Im waiting for my man
Got 26 dollars in my hand
Up to lexington 125
Feelin sick and dirty
Huh, Im waiting for my man
About two weeks ago, we got an email from a long time Republican friend. He successfully ran a Republican presidential campaign. In the email, he simply asked the Stiftung when we thought McCain would be unleashing Army Detachment Steiner. We laughed for all the multi-dimensional reasons.
He’s right, of course. And so is another VRWC Wall Street friend emailing from a late nite Dial Town Car today. He wonders when Palin will send McCain the telex asking if she should take over under the rites of succession given McCain’s untenable position. (Kristol’s betrayal an essential mis en scene backdrop).
Which brings us to Jesse Jackson’s infelicitous predictions about Israel and the Israeli lobby in a Boy King regime.
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where “decades of putting Israel’s interests first” would end. Jackson believes that, although “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.
Those sentiments, observations and hopes are broadly shared by large percentages of the ‘Foreign Policy ‘Establishment’ [sic] ‘, what’s left of the non-radicalized Republican foreign policy apparat, and the Usual Worthies. The prospect of snapping the Neocons’ spine and banishing them to think tank intensive care rallies people of otherwise divergent philosophies – libertarians, Left, traditional conservatives and the vacant trendies.
The Boy King is wise and also correct to emphasize that support for Israel is unwavering. Implicitly he makes that case that Neocon radicalism is Something Else. Segregating those two political memes is essential for a post-Warlord recovery. Jackson because of ‘Hymie Town’ and other colorful incidents blurs everything. All Democrat duct tape is on Biden?
It’s not a snarky observation. Neocons, like ticks, abandon a used host for a more healthy ride. They abandoned Democrats for Reagan. Kristol et al. in 2004 threatened the same stunt on the Warlord. You may recall his petulent memo (it was printed over at STSOZ 1.0?). Kristol threatened to take the Neocon ‘base’ (no snickering, please) to the Democrats and become ‘Neo-Liberals’ because the Warlord showed insufficient ‘resolve’.
You might laugh thinking about 2009. Who would ever be so dumb as to allow their memes to infiltrate a Boy King regime? Sadly, the answer is longer than the phone book. In fact, most of the so-called ‘Oppositionist’ foreign policy liberals are actually more in agreement even now with Neocon fundamental memes and world views (and most, like Peter Beinart, are too dim to know).
Unfortunately, the Boy King is a blank slate and too inexperienced to be classified in an intellectual philosophy. Biden is an intellectual (and verbal) bloviator. The Democratic foreign policy sages in the Boy King’s orbit may be multilateralists, may be more comfortable with (what’s left of our) soft power, may be in the stale Nye-ism ‘owls’. Yet they are in the main definitely not Realists. They view and intend to deploy American power on emotional, abstract ‘values’ and ‘truths’ without the hard calculus of geopolitical realities.
The election by itself is only a small step in breaking the Neocon contagion. Like any good medical treatment, the antibiotics must be administered for the full course. Otherwise the infection can mutate and come back another way.
Just remember. We talked about it here. Give it till 2010. ‘Neo-Liberals’.
Aldershot says
Thanks for posting that, Hunter. McCain was definitely ‘on.’
Hunter says
My last comment ended up in the spam filter (probably because I stuck in the links to the four youtube vids of the Al Smith dinner candidate speeches one after another, but there was also some commentary in the comment) so hopefully someone in charge can do something about that…
Hunter says
Speaking of tossing people into the looney bin, McCain at the end of part 1/beginning of part 2:
“I understand that Keith Olbermann has ordered up his very own “Mission Accomplished” banner. And they can hang that in whatever padded room has been reserved for him. Seriously Chris, if they need any decorating advice on that banner, ask Keith to call me so I can tell him right where to put it.”
Here are the videos (and they were both quite good)…
McCain part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goaj5V4tZoc
McCain part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrqoSyKsAPw
Obama part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk5YJkhizRs
Obama part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SkFjTCscM4
After the debate (at which McCain was trounced by Obama; I was watching with my father and even he couldn’t believe how bad McCain was) I was pretty righteously pissed at the old jackass, but watching these videos, I can see some humanity in both of them. It’s a shame that the rest of the campaign is such that the crazy fringe is so dangerously riled up.
Comment says
McCain’s gig at the Al Smith dinner was excellent.
Anon says
Just the beginning of this poorly planned stunt stunt – Nixon is shaking his head:
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081016/NEWS09/810160418
Anon says
People like Andy McCarthy have to be stripped on any security clearance – and people like Gaffney have to be sent a lunatic asylum:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/gaffney_ups_the_wingnut_quotient.php
Anon says
Correction – above is the wrong link . This is better
http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2008/10/final-debate.html
Anon says
YMMV, but we think Obama won the debate to the extent such things can be judged. Also – we agree here with AI when he says John King and others wanted to swing it to McCain.
http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2008/10/were-all-terrorists-now.html
King and those folks want to pretend McCain won for commerical and horse race reasons and to maintain sources and relationships.
But McCain’s physical reactions were terrible and his un-cleverly phrased Ayyers-related “character” critique just bounced off Obama like a tennis ball off the walls of Dubrovnik.
Comment says
Mayve Obama will teach at Oxford, like Blair teaches at Yale.
McCain is losing tonight – his visual reactions are bad and he failed to be coherent when coherence was needed.
Tbilisi says
I agree, Ike was very smart. His whole gone-golfing shtick was intentional to let the country rest and get normal after some very dire decades, of course all the while actively pursuing policies to lay the foundation for future ‘change makers.’
The Boy King is not this smart or wise (thank you Harvard), and definitely nowhere near as humble to the demands of history.
Obama-as-Blair is way scarier than Obama-as-failure.
Comment says
Hey does anyone know – is Bloomberg TV’s Jon Erlichman related to Nixon’s Erlichman?
Comment says
“One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.” (Chris Hitchens)
It’s kinda funny – lots of McCain profiles always recycle McCain’s supposed love of Somerset Maughem (really) and Hemingway and a few others. It’s part of the Salter narrative –
Hitchens should be more orginal – But he recycles the same “low dishonest” Auden alllusion all the time.
Anon says
Matt Dowd says Palin pick was not responsible, but Joe Lieberman would have been.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/bush-strategist-mccain-kn_n_134570.html
Anon says
Well Ike was smarter than he seemed. But get ready – Colin Powell might be getting ready to nod approval:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/colin-powell-is-ready-to_b_134777.html
Tbilisi says
From here in Shatili, I see three possible Futures for the Boy King:
1. Peanut Farmer-esque naive reactionary weakness leading to rapid spiral impotence, followed probably by a Palinate Republican Restoration, as STSOZ has predicted previously.
2. Yale Tony Blair-type success, i.e. making permanent and making palatable the destruction of liberal society at the altar of half-assed neo-conservo-liberal ideology. The neocon disease would find a perfect host here, as the Doctor describes above.
3. Ike-like caretaker government: modest restorative therapy, preventing catastrophe but avoiding success, in the realization that true positive change can only come later (but real negative change can come now).
If Obama is as fake as he may be, he will be quickly overwhelmed by events and crash and burn. If he is smarter than he seems, he will be a new Eisenhower, quietly setting the stage for a restored democracy in the future.
Most likely though is that he is smart but not wise and we will get our Tony Blair, thus leading to the permanent institutionalization of the excesses of the Warlord. You know – one cost-efficient way to get ‘change we can believe in’ is just to get people to accept belief in changes that already happened.
(And anyone who thinks that Blair has not destroyed British society by cleverly exploiting the excesses of Thatcher has never ventured very far out into Little Britain lately.)
Apologies for the treatsie.
Anon says
Taibbi vs Byron York – hilarious
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/10/matt_taibbi_and_byron_york_but.html
York has gotten away too long with stuff.
Anon says
The next time Palin has a Sheriff dumb enough to introduce her at a rally in full uniform, she should try to
get him to drive up to the podium in this:
http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2008/10/12/8812
Anon says
The best think for Obama to do is to continue to adopt some neocon rhetoric on a case by case basis, but avoid wars and try to stop current ones.
Thankfully he has an economic crisis to help.
We just listened to an interview with Col. Wilkerson with Scott Horton. It’s just amazing how little Wilkerson seems to understand and how smug he is to think he learned his lessons. He really does not understand how the neocons defeated him and part of that is due to way his seems to judge people using resume and resume-like criterea instead of obvious merit. Wilkerson talks about how “both sides” are “talking past each other,” as if the neocons and fellow travellers just never had the opportunity to learn where they were wrong.
Chris Buckley endorsing Obama – Isn’t that like Prince Charles joining Sein Fein? Ok – not really, but that go a cheap laugh they other day.
Anon says
This interview with Jesse could have cause Obama some problems a while ago. Amir Teheri asking Jesse about Israel = Setup and Stunts. etc.
Too late for all that – Obama has been excellent framing issues about Israel by adopting maximal rhetorical support and putting anxieties to rest. He has also established some distance from Jesse so the non-Pod media will never hold Jesse against Obama at this point.
McCain would be foolish to try to use Jesse against Obama – even if it made sense, it would backfire in a delightful (IMO) way.
mullah cimoc says
mullah cimoc say fat, corrupt pig name jesse jackson finally say one true. but him still fat and corruption pig.
now time for ameriki care about ameriki, to deport or to prison it neocon spies in white house, pentagon and usa media.
who am william kristol? Am it israeli agent? Why him magazine never to make profit but just to happpy rupert murdoch. am murdoch israeli neocon agent? for to answer this question ameriki need google: +”Robert Maxwell” +mossad
dumb ameriki keep the stupid by usa media. for this nobody of ameriki know maxwell him first rupert murdoch.
now ameriki suffer so much and to future suffer because lose soul, become feminize, not man now just sissy. him son the gay homosexual and fag, it daughtrer slut take LBT (low back tattoo), wife to lesbian hate man not to cook any more. this the punish for feminize amriki mans.