Lance
Josh Adams
fooser
davenate
Mike O
Reading on Walden Bookstore
goesdownbitter
jack3566
Garnet SpyAnd that fact will probably give him trouble in November. However, it is one of his traits that makes my voting for a open border, eco-sociology supporter a lot more palatable.
He heppened to be in Columbia just when their police were pulling off the brilliant hostage rescue- the slickest one since Entebbe. And John McCain and his group had been given a days advanced notice of the operation: not surprising, since he was there, is ranking member of the Armed Services committee, and American advisors were on the periphery.
There is no way that a natural politician would have let such a big opportunity pass without scoring major political points. His group of senators (Lieberman and Graham) could have stuck around and gotten some good photo ops congratulating Uribe. And, though I would have considered it tacky grandstanding, the three could have met and congratulated Uribe with the 3 freed American contractors present.
John didn’t; he kept to his schedule, called in his congratulations to Uribe, and released a brief but highly complementary statement about the effort. Lieberman did a small bit of politicking on John’s behalf by pointing out the advanced notice was a vote of confidence by a foreign leader (one that is democratic and pro-American). But that was it.
Not the actions of a natural politician; it was an act of class.
Of course, I’m sure some sort of far-left conspiracy will arise relating to this whole thing; it should be entertaining to see what form of paranoia fantasy they take. (Update: Bingo!) Almost as entertaining as Chavez explaining why the FARC guys were so easy to convince that Venezuela had sent a helicopter for their use.
BTW: My far-right fantasy theory is that the FARC guys, having heard that McCain was coming down there and knew what he was accused of almost doing to a Communist brethern 21 years ago, released the hostages out of fear that McCain would come after them with the fists he would use to replace the Secret Service.
Congratulations to the Columbians and the freed hostages; another win for the good guys, this one without firing a shot.
Filed under: Politics
Lieberman goes with McCain everywhere these days.
On a side note, “war hero” politicians are 1 for 6 in the last few presidential elections. I wonder if that will hold true with McCain.
[...] Group Whose Sponsor I Will Meet.” On the other side of the coin, I agree that McCain showed commendable restraint in not trying to exploit the rescue by insinuating himself into the aftermath even though he was in [...]
McCain would make some traction if he’d speak and campaign as the maverick he is rather than trying to stay in the ring with Obama. We’ll take Chicago any day over the facts.
I have spent some time studying the matter, actually from the time I first started commenting on blogs back in 2004, and I have yet to come to a conclusion about why right wingers and neocons take such a pugnacious attitude in the writing and verbal utterances.
“BTW: My far-right fantasy theory is that the FARC guys, having heard that McCain was coming down there and knew what he was accused of almost doing to a Communist brethern 21 years ago, released the hostages out of fear that McCain would come after them with the fists he would use to replace the Secret Service.”
So maybe you can explain yourself. Why the fight talk, like “Bring it on.”? Don’t you know it makes you sound like a little kid who is counting on his big brothers or sisters to back him up?
The operative word here, rhbee, is ‘fantasy’ and I actually separate that from fact. I was giving an example of outlandishness that one can expect from the left that some will seriously believe, such as that implied in my update above. In fact, most people would recognize the ‘Chuck Norris saying’ approach I and the Onion piece used as something called ‘humor’..
Oh, well see that’s where you lost me. I have never watched a Chuck Norris anything, not even those phoney commercials that make him look 10 feet tall. I do read the Onion however. And then I wrap my fish in it. Meanwhile, the real funny thing is that your humor and my observation about the mind-set of republicants seems to agree.
One other thing, McCain seems fairly adept at taking credit by not taking credit a trait that may win him some votes from time to time whether he wants them or not.
rhbee, I doubt you know anyone in the military if you don’t know about ‘Chuck Norris facts’ (http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com). Possibly on this day celebrating our independence, you’d take a moment or two to yearn about those charged with defending that independence (even if what they are doing right now does not fall into that category).
I lost you because you actually believe most conservatives think like my fantasy humor; not to shock you, but they don’t.
Ever read Lee Child’s The Enemy? Now there is your today’s army. And unfortunately I do know some folks in the military, grew up a Navy brat myself, but so what? If ever I met a group of people in extreme denial, it’s those in the military.
And I have to go by what they say and write so even though I can’t speak for most conservatives I can say that most of the ones who write and talk show host and comment thereon seem to be in love with their “fighting words”.
If ‘the military’ is in extreme denial, it’s generally the kind of denial this country needs more of .
I doubt most of these military are overly conversent on popular novels, making strenuous decisions such as “Get Smart’ or biking to the beach, or marvel at the wonders of cooking with olive oil. What these people work on day to day makes my pitiful contribution to actually doing something that’s real look pretty damn pitiful. How about yours?
The reality is that all that effort, that reupping, that militaristic were number one crap is responsible for the destruction of a country and the decimation of a people just so we could satify our need for oil and revenge.
The really sad thing is that it will be years and maybe never before the civilian population of Iraq gets to wonder about what movie they want to see today or whether it would be worth it to go to beach. I get to do those things not because our troops are invading their country but because I joined millions of others in stopping the last stupid war we were involved in by protesting the lies our government foisted on us and by peacefully standing firm against the obstinancy of just following orders.
Here’s the view from another side: http://tomdispatch.com/post/174950/the_urge_to_surge
Listen, I’ve always liked McCain, but he’s seeming more and more like a “natural politician” these days as he’s changed/evolved/flip-floped his positions to try to win more potential votes.
Tidewater Jackson
http://www.fullcontactsports.wordpress.com
rhbee, I thought I caught the whiff of fond 60s memories in your posting. I lived through them myself but was a real rebel; I actually thought the Vietnamese would violate the signed paper, silly me. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back for that one; 4 million ghosts roam Cambodia alone as a result of the power vacuum from your ‘victory’. Fortunately, this time around, the antics of your crowd- most typified by Code Pink- have been ignored and we’ll avoid the after-the-defeat massacres.
As for Iraqis not going to the movies, you might want to read this from 9 months ago and the situation has only gotten better since then. Far from perfect; but then I’m sure there are areas of your hometown that you would avoid as well. And you might consider who is actually to blame for vast majority of civilian deaths that do occur: suicide bombers targeting them for no specific purpose other than a headline to help people like you make the case to do exactly what the bombers want.
Bottom line: the people who actually go there- even those that opposed the war- see the massive improvements in security and economy. Just ‘fess up and move on; the anti-war crowd won’t be chalking up a ‘win’ on this one (though even I hope we never go into another one based on such horribly wrong intel and groupthink).
Have to agree with tidewater, we have two politicians, from what I can tell, there’s little difference.
Good news out of Iraq, and Obama has to tweak his Iraq policy, because withdrawing will lose popularity because of it.
Oil prices are up, and McCain has to tweak his drilling policy, because being an enviro-nut will lose popularity because of it.
See there you go O spouting your chest-thumping conservatism. I believe those ghosts you allude to belong to the lying Nixon crowd who said they weren’t in Cambodia when they were. Kinda’ like the creepy CIA types that sponsored Charlie Wilson’s War.
Meanwhile, I read the article you linked me to, did you read the one from tomdispatch?
Seems like somewhere along the way here you’ve lost that sense of the humorous. But as I pointed out originally, it appears to be damn hard for a conservative to talk without name calling and bluster.
“chest-thumping conservatism”; and you say I resort to name-calling in the same posting. Hello, anybody home? No loss of sense of humor; your viewpoint is quite amusing to me.
Of course, I read the link: “you’ll find nowhere else” pretty well sums up your cherry picking. I also read a lot from Fred Kaplan on Slate, who also pontificates extensively on Iraq (I’ve know Freddie since high school). I am not unread about the other viewpoint, but I am fairly comfortable that the vast majority of those that have been don’t agree with you. And the people in the military are not mindless robots; that’s a level of occupational bigotry that bypasses much of the white south viewpoint on skin color prior to the 60s.
Rather than read fictional novels, I actually prefer reading about the real world by people who are, or have, been there. On Iraq, that includes Michael Yon’s book as well as ‘The Blog of War‘. On Africa, I’m a fan of Andrew Mwenda, the book ‘Hotel Rwanda’, and my daughter’s own writings. I tend to go to the source where possible.