Two Sunday Interviews

 I saw John Brennan on MTP today.  I misjudged the man.  There is nothing trivial about him.  He is too solemn for his own good, but, that is a minor failing.  The intensity and obvious hostility towards many members of Congress and the media were palpable.  He resents the media's constant whoring after sensation.  Fair enough.  i would resent it as well.  I do think he is a little gullible.  Yemen, a trustworthy partner?  Count your fingers, John.  Count your fingers.

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And then there was Sarah Palin being interviewed by Chris Wallace on FNS. Frightening.  Can this woman really be as empty headed as she sounds?    At one point she said that she "would never make people feel that she knows better then they..." What are we to make of that?   Do we really want the chief executive of the United States to be no more intelligent nor better informed that the average citizen?  At another point she said that Obama offends her because behind a podium  he looks like a law professor and not a "commander in chief."  Well, what I understand from that is that she does not know that the office of president and the function of commander in chief are different.  The president is commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States, not commander in chief of the United States.   The president has to "earn his way."  It sounds as though she would prefer a dictator (roughly "commander in chief" in Latin).  She also is offended by what she and others call "giving American constitutional protections to terrorists."  Does she and the others who say this not know that it is a long settled principle of American law that the Bill of Rights applies to all those in US custody except enemy soldiers.  The "undie bomber" is not an enemy soldier.  John Yoo was wrong about this.  Finally, she implies that "the generals" should be allowed to do what ever they think best and given whatever resources they think best.

I am coming to the conclusion that this woman is an emerging mindless tool of people like Bill Kristol and a danger to republican government pl

Comments

[Ronald]

"I am coming to the conclusion that this woman is an emerging mindless tool of people like Bill Kristol and a danger to republican government"

Pat,
I believe it was Kristol and his ilk that pushed her to the McCain campaign in the first place. Without him, she would likely still be governor of Alaska. An empty suit (or head) is exactly what the neocons desire, I suspect. In her case, ignorance is not a "bug," but is a feature.

I also think her ignorance is endearing to some of her supporters. But perhaps saying that makes me an elitist.

[Arun]

Well, the appearances are that the edumacated folks haven't run the country very well.

But all we can do is to try to get competent and honest people in office - and Palin isn't either.

[par4]

G W Bush wasn't?

[Buzz Meeks]

Fascism raised its ugly head here in the 1930's and it has now fully emerged. It has been very patient, all the the players have now been put in place.

Ronald you are not being elitist, they are proud of their ignorance which been shaped by Fox/Goebbels News and the Christian right wing. They don't even realize their ignorance.

Wait till Fox starts making campaign contributions, thanks to the Brethren, and reports on election news.

Probably time to start screening "Our Hitler, A film from Germany" around the country.Perhaps Michael Moore will take it care of distribution.

Buzz Meeks

[batondor]

Pat,

I read Garry Wills' new book, "Bomb Power", over the past couple of days and would recommend it to all even if much of the history involved is common knowledge to most of your readers...

For my own part, I was unaware of the speech that Ed Meese gave at Tulane in 1987 because I was preoccupied overseas at the time...

I don't know if you will have the time to read his account of the rise of the modern presidency (and I have a feeling you already dislike him for his harsh critique of the American involvement in Vietnam), but his synthesis of the durable growth of presidential prerogatives is powerful...

... and it's all the more striking that I thought of all this while watching Henry Paulson, Alan Greenspan, and Tim Geithner on the Sunday talk shows this morning...

The remaining dilemma, of course, is how to "undo" this unfortunate circumstance that makes if virtually impossible for the Chief Executive to explicitly defer responsibilities both specific and general to the legislative branch where it belongs in the most explicit constitutional terms...

PS: I happy to see that you are apparently recovered from the flu...

[Robert in SB]

I would be interested to find out who is writing all her op-eds. There is a big difference between her half baked chatter and inconsistencies and the policy nerd stuff that has her byline. She appears to be an even more artificial creation, a brand name being produced and manufactured, like Olestra and Aspartame.

[Lysander]

Very well spoken, Col. Alas Mrs Palin recently endorsed Rand Paul for senate in Kentucky. Should a Ron Paul fan rejoice or weep?

[Arun]

Andrew Sullivan tells us to "know fear". He may have a point.

[walrus]

"I am coming to the conclusion that this woman is an emerging mindless tool of people like Bill Kristol and a danger to republican government "

As Ronald so aptly put it ignorance is a feature, not a bug. It is quite clear that at least some of the supporters of a Republican Party would like America to elect a blank canvas on which they can write large.

An empty headed narcissist who would be totally dependent on their advisors fills the bill very nicely. I think George W. Bush, while not a narcissist, also filled that bill.

I'm not sure yet if the same thing can be said about President Obama.

[Jackie]

Col.,
Thank you for watching Palin and reporting on what she had to say. I'm sorry, I just can't watch her because I cringe when I hear her voice.

I do believe Kristol and crew would love a blank slate like her, just as they had with G.W. Bush.

(OT-I'm glad you got plowed out from the major snow storm. The media made it sound like the end was near.)

[Patrick Lang]

Jackie

we are still hip deep in snow. I am waiting for a neighbor's son to come dig the two cars out. pl

[ISL]

Dear Colonel, I share your concerns. To my mind, forward looking of the current administration (the biggest disappointment) suggests the next (Petraeus/Palin?) will inherit a system of a president above the law. Crossing the Rubicon seems to have been in silence.

[curious]

Palin cought reading and answer from cheat sheet written on her palm. (She is degenerate to middle school level of trick now.)

I for one think she should be replaced with a computer graphic and auto content text generator. (I got to push the surrealist pig-latin button.) Your very own personal talking head.

But she seems to sell a lot of book. So the joke is on the public.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/7/834684/-%28Updated-wPalins-response!%29-HandPrompter-Hilarity:-Read-The-Words-on-Palins-Hand

[Charles I]

You had culture wars. Now you're going to have elite ignorance wars.

The danger is not the beard, whoever,she/he be today, although the glint in her eye as she wags a censuring finger in a WaPo picture today is scary.

It is that the brains, the money, that has patiently manipulated your country to this sorry pass since Fox and PNAC took up arms, have done so virtually unopposed, judging by the results to date. It is that the meat of American exceptionalism, so glorious of heart, so generously exported, is so gloriously ignorant - the world seen as sets in a play, PL wrote below.

It matters not whether some ultimately toil for Jesus, Y****H, or Mammon. One's god wants all the ME, one's wants it blown up and redeveloped for a 1000 year plan, and the latter don't care because it all pays handsomely and comes with health insurance. None of them wish to reduce military spending or reconfigure your foreign policy or economy for public domestic benefit.

They certainly don't toil for you, or your Constitution. Americans already seem inured to the gigantic permanent war national security state part of the social contract, antipathetic to those bits dedicated more, er, socially. Keep them scared, broke and angry, and a mob no posse of pointy headed liberal elites could ever shout down will deliver you what Fox scripts and the Supremes consecrate.

Regardless of Palin, this has been in works for generations. The fact that the analysis is centered on tea parties and Palin/Fox rather than on serious informed debate over pressing issues over at PBS speaks volumes, at volume, ad nauseum.

Stopping the recount in 2000 was the subjective Rubicon to me. Re-electing Bush, well, the scope of my ignorance of America, so gross as to be hardly creditable, was dolorously confirmed. All the rest's been seemingly ineluctable political and social entropy for my side.

You are in danger, no doubt about it, have been for some time. Which of course, is PNAC's,the Bible's,and Netanyahu's meassge. I'm not one of you, but I beg you please work against it, and prevail, missionaries and all

[grae castle]

col,
a-frakking-men.

i'm not always, or even often, right. but damn - i wish i had time to sit down and have an honest discourse with a palincheneybushlibbywolfowitzkristolite. gawd, we know they exist, and unfortuntately, we are all too aware that they have some (i'm being intentionally "naïve" here...) influence in geo-domestic polibidness mastersoftheunderverse machinations, but DAMNIT - how do the keep their believers believing.

i've sipped that koolaid - it's not that tasty...

as always, you're putting your fingers on the sensitive spots. please keep at it. perhaps someones with super abilities are listening and doing.

[different clue]

I don't think her head is entirely empty. Her head is filled with spite, vengeance, and wounded pride. And so she is a vessel for the discontent of millions of people whose heads are filled with the same.

I know all that snow must be a severe inconvenience, but there are places and people who wish they had some fraction of it. I spent yesterday digging up our latest snowfall from off my yard to pack onto my garden. We got a whole inch of snow! With three inch snow drifts in places!

If your region gets a heat wave in the next few days, all that snow melting at once could cause some flooding here and there. Hopefully the authorities are prepared. Anyone with a house in a low spot with a lot of upslope snow right around them should prepare to exclude a bunch of water from their basement; or prepare to handle it if they can't exclude it.

[Patrick Lang]

DC

We have the local weakness for animals. All this snow is difficult for the rabbits, deer and other creatures about. We have spread cabbage, carrots and other comestibles in the back garden for them pl

[AW]

Palin's rise in politics reminds me of H.L. Mencken quote

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

[SAC Brat]

While I watched the Palin interview the thought that kept coming to mind was how easy Hillary Clinton could make her cry in a debate, if a debate was allowed by Palin's handlers.

I'm getting fed up with Democrats who are afraid of their own shadows and Bizarro-World Republicans with their audacious lies. It's to the point where I'd like to see Bernie Sanders of Vermont run on the "Cut The Crap" platform or anyone else who can help the populists jump the more difficult mental hurdles in cognitive thought without injury.

[jonst]

"Fascism raised its ugly head here in the 1930's and it has now fully emerged" wrote Buzz M.

Perhaps....but if forced to bet I would go with Nihilism. Nihilism is emerging in the guise of Sarah Palin. Perhaps people, I would call fascists, think they can harness and ride Nihilism. But it did not work so well the last time it was tried by them. See Berlin 1945.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

She was "discovered" and pushed by the Neocons.

Read my book "Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy" (London: Tauris, 2008) for background on Fundis, Zionism, and the Republican and the Democratic parties...and Fascism in America.

[jamzo]

the sarah palin phenomenon is not unprecedented

some call sarah "bush-lite"

karl rove mentored GW

sarah has rupert murdoch, roger ailes, and fox news as mentors

[johnf]

"Last week, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, John Brennan, the White House’s top adviser on terrorism, described the outlines of the Obama administration’s new counterterrorism strategy. During his appearance, which drew several hundred people to the basement conference room at CSIS, I had a chance to ask Brennan about US policy toward Hezbollah and Hamas. In his response, Brennan opened the door a crack to the idea of a new US policy toward the two groups, and his comments stirred some unhappiness at the State Department….."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/460718/white_house_opening_to_hezbollah_hamas

[johnf]

"Last week, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, John Brennan, the White House’s top adviser on terrorism, described the outlines of the Obama administration’s new counterterrorism strategy. During his appearance, which drew several hundred people to the basement conference room at CSIS, I had a chance to ask Brennan about US policy toward Hezbollah and Hamas. In his response, Brennan opened the door a crack to the idea of a new US policy toward the two groups, and his comments stirred some unhappiness at the State Department….."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/460718/white_house_opening_to_hezbollah_hamas

[Andrew]

Col.,
As a Canadian who has watched the Bnai Brith groom, and produce the actual Canadian Govt. composed of a bunch of degenerate, simpleton nutjobs. I would suggest that you learn to love President Palin.