Friday, April 04, 2008
Obama's Iraq adviser: Keep 80,000 troops until 2010
Here's a nice teaser for the piece I'm writing on Obama's ever-shifting statements on Iraq. From the New York Sun:
This is NAFTA-gate all over again.
Once again, Obama provides a false face to the world. He would have you believe that he led the fight against the war in 2002. In fact, he made one speech against it, in front of a sympathetic audience. No video recorded his speech. He never wrote one word against the war. He made sure that nothing could come back to haunt him. In 2004, when the war still had popular support, his position mirrored the administration's.
But now he has created a fake YouTube video recreating his 2002 speech...!
Imagine the outcry if Hillary created a fake video...
A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.Kahl says that his paper does not represent the campaign's position, which I am sure is true. That's the point. The position Obama takes during the campaign is not the same as the one he would take after assuming power.
The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement,” Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”
Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq. A shorter and less detailed version of this paper appeared on the center’s Web site as a policy brief.
This is NAFTA-gate all over again.
Once again, Obama provides a false face to the world. He would have you believe that he led the fight against the war in 2002. In fact, he made one speech against it, in front of a sympathetic audience. No video recorded his speech. He never wrote one word against the war. He made sure that nothing could come back to haunt him. In 2004, when the war still had popular support, his position mirrored the administration's.
But now he has created a fake YouTube video recreating his 2002 speech...!
Imagine the outcry if Hillary created a fake video...
What don't you understand about:
"Kahl says that his paper does not represent the campaign's position, which I am sure is true."?
" That's the point. The position Obama takes during the campaign is not the same as the one he would take after assuming power."
So now you know what Obama will do?
"This is NAFTA-gate all over again"
There was no Nafta Gate, it was total BS.
" Even in this era of YouTube and camera phones, a recording of Obama's speech is all but impossible to find. The Obama campaign has gone so far as to re-create portions of the speech for a television ad, with the candidate re-reading the text, with audience sound effects."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88988093
Doesn't sound like a big secret that since there is no recording of the speech he re-read part of it for an add. You think this a big deal?
I would like to see the add. Do you have a link for it?
Some were impressed by his speech and some were not. So what?
"Kahl says that his paper does not represent the campaign's position, which I am sure is true."?
" That's the point. The position Obama takes during the campaign is not the same as the one he would take after assuming power."
So now you know what Obama will do?
"This is NAFTA-gate all over again"
There was no Nafta Gate, it was total BS.
" Even in this era of YouTube and camera phones, a recording of Obama's speech is all but impossible to find. The Obama campaign has gone so far as to re-create portions of the speech for a television ad, with the candidate re-reading the text, with audience sound effects."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88988093
Doesn't sound like a big secret that since there is no recording of the speech he re-read part of it for an add. You think this a big deal?
I would like to see the add. Do you have a link for it?
Some were impressed by his speech and some were not. So what?
His concession speech in Denver will be one of the greatest political speeches ever delivered. Hillary's acceptance speech will exceed Obama's, but pale next to her Inaugural Address.
NAFTA-gate was NOT bogus. I have written about it at great length, and will write more. The Obama campaign was caught in a massive LIE in which they at first tried to claim that Austen Goolsbee had no connection with the Obama campaign, even though the phrase "chief economic adviser" appeared in previous interviews with Goolsbee. (I cited those interviews in earlier posts.)
What was bogus was the story tying Hillary into it, relying on a single unnamed source who claims to have overheard a statement that no-one else, including the person making the statement, can verify.
The fact is that Obama's two chief economic advisers, Goolsbee and Liebman, are vehemently pro-free trade. And Goolsbee did meet with Canadian officials to send a behind-the-scenes message.
I have made the point many times that Obama's economic guys are pro-free trade. Not once -- NOT ONCE -- have any Obama supporters such as yourself dared to deny my point (which is easily provable).
Instead, we always get Ye Olde Subject Switch. Which I am sure YOU are going to do now, Scottikins.
How cowardly.
About the recreated ad:
"You think this a big deal?"
I would not think it a big deal if the same standard applied to all candidates. Here's the problem:
If you have any honesty in you, you would admit that a faked speech would be a HUGE deal if Hillary did it. The progblogs would go just plain fucking NUTS, and you know it. They would be aghast even if Biden or Edwards had recreated a speech with fake applause.
What I do not understand is why jerks like you think that the Savior From Illinois may be permitted to do that which others may not do.
If Obama turns to Goolsbee, Liebman, Brzezenski -- well, hell, that just shows his "broadness of mind" and his ability to "get information from many differing sources." But if Hillary or ANY other candidate were to act likewise, people like you scream bloody murder.
The double standard is infuriating.
I swear, if you fucking progs saw videotape of Obama sticking a knife into a five-year-old girl, you'd find some way to rationalize it away. In your eyes, Obama is allowed to do ANYTHING HE WANTS.
What was bogus was the story tying Hillary into it, relying on a single unnamed source who claims to have overheard a statement that no-one else, including the person making the statement, can verify.
The fact is that Obama's two chief economic advisers, Goolsbee and Liebman, are vehemently pro-free trade. And Goolsbee did meet with Canadian officials to send a behind-the-scenes message.
I have made the point many times that Obama's economic guys are pro-free trade. Not once -- NOT ONCE -- have any Obama supporters such as yourself dared to deny my point (which is easily provable).
Instead, we always get Ye Olde Subject Switch. Which I am sure YOU are going to do now, Scottikins.
How cowardly.
About the recreated ad:
"You think this a big deal?"
I would not think it a big deal if the same standard applied to all candidates. Here's the problem:
If you have any honesty in you, you would admit that a faked speech would be a HUGE deal if Hillary did it. The progblogs would go just plain fucking NUTS, and you know it. They would be aghast even if Biden or Edwards had recreated a speech with fake applause.
What I do not understand is why jerks like you think that the Savior From Illinois may be permitted to do that which others may not do.
If Obama turns to Goolsbee, Liebman, Brzezenski -- well, hell, that just shows his "broadness of mind" and his ability to "get information from many differing sources." But if Hillary or ANY other candidate were to act likewise, people like you scream bloody murder.
The double standard is infuriating.
I swear, if you fucking progs saw videotape of Obama sticking a knife into a five-year-old girl, you'd find some way to rationalize it away. In your eyes, Obama is allowed to do ANYTHING HE WANTS.
No, those of us who choose Obama's side as our best choice in this campaign are able to distinguish an insignificant embellishment from a pattern of material deceit.
More importantly, we can tell the difference between a politically risky but principled opposition to war, and a coldly calculated vote in favor of abdicating the Constitutional investment of war Powers in the Congress, based on "a million or so dead on the one hand, and a personal political ambition on the other."
We can also tell the difference between a lukewarm, conditional, and plausibly deniable statement of opposition to Telecom immunity backed up by a deliberate avoidance of participation in the actual vote, and an unequivocal statement of principled opposition to said immunity, backed up by a public vote against it.
A list like this could go on for ages. Your inability to knock us off focus is destined to be so ineffective that it will undoubtedly drive you to cursing obscenities in frustration again and again. The real question is, "why is it so important for you to try?"
Obama is going to be the nominee, and you have suddenly become everything you professed to hate less than six months ago. While it is personally disappointing to see this happening, I can escape the torture by going elsewhere. You are living the nightmare of this discontent, and it is so unnecessary. Whatever it is that drives you, it most certainly is not the fact that a commercial contains a re-enacted speech. We both know the stakes are a lot higher than that.
Peace to you, Joe. That's not a greeting, it is a wish.
More importantly, we can tell the difference between a politically risky but principled opposition to war, and a coldly calculated vote in favor of abdicating the Constitutional investment of war Powers in the Congress, based on "a million or so dead on the one hand, and a personal political ambition on the other."
We can also tell the difference between a lukewarm, conditional, and plausibly deniable statement of opposition to Telecom immunity backed up by a deliberate avoidance of participation in the actual vote, and an unequivocal statement of principled opposition to said immunity, backed up by a public vote against it.
A list like this could go on for ages. Your inability to knock us off focus is destined to be so ineffective that it will undoubtedly drive you to cursing obscenities in frustration again and again. The real question is, "why is it so important for you to try?"
Obama is going to be the nominee, and you have suddenly become everything you professed to hate less than six months ago. While it is personally disappointing to see this happening, I can escape the torture by going elsewhere. You are living the nightmare of this discontent, and it is so unnecessary. Whatever it is that drives you, it most certainly is not the fact that a commercial contains a re-enacted speech. We both know the stakes are a lot higher than that.
Peace to you, Joe. That's not a greeting, it is a wish.
DHS, your comment is delusional. Wait. Within a matter of minutes or hours, I am going to prove you sooooooo effing wrong.
I'm writing it right now.
Obama's lies about his war stanceS are absolutely damning, absolutely important, and absolutely incontrovertible.
I'm writing it right now.
Obama's lies about his war stanceS are absolutely damning, absolutely important, and absolutely incontrovertible.
If he never wrote his speech down, how does he remember it word for word 5 years later?
I do not get this. Also, why didn't he have his staff video tape this incredibly important speech? Or at least why didn't his wife tape it. I tape my kids baseball games. All of them. I tape everything I find important to me and my family.
So, Barack made the most important speech of his life, upon which he is resting his ascension to the White House and his wife forgot to bring the camcorder? Nonsense. Either the speech didn't mean a damned thing, or he has hidden the tape. Or his wife is incredibly unsupportive. If that speech meant anything to him, it would be recorded.
I do not get this. Also, why didn't he have his staff video tape this incredibly important speech? Or at least why didn't his wife tape it. I tape my kids baseball games. All of them. I tape everything I find important to me and my family.
So, Barack made the most important speech of his life, upon which he is resting his ascension to the White House and his wife forgot to bring the camcorder? Nonsense. Either the speech didn't mean a damned thing, or he has hidden the tape. Or his wife is incredibly unsupportive. If that speech meant anything to him, it would be recorded.
anon, I believe that there is an non-professional audio recording of the speech. And people do write down their speeches, usually.
But he spoke to an anti-war, anti-Bush crowd, at an event where Jesse Jackson was the featured guest. And he was running for a state senate seat in an area where a pro-Bush stance would have been politically deadly.
Try to leave a name or nick, okay?
But he spoke to an anti-war, anti-Bush crowd, at an event where Jesse Jackson was the featured guest. And he was running for a state senate seat in an area where a pro-Bush stance would have been politically deadly.
Try to leave a name or nick, okay?
Well Joe, for once, I'll be watching with interest. I'll be expecting some kind of "guilt by association" or transplanting the words and opinions of an advisor expressing their own views onto the mind and into the mouth of Barack Obama. Or perhaps the insinuation that voting in favor of funding for a war already in progress equates to voting to authorize the war beforehand. So go ahead and surprise me with something significant. Something you have scooped every news outlet and blog on the Internet with, despite the interminable delay between primaries. If it is enough to change my opinion of who is best suited to the job of those legitimate choices available, I will publicly admit it. Once I regain consciousness from the shock.
Of course, you already know you have virtually no chance. Our views are so divergent that even if I accept the veracity of every statement of fact you offer, I'm unlikely to see the total as important enough to counter everything else I've learned in the past year. What's more, our priorities are so different, I'm unlikely to even view their importance in the same vein.
Your words and deeds betray not an interest in divulging the truth, but a compulsion to "attack Obama" for offenses not directly related to the subjects you are "revealing". Even so, this is one more chance at persuasion than I anticipated giving you.
I really tried to stop by to see how open you might be to some introspection, stepping back to view your entire program and goal of attacking Obama and those who support him within the context of the nation's real problems, and perhaps within the context of your own words about those you have derided as "purists" who drop out or waste their votes when the viable candidate closest to satisfying their requirements fails to come close enough.
Despite our differences, and despite my view of the direction you've taken since the Wright "scandal" broke as misguided and flat-out wrong, I have enough respect for you to come here an oppose your position in civil tones, hoping you might be on board in August, at least. We'll need every hand on deck, if we are to have any chance at reversing the stacked nature of the Supreme court and the other federal courts, the damage done to constitutional underpinnings and the balance of powers, the barely concealed looting of the federal treasury and private pensions, the failure to address severe infrastructural weakness at home, the gross imbalance of power between labor and managent, the crippling debt that threatens to tear the entire govermnent apart, environmental catastrophes, etc. etc. etc.
You think Hillary would be better at dealing with all of this? OK. I don't care. Whoever wins that battle, wins it. If this entire extended rant is only about that, and is going to stop from August through November, I may not like it, but I'm not going to be bothered by it.
But if you think McCain would be better at it than Obama, then I have to say, I'm not the one who is delusional. If you believe there is so little difference between what an Obama administration would look like and what a McCain administration would look like, then I encourage you to go back and read your own words from late last year - or pretty much all of the last couple of years, and ask yourself if your position is all that different from the position of those purists you were castigating back then.
Hey, I've typed this out in bits, and I'm not sure it is all holding together, but hopefully it holds together well enough to deliver the message as intended, regardless of how that message is received.
====
BTW, last "anonymous" of the bunch. I don't know if Obama recreated his speech with (non-network) documentary-level precision for his advertisement (that I haven't seen) and I don't care. I can tell you with absolute certainty that it did happen, because I watched it on television the day it happened. It was the first time I identified Obama as someone to watch when the next set of elections came around - if he was a candidate. I was starved for someone in a leadership potential to show some resistance to the steamrollering I was witnessing.
I was disappointed that he didn't frame it in the context of the entire exercise being unconstitutional, illegal, and counter to the founding principles of the nation - regardless of its merits - but pleased that he at least offered a strong objection when a strong objection was needed, and few if any other public figures were willing to speak out.
The details of when/where exactly what was said, and who was watching have no bearing whatsoever on the significance of what I saw with my own eyes the day it happened. It was hardly "the speech of his life". It is plausible that he did not write it down, because it barely qualified as a speech. It was more like a statement for the press.
And his "wife didn't have to bring the camcorder" because there was at least one news camera there to record it.
Given the gravity of the problems we face as a nation, I can hardly believe anyone finds such trivia worthy of discussion.
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Of course, you already know you have virtually no chance. Our views are so divergent that even if I accept the veracity of every statement of fact you offer, I'm unlikely to see the total as important enough to counter everything else I've learned in the past year. What's more, our priorities are so different, I'm unlikely to even view their importance in the same vein.
Your words and deeds betray not an interest in divulging the truth, but a compulsion to "attack Obama" for offenses not directly related to the subjects you are "revealing". Even so, this is one more chance at persuasion than I anticipated giving you.
I really tried to stop by to see how open you might be to some introspection, stepping back to view your entire program and goal of attacking Obama and those who support him within the context of the nation's real problems, and perhaps within the context of your own words about those you have derided as "purists" who drop out or waste their votes when the viable candidate closest to satisfying their requirements fails to come close enough.
Despite our differences, and despite my view of the direction you've taken since the Wright "scandal" broke as misguided and flat-out wrong, I have enough respect for you to come here an oppose your position in civil tones, hoping you might be on board in August, at least. We'll need every hand on deck, if we are to have any chance at reversing the stacked nature of the Supreme court and the other federal courts, the damage done to constitutional underpinnings and the balance of powers, the barely concealed looting of the federal treasury and private pensions, the failure to address severe infrastructural weakness at home, the gross imbalance of power between labor and managent, the crippling debt that threatens to tear the entire govermnent apart, environmental catastrophes, etc. etc. etc.
You think Hillary would be better at dealing with all of this? OK. I don't care. Whoever wins that battle, wins it. If this entire extended rant is only about that, and is going to stop from August through November, I may not like it, but I'm not going to be bothered by it.
But if you think McCain would be better at it than Obama, then I have to say, I'm not the one who is delusional. If you believe there is so little difference between what an Obama administration would look like and what a McCain administration would look like, then I encourage you to go back and read your own words from late last year - or pretty much all of the last couple of years, and ask yourself if your position is all that different from the position of those purists you were castigating back then.
Hey, I've typed this out in bits, and I'm not sure it is all holding together, but hopefully it holds together well enough to deliver the message as intended, regardless of how that message is received.
====
BTW, last "anonymous" of the bunch. I don't know if Obama recreated his speech with (non-network) documentary-level precision for his advertisement (that I haven't seen) and I don't care. I can tell you with absolute certainty that it did happen, because I watched it on television the day it happened. It was the first time I identified Obama as someone to watch when the next set of elections came around - if he was a candidate. I was starved for someone in a leadership potential to show some resistance to the steamrollering I was witnessing.
I was disappointed that he didn't frame it in the context of the entire exercise being unconstitutional, illegal, and counter to the founding principles of the nation - regardless of its merits - but pleased that he at least offered a strong objection when a strong objection was needed, and few if any other public figures were willing to speak out.
The details of when/where exactly what was said, and who was watching have no bearing whatsoever on the significance of what I saw with my own eyes the day it happened. It was hardly "the speech of his life". It is plausible that he did not write it down, because it barely qualified as a speech. It was more like a statement for the press.
And his "wife didn't have to bring the camcorder" because there was at least one news camera there to record it.
Given the gravity of the problems we face as a nation, I can hardly believe anyone finds such trivia worthy of discussion.
