Carly Fiorina Obliterates Hillary Clinton, Shuts Down Chris Matthews
[guest post by Dana]
Poor Chris Matthews didn’t stand a chance. It’s absolutely delicious to watch him fail in his efforts to defend Hillary Clinton and take Fiorina to task for calling Clinton a liar. Fiorina, not missing a beat, steadily chews Clinton up and spits her out, leaving Matthews dumbstruck. Fiorina’s refusal to play the standard GOP apology game is too much for Matthews. Instead of offering an apology for calling Clinton a liar, she ticked off each and every issue that points to Clinton being just that: a liar.
Fiorina is a formidable woman with an incredible sense of poise and command. I want to see more of her in the debates to come. And I want to see more of Chris Matthews being neatly put in his place by a female wearing pink. Just desserts.
–Dana
Fiorina’s fellow GOP candidates should watch this video over and over until they understand: You don’t apologize and you don’t get personal. You stick to the facts and you remain in control of the narrative. You take no prisoners.
Dana (86e864) — 8/6/2015 @ 9:52 pmOh, yeah… Tingles is limping bad now…
She belongs on the Main Stage.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/6/2015 @ 9:54 pmI like Fiorina… she lost to Barbara Boxer if I recall, but these days in CA anyone with a (D) beats her.
stevg (fed1c9) — 8/6/2015 @ 10:27 pmHard to call beating a dunce of a Hillary shill like Chris Mathews a “win”, but it was on national TV for all 150 of his viewers to see. They probably thought he crushed it
I am seriously impressed. Trump without the periodic beclowning. (Trump handled “the big questions” well tonight, too. He left it to Rand Paul to beclown himself.)
{^_^}
JDow (c4e4c5) — 8/6/2015 @ 10:32 pmI thought the opening question to Fiorina was stupid, too. In comparing her to Thatcher, the reporter asked how this could be since she’s lost several times. Anyone who knows Thatcher’s slow climb to power will tell you that Maggie lost several times and was shoved aside by some Old Boys before she entered Parliament.
See, for example “The Long Walk To Finchley” about Thatcher’s attempts to enter politics.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:14 amFiorina lost to Boxer due to a media blackout and the RNC refusing to back her. They don’t have prime-time debates in CA for state offices, mainly because candidates can reach past the media gatekeepers in a debate. Can’t have that, so they put them on public TV Sunday at 2, opposite football.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:17 amChris wants to file a police report. He just got mugged in broad daylight.
Bill H (2a858c) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:29 amTranslation: You just kicked my two-bit useless tingling ass.
IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d) — 8/7/2015 @ 2:06 amI saw something different, I don’t think she Fiorino did well she had a chance to mention that people died, that she is under a criminal probe. Etc.
Epwj (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 3:12 amvery heartening to see
but all the rest of the peewee league debaters need to collect their lovely parting gifts I think
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 3:19 amEPWJ – in a sea of your absurd comments, that one sticks out.
JD (3b5483) — 8/7/2015 @ 4:50 amJD
Take this as a measured response, you recognize absurdity, so lets examine Fiorina, for someone to miss specifics – people forgot bengazi ended up with dead people, Fiorina is a poised practiced speaker and has a staff, and for Carly to have researched and rehearsed her measured attack on Hillary and when on a national television show to not stick the knife in – just like Romney in the second debate, she missed it..
Wishing and doing are different things Carly wishes she was president – she had her ONE chance to be president – and she let it go by
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:09 amfiorina said 4 “brave” americans died
it’s in the clip
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:10 amAnd Also Matrhews wasn’t silent or flustered nor anything else, he was dismissive of her and tried to give her the CLUE to do what she needed to do and she failed, probably because as some people at Compaq told me, she’s only in love with what she has to say
I saw why a company would pick someone with literally no technical education to lead a bunch of nerds – but her tenure was to say the least – not something like Carsons thats above reproach
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:13 ami higlightered the relevant parts for you so we’re all on the same page
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:14 amHF
She should have HAMMERED IT HOME BUB! SHE SHOULD HAVE SAID SHE LIED CAUSE PEOPLE DIED.
That’s really really really really important
Like I would have turned the question around that it would be difficult for any of my fellow repuublicans to take the stage with a person who lied about the deaths of navy seals under her control
Hillary would have been finished…..
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:15 amyes cause if we learned anything from 2012 it’s that screeching about Benghazi is a goddamn pivot point in these failmerica election thingies
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:17 amHF
Nope not relevant people died every day – on this day the secretary lied about her specific role in it – big point big big big big point, and she lied about her email server to make sure her role in their deaths will never be known, that’s huge
Honestly trump won, hate to say it, he won brutally, Perry had a great moment, probably the best of the evening, when he got fired up and said Carly would have done a better job – people miss the fact that he is a true believer
Cruz – pandered, yes what he says is popular but – I don’t know in the glare of trump, is it enough in the artificial bubble, he may have been totally sincere, but the great debater was rather bland, I guess the words are stale
Immigration, isn’t our problem, isn’t our solution, and Ted needs to tell people how he is going to govern, missed that he Trump, Rand and Carson are all running as outsiders – first no outsider has ever been elected or nominated by any party since Teddy and he lost, after being shot on stage in the heart and continued his speech, so being an outsider isn’t a winner
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:23 amEPJW: She didn’t say it.
happyfeet: Sure she said it, sir. Here it is right here for ya!
EPJW: She didn’t say it the way she should have said it. And I talk to people at Compaq!
Jeez…
Birdbath (3be0e2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:27 amtrump reminds me of those nasty over-the-top pancake concoctions in the IHOP commercials who tf eats those things anyway
nasty pigmericans with huge thighs and pasty skin
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:28 amHF
Its not what happened at Bengazi, being in the middle east for almost a decade at the time of these troubles, I had many direct contacts and interactions with SDP. They are not military, not ex LEO, they are international studies majors, love majors, naïve, earnest, and stupid, very stupid.
Sometimes they get promoted to ambassadors, sometimes they believe that love conquers all.
Lying about a role in a minor scandal gets big, scandal where people die, bets bigger, bengazi, had they said we screwed up, we underestimated the threat, we accept responsibility – it would have died 4 years ago
But she is still lying about it…
So its a criminal probe now, the most liberal administration is having to launch a criminal probe of its only liberal presidential candidate
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:28 ambirdbath
The clip was her chance to tell people and watch it be replayed over and over again –
If you want to throw a chance like that away well…
BTW someone on Fox just parroted what I said….
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:30 amEPWJ wrote:
Yeah, uh huh, right. What difference, at this point, does it make?
Mitt Romney was right in that unfortunately taped remark that Barack Hussein Obama was guaranteed 47% of the vote; if she is nominated, Hillary Clinton is guaranteed the same 47% of the vote, because the Democratic voters don’t fornicating care that Mrs Clinton is a scumbag and a liar. They simply care that she is (allegedly) a woman, and that the Democrats promise them Free Stuff.
Conservatives have been making a huge mistake. We seem to think that if we can just hammer home the truth to Democratic voters, they won’t vote Democratic any more. The truth that needs to be hammered home to Republicans is that the Democratic voters don’t care about the truth; they care about things like having a President who will appoint leftists to the Supreme Court.
The left know that Mrs Clinton, and President Obama as well, fouled up over Benghazi, but they don’t care. The pro-abortion forces know that an unborn child really is a living human being, but they don’t care.
The really disappointed Dana (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:32 amlove DOES conquer all hello on the wings of love up and above the clouds the only way to fly
is on the wings of love
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:34 amEric, maybe you can help me out. I bought 2 1/2 lbs. of porkchops and I can’t decide whether to broil them with salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon and oregano; or bake them in diced tomatoes with just a little salt and pepper; and then on the second way I can’t decide whether I should throw in a little garlic too or maybe a little cinnamon?
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:35 amThe really disappointed Dana (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:32 am
Good points, IMO
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:42 amI liked what Fiorina said, clear and to the point, stated that’s what people want to hear, and was clear to be circumspect in saying Clinton lied about certain specific things and gave evidence, which is easier to demonstrate than call her a pathological liar.
Guys, this is a chauvinistic culture. People are turned off by women who are too strident. Man-type people and woman-type people, too. Woman-type people maybe more — nobody can be as unkind to a lady as another lady. Carly has to tread a fine line between being seen as a strong woman or a shrill b!tch. Hmm?
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:44 amnk, if it was me I would be tempted to try some of all of the above and have a tasting session
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:45 ambut whether that is liking options or indecision or just wanting to make everyone happy
or all of the above IDK
I’ve thought about buying some Cornish hens, which I’ve never had, and making them multiple different ways as a comparison
good point, nk, but i didn’t think she was shrill.
one thing which she did not do which was good is that she didn’t harp on one thing, she put forth her argument about the lies and then moved onto specific issues
anybody have a sense of an “objective view” of her time at HP?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:48 amI did not think she was shrill either, MD. I think she strikes the right balance. She can mix it up with the boys and remain a lady. I am very impressed by her.
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:56 amEPWJ – wash rinse repeat.
JD (3b5483) — 8/7/2015 @ 6:01 amJD
Eh, glad you always share your opinion, I think some have caught on that ankle biting is all that you do, thanks for not sharing an opinion, and not taking a stand, since 2005 on the net, 10 years 🙂
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 6:16 amDana
Well, dead people matter to me, they matter to Rick, they matter to Christie, they don’t matter to Carly, or the rest of the stage.
If you are going to call someone a LIAR on national TV – at least press the knife home,…
Perry got really angry and passionate BECAUSE he cares and so did Christy, yes both have severe flaws but that’s what got both bushes and Reagan elected, they showed they cared, Cruz speaks with passion like that but he needs to spread it to other subjects – we have had 11 million illegals in this county since the end of wwII its not a new problem just an more expensive problem.
He is correct its a problem but if he wants to win the top job single issue isn’t going to win it
Now I got to go tape my ankles so JD can nip at them again 🙂 Thank goodness a blog shouldn’t have opinions…
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 6:22 amFiorina’s on the right track. You call someone a liar and it gets people’s attention. Otherwise the low info voters just yawn.
Emails prove Fiorina’s statement that they knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack and not a demonstration about a video. Any Republican talking about Benghazi should probably memorize them. Although Hillary said those emails were “not evidence”. There’s plenty of other things like Hicks’ testimony they should memorize too.
Gerald A (949d7d) — 8/7/2015 @ 6:29 amthey care about things like having a President who will appoint leftists to the Supreme Court.
Yes and the Democrat Party is about abortion first, second and the rest. Gay marriage is in there somewhere but not high.
Fiorina lost to Boxer but the criticism of her Senate campaign is about the “Demon Sheep” ad which was about Campbell. The rants about her time at HP ignore the fact that it is still in business and Meg Whitman, who should be governor of California, is doing just what Carly did to make it competitive.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 8/7/2015 @ 6:33 amYes, I truly shy away from expressing an opinion. I really hold back. Noting that your idiotic blather is part and parcel of your normal routine appears to bother you. I apologize for pointing out your repeated instances of unfounded attacks, slimy insinuations, and fabulism. Maybe you should stick with supporting Scozzafava and attending international business conferences in Jakarta while strolling through the slums instead of smearing candidates you don’t like in the exact same manner every damn time.
JD (3b5483) — 8/7/2015 @ 6:54 amJD
Anger management, its okay baby steps….
If anyone ever ever lived in Houston, you could not help but have 24/7 coverage of Carly. it was Carly carly carly carly carly, If you Lived in Klein, Spring, School Districts those were 100% Compaq saturated neighborhoods you could go to a soccer game witout getting somekind of daily carly update, we used to call one talk radio station KRLY for the constant stream of ranting, just ranting, eh, the woman was not ever liked not at the beginning, not at the middle and not at the end……
Did you read anything about Carly, oh no, would be the answer, she was hated by everyone, that the impression she left. Its well documented – its a joke that she is on the stage a sick freakin joke, she was fired, she was humiliated and she brought it 100% on herself. she was arrogant heavy handed and even her own supported abandoned her.
So fire up there JD with the personal insults its what can do
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:10 amcarly is tearing this country apart it has to stop
happyfeet (436c81) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:14 amActually, EPWJ, I have taken your condemnation of someone to be about 100+ points in that person’s favor.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:16 amJD just helps any newcomers come to that same conclusion quickly.
Speaking as someone on the left in response to #23:
You’re right that I don’t care about Bengazi. Humans make mistakes; as far as I can tell, Bengazi was a minor mistake which wouldn’t have been *noticed* if it weren’t for the existence of people looking for any reason they could find to vilify the administration. It was worth a five paragraph story on the back page of the NYTimes and a Congressional investigation that resulted in some mid-level functionaries losing their jobs, and that’s it.
What I *do* care about is the email server. While I can understand not trusting State’s computer security to be secure, I *cannot* understand deciding to do it yourself – even if it were legal, which it wasn’t. And mysteriously missing emails make me suspicious that someone is trying to cover up something serious.
aphrael (c4a2c9) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:16 amI thought that Carly performed well in that clip, and I was impressed, because she didn’t perform particularly well in 2010.
That said, I have to admit to a huge bias against her that be extremely difficult for her to overcome. She is *loathed* among people in Silicon Valley old enough to remember her, and I’m enough a product of my culture to not be immune to that bias.
aphrael (c4a2c9) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:18 amglad to see you care about the emails
informed that you don’t care about Benghazi, thank you for your candor, that will greatly affect my thinking of your opinions
Had there been some element of truth telling and acknowledging “misjudgements”,i.e, ignoring a whole ton of information about the danger, I could take it in stride as well.
The inadequate support and abandonment of our reps on the front lines around the world is an A-1 failure in responsibility and would I assume result in harsh consequences for a military person in a chain of command,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:24 amthat the civilians over them make a priority of CYA is inexcusable.
Guys, this is a chauvinistic culture. People are turned off by women who are too strident.
But ultimately a fairly large percentage of the public will be swayed by whether a female candidate, shrill or not, is philosophically to their liking, meaning whether that person is liberal enough (or overly so) or conservative enough (or overly so). After all, one of Hillary’s nicknames — and understandably so — is “Shrillary,” yet the idiocy of giving great leeway to leftists, even ones as corrupt and inept as her, is evident in various opinion polls of her.
That’s why when many people (particularly of the left) focus on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, etc, they often sidestep or downplay the issue of ideology.
Mark (78b181) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:25 amI care a lot that they framed the video guy for it. That was real f***ing low.
I also care that the double-cross of Khaddafi, after he gave up his nukes,
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:27 am1) opened Libya wide open to the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and it depends on what the meaning of ISIS; and
2) told the whole world “If you want to be safe from a&&holes like Obama and Hillary, get and keep nukes”.
yes, nk, and the Ukraine realizes they learned that way too late.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:29 amYou’re right that I don’t care about Bengazi. Humans make mistakes;
Oh, and a few humans died in the process, but at least it was due to — per the cover story of Hillary and Barry — a horrible LA-based filmmaker and his mean ol’ video posted to Youtube. Bad, bad movie guy!
“And other than THAT, Mrs Kennedy, how was Dallas?! Huh, you say? Hey, gimme a break! At least my heart and compassion are in the right place.”
Mark (78b181) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:31 amMD in Philly
Read Carlys comments about American jobs, what she thinks of American workers made unfortunately before she was considering running for the us – she is unfairly by some blamed for causing the dot.com bubble bursting by insisting that uneducated Indians and Chinese could do our high tech jobs and she sent 30,000 jobs to them that’s what she was fired for gutting the technological edge by sending HP and Compaq computer technology that spawned a bunch of foreign companies with the flood of techs
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:33 amFor any newcomers
Just read what people actually write – look it up argue points, discuss have fun, but if someone is liked by someone you are scum for pointing out the narrative may not fit the history
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:35 amAphrael – let’s ignore the actual deaths and the ignoring warnings and signals leading up to said deaths. Everything since that attack started has been lies lies lies lying lies and more lies from Clinton, Obama, Rice, and their sycophantic followers, obstructing investigations, and more lies. I find it hard to believe you just don’t care about that.
JD (3b5483) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:38 amEPWJ’s personal war against conservative women continues apace.
JD (3b5483) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:40 amAphrael wrote:
A longer version of “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
People do make mistakes, but honest people own up to their mistakes, take responsibility for their mistakes.
A missing 18½ minutes got Richard Nixon run out of office, but the Democrats won’t give a rat’s ass about anything slimy done by the Clintons.
The serious Dana (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:44 amA missing 18½ minutes got Richard Nixon run out of office, but the Democrats won’t give a rat’s ass about anything slimy done by the Clintons.
The serious Dana (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:44 am
True that.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:48 amGreetings:
Well, as impressive as Ms. Fiorina comes across in her various interviews, I’m still sticking with my initial impression about how will she reach and/or sway those now-dreaded low-information voters on whom our Democratic brothers and sisters and whatevers seem to have such a lock.
So, there’s that and my still not having received any response to the résumé I sent her about a White House Intern position.
11B40 (0f96be) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:56 am#23: Dana, I agree with your basic premise. The conservative challenge is to motivate those voters who are likely to support them to go to the polls and vote. And to get millions of them to send in $100 donations to fund the campaign. Watching McCain and Romney fumble and mumble is not the sort of experience that is going to accomplish either task. But hammering your message out despite Matthews’ attempt to redirect the issue is a great start.
It seems to me that we have arrived at a place where almost any strong willed, well spoken, and competent candidate can make progress in encouraging the base, irrespective of their understanding and acceptance of conservative principles. The facts reveal Democrat corruption in everything they’ve touched. A good knowledge of those facts and a sense of humor, like Huckabee’s closing remarks, will be powerful tools.
I also think too much is made of Romney’s 47%. Anyone who has spent their lives complying with all the crap that surrounds welfare benefits is bound to be a very depressed and ineffective person. These millions are not the source of the highly visible activists that try to disrupt Republican campaigns. The activists are the Rush’s red-diaper-doper babies and others of privilege who simply haven’t grown up, and probably never will. A candidate who can connect with the tens of millions of decent Americans who tend to ignore politics will be the one who succeeds. Speaking the truth plainly, and refusing to play the old-boys’ games of crocodile comity, this comity being the foundation for Matthews’ question, will go a long way toward enlisting the support we need to save the country.
I was encouraged by the accomplishments and messages of all the candidates in both sessions of the debate. Each had something positive to say, even Graham and Paul. Any of them would be a much better President than the current incumbent or Hillary!. But only a few of them expressed a knowledge and concern over the fundamental issue, which is governing within the confines of a constitutional republic. All considered, we are fortunate to have such a field.
bobathome (601aa0) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:58 amJD
I support lots of conservative women there are many who deserved a run at the presidency Carly couldn’t get elected to her local school board and her record sucks and is going to be thrown in her face she was very outspoken and had many well, blunt videocasts to HP employees that are going to be leaked that are not going to fit the image that is being portrayed right now in the media spotlight by calling Hillary a liar, everyone did, not everyone is being pushed soooo hard by the media the dems love her because they know Compaq will blow up her presidential candidacy, fox loves her because she’s the only woman
Yes JD she is a conservative and who knows had the HP employees followed her – they never did – maybe the merger would have been a success – but things are about electability, most of them up there are just not electable, Carson, cause he’s well a doctor and seems not to be able to stomach handling a zoo, Fiorina because she failed and moved jobs overseas, Cruz cause he hates everyone the master debater didn’t show up, Trump, who knows, Bush looked solid, Walker is done, Rubio eh, Huck did well, did strong – hate him but he always underpolls, scares me
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:03 ambut the Democrats won’t give a rat’s ass about anything slimy done by the Clintons.
Or, in general, for any person whose ideological credentials are intact or good enough as determined by liberals. Of course, you see some of that same dynamic among the right, in which a scroungy Republican is excused for his or her scrounginess, but you get far more rationalizations and excuse-making on the left, even when involving politicians guilty of far more egregious behavior than associated with a conservative. That’s why left-leaning places or societies tend to be prone to (or are ripe for) lots of corruption and dysfunction, including crime.
Mark (78b181) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:07 amoh my goodness settle down
carlypickle’s in no danger whatsoever of being nominated for president
are you maybe displacing anxiety about something else onto her?
that can happen and really the best thing you can do is book a week at a wisconsin dells waterpark resort
that’s what my radio says and I see no reason to doubt this
happyfeet (a037ad) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:11 amEric, not hearing with you, I’m going with option None of the Above with the pork chops. I’m sautéing them. Then I’m going to cook some sticky rice, and heat up some mixed vegetables to go with them. But you know I’m always happy to have the benefit of your advice.
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:12 ama lil sriracha honey drizzled on top would be very america i think
but i’m a sriracha whore
happyfeet (a037ad) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:13 amnk
Old school 🙂 yeah, the only one that agrees with me is my bi-polar self that surfaces when I take my meds 2 hrs late, what time is it?
EPWJ (388ca2) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:20 amLemon juice when they’re almost done.
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:23 amthat sounds very healthy
i’m at the end of no carb week and the intern stickfigure brings in donuts from glazed cause of it’s her last day
god bless america what i endure
happyfeet (a037ad) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:27 amDana – while I agree that honest people own up to their mistakes, I *also* think that it’s an extremely rare politician who will do that reliably, because owning up to your mistakes as a politician is a way to make yourself vulnerable to attack by those who expect perfection.
> A missing 18½ minutes got Richard Nixon run out of office, but the Democrats won’t give a rat’s ass about anything slimy done by the Clintons.
That’s a funny thing to say in response to me bringing up the issue as something I care about. 🙂
I’ve got a friend who voted for Obama in both 2008 and 2012 who is so furious at Clinton over this that he’s donated to the Bush campaign (!!). I”m not donating money to anyone at this point, but this has certainly reduced my ability to support Clinton, and increased the likelihood that I will reluctantly vote for her Republican opponent (something I can’t commit to, of course, until I know who that opponent is. :))
So it’s not really true that Democrats categorically don’t care about this. It’s that the party elite either don’t care or are so afraid of the Clintons that they can’t afford to be seen to care. 🙂
aphrael (c4a2c9) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:38 amMD in Philly – the people I know who have worked at state and in the peace corps and doing volunteer work for western NGOs in the Arab world (yes, I know people from all three of those camps, including one guy who was working in Libya for a while) *unanimously* agree that the concern about “support and abandonment” is overblown *in this specific case*; their sense is the embassy employees knew the risks and that you can’t operate in that environment and expect perfect security. I’m inclined to trust their judgment on such matters. 🙂
nk – I think your policy point (that turning on Qadafi sent the wrong signal to other countries) is a valid one, and if that were the focus of complaints about American policy in Libya, I’d be much more interested in the conversation. 🙂
aphrael (c4a2c9) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:44 amI agree Ukraine was mishandled. We should have loudly and publically denounced Russia for its violation of its obligations under the Budapest Memorandum, and we should have asked the UN Security Council to act (knowing that this would force a Russian veto).
That said, we’re technically within our treaty obligation there.
In the Budapest Memorandum, we promised:
(a) “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”, which we have done.
(b) “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”, which we have done
(c) “that none of [our] weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”, which we have done
(d) “to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty”, which we have done
(e) “not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories, or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies”, which we have done
(f) “to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action top provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”, which is not relevant as no nuclear weapons were used or threatened to be used in the invasion and occupation.
(g) to “consult in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning these commitments”, which we have done (albeit not with all of the signatory parties in the same room, but we can’t be held responsible for another party’s refusal to join)
I think it’s pretty clear that *Ukraine* intended the (f) above to apply to ‘invasion or attack by a nuclear armed state’, BUT the language doesn’t say that.
aphrael (c4a2c9) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:54 amReally how often do they get mortared at work by aq, which has helped take a third of the country. Benghazi was the first down in this new phase as Somalia was 22 years ago
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:55 amAphrael typed:
Well, no one ever said that honesty and politicians belonged in the same sentence, but the public just might like a politician who actually tried honesty; it would be so very, very different!
‘Twas a generalized point, not about you specifically.
Would that friend be another IT geek? 🙂
To me, the problem is less that Mrs Clinton may have used a less secure server — no server is absolutely secure! — but that she went to extra effort to evade the requirements of the law. Hillary Clinton didn’t have to set up her own server; one of the career people at State would have had everything set up for her, because its their jobs to take care of things like that. Some faceless bureaucrat would have told her, on day one, while showing her how to log on to her desktop computer, what the Secretary’s e-mail address was, and provided her with the opportunity to set her own password. It required extra effort, a direct instruction from Her Highness, to do something different. And the odds are very high that one of the career people in the Secretary’s office told her — or perhaps told Huma Abedin instead — that using a private e-mail account not on State’s server was a violation of Department regulations.
This was a clear effort to avoid storage of her e-mails; she wanted to elude the public records keeping laws at all costs.
The Dana who's always honest, and isn't running for office (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 9:15 amWhat exactly do you think the minor mistake was?
Gerald A (949d7d) — 8/7/2015 @ 9:16 amSquish, squish.
Squish, squish.
Squish, squish.
(What you’ve just head is the sound of Carly Fiona mopping the floor with Chris Matthews.)
Bored Lawyer (d869b1) — 8/7/2015 @ 10:21 amSuh-weet!!
Patricia (5fc097) — 8/7/2015 @ 10:54 amWell, aphrael, I can only go by what Hicks and the others in the chain of command said under oath,
and by what the contractors said in their book “13 hours”
and by the fact that the Brits had already pulled out of Benghazi because it was too dangerous.
And re the afterwards, there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and lies of omission
not only being dishonest about what was known (omission)
but then blaming it on a person who had nothing to do with it
and telling the family members they would “get the person responsible”
were of the damnable variety, IMO,
in other words, I wouldn’t vote for the otherwise “perfect” candidate had they done that.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:03 amaphrael,
Did Hillary make a mistake in not reading the cables about Benghazi, or was that incompetence or neglect or worse?
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:09 amMr A asked:
Electing Barack Hussein Obama, thus allowing Hillary Clinton to become Secretary of State.
The Dana who gets right to the point (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:11 amCarly was absolutely delicious. “How would you like your Chrissy, medium or well-done”
Angelo (4b203a) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:13 amMaybe that’s a difference between libs/dems and conservatives. Lie to my face about something important and I won’t vote for you for dog catcher in a village with no dogs.
Pathologically lie about something not worth lying about gets the same treatment.
When a person proves they can’t be trusted, why trust them, no matter what they say?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:14 amI guess if you think they are on the “same side” as you (generic, not personal use of “you”) and only tell the same lies you (ditto “you”) would, then it makes sense. Deplorable, IMO, but makes sense.
The importance of Hillary! Clinton’s (and the Obama Admin’s) lies were that they involved fabricating a tale and using/destroying a hapless fellow’s life to insulate themselves from factually correct charges of extreme fecklessness, gross incompetence, provable negligence and of being unfit for office.
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:40 am> When a person proves they can’t be trusted, why trust them, no matter what they say?
It’s inherent in the job of a diplomat to lie.
This is universally true; it’s part of the job and has been since the invention of diplomacy.
Would you exclude all diplomats or former diplomats from other public service?
aphrael (c4a2c9) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:42 amThe only thing that’s important… that truly matters to Democrats, Aphrael, is that they feel good about themselves. If the road to that objective is filled with lies, deceit, ruination of others, disastrous results, negative consequences, destruction of civil society and life as we know it, so be it.
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:48 amTo the country and people he works for?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:48 amI wish that were not so, but it is what it is.
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:50 amSo, if the job of a diplomat is to lie, why do we bother? As a feint while something else is being accomplished?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:59 amSounds like why Reagan wanted verification in treaties he made, and why Obama and Co. said there would need to be random inspections in any agreement with Ira…oops.
Don’t know if this has been posted, but some real insight here: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/212090/
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:59 amIt’s a prescription for life at the lowest common denominator level.
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:03 pmNow I understand!! (Smacks forehead with palm of hand.)
When they said that Bush practiced “cowboy” diplomacy, they meant where people meant what they said, (like, “Let the inspectors in like you agreed to, or we will force our way in”) and if they didn’t live up to it, that’s when the firearms come out (and they did).
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:03 pmThis “Democrat Way” of doing things…
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:03 pmRush and a caller earlier today spoke of the “journalist class”, as if the Fox reporters felt an obligation to treat repubs just as NPR would or something. That while the candidates had a tight 60 second answer time, it seemed they could take as long as they wanted to formulate a question.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:10 pmIDK
Mods were talking 37% of the time, I think it was…
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:20 pmAphrael wrote:
That is entirely wrong: it is the job of the diplomat to tell the truth!
It has been said that diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to Hell in such a manner that he’ll be looking forward to the trip, but a diplomat cannot lie as part of his job. If the diplomat lies to the people with whom he is negotiating, they eventually discover the lie, and he loses all credibility and effectiveness. He has to be able to tell them what his side requires, in such a manner that he doesn’t run his opponents away from the table, but he has to be sincere and truthful about what he says.
A diplomat may find himself in a position in which he cannot tell the truth, including to the people back home, but that means that he must obfuscate and say something that means nothing.
Of course, diplomats have lied before, and the results have been agreements which were wholly wrong, seriously tilted in the favor of one party over the other, and agreements which eventually failed once the other party found out about it. And diplomats lying has caused talks to break off completely.
We have had a couple of spectacularly bad agreements as a result of diplomats lying, and the US, even knowing that they were lying, chose to believe them anyway; the Paris Peace Accords are the most obvious examples.
The Dana who really disagrees with Aphrael! (f6a568) — 8/7/2015 @ 12:30 pmMore than that: The Attorney General illegally had the FBI track down who was responsible for the video, and then they looked at him to find a reason to arrest him. Yes, the arrest itself was valid, they lucked out there, but when they went looking for the film maker they had no reason to suspect he’d done anything wrong, so looking for him with the intent to mess him up violated the first amendment. So did stirring up the witch hunt against him.
And the main point, which aphrael seems to have forgotten, was that the purpose of this all was to pretend that there was no significant al Qaeda presence in Libya, because aQ had collapsed with bin Laden’s death at the president’s hands. They knew that the Benghazi attack had been a terrorist attack planned in advance, but deliberately lied for days that it was a spontaneous demonstration against the video, in order to get that impression into voters’ minds, from where it woudl be hard to dislodge.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:00 pmHaving been an HP customer during the Carly Error, had Clinton called her, the call would’ve been answered by “Steve” in Mumbai.
I understand loving her ripping into Hillary!, but she would rightly get savaged in a serious debate. She had no problem shipping HP jobs overseas, abusing H1B visas and was until very recently (last week?) a total squish on illegal immigration. Business acumen sells Trump ; Fiorina as business woman was a DISASTER.
Bugg (5f4a83) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:21 pmWhat is more insulting?
Donald Trump calling Rosie O’Donnell a disgusting pig, or
Megyn Kelly equating American women of all stripe to Rosie O’Donnell?
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:22 pmWhat happened to aphrael? Not long ago he seemed honest, open minded, and fair. His integrity was displayed in his comments and his reputation for being able to disagree without rancor was secure. Often he was able to persuade opponents to see other sides of a divisive issue.
Now, I don’t know him. He’s looking the other way and making lame excuses for unconscionable behavior.
ropelight (b14abd) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:23 pmI think you should have said: “into democrat’s minds where it would be hard to dislodge”. Voters minds can be changed, democrats minds are made up, always right and never change. And nothing but nothing seems to ever be “dislodged”. Ask one about “Hands up don’t shoot” or if Bruce Jenner is a girl. Democrats never let the facts get in the way.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:28 pmShe had no problem shipping HP jobs overseas, abusing H1B visas and was until very recently (last week?) a total squish on illegal immigration. Business acumen sells Trump ; Fiorina as business woman was a DISASTER.
Unfair. HP’s main competitors back then no longer exist. The direction Fiorina took HP is a chief reason why they still exist.
Colonel Haiku (9e5f20) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:38 pmI worked for HP during the Fiorina era. I never saw her at the lunch room. She must have had her own table hidden away somewhere.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:47 pmit’s not every day, one loses an ambassador and a major diplomatic installation the same day, but the function of diplomacy is to lie to one’s own people, and placate those complicit in the act,
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:51 pmwould like to see Mr Patterico’s response to Reynold’s piece if “prosecutorial discretion” is okay, then juries should have the same authority
btw: it shouldn’t be forgotten that jury nullification can also refer to finding someone guilty when “technically” the verdict should be not guilty.
seeRpea, who is hoping Patterico sees this (20deea) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:53 pmoops, forgot to prepend with “OT:”. sorry.
seeRpea, who is hoping Patterico sees this (20deea) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:53 pmThey must have been hiding the H1B visa holders too. Maybe those people were eating with Carly at the grown up table in her hidden room.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/7/2015 @ 1:55 pmUnder Fiorina, HP had the most elaborate coffee break bars I’ve ever seen at a business. In addition to Coffee, water hot and cold, they had Gatorade, herbal teas, honey, chicken soup.
THe thing that stuck out the most was the fainting couch. They had a little room adjacent to the coffee bar with a full sized, I want to say couch, but it was more like what you would see in a psychiatrist’s office, just for if someone felt the urge to lie down at work.
Very odd. Never seen the like.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/7/2015 @ 2:15 pmseeRpea,
While Patterico often reads the comments, I don’t think you should expect a response to an off-topic comment. However, you can email Patterico if you believe your link is important, and he can decide if the topic interests him enough to blog about and/or if he has the time to respond.
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/7/2015 @ 2:53 pmaphrael:
I completely disagree, and I say this as a person who not only studied to be a diplomat but also took the Foreign Service Entrance Exam, was interviewed by and then qualified to join the U.S. Foreign Service. (I decided on a different career path because of the Iran hostage crisis, which is ironic since we are still dealing with Iran. Modern diplomacy is a career for the brave and the persistent.)
One of America’s best diplomats was Philip Habib. He explains why “the old canard that a diplomat is a man who is sent abroad to lie for his country is nonsense.” It is nonsense, aphrael, and I hope you will rethink this issue.
PS — This post was written by a retired career U.S. Foreign Service officer and it explains one small part of what Hillary and Obama did wrong in Benghazi. This post explains the bigger picture, if you’re interested.
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/7/2015 @ 3:15 pmre #100: Microsoft had that setup and a bit more in the late ’90s. I think they still have a very nice stocked coffee break rooms in each building, but don’t think they kept the ‘quite rooms’
seeRpea (20deea) — 8/7/2015 @ 3:43 pmDRJ, thanks for the DiploMad links @102, they’re brief, accurate, and expose Obama’s Administration for Benghazi and the subsequent cover-up. Right-on.
ropelight (b14abd) — 8/7/2015 @ 4:02 pm#97, seeRpea,
If law professors were lawyers, they wouldn’t be law professors. No, jury nullification is not legal in the United States, only difficult to punish. Likewise no, prosecutors who prosecute (or not) based on whimsy do not get away with it for long.
nk (dbc370) — 8/7/2015 @ 4:06 pmHaving gone to Infantry Officers School with survivors of the Beirut bombing and I have a bit of a different take than your Peace corps friends:
Over and over we veterans hear “you knew the risks” every time a politician orders the military to do something absolutely insane.
Benghazi was the State Department doing to itself what it requires of the military over and over: operate in a combat environment with insane rules of engagement, and only paper promises of support. Benghazi is important because every aspect of the disaster is a window to the diseased soul of Hillary, and her ilk.
First, Qaddafi was betrayed by Obama and Hillary for no reason other than to make them look good. To hell with the best interests of the nation, of the Region, or of the people of Libya.
Second, not surprisingly the entire adventure went south immediately.
Third, not surprisingly these amateurs doubled down on their blind adherence to their idiotic preconceptions and made things worse.
Fourth, in an absolutely bizarre attempt the Obama State Department attempted to duplicate Ollie North’s gun running – only this time paying Islamists for Libyan weapons, and then delivering the weapons to more Islamists.
Fifth, the Ambassador tells his chain of command that the situation is out of control, and is ignored.
Sixth, the islamists decide they have enough US cash, lets get some great propaganda and conduct a textbook kidnap raid, with machine guns, mortars and rockets.
Seventh, Hillary lies about every aspect above, over and over, and hacks like you and the MSM cover for her.
What can we learn:
1. Hillary and Obama cannot be trusted by anyone they make a deal with. They dishonored us.
2. Lead from behind actually means try to get someone else to do your dirty work.
3. Hillary and Obama have no actual ability to listen to those with expertise, when the facts contradict their wishes.
4. Hillary and Obama absolutely believe they are above the law.
5. Hillary absolutely hates people who have the audacity to disagree, and is willing to sacrifice the life of such a dissenter.
6. The attack on Benghazi is the physical result of Hillary’s naivety.
7. The continued lies are the cover up, dishonoring the heros who died at Hillary’s command.
I don’t think you can comprehend the disgust I feel for you, and anyone who would forgive her much less support her political aspirations.
She will betray again, it is her scorpion nature.
Steve Malynn (6b1ce5) — 8/7/2015 @ 4:09 pmyes, the rules of engagemement haven’t improved through Khobar Towers all the way to Benghazi,
there is a wider point, the Salafis like Imam Quradawi pushed for this intervention, which was provoked by a jail break at Ali Salem prison, they sponsored the camps, which would later train elements in Syria,
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/7/2015 @ 4:18 pmFiorina/Walker 2016!
askeptic (efcf22) — 8/7/2015 @ 4:53 pmCruz @ Justice – someone needs to clean out that sewer;
Perry @ Defense – to kick a$$ and take names TX style;
Carson @ VA – to give those who have given most a break;
Christie @ Ed – because he’ll pi$$ off Randi Weingarten;
Jindal @ HHS – another swamp pit that needs draining;
Kasich @ Treasury – put that Budget Cmte experience to the test;
Palin @ Energy – to right that train that’s run off the track;
Rubio @ State – to put a burr under Castro’s saddle….
#106: Thanks Steve Malynn. I didn’t have the time or interest in setting the record straight, since Aphreal will still be Aphrael no matter what the facts are. However, it is good to clarify the issue, and you have done that. I thought Rafael’s implication that since American servicemen and foreign service personnel know the dangers and accept them, it is ok to flush them down the toilet when doing the right thing is inconvenient. These patriots accept the risk for the sake of the country. To consider them cannon fodder for the use of a community organizer who is in over his head is a travesty. And it is also the case the Obola was facing reelection at that moment, and there was a lot of political expediency behind the U. S. nonresponse to the attack. Remember that Obola had declared victory over the scrubs in the middle east, and his handling of foreign policy was a major campaign issue. Leave it to Romney to drop the issue when some bimbo pretending to be a moderator contradicts him in the third debate.
bobathome (601aa0) — 8/7/2015 @ 5:09 pmI read Diplomad every day.
We had an interesting session at the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) where I work a few days a month. It was on “The Active Shooter” by an FBI SWAT team member. We are finally seeing some DoD awareness of what is probably coming. I saw no PC BS there today. They know we are entering a dangerous time.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:35 pmAre you talking about the threat from lone wolves, Mike K, or something else?
DRJ (1dff03) — 8/7/2015 @ 7:47 pmMy friend MD in Philly asked (#29) whether anybody has a really objective view of Fiorina’s time at HP.
I don’t claim to be objective. However, I will claim to have paid close attention to this industry since the very beginning of my law career: I had a computer science minor at UT-Austin in 1977. I was the first BigLaw lawyer in Houston to have a personal computer — an IBM PC-XT — on my desktop in 1983, and used it to good effect in merger and acquisition fights against less technology-savvy Wall Street firms later in the 1980s. I’ve always been, and remain, a computer-geek lawyer.
One of the biggest cases our firm was handling in the early 1980s was a trade secrets/intellectual property fight between our client, the company that invented the integrated circuit, Texas Instruments, and a start-up Houston company formed by some of its former designers and engineers to compete with IBM, something with the funny name of “Compaq.” I remember seeing one of the original Compaq “luggables” — about the size of a sewing machine — carried into the conference room next door to my office, where it was the centerpiece of a four-day hammer-and-tongs deposition. After some months of furious litigation, both companies realized they couldn’t afford to have their top engineers and designers doing litigation; they’d be better off settling with a reasonable licensing agreement package so both companies could get back to inventing the Digital Age and making money hand-over-fist.
At the time HP acquired and merged with Compaq in 2001, I was representing their competitor eMachines in a huge class action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, a case paralleling one which Toshiba had just settled for $3B ($2B of which was real money, $1B of which was mostly junk coupons; the plaintiffs lawyers got almost $1B of the real money). There were parallel cases against both Compaq and HP, which were among the other leading PC sellers in the U.S. at the time; and a former colleague of mine was representing the combined HP/Compaq entity in their parallel lawsuit.
The way that the HP/Compaq merger survived antitrust scrutiny from the DoJ and state AGs in Texas and California, despite the huge market shares of both companies, was mostly under what was called the “failing company exception.” Basically the worldwide computer market was in a stage of extreme shake-out caused by the appearance of first Chinese, then South Korean, manufacturers of the chipsets that were the guts of all personal computers. Companies like Compaq & HP were hemorrhaging market share to competitors like eMachines that were slapping their brand name on Chinese- and Korean-manufactured PCs that sold for a fraction of the American-branded companies’ products. Compaq had started as a PC maker; HP, by contrast, had been founded as the world’s premiere scientific instruments company, which had then become the world’s premier laser copier/printer company, and that had rather belatedly (too late, as it turned out) moved into PCs. After the merger, loyal customers of both Compaq and HP were pretty disgusted with the Chinese- and Korean-manufactured products that the combined company sold for a time under both the HP and Compaq brand names. They both went from being premium brands with excellent customer service and fanatically loyal customers to being commodity brands sold at heavy discounts in poorly- or completely unsupported big-box retailers (Best Buys, etc.) or online.
Critics of Fiorina and her stewardship of the Compaq merger — which essentially wiped out one of Houston’s biggest tech companies — can fault her for failing to anticipate global tech manufacturing and design trends adequately. Her supporters can claim, with reasonable justification, that she actually kept those lines of business alive longer via the merger than the market otherwise would have permitted.
I’m inclined toward the latter view. But it became a cutthroat industry, HP’s premium profit margins disappeared in those business segments, and ultimately the HP board of directors showed her the door.
Was she a better or worse business leader than Mitt Romney? Close call. Was she a better business leader than Donald Trump? Oh, wow — that’s not even remotely debatable: As I’ve written here several times before, the only sustained business success that Donald Trump can claim is for one thing, and one thing only: Promoting the “Trump Brand Name.” Fiorina is a bona fide Fortune 100 CEO with a serious track record. The Donald is a Reality TV star pretending to be a businessman.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:06 pmBeldar
Your story is fascinating but according to Carly on Greta HP didn’t want to fire her, in the boardroom brawl, she wanted more power, and forced them to fire her.
EPWJ (292641) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:29 pminteresting behind the scenes perspective, bekdar, it’s been a bakers dozen years and they still can’t get their act together,
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:35 pmI”m not donating money to anyone at this point, but this has certainly reduced my ability to support Clinton,
Merely “reduced,” aphrael? Just reduced?
But that’s the difference between a liberal like you (and quite a few others in your camp) and a conservative like me. If a rightwinger had even an ounce of the mendacity, greediness. sleaziness, insincerity and other cruddy qualities that are oozing out of Hillary, I wouldn’t hesitate in a second to yell “get the hell outta the election!”
Mark (19afaf) — 8/7/2015 @ 8:45 pmThanks Beldar,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/7/2015 @ 9:05 pmand papertiger as well for your story.
Aphareal said : Benghazi was a minor mistake that no one would have noticed…
Benghazi was the first time an American ambassador (given the equivalency of a four star general) had been missing and left for dead. So that is why some people noticed even though the most of media tried to treat it as a minor mistake. If Tyrone Woods and other people at the annex had not taken the initiative many more people at the consulate would have died or would have become hostages and then Obama would have had a Carter like hostage crisis on his hands during his reelection campaign. All other organizations such as the Red Cross and every other country had evacuated Benghazi after a long list of incidences left it painfully obvious that the environment was out of control .All of those other organizations read the situation correctly–Hillary with all of her smart diplomacy did not. As Col. Wood testified — we were the last flag left standing. Hillary’s management of the State Department in this affair–where she sought to replace the military and their expertise with a handful of security personnel and State Department people–was not blemished by a ” minor mistake” it was gross negligence and incompetence which clearly demonstrates that she cannot be entrusted with the duty of Commander in Chief.
algonquin (48fb95) — 8/7/2015 @ 9:18 pmAphrael sez…..Speaking as someone on the left in response ……Bengazi was a minor mistake which wouldn’t have been *noticed*
Yeah, another bloodless, cynical power-monger on the left, not caring about the minor people that die and their families. Writ large.. the Final Solution.
We need to go medieval on the left so we normal Americans can have some security and Freedom.
red (2f19f1) — 8/7/2015 @ 9:18 pmcarly omg she like all nomknee n sh!t
happyfeet (831175) — 8/7/2015 @ 9:20 pmDemocrats/Progressives are so convinced that their ways are the *only* valid ways that reality often cannot get in edgeways … fortunately, it *is* possible to get through to some of the Democrats who haven’t gone full-Prothe person with whom that diplomat is dealing gressive … sadly, aphrael seems to have gone full-Progressive on us …
As a number of us have already said, a skilled diplomat doesn’t tell lies … a skilled diplomat tells the truth such that the person with whom the diplomat is dealing can take it in the way desired by the diplomat’s brief … Democrats do not have a good track record with diplomacy because they do not seem to value truth … equality is much more important, as long as the Democrats get their own way …
In 1979, if then-President Carter had respected the truth and had had a clue about diplomacy, he would not have said anything about asking the Iranians to “Release those Americans !” – instead, he would have said and repeated over and over “Release those diplomats !” … by calling them Americans, he chose to tell almost exquisitely-the-wrong-truth – and he enabled enemies of the United States to support the imprisonment by force of the diplomats …
If Carter had been as smart as he (and the Democrats) claim that he was and is, he would have told the more important truth that would have forced all nations who have diplomats to support – “Release those diplomats !” … but, no, for Democrats, inconvenient diplomats are just another disposable resource …
Alastor (2e7f9f) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:35 pmI apologise – some of my text was typed in the wrong place, and I didn’t notice until I had submitted it … if our bloghost is willing and able to do so, I would ask that he remove the #120 comment and leave this one …
Democrats/Progressives are so convinced that their ways are the *only* valid ways that reality often cannot get in edgeways … fortunately, it *is* possible to get through to some of the Democrats who haven’t gone full-Progressive … sadly, aphrael seems to have gone full-Progressive on us …
As a number of us have already said, a skilled diplomat doesn’t tell lies … a skilled diplomat tells the truth such that the person with whom that diplomat is dealing can take it in the way desired by the diplomat’s brief … Democrats do not have a good track record with diplomacy because they do not seem to value truth … equality is much more important, as long as the Democrats get their own way …
In 1979, if then-President Carter had respected the truth and had had a clue about diplomacy, he would not have said anything about asking the Iranians to “Release those Americans !” – instead, he would have said and repeated over and over “Release those diplomats !” … by calling them Americans, he chose to tell almost exquisitely-the-wrong-truth – and he enabled enemies of the United States to support the imprisonment by force of the diplomats …
If Carter had been as smart as he (and the Democrats) claim that he was and is, he would have told the more important truth that would have forced all nations who have diplomats to support – “Release those diplomats !” … but, no, for Democrats, inconvenient diplomats are just another disposable resource …
Alastor (2e7f9f) — 8/7/2015 @ 11:38 pmAlastor wrote:
No, what President Carter needed to have done was to tell the Ayatollah that our people would be on a plane out of Iran, safe and unharmed, within 72 hours, or they would be forever honored as the unfortunate American casualties in the strike which turned Tehran and Qom into radioactive black holes in the ground, and meant it.
There is a reason why the Iranians were willing to deal once Ronald Reagan was elected, but before he was inaugurated; they feared that President Reagan would take a much harder line.
The Dana who knows how to get things done (f6a568) — 8/8/2015 @ 3:19 amAlastor wrote:
You are assuming with this argument that the thug regimes respect words as much as deeds. The thugs don’t care if some of their minions, including their diplomats, get killed. if it furthers their goals.
The coldly realistic Dana (f6a568) — 8/8/2015 @ 3:23 amCan you guess which candidate had this to say concerning Islam?
“I remember hearing for the first time, Muslims pray, and how over time their sound evolved from being frightening in its strangeness to comforting . . . I grew to love being awakened in the morning by the sound of the devout man who always came to pray under my bedroom window.”
Carly Fiorina, in her book “Tough Choices.” She also delivered a heck of a speech praising Islamic history and culture a couple of weeks after 9/11.
Please folks – carefully vet your choice of candidates. Read what they put down on paper. I suspect that our current CinC would have had a much more difficult time in the election if more voters had bothered to read, and understand what those ideas would mean in a President, in “Dreams from My Father,” and “The Audacity of Hope.”
PPs43 (6fdef4) — 8/8/2015 @ 7:50 amIs that your best shot, PPS43? Two lines yanked out of context from a book that described a time Fiorina spent in Africa among an exclusively Muslim population, yanked out of context, and suggesting … what? That someone who acknowledges that Muslims pray must therefore be a sympathizer with radical Islamic terrorists?
News for you: The commenters on this blog aren’t always in agreement with one another, but almost all of them are smarter than to fall for this kind of crap.
You’re disgusting. Go troll some other website.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/8/2015 @ 8:45 amI will apologize, not to PPS43, but to other readers here: I try not to show so much personal revulsion when I read something incredibly stupid here, and my comment just (#125) now was below my normal standards for myself. But:
But is that supposed to be the standard of vetting GOP candidates? I think that’s insultingly simple-minded and bigoted, and I reacted to it very harshly.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/8/2015 @ 8:53 amBeldar–
I take it the Toshiba thing was the bogus floppy-drive-ate-my-data case.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:12 amA boy asks his grandma, ‘Have you seen my pills, they were labeled LSD?’ Grandma replies, “F**k the pills, have you seen the dragons in the kitchen?”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:24 amI got up this morning to see how many GOP candidates had called for Trump to leave the race after his latest meltdown. I am again disappointed in their acquiescence. Only Fiorina called him out. Is she the only one of them with any balls? How can they expect to deal with Putin and China if they can’t deal with this demagogue?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:28 amThis latest thing with Trump saying in effect that Megyn Kelly was on the rag…. My goodness! How better to get the uterine voters fired up to board team Hillary’s Mini Van?
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:32 am129… sad, but may be true…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:35 amBeldar, obviously the comments section of a blog are not the place for long opinions about the merits of any candidate. I added those snippets as an indicator of her views on a particular topic. I also encouraged readers to seriously investigate anyone running for high national office, especially if the candidate’s ideas may ultimately prove detrimental to America.
PPs43 (6fdef4) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:36 amLeather or plastic kneepads for fox’s blonde barbie?
mg (31009b) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:45 amPPs43 I gauge your tidbit by the thought of Carly Fiorina being long term in a lawless area, such as is the case in a Muslim country. The preacher yelling out over the loud speaker, as bizarre as that is , is a symbol of fanatics and crazies being circumscribed and hopefully checked by a higher authority.
Why wouldn’t she take comfort in that? I know I would, up until I could make my escape back to civilization.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:49 amArticles about the Great Compaq War inside HP:
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2002-02-10/whats-the-truth-about-walter-hewlett
http://fortune.com/2014/10/06/goodbye-hp-meg-whitman/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1013378674387839160
The upshot is this: HP, which had gotten into the PC business (and begun the Agilent spinoff) before Fiorina came in, was finding it hard to compete with the cheap PCs coming from China. So was everyone else. They figured that if they were to stay in the PC business, they had to bulk up. Walter Hewlett, son of the founder, wanted them to bail completely and downsize to a printer company.
Everyone on the board and management disagreed with Hewlett, but he decided to fight a scorched earth rear-guard battle, dragging HP through the press and the courts. He leaked internal information, recorded conversations and leaked them, and then sued the company whose board he had just left to stop their unanimous-but-him plan to buy Compaq.
And HP suffered. It was a Pyrrhic loss Hewlett, and a disaster for HP. In the end, Fiorina had to go to give it closure. But unlike nearly every PC company existing in 2002, they still survive, and are again a premier brand in PCs.
Everyone blames Carly, but Walter Hewlett is the one who nearly wrecked HP.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:57 amMuch like the bloviating blowhard O’Reilly is all about O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly is ALL about Megyn Kelly.
But Trump has jumped the shark. Let’s see if the buffoonery registers with his supporters.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:58 amSometimes vetting actually takes little work.
Obama was vetted to be a not a serious candidate by anyone who cared to think, starting with the fact he had no experience other than voting present in the Ill. state senate.
If that wasn’t enough, all I need to know was his intro to being a candidate for anything was in the home of Bill Ayers.
I think the main purposes of his books were:
1) to claim to have actually written some
2) that were not described by his publicist as being written by someone born in Kenya*
3) to get ahead of the news of his choom gang antics, etc.
FWIW, I don’t trust anyone at face value anymore unless it is a long time regular,
unfamiliar people as as likely to be misinformation game-players
some of us once upon a time learned in elementary school to tell the truth and expect the truth,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:59 amthat was not as helpful for the real world as would have been hoped
now in public school they get “Fast Food Nation” as summer reading…
I still need to see if I can find a reasonable critique of it,
hoping that Google will actually help me find one.
Thanks Kevin M.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:01 amPapertiger, If she had left that idea in Ghana, then I would agree. However, she brought it back to the states and has repeated the idea of it on more than one occasion, in more than one venue. The fact that she would even think to include similar notions in remarks made so soon after the tragedy in New York shows a serious lack of understanding about the true nature of Islam.
PPs43 (6fdef4) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:04 amLink past paywall for WSJ article above:
Also, a contemporaneous interview with Carly:
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:11 amNothing says waaaking up,
Like aaciid in your cup!
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:12 amGive Tingles credit, he basically admitted that Fiorina owned him.
Mitch (bfd5cd) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:13 amWalker, Huckabee & Pataki have now joined Fiorina. Not to mention Red State which rescinded its invitation to speak.
http://news.yahoo.com/trumps-sexist-remark-turns-republican-party-against-him-151711273.html
A boor who cannot tell simple civility from “political correctness” has no business leading a major political party.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:25 amKevin M,
New post up about the rescinded invitation.
Dana (86e864) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:27 amMy doctor prescribed me LSD for my constipation. I thought, How is LSD going to help me poop? Then, when I saw that dragon, I knew.
nk (dbc370) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:35 am@ Kevin M (#127): Yes, precisely.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:39 amSearch for “Critique of ‘Fast Food Nation'” gives me a list of reviews, the first two pages of which are reviews from critics who favorably compare it to “The Jungle”….
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:41 amwhich I know has been accused of being largely fabricated…
I didn’t bother looking at pages 3 and on, will try again later, work to do outside.
I suppose my experience in the Navy post tailhook have forever influenced me in ways that those who didn’t live through it may not understand.
The guys who pussed out and went to mast got convicted. The guys who stuck to their guns and insisted on court martial were vindicated.
So the lesson was taken onboard. Always stick to your guns.
I told every single investigator who asked me that I simply didn’t go to tailhook that year because I was in Japan and I didn’t have the time or the opportunity. Otherwise I would have gone, I would have had a good time, and none of the guys they were asking me about were rapists and I wouldn’t say a bad word about them.
Sex was of course a powerful component, which brings us back to Carly Fiorina. After tailhook the word was out in the fleet that the way to get advanced was to promote women. To lynch men for sexual harassment (think of the current due-process-free Title IX show trials on campus).
But when you cut through all the BS, sometimes the best man for the job really is a woman. I’ve read third hand accounts of women who can bench press more then me, even in my advanced state of aged decreptitude, or otherwise were physically more powerful than I am but I never ran across them in real life.
But what the feminists don’t realize is that is such a minor thing. If I had to pick someone to help me haul a generator or a pump up and down ladders with my ship in extremis, I wouldn’t pick Carly Fiorina.
I’ve never served in a ship that was in extremis. I trained for it; never happened. And one of the reasons it didn’t happen is there were sometimes women who were good at their jobs and made sure it didn’t.
But, I could do more push-ups.
When is it time for a woman to be President? Never. When is it time to have someone really sharp in the Presidency? Always. I’d vote for Carly. I wouldn’t vote for her to be captain of my Rugby team. But if she was my skipper I’d follow her to the bottom. But somehow I am convinced that is not where she’s going to take us, if elected, unlike TFG.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:52 amMy sister-in-law sat on my glasses and broke them. It was my own fault. I should have taken them off.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 10:53 amI just downloaded it and skimmed through the first 50 pages which is the history of fast food in the U.S.. It is polemical but you already know that from the title. Also deadly dull. I doubt that I’ll find anything in it to disagree violently with. I am no fan of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, etc., not with all the Greek burger-joints in Chicago.
What is your deadline for a review, MD? 😉
nk (dbc370) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:00 amYou can check out the Amazon preview (Look Inside) and reviews, here.
nk (dbc370) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:05 amYou also should have shut your eyes for decency’s sake.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:07 amO/T, we have a heat advisory here in N. Tejas, and it could hit 107 this weekend.
But I just got back from a trip to Cabela’s that reminded me this will not last forever.
Dove season starts 01 September, and crate upon crate of 12 ga. ammo was crowding the floor.
We’re talking the kind of ammo dump that ISIS only dreams about.
It brought a tear to my eye. And it reminded me that this heat, too, shall pass.
#CecilMustDie
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:13 amMy missus packed my bags, and as I walked out the front door, she screamed, “I wish you a slow and painful death, you bastard!”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:16 am“Oh,” I replied, “so now you want me to stay!”
Whoever shot Cecil did him a favor.
Some British poofter labelled him “Cecil,” and for the rest of his life he had to bear the burden. All the other lions were pointing and laughing. “Oh, look, here comes ‘Cecil.’ Where’s your purse, ‘Cecil.'”
“Cecil” tries to respond. “Look, I’m not f***in’ ‘Cecil.'” Some tea sipping fairy from Oxford called me that but I’m a g=d d=mned lion, g=d d=mn it!”
“Yeah, right, ‘Cecil'” all the other lions say ROFL.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:21 amlol…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 11:21 am“British poofter” is a tautology, but besides that the Cecil that Rhodesia was named after was also rumored to swing that way.
nk (dbc370) — 8/8/2015 @ 12:24 pmThe other lions would have had a field day with the info if they had access to Wikipedia, nk.
Imagine the rumors about “Cecil” and his supposed brother “Jericho.”
“Yeah, we all know what those two were up to when they were ‘patrolling the boundaries of the territory,’ if you know what we mean, jelly bean,” sez the other lions. Tacking on, “And I think you do.”
Now that Cecil is well and truly dead we’re only days away from a tear-streaked suicide note from Jericho, confessing it all.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 12:36 pmKing Leonardo and Itchy Brother they were not!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/8/2015 @ 1:12 pmPowerLine has a comment up comparing Carly Fiorina to Rhonda Rousey.
I believe she’s wearing a kick @$$ Krav Maga t-shirt.
http://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2015/08/2B0DDDF300000578-3183297-image-m-98_1438561941591.jpg
Alas, my body is no longer a weapon. I do this exercise. One leg forward, one leg back. Then I jump up and switch legs. Genuflecting, not all the way down, as it were, combined with jumping. Yeah, just ain’t happening.
If you stretched the definition you could have called the movements I was capable of in my twenties and thirties explosive.
Now they are at best glacial.
Enough said. I’d voter for Carly Fiorina and/or Rhonda Rhousey in a heart beat.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 1:21 pmOr you could just call it dancing. My try at it, anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2MTZ3VpyrY
I suck at dancing.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/8/2015 @ 1:40 pmMD, let your daughter read it, and don’t worry about it if she’s a normal kid. At worst, she won’t want to eat at McWendyKingBells. She might have some questions about e. coli that you should be able to answer. The slaughterhouse chapters are gruesome — you could explain to her, if she asks, that the writer deliberately manipulated them to be like that the same way they overdramatize in the movies and on TV.
On the plus side, it is very well-written with college-level vocabulary and syntax. It is a very good exercise in reading dull or only mildly interesting expository material, and a good example on how to write it so people will read it.
Yeah, the guy’s a granola. He has an agenda. But he makes no bones about it (snicker). Just tell your daughter that. That his primary purpose is not to inform, but to persuade, and that she is being manipulated. Also tell her that it’s just one man’s point of view; and, besides, she’s old enough now to know that just because something is written down it doesn’t mean it’s true.
nk (dbc370) — 8/8/2015 @ 5:22 pmWhy thank you nk for your efforts.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:33 pmYou’re welcome, MD. You aroused my curiosity and I was bored of “Tam o’ the Scoots” while waiting for my “Big Book of Pulps”.
He’s not off his rocker. Most of the book is factual filler about meat and potatoes. There are a few very interesting pages about how we taste food and how flavors are synthesized. And I agree with him about the centralization of agriculture (by ADM largely), and the uniformity of the “fodder” which the fast food industry dishes out. This book could easily become a neutral course book in a food service management class by taking out fewer than 50 pages (out of 350 Kindle) of editorializing — maybe a lot fewer.
nk (dbc370) — 8/8/2015 @ 9:48 pmYes, the food safety allegations were fabricated.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 8/9/2015 @ 12:40 amHere’s Carly on global warming
Some ahole who doesn’t know anymore than she does, gets to the open mic, and asks her how she will lead the country though a time of climate change.
Sadly, she doesn’t know the topic.
Instead of coming right out, and saying she doesn’t know, she buys into the premise to keep from appearing uninformed, then bluffs her way through.
The reality is a majority of government funded climate scientists, who rely on a steady stream of gov money to keep the wolf away, and being the observant types, have noticed that stream of funds being cut off to those who say different, agree that climate change is a very serious issue.
If you’re an employee of NOAA wanting to stay in your over priced civil service job, only under those rare circumstances is climate change a serious issue.
For the rest of us it isn’t.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 8/9/2015 @ 3:25 amThe climate change gravy train relies on uninformed politicians bluffing their way through to keep the train running.
I really like this woman. She is what I call the Trump foil. She also is not a cookie cutter political animal and she is not afraid to say it as it is in terms that people relate too. She taps the same anger that Trump is and is more than competent enough to do the job.
That being said, make no mistake. As Lindsay Graham said. Him and his establishment cronies would no doubt feel that they would rather see Hillary win the Whitehouse than Fiorina.
Drider (340c7b) — 8/9/2015 @ 3:28 amThanks again nk, and for the link, Milhouse.
My main concern about the book from my scant two data points, is that while there will be a lot of uncomfortable truth and exposition of the reality that life is far from perfect,
it will suggest that the problem is the “vast right wing conspiracy” of greedy capitalists,
and the answer is looking to the people “of purer heart and mind who run the government”…
There are some days I more acutely feel outnumbered by “them”,
rather than the fact illustrated by Gideon that one person and God is a majority.
I guess “The Jungle” is one of those things that needs to be in the book of common things that we “know” but are not true.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/9/2015 @ 6:55 amEarly in the book, Schlosser wonders how individualist, non-conformist, entrepreneurs like Ray Kroc created such a uniform product. My answer is, they gave the masses the messes they wanted, and I think Schlosser agrees.
He does want government intervention in wages, in working conditions, in the treatment of the animals, and in food quality. He quotes Sinclair, including “I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident hit its stomach.” So he knows the winning strategy. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 8/9/2015 @ 7:12 amI woke up this morning at 8, and could sense something was wrong. I went downstairs and found the wife face down on the kitchen floor, not breathing! I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered McDonald’s serves breakfast until10:30.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/9/2015 @ 7:53 amClose one, coronello.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/10/2015 @ 3:48 amCarly will be asked about her past positions, thinking that Jeb and co are not going to let her get away with talking and powerpointing her way to the presidency.
Cruz should also be prepared for the rectal exam of his life as well. People from his law firm and the AG’s office are going to be “leaking” things.
Its just the way it is
EPWJ (4df1f9) — 8/10/2015 @ 6:24 amCarly’s past “positions?” Cruz’ “rectal exam?” Come on, man.
Soylent Green is peeeeeople!!!!!11!!11!
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/10/2015 @ 6:33 amNo, it’s soy and lentils. I don’t care what the movie said. And Dorothy’s shoes were silver, not red.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 8/10/2015 @ 6:43 amYeah, the book, “Make Room, Make Room!” was nothing like the movie. Same for the book “I Am Legend” vs. “The Omega Man” movie. (I haven’t seen the Will Smith version, but the Vincent Price version was more faithful to the book.)
nk (dbc370) — 8/10/2015 @ 6:48 amWhen people can’t agree on what was true from 100 years ago, it’s pretty hopeless, actually.
It is all a vast right/left/no wing plot.
MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 8/10/2015 @ 5:36 pmhttp://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=358416
The dumb broad had TS codeword on her homebrew unclas, unencrypted homebrew server.
I apologize to anyone of any of the rapidly piling up genders takes offense, but if you are not a dumb broad this does not apply to you.
So get over it.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/11/2015 @ 3:13 pmThis was all entirely predictable. Inevitable.
In fact, I predicted it.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/11/2015 @ 3:16 pm