Rand Paul Raised Chimpy McHitlerburton Accusations Against Cheney, Now Has Them Distorted By the Right
The Republican infighting continues apace, spurred by David Corn at Mother Jones, who publishes videos of Rand Paul in 2009 discussing his political philosophy of broadening the party’s base, including taking the focus off defense spending and unnecessary wars. Corn focuses on Paul’s most incendiary comments: an implication that Dick Cheney’s former position at Halliburton had something to do with the Iraq war:
There’s a great YouTube of Dick Cheney in 1995 defending [President] Bush No. 1 [and the decision not to invade Baghdad in the first Gulf War], and he goes on for about five minutes. He’s being interviewed, I think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and he says it would be a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it’d be civil war, we would have no exit strategy. He goes on and on for five minutes. Dick Cheney saying it would be a bad idea. And that’s why the first Bush didn’t go into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes hundreds of millions of dollars, their CEO. Next thing you know, he’s back in government and it’s a good idea to go into Iraq.
I have been listening to libertarians for quite some time now, and when I listen to this video of Rand Paul, I have a similar reaction to the reaction I always had when I listen to Ron Paul or most any other libertarian. I find myself nodding my head on most matters, and then cringing when they start discussing criminal justice and foreign policy. In this video, Rand Paul makes sense on almost every topic. Then he comes to the Fourth Amendment, and falsely suggests that the plain view doctrine originated with the Patriot Act and is some bizarre distortion of constitutional principles. And then, he starts talking about the Iraq war and gives the above Maddowesque quote.
Now, Corn bringing this up is a fair rap. There’s probably a lot more like this in Rand Paul’s record. He is Ron Paul’s son, after all.
If you listen to the libertarians enough, as I have, you quickly learn that they are a) virulently anti-war, and b) hate to be inconsistent. These people hate war. Hate it. And I generally agree with them. But they take it to extremes. If you want to play with a libertarian, ask him if he (yes, “he”) agrees with our entering World War II. If he has no political aspirations or public visibility, he’ll say no. If he has either, he might tell you about how World War II did not end the Great Depression (true) or how Roosevelt manipulated us into the war (true, and I’m not talking about Pearl Harbor), but it might be difficult to get him to opine directly.
So libertarians hate war. And the slower among them clearly pick up some of the silly conspiratorial notions popular among the left, like the ChimpyMcHilterburton nonsense you see above.
So: If Rand Paul was soft-headed enough to traffic in such implications — and clearly he was — this type of thing is going to be an issue in the primaries.
But . . .
But there is no need to make it more than it is. And now we turn to the Free Beacon, whose writer Sonny Bunch all of a sudden turns Rand Paul into a 9/11 Truther:
If you’re familiar with 9/11 Truthers, as I am, you’ll realize this all sounds weirdly familiar.
Now look: I’m not saying that Rand Paul is a 9/11 Truther. Not at all. Yes, 9/11 Truthers for some strange reason have gravitated toward the Ron Paul camp, and yes, Rand Paul has made something of a habit of engaging in conspiratorial thinking designed to cast America in the worst possible light. Even so: I’m not saying Rand Paul said, or thinks, that Cheney allowed 9/11 to happen in order to enrich is friends at Halliburton.
But, you know, dog whistles and stuff.
The sincerity of Bunch’s protestations that he is not calling Rand Paul a 9/11 Truther is matched only by the sincerity of a Bill Schmalfeldt when he assures us that he is not fantasizing about the death of his critics. The “oh, no! I would never wish to actually say this!!” tone — complete with wide-eyed faux-innocent exclamation points! — that Bunch thinks is so funny is never more apparent than after he quotes a Paul spokesman calling the Truther accusation ridiculous. After quoting the spokesman, Bunch says:
Hey, I was just asking questions! Here’s one more question: Isn’t it “shameful and disingenous [sic]” to suggest that the vice president of the United States supported the invasion of Iraq to earn his former company billions of dollars?
(The juvenile nature of all this is perhaps best captured by Bunch’s [sic] — in a post that says: “I’m not saying Rand Paul said, or thinks, that Cheney allowed 9/11 to happen in order to enrich is friends at Halliburton.” Yes, he said “is friends.”)
I guess Bunch’s point is that, if Paul is going to raise irresponsible speculation about Cheney — speculation which he appears to believe — we should all raise irresponsible speculation about Paul. Which, Bunch does appear to believe the Truther accusation he is peddling.
I have a better idea, Sonny Bunch. Let’s raise legitimate criticisms when they are warranted, and lay off the irresponsible hyperbole.
Rand Paul owes Dick Cheney an apology, and Sonny Bunch owes Rand Paul an apology — for in raising irresponsible accusations about the actions of Republicans, they are acting like the left. And acting like the left is not the way to act in a Republican primary. In fact, it’s not a good way to act, period.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:49 amIf you’re talking libertarians, you forgot to mention drugs.
luagha (20d6ea) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:00 amthis doesn’t bother me
America is a poor slovenly debtwhore state anymore with no business of ever invading or attacking or glaring at anything of any consequence ever again
especially since Americans are a cowardly ambivalent people who will piss away whatever hard-fought expensive military gains they make at the first opportunity like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan
nobody can trust you anymore because of what whores you are
it’s WAY better for you failmericans to stay home and worry about school lunches and climate changings and food deserts and making sure your fat ugly womens have the contraceptives so they don’t do the reproducings
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:06 amRand Paul’s theory is a little crazy, but not nearly as crazy as Chaney’s thinking that we could go into Iraq, win some hearts & minds, & turn it into a western democracy.
Truck_Party (851af8) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:27 amBeen told by a Libertarian they are not isolationists. They are Non-interventionists.
It’s a Big difference.
An Isolationist thinks if we ignore the rest of the world, nothing will happen to us.
A non-interventionist thinks nothing will happen to us if we just ignore the rest of the world.
See … totally different and why I shall remain a diehard small “L” libertarian.
JP Kalishek (9b6108) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:31 amThe True Libertarian Ideal is as obtainable as True Communism for the very same reason. People. Think of what damage a Soros could do to a Libertarian paradise.
Comment by Truck_Party (851af8) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:27 am
not nearly as crazy as Cheney’s thinking that we could go into Iraq, win some hearts & minds, & turn it into a western democracy.
If we had done that in 1991, it would have worked, like it did, pretty much, in Kurdistan.
Even if not a good democracy, it’s a more or less civilized and safe place.
By 2003, the enemies of democracy had had time to get organized.
The object was to show that overthrowing a dictatorship never leads to anything good.
Bush and Rumsfeld thought the only resistance would come from bitter enders, and obviously, would only diminish in time.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:33 amI know I’ve said some things over time that I have realized were mistakes, not only because I didn’t want others to hear what I said, but that on reflection (sometimes only a little) what I said was only based on one aspect of something that not really consistent with my overall views.
But sometimes speaking in an off moment without one’s guard up is indicative of a deep-seated attitude that is really there.
I imagine this is simply a matter of disagreement in wording with our host, but I’m all for people who really, really hate war. But I want people who really, really hate war who also know that sometimes it seems prudent compared to letting a worse evil persist. I think few people “like” war, even defense contractors can be happy with business being good by maintaining a strong military to be a deterrent to war. I think (and certainly nor original or novel of me) it’s the people who want to be the most anti-war that do not recognize the need for war that turns what would have been something of a small containment exercise of Hitler into WWII.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:33 amSo, on the foreign policy and national defense front, one has serious misgivings how much would Rand Paul resemble Obama in outcome. Ron Paul we know would be bad, the argument flows back and forth about Rand, I believe.
As I put it in 2008, if Ron Paul became president he would turn the USA into a paradise — five minutes before the Arabs blew it up. I’ve proposed that the presidency should be split into two jobs; the president should be in charge of defense and foreign affairs and all related areas, while a prime minister should be in charge of purely domestic matters. In such a situation I would have supported either Paul for prime minister.
Of course this is my post-11-Sep-2001 position. If you’d told me on 10-Sep-2001 that Ron Paul would one day run a serious campaign for president and I would not be supporting him, I’d have called you crazy.
Milhouse (b95258) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:42 amOf course you’re 100% correct that what Rand Paul was saying in that video was that Cheney’s experience at Halliburton was responsible for changing his mind about the desirability of invading Iraq. Before Halliburton he was against it, after Halliburton he was for it. There is not even the slightest hint, allusion, or oblique dog whistle about the 11-Sep-2001 attacks. Bunch is maliciously dishonest to bring it up.
There was no direct connection between 11-Sep and the invasion of Iraq, and neither Cheney nor any member of the W administration ever claimed there was one. The decision to invade Iraq was made for a host of reasons, most of them sound, and none of them directly connected to 11-Sep. The line from 11-Sep to the Iraq invasion is rather like the line from Pearl Harbor to the US occupation of Iceland. It’s there, but very indirect. And nobody ever suggested that the Icelanders bombed Pearl Harbor.
Milhouse (b95258) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:52 amthere’s a follow-up post by Mr. Sonny
http://freebeacon.com/blog/rand-paul-truther-or-chomskyite/
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:59 amGood comments all.
Pacifism seldom needs justification or encouragement.
Compassionate interventionism has an abysmal track record. Commitment where it would do much good is generally lacking and where victory is impossible it is generally too common.
But what bothers me about the idea of Libertarianism as an ideology to be implemented here in our present circumstances is its fecklessness.
“Who knows whether his son will be wise or a fool?”
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:02 amSonny likes that same construct the twatwaffle from the LA Times uses. By not addressing something, he tacitly accepts it.
JD (328750) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:06 amYou know, this is ALL about the Left trying to destroy any advantage the Right has coming up in the next two election cycles.
And the part that shakes my head is how willingly folks on the Right go along with it, and do the DNC’s bidding. Happily. And for free.
You know who you are, folks. You are being laughed at, and yet you respond every time the Left winds you up. It’s positively Pavlovian.
Anyway, I have no problem at all criticizing the heck out of candidates, so long as everyone does that (and here is a news flash: they should…hero worship is a bad thing for democracy). What bothers me is when one side plays the other for a fool.
Alan Simpson was right.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:20 amI am so glad I’m not sophisticated enuf to recognize an insult.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:23 amI like Rand Paul, particularly in his current capacity.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:26 amMe too. And I think he should stay in that capacity for a while.
The same applies to Ted Cruz. He’s doing an excellent job in the senate, and would do an even better job as part of the majority, so he should stick to it and not be already planning his next job. Which in any case should not be the White House; I’d rather see him on the Supreme Court.
Milhouse (b95258) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:30 amComment by Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:33 am
The Kurds have been pissed on by the West starting with their homeland being split up between the Turks, Persians, Iraqi’s, and Syrian’s following WW-1 (probably throw in the Soviets too for good measure).
Saddam Hussein fought a long tough civil war with the Kurds (mainly over the money from the oil-fields in the north) and finally came to a more-or-less accommodation with them over that oil, and the degree of political independence that they would have from Baghdad.
Just remember, what Cheney advocated for following Gulf War One, was what the Left says we should have done following the ’03 invasion: Get in, Topple the Government, and Get out.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:32 amThat did not turn out well in the first instance, and would not have turned out well in the second – even though it may be no better or worse than what we eventually received with the “Obama Bug Out”.
Late at night when things are real and people share the gift of gab among themselves,
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:33 amSome call David Corn to see if he knows of a good pot party with hookers.
…and Yes, I realize that we did not topple the Government of Saddam Hussein following the Liberation of Kuwait, but just returned the situation to the Status Quo Ante – which was the Bush-41/Cheney position.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:35 amThere are enough things that Rand needs to address without making stuff up. For one thing, he needs to put some distance between himself and his father, who never appeared to have all his oars hitting the water.
The real problem with doctrinaire Libertarians is that they really see no grey and often seem to put ideology over reality. I don’t see Rand as such — anyone who gets involved in government is already suspect as a Libertarian — but how far from that he is, is not clear.
This is important because a President has a number of unitary powers with the military and foreign policy, and that’s the part I don’t much like. But if he were to find a need for NATO and the Japan/Korea alliance and talk instead about withdrawing from bush wars and token force deployments I might go along.
I have no doubt I would be thrilled by his economic policy and government
Kevin M (b11279) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:38 amdownsizingrightsizing, but if the cost is Russia dominating Europe and widespread nukes, I’ll have to give him a pass.16. Agreed, Senators get to pop off whenever they like and the Right needs people(given an obvious paucity of same) who are able and willing to distill, convey and sort out the Right’s philosophy and strategy.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:38 amComment by Milhouse (b95258) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:30 am
Senator Cruz would be an excellent Majority Leader!
askeptic (8ecc78) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:39 amI’d rather see him on the Supreme Court.
I’d rather see him appoint Randy Barnett and Eugene Volokh, BWDIKINAL.
Kevin M (b11279) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:39 amI can’t take seriously as a Presidential candidate anyone who would wear a brown argyle sweater vest over a black semi-turtleneck.
JVW (9946b6) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:03 amPatterico,
Off-topic basically, but since I saw the words “plain view” it came to mind:
As a prosecutor, what do you think of the idea that all exceptions to the warrant requirement (plain view, SIA, inventory, etc.) are really elaborations of “exigent circumstances” and should be collapsed back into exigent circumstances for the sake of analytical clarity?
And do you think the effect of such a move would be pro-State or pro-defendant?
Leviticus (f9a067) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:07 amI should clarify: in your capacity as a private citizen, who just happens to be an ADA, and not speaking for the department in any way, what (if anything) do you think of that idea?
Leviticus (f9a067) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:08 amRand Paul does not strike me as a guy who would stay in a foxhole and fight.
mg (31009b) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:16 amthe operative line, that it came through David Corn, who is truly hacktastic,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:33 amThe last presidential election cycle was not long enough. I am glad we are starting to focus now.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:56 amI think this is very simple.
Rand Paul isn’t being honest at all – about anything he says. He no more thought through and independently determined his positions on anything than did Barack Obama, but he may have a tougher task making sense, and Obama actually avoided most of this stuff. Well, it’s not so strong among his base.
Rand Paul is trying to hold on to as many of his father’s old supporters as he can while moving as far away from absurdities as he dares.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/8/2014 @ 10:58 amActually Rand is being honest, he happens to be wrong, one of the reservations I had about his endorsement,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:00 amRand Paul’s theory is a little crazy, but not nearly as crazy as Chaney’s thinking that we could go into Iraq, win some hearts & minds, & turn it into a western democracy.
That was Bush’s theory, which I was always doubtful about. Cheney and Rumsfeld were always the grownups and to attribute those ideas to them is dishonest or ignorant.
The real problem with the first Gulf War is that Schwartzkopf negotiated the truce with NO help from policy folks. He gave away the store to the slimy Iraqi generals.
Mike K (cd7278) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:09 am27. War cannot be civilized or ameliorated. The whole object is to kill and abuse the enemy so mercilessly as to break their spirit.
Another knock on interventionism.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:21 amWell that reductionism is troubling, since 1995, there was at least another incursion by Saddam, there was Desert Fox, then September 11th, offered
the prospect of chemical weapons ending up in the hands of terrorists,
DeBaathification, might have been poorly implemented, but the reality was Saddam did not oppress the Kurds and the Shia on his own, but thanks to a huge apparat that included the Mukharabat and the Republican Guard,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:37 amand
Dong.
+ Plus 1. This. Me as well.
Straight up. Rand has much ‘splainin’ do.
Paul A'Barge (6851c2) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:45 amI would like Rand to come over and grill me a steak and we can talk about his foreign policies while we sip on the scotch he brings over
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:52 amThursday at 8 works no problem just park on the street
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:53 amThat was Bush’s theory, which I was always doubtful about. Cheney and Rumsfeld were always the grownups and to attribute those ideas to them is dishonest or ignorant.
I thought that was really Wolfowitz’s idea, the whole hearts and minds thing. What the left had right in retrospect is that there are some corners of the globe where maybe democracy isn’t all that viable. That proposition bugs me greatly as a small-d democrat, but perhaps there is more than a kernel of truth to it.
By the way, I think that places like Syria and Iran may be different (and then again, maybe not). There it appears the young people truly do want to live under democratic rule, whereas young people in Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq appear to be inclined toward a more severe and repressive form of Islam.
JVW (9946b6) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:10 pmWhen he was in the Reagan administration, he had pushed for the transitions of Marcos and Pinochet,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:13 pmas Ambassador to Indonesia, he was critical of Suharto’s regime, he had more of an ear for dissidents then the regimes,
31. Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:00 am
Actually Rand is being honest, he happens to be wrong, one of the reservations I had about his endorsement,
I don’t believe Rand is honest at all.
One of the things he tries to claim that the consequences of American abdication would not be bad for other people.
And he knows the Halliburton thing is nonsense – Cheney specifically took a lot of steps to avoid a conflict of interest – and it is treated as if it did not happen.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:14 pmThe only place democracy does not work is where people subvert it. Nobody should eve rbeleive it is natural.
But without a lot of backing from some outside force, or strong institutions it may be easy to subvert. Look at France after 1789.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:16 pmBoth Ron and Rand Paul have claimed that law enforcement targets blacks for harsher sentencing. This is an example of libertarians on criminal justice issues.
DN (fe3f16) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:24 pmRon, went further, when he bought the CIA drug conspiracy angle, that he exhibited the first time I heard of him, on the Morton Downey jr show,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:29 pmAgain a message popped up on my screen:
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:31 pmI thought that was really Wolfowitz’s idea, the whole hearts and minds thing.
Wolfowitz got in trouble by being too honest about sanctions. He said hey would never work because, “Iraq sits on a sea of oil.” That then became the “NO war for oil.” meme of the left.
He was correct and he was talking about the sanctions, which failed exactly as he predicted. The US army found a BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH in one of Saddam’s son’s house.
Mike K (cd7278) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:32 pmHmmm…
in_awe (7c859a) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:33 pmThey ptosed installing a program that won’t work on that computer, that you don’t like, and never mention money.
Alternatively, they suggest buying a new computer.
Me and some others got something like this a few weeks ago.
Q. Is there anything that should be downloaded today?
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:33 pmDemocracy has always been extremely popular any place in the world it has ever been tried. To say anything else is faux wisdom.
The problem is subversion.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:35 pmthe problem of Iraq, is that the Sunni minority when they were in power, disenfranchised the Kurds and the Shia, that was due in part to the Golden Square and the Baath movements, as a result the ICP, filled with the ranks of the former,
the rise of the Baath, is partially due to the early support of some American intelligence, who supported some exile elements in Cairo, subsequently they turned to Soviet support,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:42 pmThe Sunni minority was never in power in Iraq.
Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were.
Now maybe he favored people close to him, but the Baath Party was quite nondenominational, even including a Christian.
In certain locations, pretty much everybody was against the government and rebelled and then Saddam Hussein was against those villages and sections of the country.
I don’t think the U.S. ever supported the Baath Party – the Baath PArty killed the king and his chief minister in 1958, and the U.S. had signed a treaty with the king. I don’t know where all this comes from. The coup, or its aftereffects, even caused U.S. troops to be sent to Lebanon, where there out to be nobody to fight.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:46 pmNo, the Baath didn’t come into power till ’63, Quassem’s forces killed Nuri Al Said and the king,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:57 pmSaddam was in exile in Cairo, because of an assasination attempt against the former,
The KAssem regime was anti-western and nationalistic, but not quite Communist and very aanti-Nasser. The Communists turned against it, yet it also caused Kurds to flee because it was Communist dominated.
So you are saying the U.S. at some point helped people whom they thought would be anti-Communist?
The 1963 was by the Baath Socialist Party which was very friendly toward Nasser.
In 1968 there was a second coup, in which Saddam was second in command. he gradually eased out the man in charge and was in full control of Iraq around 1979.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 1:07 pm38. Comment by JVW (9946b6) — 4/8/2014 @ 12:10 pm
whereas young people in Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq appear to be inclined toward a more severe and repressive form of Islam.
No more true than in Egypt. In Turkey the opposition parties have no respect. Just because terrorists can get some volunteers doesn’t mean that most people want them.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 1:11 pmIn my guts, I know that the Pauls are nuts.
carlitos (e7c734) — 4/8/2014 @ 1:53 pmJust because terrorists can get some volunteers doesn’t mean that most people want them.
It doesn’t matter what “most people” want in these societies, Sammy; it matters which side is willing to exert its influence over the other. Give me 30% of the population who is motivated and has a clear sense of what they want to accomplish (no matter how awful their agenda is) and I’ll bet on them every day of the week over a 70% who just wants to get along and kind of hopes all of this goes away soon.
JVW (9946b6) — 4/8/2014 @ 2:01 pmSammy, go to Tools, Windows Update, and download everything recommended to bring your XP up to date if you haven’t already done it. But know that after today Microsoft will orphan it. It will not be making any more patches for it. So if some hackers find a way to mess with it in the future, you’re on your own.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 2:02 pmAnd DONT’T CLICK ON THAT POPUP!!!!
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 2:07 pminteresting that one of the forces, Erdogan faced were his former allies, the Gulen movement,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 2:19 pm56. Comment by nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 2:02 pm
Sammy, go to Tools, Windows Update,
Where do I find Tools?
and download everything recommended to bring your XP up to date if you haven’t already done it.
It might make some changes I don’t want to make – I have no idea. Chesterton’s fence applies especially to software.
But know that after today Microsoft will orphan it. It will not be making any more patches for it. So if some hackers find a way to mess with it in the future, you’re on your own.
I don’t know that after 12 years there could be any more hacks to be found.
This has been updated I think up to 2013 or so, and I think maybe Microsfot maybe does some on its own.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 3:19 pmIt should be on your Menu bar. Otherwise, go to Start, Control Panel, Windows Update. That’s probably simpler, anyway.
If you want to, that is. You know the saying, “If it works, don’t fix it”. But don’t ever click on popups — that’s always good policy.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 3:34 pm60. I see this:
So I’ve gotten updates.
They recommend this as High Priority: (the first tow look like a waste of time)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB2922229)
Typical download size: 277 KB , less than 1 minute
A security issue has been identified in a Microsoft software product that could affect your system. You can help protect your system by installing this update from Microsoft. For a complete listing of the issues that are included in this update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article. After you install this update, you may have to restart your system. Details…
Don’t show this update again
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool – April 2014 (KB890830) Download size: 4.2 MB , less than 1 minute After the download, this tool runs one time to check your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps remove any infection that is found. If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time that you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month.
If you want to manually run the tool on your computer, you can download a copy from the Microsoft Download Center, or you can run an online version from microsoft.com. This tool is not a replacement for an antivirus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an antivirus product. Details…
Don’t show this update again
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP (KB2936068)
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 3:53 pmDownload size: 9.2 MB , less than 1 minute
A security issue has been identified in a Microsoft software product that could affect your system. You can help protect your system by installing this update from Microsoft. For a complete listing of the issues that are included in this update, see the associated Microsoft Knowledge Base article. After you install this update, you may have to restart your system. Details…
Don’t show this update again
It shows me there were updates through March 27.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 3:55 pmSounds good, Sammy.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 3:57 pmI’ve always avoided upgrading Internet Explorer, for fear it would change the way it worked. The update is for version 8. I’m not even sure what this is.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/8/2014 @ 4:00 pmIf you don’t know what it is, and your computer’s working to your satisfaction, just leave it alone. The last problem I had with IE 8 was months ago and it made me switch to Firefox — it had a problem with SiteMeter — but Microsoft fixed it without me having to do anything. I’m back to IE now. Now, with XP, your “automatic updates” will still be working but the shelf will be empty so to speak. Microsoft will not be writing new ones for XP.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 4:07 pmThe real problem with the first Gulf War is that Schwartzkopf negotiated the truce with NO help from policy folks. He gave away the store to the slimy Iraqi generals.
What happened was this: in the final days it was a turkey shoot … the western powers were destroying the Iraqi Army in detail. This made it to the media and the media threw up its collective hands in horror and Bush Sr could not withstand the political pressure to quit. Added to that were his advisors who did NOT want to have to pick up the pieces, which meant that Saddam stayed in power. If Schwarzkopf negotiated anything, it was by command.
Kevin M (b11279) — 4/8/2014 @ 4:48 pmAdd to that, Powell was the theatre commander, and he was opposed to the war in the first place, a similar dynamic occurred with the First Battle of Fallujah, when all sorts of ludicrous claims, like white phosphorus shells, inflamed the situation, so W ultimately ordered a push back, eventually they had to do the whole operation all over again in November of that year,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 4:56 pmThe best solution is to just sit on our hands and allow Hillary to be elected in 2016.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:05 pmOr something.
that chick makes me itch
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:16 pmHave you guys maybe noticed that the last three Democrat presidents have been dark horses?
And since we’re counting, that’s all that’s been in Democratic Presidents since 1969, which is like 45 years?
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:26 pmAnd maybe the GOP deadwood should kind of be not seriously mentioned and we should look to get us some fresh, young people?
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:29 pmThat’s a really good historical point, NK.
Carter, Clinton, and The Obama each came out of nowhere to win the nomination.
In that case, perhaps we should not be surprised if
Connecticut and KentuckyElizabeth “Fake Indian” Warren or Governor Cuomo or the Maryland Governor ends up playing for all the marblesI’m just being ironic about sitting on our hands and allowing Hillary to win due to the fact we have some conservative friends here at the blog who’ve already conceded the race to her, and in fact have already conceded that Jeb Bush will be the GOP nominee.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:31 pmThe best solution is to just sit on our hands and allow Hillary to be elected in 2016.
Or something.
SSDD
JD (fd19e2) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:33 pmCarter was a fluke, they found in Iowa, Clinton was the ‘comeback kid’ even though he finished second in NH, and Obama sort of repeats the Carter pattern,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:36 pmDavid Petraeus thinks Hillary Clinton is teh bomb. WTF is the matter with that guy? Was he that compromised?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:45 pmmcconnellwhore and boehnerpoofter and that cheesy eric cantor douchebag need to announce they won’t stand for leadership after 2016
Mr. Stone you’d be shocked and delighted at the intensity of the fire that would light under the base
shocked i tell you
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:47 pmJD,
If you’re going to quote somebody else, let’s try and avoid confusion and properly cite that person.
You can use quotation marks, or write, “So-and-So” said, et al.
I really don’t care if you want to call me names, or infer that I’m stupid, or if you want to tell me to shut the f*ck up in your remarks, but please, if you’re going to be a blogger at a reputable blog, you really need to use proper citation when quoting someone else’s remarks.
Thanks, dude.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:48 pm🙂
i have a caserrole (sp?) “resting” but besides that I don’t really have a lot going on so if you need help with citationings I’m your pikachu Mr. JD
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:50 pmWhen republicans control the narrative –
mg (31009b) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:54 pmThey win.
I think the republicans have issues.
Corn hit Rand from the left, earlier;
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/03/rand-paul-flip-flop-russia-ukraine-georgia
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:08 pmthat one boy in leezeyanna sure do
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:09 pmMy apologies, ES. Though I do not recall calling you stupid, or telling you to STFU.
JD (fd19e2) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:18 pmES said, “The best solution is to just sit on our hands and allow Hillary to be elected in 2016.
Or something.”
SSDD
JD (fd19e2) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:20 pmThe Republicans don’t need a candidate attacking Cheney and Iraq. We have Democrats for that.
Bush was wrong about Iraq being ready for democracy but it was worth a try. Saddam had pushed it into a semi-secular situation. What they didn’t understand was that Islam has destroyed, if there was ever a chance, the possibility for self rule by Arabs. They are a tribal society which is what you get when there has been no effective government for a few hundred years.
The Serbs had a similar experience with the Ottomans. Read “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” sometime.
Now, we know that no Muslim society is ready for self rule for 100 years at least.
Obama has been coldly opportunistic in Afghanistan. He knew it was lost but sent troops to be killed so he could look serious.
MikeK (cd7278) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:35 pmMaybe that’s too long a window, one might argue the French weren’t ready for democracy in 1789, Germany wasn’t ready in the 20s, with their Weimar experience,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 7:40 pmI know little about this, but in my reading I learned that Afghan society did have a system of rule by village elders. Now, it seems to me that the challenge was to work with the various tribal elders and help them see the benefit of cooperating with one another, primarily by identifying common goals.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:14 pmI don’t know how much Iraq was like that or not.
But if you can not depend upon some law and order, then you are asking people to act heroically in the face of great odds every day. people can’t do that, if for nothing else there is a responsibility to one’s immediate family that makes one’s life more precious than being just one more statistic.
To some degree I thought the surge was exactly this kind of thing, but the resolve was lost and there never was a resolve to deal with the outside influence of Iran and the like.
From what I’m given to understand, that’s mostly true about Iraq, there was sort of a minisurge in 2003-2004, with an officer from South Florida in Ramadi, while he dealt with the local sheikh, on his watch, no one in his unit was killed, then the officer was replaced, and the body count started rising,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:19 pmThis Corn feller sure seems to be in the middle of a lot of sh*t.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:22 pmI had a friend who worked with drug gangs to allow and protect people going door to door to make sure kids were up to date on their immunizations.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:23 pmI know Liberty is high on everyone’s nice to have list. Necessities like eating and keeping warm take precedence tho.
http://wealthydebates.com/retail-tsunami-16-major-chains-closing-more-stores/
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:25 pmhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/08/older-confirms-petraeus-probe-still-open-amid-questions-over-whether-case-used/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29
Any further questions, Colonel
narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:28 pmA question that I have that is off topic, but am very curious to see if any others have the same take. This “news” about Al Sharpton being an FBI informant… It’s not news. I read about this several years ago, to me it’s old news. Anyone else have the same recollection?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:29 pmThat explains that, narciso. The cats out of the bag though… his wife knows, what else can be affecting his judgement?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:31 pmThat Louie Gohlmert (sp?) had me laughing today. He really got Holder’s goat, really pissed the useless sonuva bitch off.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:33 pmI’ll point out that back in 1992, had Ross Perot not been quite so insane, he might have won. The Mad Hatter got 19% of the popular vote in a Bush-Clinton election, on the basis of his “we need to balance the budget” plank.
Back when the debt was $4 trillion or so.
Fast forward to 2016, and if you have another Bush-Clinton contest, all a third-party candidate needs to do is be noticeably less insane than Ross Perot. Admittedly, Ron Paul could never do that, but Rand maybe could. So could Ted.
I would hope that, rather than need to mount a 3rd-party campaign, the Republican nominee comes out of the Tea Party wing and is adamant about shrinking the government. Whether that’s Libertarian-lite or Libertarian-very-lite isn’t all that important.
Kevin M (b11279) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:02 pm94-Col.
mg (31009b) — 4/8/2014 @ 9:50 pmTexas should be proud of Mr.Gohmert.
Of all the serious potential candidates, left, right, or any other flavor, for POTUS the one that gives me the best fits of helpless laughter is Rand Paul. I can just see him trying to deal with Putin. It puts me into fits of laughter until I realize it might become real. Then my hair stands straight up on end. Rand Paul does not have what it takes to negotiate on an international level or even negotiate a breakfast meeting with Congressional leaders.
Give me a Perry or a Walker – PLEASE!
{O.O}
JDow (c4e4c5) — 4/8/2014 @ 11:52 pmI think you are a little hard on him with the plain view thing. True, he did say it the way you said he did. But, if you had the chance to talk to him, I think he would acknowledge you are correct and then go on to reiterate what his main point was.
He was talking about how the Feds are entering people’s homes without a warrant and then being able to use anything they find. I don’t disagree with your point that cops with a warrant have always been able to use anything they see in plain view, even if it wasn’t specified in the warrant. But, in order to get that chance to see what was in plain view, first they had to show probable cause to a judge. Paul’s point is that now they can get their shot at plain view without having to show the probable cause.
And that is a pretty big change in what Americans have believed their 4th amendment rights to be. I don’t think most Americans are on board with agents of the federal government having the authority to enter our homes secretly, without a warrant, and then being able to use anything they find in criminal proceedings against us.
Anon Y. Mous (8ec442) — 4/9/2014 @ 2:14 am92. Comment by Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/8/2014 @ 8:29 pm
A question that I have that is off topic, but am very curious to see if any others have the same take. This “news” about Al Sharpton being an FBI informant… It’s not news. I read about this several years ago, to me it’s old news. Anyone else have the same recollection?
Quite true. It came out, or something about it ame out, in 1988.
Al Sharpton even wrote his version of the story in a 1996 book Go and Tell Pharoah: The Autobiography of the rfeverend Al Sharpton by Al Sharpton and Anthony Walton (Doubleday, 1996) pages 80-83, 151-152.
Apparently the problem is that Al Sharpton’s version of what happened is somewhat different than what the FBI records say – and what he says now seems to be a bit different than what is in his book.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:12 amThe FBI says he was an informant. He is now saying he was just trying to protect himself after being threatened and he had no idea if anybody called him C-7 or B-19. And that he never took money except for travel expenses. The records say he got small sums of money.
The claim is that Al Sharpton was caught in a sting about cocaine.
Al Sharpton says he never agreed to do anything with cocaine – and in his book that Danny Pagano of Third World records, whom he was dealing with a lot (about whom there were rumors he was mobbed up, writes Al Sharpton, “but it wasn’t proven”) who was in that taped meeting told an “investor” – the FBI agent – who had approached Sharpton about the music business – but whom it turned out only wanted to talk about drugs: “I don’t know what your thing is, but we’re not into that shxx”
And that that was not the reason he co-operated.
They were investigating Don King but Al Sharpton he doesn’t want to say anything about it.
Al Sharpton informed on a lot of other people.
Regular Mafia people, not Outfit, like Don King.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:14 amPatterico observed:
“”””If he has either, he might tell you about how World War II did not end the Great Depression (true)””””
Uh, it could be debatable. Actually it’s been taught in US History class that WW2 DID in fact end the Great Depression, so your statement, technically, is false. I’ve yet to run across any reputable historian of last few decades who’ve taught anything BUT the standard “It ended the depression”. It certainly was NOT the New Deal that got us out of the Depression.
FACT: Unemployment circa Dec. ’41 hovered between 17-18%. That’s still technically a Depression. Thankfully, we haven’t had official unemployment numbers since then that even remotely match that number. Just the raw unemployment numbers I’m referring to, not the combinations of “when you include people who no longer are looking for work, etc etc” but the actual raw numbers then yes, we have not had 17-18% unemployment since that time.
For the US, WW2 changed that and certainly by the end of the war, the Depression was over and nearly all reputable Historians concur.
Observation: When Germany began its policy of full militarization around ’35, it soon got out of the Depression far quicker than the rest of Europe.
Militarization and to an extent wartime as well, tend to provide jobs on various fronts and fields, thus reducing unemployment and giving folks a reliable paycheck.
If you want to end an economic depression, then go to war on a fairly large scale. Just on an economic standpoint, it works. (obviously, not referring to ethical implications, just the narrow explanation of ending unemployment).
Kenneth Simmons (a10c17) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:36 amDon King, later known as a the boxing promoter, was pretty big in the Outfit.
He was instrumental in pursuing the appeal that led to extending the exclusionary rule to the states in Mapp v. Ohio – 367 U.S. 643 (1961) a decision that was very helpful to organized crime.
http://www.clevelandmemory.org/legallandmarks/mapp/illegalsearch.html
http://lawcourts.org/LPBR/reviews/zotti505.htm
You have to understand just how big he was. Al Sharpton turned the FBI’s attention to the Mafia, instead. Small fry, like Sal Posillo, whom he now claims threatened him, Joseph (Joe Bana) Buonanno, Frederico (Fritzy) Giovanelli, Dominick (Baldy Dom) Canterino, and Vincent (the Chin) Gigante. Gigante wasn’t so small, but he was virtually immune from prosecution because he walked around in pajamas, and, in fact, what Al Sharpton did never led to any major problems for him.
Another organized crime lawsuit later in the 1960s – I think Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)- was responsible for a different Supreme Court decision. Or maybe it was just a civil lawsuit.
The lawyer for the Outfit was Edward Bennett Williams. His law firm later on became the lawyers for Bill Clinton, not by coincidence.
Google Books result: http://tinyurl.com/qhhlo4f
(Fighting Injustice by Michael E. Tigar)
J. Edgar Hoover (and therefore Robert F. Kennedy) thought that was legal as long as you didn’t use it a court case. This resulted in stopping the FBI from wiretapping them and bugging them (not for direct use in prosecution)
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:47 amand Congress later passed a law authorizing warrants.
The papers say that Al Sharpton’s information was instrumental in obtaining warrants. Al Sharpton says that may have happended, but that is not what he was trying to do.
There’s apparently some people he deals with that don’t like informants or something. Al Sharptn claims the worst thing about this is them printing old pictuires of him, showing him fat.
He lost weight starting during a short jail term in Puerto Rico.
An interesting question is who made this a big story now, and why.
Probably somebody is trying to make trouble for Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency. (Oh, you didn’t know that Bill Clinton ad Al Sharpton were close?)
This could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:50 amComment by Kenneth Simmons (a10c17) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:36 am
It certainly was NOT the New Deal that got us out of the Depression.
And it wasn’t World War II, or the buildup before U.s. entry, because consumption expenditures were back up to 1929 levels in 1936 (the year of FDR’s re-election) and again, after FDR decided to raise interest rates and balance the budget for a whle and a downturn that they decided to call a recession happened in 1937 – the previous word wss “depression” and what happened in the 1930s was being called the Great and again in 1938. By 1940 things were definietely better.
But it wasn’t most of the New Deal. It was just simply making the banks safe to deposit money in and expanding the money supply.
The only thing that war does for the economy is that it throws off all monetary restraints.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:57 amisrael freaks remind us that the only good vietnam war draft dodger is a neo-conartist chicken hawk who never met a war they didn’t like unless they were drafted into it!
republicans are evil (64624c) — 4/9/2014 @ 12:35 pmI was under the impression that WW 2 forced FDR to repeal all the legislation that was holding us in the Great Depression. Without it, that plus militarization and a spending surge leapt us free.
The Great Depression was much like our current one in that it was always ‘recovery summer’ and things would seem to be getting better for a little while and then mini-crash back down to where they were before.
luagha (5cbe06) — 4/9/2014 @ 2:39 pm106. Comment by luagha (5cbe06) — 4/9/2014 @ 2:39 pm
I was under the impression that WW 2 forced FDR to repeal all the legislation that was holding us in the Great Depression.
What legislation was repealed? This sounds like sarcasm or parody..
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/9/2014 @ 3:38 pmOooh, Warren v Jindal (or Haley) — “the fake Indian v the real Indian”!
Milhouse (b95258) — 4/9/2014 @ 5:01 pmBuzzsawmonkey keeps trying to convince me that the D ticket will be Hllary/Michelle, but I can’t see Michelle settling for #2. I predict that she’ll be the 0bama machine’s candidate for the top of the ticket. The Clinton machine is obviously running Hillary. And the nutroots may well go for Warren.
Milhouse (b95258) — 4/9/2014 @ 5:05 pmJust so y’all are aware, money ain’t everything:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/09/Joni-Ernst-Leading-in-Iowa-Over-Mark-Jacobs
The MN candidate for Senate I’d tentatively supported, Julianne Ortmann, has landed Palin’s endorsement.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/9/2014 @ 5:39 pmNo, it didn’t. Hitler’s “economic miracle”, Mussolini’s “getting the trains to run on time”, and Castro’s “medical miracle”, all worked the same way: if you publish the statistics you can put down whatever you like.
But those jobs are not producing anything. They’re not real jobs at all, and the pay for them has to come from taxes on whatever production remains. They’re makework, exactly like the WPA jobs. Less than that, actually, since many WPA jobs actually produced something of value, even if not nearly enough value to justify the cost. What’s more, they suck people away from that remaining production, thus shrinking it.
This is the classic “Broken Windows” fallacy that Henry Hazlitt explodes in chapter 1 of Economics in One Lesson. If it were true we could achieve the same effect more cheaply and safely by breaking our own windows and paying to have them fixed, or demolishing our own buildings and paying to have them rebuilt.
Milhouse (b95258) — 4/9/2014 @ 5:42 pm74. Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 4/8/2014 @ 6:36 pm
Carter was a fluke, they found in Iowa, Clinton was the ‘comeback kid’ even though he finished second in NH, and Obama sort of repeats the Carter pattern,
Jimmy Carter was not a serious candidate for president, but he convinced the media that he was a serious candidate, and he did such a good job of it, he was eventually elected president!
His campaign was based on a simple fraud. Most reporters, and people writing about politics did not realize how few people knew anything about the candidates. Jimmy Carter campaigned in Iowa, and raised his recognition rate. Even Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson) only had a 10% name recognition rate in Iowa.
Besides that Carter rigged a poll. There was a famous straw poll done in Ames, Iowa. The gathering had been packed for Jimmy Carter (I think Tom Harkin was involved in that)
He got very good poll results in Iowa. Jimmy Carter’s people then “explained” this to the press by saying that people wanted an outsider.
They couldn’t tell them the truth: that support in Iowa was not typical of that in the rest of the country because Jimmy Carter had done a lot
of special campaigning there and that nobody else was known. That would have spoiled the whole thing.
They told them was that he was an outsider and a new face and that *that* was why he was popular. It was a lie but they needed something
to tell the reporters so that they wouldn’t be sketical of results of the polls.
It may surprise people now to think, but people began to get on to Jimmy Carter fairly early, and a lot of people did not vote for him. He only received 37% of the Democratic primary vote. Even when they were running out of oher candidates, and you almost only had Governor Moonbeam. All sorfts of voters were desperate to stop him.
But he had another argument: party unity. This worked on too many office holding Democrats.
Mo Udall was being accused of running a
stop-Carter campaign and he forswore doing that – yet that was the main reason so many people wanted him. People were voting for Jerry
Brown and things. Most of the votes collected by other candidates in the Democratic primaries in 1976 were solid anti-Carter or Anybody But
Carter votes.
If a candidate dropped out, his vote could not be fairly distributed (mentally) equally among all the other candidates, but Carter treated it that way.
Even the 37% – that was gotten by lying and special campaigning. In the south he ran as the good alternative or even main alternative to
George Wallace. Then, right after the primaries, he got George Wallace to concede and endorse him!
In Ohio, in the last day of primaries, he had argued that only someone who ran in the primaries should get the nomination and that whoever else was running could not win, but the person who would get the nomination if he lost was Hubert Humphrey.
And therefore if you believed that whoever won should have run in the primaries, you had to vote for him.
He further argued that if there was anything wrong with him, the press would have uncovered it by now.
Now he took polls, of course. There was three big primaries that day: California, New Jersey and Ohio. The feeling against Carter was very
strong in both Califprnia and New Jersey. In California you had Jerry Brown running as a favorite son also, and in New Jersey the Democratic organization ran a “Humphrey-Brown” slate – that is, they said they were for Hubert Humphrey for President and Jerry Brown for vice-
president. (They later betrayed the Democratic primary voters of New Jersey by voting for Jimmy Carter at the convention – a big portion
of their votes came from people who did NOT want them to do that)
Jimmy Carter, knowing he would lose California and New Jersey, but probably win Ohio, went to Mayor Daley of Chicago (the old Mayor Daley)
who was no longer what he used to be, and convinced him that if he won Ohio, he deserved to get the nomination.
(But in Ohio, remember, he didn’t run a positive campaign – he ran a campaign arguing that
voters in other states had already, in effect, selected him, and it was their duty to vote for him in order that the winner should be selected in the primary process)
Jimmy Carter predictably won Ohio and then started the cascade of concessions. Now, some candidates still remained.
The Carter people simultaneously insisted that they had the nomination wrapped up and that everybody else should withdraw even before the
convention assembled and not put their names in nomination on the floor.
This was a mystery to some reporters. But actually it made sense. The whole thing was a stack of cards that could fall apart at
any moment if only people realized it.
Only 37% of the delegates were pledged to Jimmy Carter on the first ballot (or maybe less, I don’t
know. Or perhaps more. Whatever it was, he had far from a majority.)
So if all the others got together they could put someone else forward as the Democratic candidate.
Jimmy Carter had another series of successive arguments – a process of elimination – for re-electing him, but he lost the last hurdle. People
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 5:57 pmsimply decided that, you know, Ronald Reagan wasn’t so bad. He had the reputaion, you see, of being a far right winger. But Reagan transcended that impression.
Clinton attempted the same strategy as Jimmy Carter in 1988. He carefully created “Super Tuesday” and planned to be the southern regional candidate.
This time the person who would sop up a lot of other votes and then support him was Jesse Jackson, who would gte all the blacks to vote for him.
But the problem was, Clinton could not become the only southern candidate. Al Gore insisted on ruinning. He got out, but he got back in.
Even after destroying Gary Hart – it was probably Clinton who entrapped him, although he perated through other campaigns, and getting Biden out of the race – he had to face facts. Polls showed it would not work, and he pulled out in July, 1987, claiming his daughter was too young.
Many years later, it was attributed to worries about bimbo eruptions, but that was probably just another cover story.
Clinton got behind Michael Dukakis, as the candidate with the best chance of losing the 1988 election, and together with Jesse Jackson arranged for Ron Brown, who would try to give him a leg up, to be the next head of the DNC.
In 1992 he went around saying he was only one who could beat Bush because he was the only candidate who had supported the Gulf War – a claim, which, by the way, was a lie.
Clinton won the nomination because there wwere really no other candidates. Again, as with Jimmy Carter, Democratic primary voters did not want him, and tried to get rid of him, but couldn’t. There was “a scandal a week” with Clinton, as Jerry Brown famously said. Brown was running again, but had been talked into saying he would name Jesse Jackson as his vice president. But people were so against Clinton, that that didn’t make too much difference.
That’s why Perot became so popular.
Like Jimmy Carter in 1976, he got less than 40% of the delegates and again there was this party unity argument.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:09 pmIf I gauge by me (God help us all) … I don’t like politicians and the less I have seen of one the less I dislike him. Do you guys think that’s a strong dynamic among voters?
And, Sammy, like narciso said, Carter and Obama pretty much parallel each other. From superior organization getting them Iowa to a long honeymoon with the media (which admittedly had its “morning after” with Carter but not yet with Obama).
nk (dbc370) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:10 pmBarack Obama was the Clintons’ Frankenstein monster, intended to be the candidate who came in second to Hillary Clinton, but would have to lose, because, well, maybe he was too radical or people would think so, what with his name and race. Only he turned out to be alive, and have a mind of his own.
He won caucuses any place they were held, and pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:11 pmAxelrod.
nk (dbc370) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:13 pmHe does miss the point, Obama lost most contests after Iowa, yet it didn’t seem to matter that he was the weakest contender for the nomination in god knows how long,
narciso (3fec35) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:19 pmWell that’s one explanation;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/us/russia-failed-to-share-details-on-boston-marathon-bombing-suspect.html#
narciso (3fec35) — 4/9/2014 @ 7:33 pm114. Comment by nk (dbc370) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:10 pm
114.If I gauge by me (God help us all) … I don’t like politicians and the less I have seen of one the less I dislike him. Do you guys think that’s a strong dynamic among voters?
That may be true, but mostly among people who don’t realize that yet – that don’t realize they’ll think more badly of pretty much every person running for office after they learn somethinbg about him.
I think there’s also anoither dynamic: fear pf the unknown. SOme people, I am sure remember what happened in the Democratoc primary in Illinpois in 1986, and it’s not just that. Very many people fear the unknown, because the unknown candidate could be anbody. I wouldn’t how many people would be afraid to vote for an unknown candidate, and how many people would tend to prefer one. I think this fear of the unknown greatly helps incumbents, and I think it’s the stronger factor.
And, Sammy, like narciso said, Carter and Obama pretty much parallel each other.
I think their strategy was somewhat different.
From superior organization getting them Iowa
Carter was only the second person to pay attention to Iowa. Carter not only campaiigne din Iowa, he totally misled the press about what it meant.
The first to pat attention to the Iowa caucuses was McGovern in 1972, and that’s when they started counting delegates. (that year) and that’s the first year they started oushing people to wothdraw and that’s the first year campaign finance laws became a factor/ It made it imposisble to draft candidates, or for candidates to join after the first primaries, and made it much more likely a candidate would drop out after a setback. These changes were NOT GOOD
In 1972, McGovern had rigged the rules also, with quotas, and even disqualified the Illinois delegation – or added people who never were elected. The Supreme Court upheld that, siding with the argument that a political party was a private organization and did not have to be bound by state laws.
The Republican Party, by and large has acted as if it were bound, so it still has/had winner take all states.
GHWB also paid attention to Iowa in 1980, but his “Big Mo” didn’t work.
to a long honeymoon with the media (which admittedly had its “morning after” with Carter but not yet with Obama).
Carter’s honeymoon was based on the idea that voters liked him. Obama didn’t have as strong a honeymoon, but the media liked him – and also McCain.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:04 am117. Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 4/9/2014 @ 6:19 pm
Obama lost most contests after Iowa, yet it didn’t seem to matter that he was the weakest contender for the nomination in god knows how long,
Obama won caucuses, because enthusiasm = turnout was a very important factor, but tended to lose primaries. In Texas, where they had both, he won the caucuses but lost the primary.
He got a big head start in February in total delegates. Hillary Clinton had figured te campaign would be won by my mid-February, and didn’t organize in many caucus states.
The Clinton strategy has always been based on being the lesser of two evils, never on being anybody’s favorite. This is also Democratic pary strategy in places like Chicago as well.
It is very important for the machine taht there be a Republican Party that wil always get 25% to 40% of the vote but never can get more. If the Republican Party disappeared then another candidate (a splinter Democrat) might stand a chance.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:09 am118. This isn’t news. We knew this very soon. The report doesn’t give an explanation.
Putin did not wnt the U.S. to know too much about Islamic terrorists in Russia, because his government was behind some of them, or had been.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:12 amYes, I know the source, but Rand has given lots of rope;
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/04/10/rand-paul-2009-the-gop-should-reject-dick-cheney-for-embracing-torture/
narciso (3fec35) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:19 am122. Room for rapprochement with the Interventionist wing. Along with cozying up to his Leadership Rand makes me nervous.
Like an iPhone, we can’t eat Liberty.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:27 amI guess if we had given him the confy chair;
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boston-tamerlan-tsarnaev-20140409,0,4049532.story#axzz2yRiClWwx
narciso (3fec35) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:50 am122. It wasn’t torture, or the people doing it didn’t consider it torture, and torture does have some legal definitions, but there is whole other question about whether this was useless or counterproductive, or done to the wrong people at the wrong time.
Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c) — 4/10/2014 @ 8:50 amthat conversation was happening at this time;
https://patterico.com/2009/04/21/marc-thiessen-waterboarding-worked/
narciso (3fec35) — 4/10/2014 @ 9:11 amRand, care to comment;
http://minx.cc/?post=348464
narciso (3fec35) — 4/10/2014 @ 9:20 amhttp://freebeacon.com/politics/whats-hillary-clintons-main-achievement-morning-joe-has-no-idea/
narciso (3fec35) — 4/10/2014 @ 9:35 amThe New York Post had a story yesterday on Al Sharpton and there’s some more.
Al Sharpton became an informant when he went to a second meeting, and found FBI agents. I think actually the proposal put before him was money laundering (not buying drugs like he tried to pretend)
He immediately agreed to become an informant. He was told at the time the target wss Don King. I think Al Sharpton has acknowledged at some point the target was Don King. Now he’s going talking like he went to the FBI because he wss threatened.
They are saying taht al sharpton helped against Vincent “the Chin” Gigante but I don’t see that he did. Of course Al Sharpton’s main help was in helping secure warrants for places to bug. All his informing was between 1983 and 1988. Gogante was arrested in 1990, but managed to avoid trial until 1997.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Gigante
Anything Al Sharpton did was actually quite harmless to Gigante because they were investigating him anyway and his defense was that he was non compos mentis.
Sammy Finkelman (93900b) — 4/11/2014 @ 8:02 am