that.
His commenters are appalled:
He just gave himself the Kiss of Death. Guaranteed. … But now Obama is going to make the press go nuclear on him because he just made the biggest mistake one could ever make. …
And that mistake is saying you are going breakup the media conglomerates. You just don’t do that before you are elected. Rest assured that every, and I mean every writer and columnist, and broadcaster has got their marching orders and if they still want to be employed by the very people who Obama wants to hurt they will write what the boss wants them to write, say what the boss wants them to say, and do everything in their power that the boss gets what he wants and that is the defeat of Obama.
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This seems like the sort of issue where you play nice during the election and knife the big media corporations in the back once elected.
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If I was one of those who sacrificed financially so I could give to Obama and then he pulls a bone head move like this I would certainly want my money back.
What kind of good politician pisses on the very feet of the press who has the power to, figuratively speaking, politically assassinate him?
Yeah, I kinda wonder about that, and I keep coming back to the idea that Obama is, shall we say, a little overconfident at this point, and in love with the image of himself as the progressive hero who will save America.
Meanehile, he whines about the media’s “unfair” treatment of his wife, who’s out there battling for him—and saying stupid, intelligence-insulting things—night and day.
If she chooses to speak for him—and she certainly doesn’t hold back—then she’s fair game. It’s not faaaaaiiiiiiiiir. Wah wah wah.
