We’re on Day Three with no power or water. It’s a good thing we have more urgency about paying our power bill than the power company has in restoring our power.
It looks like we’ll all get to relive all the racial pathologies exposed by the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings twenty years ago. Conservatives will rally around Herman Cain giving him an absolute presumption of innocence. This could solidify him in first place. Who needs political experience when you’ve been accused of sexual harassment? That’s the best qualification imaginable. Right?
The Washington Post fluffs Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her leadership role in the Libyan War. But do we ever get credit, or only blame?
The political benefits to Clinton and Obama remain far from clear. To many Libyans and others in the Muslim world, the lasting impression from the campaign is that of a reluctant America, slow to intervene and happy to let others take the lead. While Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron were given heroes’ welcomes during victory laps through Libya last month, Clinton was confronted during her recent Tripoli visit with questions about why the United States had not done more.
“Many people feel that the United States has taken a back seat,” one student told her.
And, we’re supposed to stop fighting in Libya today.
This week, we get to fight for infrastructure components of the American Jobs Act.
Okay, but will John Bolton’s mustache explode or his head.
The Cowboys got stomped. I hope you enjoyed that.
The Philly Union dug themselves a little hole.
What’s on your mind?
I saw a PA utility worker telling CNN very confidently that with help coming in from neighboring states they’d have the power restored definitely by Wednesday.
The talking heads are flogging the number of 2.4 million people without power. And OWS tents are covered with snow.
Keep warm and hang in there you guys.
I’ve been thinking about how Citizens United set the table for the large number of candidates remaining in the Pres race. Never before have we had a situation where it is so lucrative to be in a race even if you have nothing to offer other than a big mouth.
Keep warm!
as far as the nonsense about Obama goes – they’ve changed their tune from crisis Y will make or break his presidency – I’m thinking ahead 60 years how some remarkable dem president then will be attacked for not being enough like Obama, and every pundit will start out with “Obama would have …, but this loser dem president is trying to ….”
To many Libyans and others in the Muslim world, the lasting impression from the campaign is that of a reluctant America, slow to intervene and happy to let others take the lead.
Works for me!
We’ve got a bit of an image problem in the Middle Eastern region, and “a reluctant America, slow to intervene and happy to let others take lead” is not the worst impression for us to be leaving as we attempt to do something about that image problem.
It is helpful to be seen to not be intervening for the wrong reasons — US corporate interests.
But to not intervene to protect people who wanted intervention to protect them is not necessarily good PR.
It feeds the story that the US talks about democracy but intervenes only to support dictators.
But folks can see that plainly in the response of US authorities to a democratic movement within the US.
The mayors of Denver, Oakland, Chicago, and other cities, and the governors of Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee, North Carolina, and other states make clear that neither Democrats nor Republicans respect democracy.
So what the Libyans think or do no longer matters that much to US PR.
But to not intervene to protect people who wanted intervention to protect them is not necessarily good PR.
But we did intervene. This is a complaint about our eagerness and vigor. Yours would be a fine complaint if we’d done nothing.
Our image in the region is a wounded, critical patient. We need to stop the bleeding before we can talk about treatment and recovery.
So what the Libyans think or do no longer matters that much to US PR.
I’m talking about the opinion of us among people in the Middle East, so yes, what Libyans think or do matters a great deal on this score.
Well the response to Occupy Wall Street is speaking more to the world about the US commitment to democracy than anything we are doing in the Middle East right now.
Libya is a nation slightly larger in population than Wisconsin. It will be preoccupied with building its political institutions for the next few years. What they think about the US does not really matter unless we have some motives of power with respect to the Middle East. We should matter to them about as much as Christmas Island matters to us.
Yes, the fact is that we intervened. And probably faster than those in Libya realize because they were in a different news environment before the fall of Gaddafi. To go from a peaceful protest on Feb 17 to NATO intervention on Mar 17 meant diplomacy on a very rapid track. The US likely facilitated that effort even if it didn’t front for it. But the Libyan diplomats who defected did more to move the issue through the UN structure.
I, for one, think that for a change we did things in the right way with the right involvement and enough urgency to get things to move forward. And for a change, for the right reasons. But that cannot undo 100 years of meddling in the Middle East just because they sit on huge oil reserves. And the bald opportunism with which US corporations are looking at doing business in Libya does not bode well for future relationships with the Libyan people.
For people in other countries, our actions in their countries, or at least in the region in which their countries are located, are always going to be more important to their perception of us than our own internal actions. This focus on Occupy Wall Street seems completely out of left field in a discussion about our image in the Middle East.
Would you still be arguing this if the case was reversed, and America’s internal democracy was humming along smoothly but we were doing something awful in another country?
But that cannot undo 100 years of meddling in the Middle East just because they sit on huge oil reserves.
Oh, certainly not – but it’s a start.
And the bald opportunism with which US corporations are looking at doing business in Libya does not bode well for future relationships with the Libyan people.
The mere fact of “doing business” isn’t a problem. Libyans want to sell oil, at a profit, to willing buyers. It’s how their country makes money. It’s corruption and coercion in the conduct of business that’s a problem. How Americans (and French, and Germans, and Italians) go about that business is key.
you are wrong about this. “other countries” are following OWS very closely. what happens internal to the USA is followed closely by the rest of the world because the size of our economy means we have impact whatever our foreign policies.
On the Cain item, I’m idly wondering who tipped off Politico. Smacks of something Rove or Perry would do. It’s not like the women involved have come forward, and apparently the number of other people who knew about it at the time was quite limited and didn’t even include a number of board members.
Why would it be Rove? Rove doesn’t like Perry, and that is who would benefit by Cain’s implosion. The best thing would be for some unknown liberal groups to take credit. it keeps Cain front and center, and keeps Perry mired in the dumps.
something strange about Cain’s chief of staff Mark Block – he and John Bolton separated at birth? – or do these ppl just not understand the existence of the internet
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/cain_aides_ran_wisconsin_corporation_that_may_have
_illegally_gotten_his_campaign_off_the_ground.php?ref=fpb
Cain’s newest scandal is only like Justice Thomas if the women are black. If they are white kinda smells like one of them dirty tricks GOP is famous for…think Harold Ford.