Posted on 04/13/2005 7:26:55 PM PDT by doug from upland
Nationally syndicated talkshow host Dennis Prager interviewed Nancy Soderberg on his show today. She was No. 3 at the NSC in the Clinton administration and is the author of THE SUPERPOWER MYTH: THE USE AND MISUSE OF AMERICAN MIGHT.
Where do I begin? She was so misguided, disingenuous, arrogant, and foolish, that I almost had to pull over the DFU mobile to vomit.
Among the highlights:
- she is proud of the agreement they made with North Korea
- she claims that the Iraq war was wrong because Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat (I was screaming at that one.....the president never said that but they keep lying about it)
- the U.S. is not the beacon of freedom and hope in the world
- the president told us the war would be easy
Prager was far, far too nice to her, but that is his style. I was on hold to challenge her but she didn't stay on long enough for calls.
- the war in Iraq has nothing to do with what is happening in Lebanon
- she is absolutely opposed to John Bolton
- we are more hated around the world because of President Bush
- she still claims that Clinton told President Bush what a great threat al Qaeda posed......she cited Richard Clarke, but Prager said that Clarke himself has said that it never happened. Soderberg just seemed to ignore that.
It is amazing how the Clintonistas and the entire left do not get it. Our use of force is what keeps us safe and is what is changing the world.
Isn't this like saying, "I'm proud of my investment in Enron?"
I only wish he had time to take my call. I was really ready to get in her face, although the mental image of that makes me cringe.
Politeness, aside. . .wonder if Dennis ever has 'second thoughts' on 'not challenging' his guests, to get to the truth?
Mike Savage would have been. . .well; just that; but he honestly means it; just not always so politely. . .
He talked about it a little afterwards. He did challenge some of her statements fairly well. But he was far too kind to her. I guess that unless you are nice to them they won't come on the air.
In eight years, Clinton accomplished nothing in the area of foreign policy. With people like Berger and Soderberg working for him, it's no wonder.
No, it's much, much worse!!
""- she still claims that Clinton told President Bush what a great threat al Qaeda posed......she cited Richard Clarke, but Prager said that Clarke himself has said that it never happened. Soderberg just seemed to ignore that.""
It's a Washington urban legend. What Clarke actually said was that he told Condi Rice and she looked at him as if she had never heard of Al Qaeda. Clarke said he could tell by looking into her eyes.
There's a problem with this story. Anyone reading a newspaper had heard of Al Qaeda. Clarke story sounded ridiculous and vengeful. So the story was morphed in the lefty chatterbox into Clarke telling Bush.
Dennis also told her that Clinton had no plan for how to deal with al Qaeda.
I know exactly what you mean. I caught a part of her act and couldn't take it either - I kept walking away from the trim work I was doing to go out to the saw. When she advocated multi-lateral negotiations as the only viable model for global problems I had to leave. Her monotone voice with her leftist wit ("hegemon") would induce me to murder if I lived with something like that. What a wretched hag.
I think it would be more like saying I'm proud of my investment in alQaeda.(or Hilter)
"Wretched hag" is perfect.
Category: Political Commentary - Conservative
Posted Wed Mar 09,2005 1:24 AM Last Edited:
Conservatives have known it for years and for as many years as weve known it liberals have been denying it: The apologetic who are we to judge/cant we all just get along worldview of the leftists of is naïve, foolhardy and dangerous and, if allowed to proliferate, will end in the demise of the United States of America first as the worlds only superpower and, following this by no more than 50 years, will result in the end of the United States of America as we all know and love it today.
This type of superapologist mentality has been the hallmark of the last two Democratic presidential administrations and as such, has left me and other conservatives eternally grateful that we had strong Republican presidents who came along right on the heels of these disastrous administrations to clean up the mess the leftists made and to save face in the wake of widespread ridicule and disrespect for the greatest, freest and most powerful nation to inhabit the earth.
The Iranian hostage crisis was only the most prominent example of the bumbling peanut farmer from Plains, Georgias foreign policy blunders. Other lesser known ones would be the giveaway of the Panama Canal to a Chinese-owned conglomerate. We all would have been far better off if he would have skipped his forgettable four years as president and went right into house-building and election monitoring where he could have done no harm to our foreign policy.
Then of course we have the Clinton years. We have more of a frame of reference for the foreign policy disaster that was the Clinton Administration because our current president is still in the process of cleaning up the messes Clinton created a task that will take longer than GW has (go Condi 2008!).
The Clinton era began with the milquetoast Warren Christopher (quite obviously Dr. Suesss model for Yertle the Turtle) ended with that bumbling fool Madeline Alldumb and gave us such wonderful foreign policy triumphs as North Korean nukes and Chinese missiles, the expansion of global terror with no discernable, organized strategy for dealing with it and of course, the lack of what was supposed to be Monicas boyfriends legacy: Middle East peace.
Yes, it was a mess to be sure a mess that conservatives will be cleaning up for years to come. But that doesnt mean the leftists have seen the error of their ways to the contrary, they are pushing the same old apologist themes, the who are we to judge and the appeasement. And one of them has written a book about it endorsed by some heavy-hitting leftists
Comes now Nancy Soderberg, no lightweight herself having been a big shot in the circle jerk that was the Clinton Foreign policy apparatus for Clintons entire two terms and serving from 1997 to 2001 as ambassador to that respected group of tin pans crooks and molesters at the United Nations. Seems she wrote a book: The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might, that echoes everything that is wrong about leftist American foreign policy. And she appeared on the Daily Show the other night to hawk he book and inadvertently prove my thesis: Liberal theories on our role in the world and our relations with other lesser countries (all countries) are shallow, shortsighted, weak and empty. So much so that it took Daily Show host Jon Stewart (a leftist himself) about fifteen minutes to completely debunk the leftist worldview and get Soderberg to agree that Bushs foreign policy works.
James Taranto of opinionjournal.com provides this partial transcript of Stewarts interview with Soderberg thanks to a transcription from his TiVo. It has so many examples of the fallacy of the liberal worldview that I couldnt help making some snide editorial commentary. The interview starts with Soderberg summing up the leftist worldview in a paragraph:
Stewart: This book--it talks about the superpower myth of the United States. There is this idea, the United States is the sole superpower, and I guess the premise of the book is we cannot misuse that power--have to use it wisely, and not just punitively. Is that--
Soderberg: That's right. What I argue is that the Bush administration fell hostage to the superpower myth, believing that because we're the most powerful nation on earth, we were all-powerful, could bend the world to our will and not have to worry about the rest of the world. I think what they're finding in the second term is, it's a little bit harder than that, and reality has an annoying way of intruding.
Bend the world to our will. Hate to break it to Soderberg, but this is whats called standing up for freedom and democracy and were not bending anything. Standing up for freedom and democracy is what caused the fall of the Berlin Wall, the resulting demise of the Soviet Union, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Its what is causing the seeds of democracy to be sown all over the Middle East at this very moment and all of this has been brought about by Republican conservative presidents. The true superpower myth is the liberal worldview that we should somehow be apologetic for our status as a superpower and be ashamed of our freedom and the military strength that makes it possible.This is coupled, of course, with that leftist attitude that who are we to impose our philosophy of government on others?" To the leftists, wanting others around the world to be able to experience democracy is bending the world to our will."
And in this next exchange, both Stewart and Soderberg prove what a bunch of jibbering, incoherent, conflicted leftist idiots they are even as Stewart coaxes Soderberg (wittingly or unwittingly on his part) in the direction of admitting the Bush foreign policy doctrine is working:
Stewart: But what do you make of--here's my dilemma, if you will. I don't care for the way these guys conduct themselves--and this is just you and I talking, no cameras here [audience laughter]. But boy, when you see the Lebanese take to the streets and all that, and you go, "Oh my God, this is working," and I begin to wonder, is it--is the way that they handled it really--it's sort of like, "Uh, OK, my daddy hits me, but look how tough I'm getting." You know what I mean? Like, you don't like the method, but maybe--wrong analogy, is that, uh--?
Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress. But as an American, you hope good things would happen. I think the way to look at it is, they can't credit for every good thing that happens, but they need to be able to manage it. I think what's happening in Lebanon is great, but it's not necessarily directly related to the fact that we went into Iraq militarily.
So to sum up here, Stewart hates Republicans but likes the fact that freedom seems to breaking out all over the Middle East and, is willing to grudgingly concede that Bush is at least partly responsible for it. And Soderberg prefers partisanship here over freedom in the Middle East if it means success for Republicans and thinks that the U.S. show of might in the region has nothing at all to do with the stirrings of self-determination shown in Lebanon.
Stewart does a good job of exposing Soderbergs partisan vitriol, but is exposing his own leftist idiocy in the process, for example: my daddy hits me but look how tough Im getting what idiotic crap. Sort of a Bill Maher lite with a twist. I knew I didnt waste my time on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart for some reason and this type of idiocy is the reason.
This next exchange is just incredible not only because you have two leftist hacks sitting around admitting that a strategy that they dont approve of from an administration that they hate is working and working so well that its scary to them, but also because they admit that theyd rather not see it work: The status quo is better than the Republicans coaxing the unprecedented spread of democracy in the Middle East and apparently, at this early stage, succeeding:
Stewart: This could be unbelievable!
Soderberg:---series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which--it may well work. I think that, um, it's--
Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's--
Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.
Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.
Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.
Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's--it is--I absolutely agree with you, this is--this is the most difficult thing for me to--because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.
Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--
Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!
Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work. No, but I think, um, it's--you know, you have changes going on in Egypt; Saudi Arabia finally had a few votes, although women couldn't participate. What's going on here in--you know, Syria's been living in the 1960s since the 1960s--it's, part of this is
Theres always hope that Democracy in the Middle East wont work. Now theres a fine positive sentiment.
Stewart: You mean free love and that kind of stuff? [audience laughter] Like, free love, drugs?
Soderberg: If you're a terrorist, yeah.
Stewart: They are Baathists, are they--it looks like, I gotta say, it's almost like we're not going to have to invade Iran and Syria. They're gonna invade themselves at a certain point, no? Or is that completely naive?
Soderberg: I think it's moving in the right direction. I'll have to give them credit for that. We'll see.
So by the end of the interview here we have Stewart getting a radical cant we all just get along leftist to admit that a strategy for Middle Eastern democracy that is the polar opposite of the strategy she embraced as a Clintonite and recommends in her book the very strategy her book cautions against works and works so well it is scary to her from her perspective as a stark raving socialist-apologist pig. A foreign policy event the likes of which we havent seen since the fall communism in Eastern Europe something that was completely unfathomable in the leftist administration in which she served completely undermines the thesis of her brand new 400+ page book and the reason why it succeeds flies right over her head even as it smacks her in the face!
If this were just a couple of conflicted and confused leftist chimps yacking on a TV set in front of an audience, it would be no more than a joke. If this woman could be dismissed as just another deluded leftist and her book nothing more than the typical delusional leftist pap that would be great. But this utter confusion, indecision, apologism, groveling and appeasement is the state of the socialist/leftist read institutional Democratic Party foreign policy theory in this country.
Soderberg was a Clintonite an active and fairly high profile participant in the colossal mess that was Clintons foreign policy machine. Her book and presumably, the opinions contained therein, are openly endorsed by William Jefferson Clinton who wrote the forward for it. And the woman who helped make the Clinton foreign policy the joke that is was, Madeline Alldumb, wrote the afterward for this book.
Its obvious that the first-best loser the Democrats had to offer John Fin Kerry endorses this superpower-as-evil-villain view of American foreign policy as well. Conflicted leftist geopolitical ideology was a hallmark of his campaign. He supported the troops but not the war but didnt actually support the troops because he voted for funding them before he voted against funding them. He believed in using the Clinton North Korea template in dealing with possible nuclear proliferation in Iran give them the building blocks for a nuclear program on the promise that they wont develop one and then stand by in stunned amazement wringing your hands when they do. More of the Clinton idiocy in what would have been just another failed leftist foreign policy.
The second-best loser for the Democrats their current socialist DNC chair Screamin Howie Dean has been heard to say that its cool with him if someday we arent the worlds only superpower. In fact he said well eventually have to accept the fact that we may not be a superpower some time in the future.
The rest of the Democratic field ranged from mirroring the Clinton/Kerry/Soderberg/Dean foreign policy apologism to the extreme leftist position of Dennis Kucinich which practically advocated sticking daisies in the gun barrels and marching into Baghdad to apologize to Saddam and plant a big smooch on his butt.
Soderberg may just be a tired leftist hack trying to hawk her lousy book. But she and her book and the amusing little anecdote about how Jon Stewart talked her into debunking in the space of ten minutes a theory she spent 400+ pages detailing are just a sidelight in the real story. The real story here is that the movers and shakers of Democratic Party the ones who will be vying for their party's nomination in 2008, including Hillary Clinton subscribe to this ridiculously naïve, apologetic, easily debunkable socialist world view in which they care more about how the rest of the world perceives us than they do about preserving our freedom and spreading democracy. Remaining the strongest country on the planet and the worlds only superpower is absolutely essential to maintaining our freedom and prosperity as we know it. President Bush realizes this and the results of his proactive, freedom-loving and democracy-nurturing foreign policy are taking hold all over the Middle East. The leftist worldview as detailed by Nancy Soderberg in her book needs to stay right where it is thankfully as no more than a laughable theory debunked on a lousy talk show on Comedy Central. If it ever makes it back into the White House, theres a good chance itll get us all killed.
Steve Bowers has been a staunch conservative since his first vote for Ronald Reagan at the age of 19. He's the founder and president of the one man think-tank Conservatism is Reality Inc. and a regular contributor to Pardon My English, a Conservative Topics Blog. He lives with his loving, blended family smack dab in the heart of flyover country.
yeah,...if the bolsheviks have ANY smarts whatsoever , they'll only employ her to clean the Ladies Rm at one of their "think tanks"
You are right about no rehab for these leftists. Dennis Prager commented how they are not likely to change because, for many of them, this is their religion.
Nancy Soderberg interviewed on Dennis Prager -- I almost had to pull over to vomit
Thank you for your service. How you managed to stay for the whole thing...well I'd just like to say I'm impressed.
As for Dennis being nice remember, When your enemy is doing something stupid don't stop him.
I held for over half an hour and was disappointed that I couldn't speak with her. I wouldn't have been nice.
Did you see any of the interviews on FOX today from Col Hunt re his new book, "They Just Don't Get It" ..??
I've heard it's quite blunt - and I can hardly wait to read it.
'But as an American . . .'
We hardly ever watch Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," but our TV happened to be tuned to it last night when erstwhile Clinton aide Nancy Soderberg, author of "The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might" (foreword by Bill Clinton, blurb by Madeleine Albright) came on. We're not sure what possessed us to turn on the sound and watch, but we're glad we did, for it was a fascinating interview. Here's a TiVo-assisted transcript of most of it:
Stewart: This book--it talks about the superpower myth of the United States. There is this idea, the United States is the sole superpower, and I guess the premise of the book is we cannot misuse that power--have to use it wisely, and not just punitively. Is that--
Soderberg: That's right. What I argue is that the Bush administration fell hostage to the superpower myth, believing that because we're the most powerful nation on earth, we were all-powerful, could bend the world to our will and not have to worry about the rest of the world. I think what they're finding in the second term is, it's a little bit harder than that, and reality has an annoying way of intruding.
Stewart: But what do you make of--here's my dilemma, if you will. I don't care for the way these guys conduct themselves--and this is just you and I talking, no cameras here [audience laughter]. But boy, when you see the Lebanese take to the streets and all that, and you go, "Oh my God, this is working," and I begin to wonder, is it--is the way that they handled it really--it's sort of like, "Uh, OK, my daddy hits me, but look how tough I'm getting." You know what I mean? Like, you don't like the method, but maybe--wrong analogy, is that, uh--?
Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress. But as an American, you hope good things would happen. I think the way to look at it is, they can't credit for every good thing that happens, but they need to be able to manage it. I think what's happening in Lebanon is great, but it's not necessarily directly related to the fact that we went into Iraq militarily.
Stewart: Do you think that the people of Lebanon would have had, sort of, the courage of their conviction, having not seen--not only the invasion but the election which followed? It's almost as though that the Iraqi election has emboldened this crazy--something's going on over there. I'm smelling something.
Soderberg: I think partly what's going on is the country next door, Syria, has been controlling them for decades, and they [the Syrians] were dumb enough to blow up the former prime minister of Lebanon in Beirut, and they're--people are sort of sick of that, and saying, "Wait a minute, that's a stretch too far." So part of what's going on is they're just protesting that. But I think there is a wave of change going on, and if we can help ride it though the second term of the Bush administration, more power to them.
Stewart: Do you think they're the guys to--do they understand what they've unleashed? Because at a certain point, I almost feel like, if they had just come out at the very beginning and said, "Here's my plan: I'm going to invade Iraq. We'll get rid of a bad guy because that will drain the swamp"--if they hadn't done the whole "nuclear cloud," you know, if they hadn't scared the pants off of everybody, and just said straight up, honestly, what was going on, I think I'd almost--I'd have no cognitive dissonance, no mixed feelings.
Soderberg: The truth always helps in these things, I have to say. But I think that there is also going on in the Middle East peace process--they may well have a chance to do a historic deal with the Palestinians and the Israelis. These guys could really pull off a whole--
Stewart: This could be unbelievable!
Soderberg:---series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which--it may well work. I think that, um, it's--
Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's--
Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.
Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.
Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.
Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's--it is--I absolutely agree with you, this is--this is the most difficult thing for me to--because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.
Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--
Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!
Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work. No, but I think, um, it's--you know, you have changes going on in Egypt; Saudi Arabia finally had a few votes, although women couldn't participate. What's going on here in--you know, Syria's been living in the 1960s since the 1960s--it's, part of this is--
Stewart: You mean free love and that kind of stuff? [audience laughter] Like, free love, drugs?
Soderberg: If you're a terrorist, yeah.
Stewart: They are Baathists, are they--it looks like, I gotta say, it's almost like we're not going to have to invade Iran and Syria. They're gonna invade themselves at a certain point, no? Or is that completely naive?
Soderberg: I think it's moving in the right direction. I'll have to give them credit for that. We'll see.
Stewart: Really? Hummus for everybody, for God's sakes.
We've long been skeptical of Jon Stewart, but color us impressed. He managed to ambush this poor woman brutally, in a friendly interview. She was supposed to be promoting her book, and instead he got her to spend the entire interview debunking it (at least if we understood the book's thesis correctly from the very brief discussion of it up top).
She also admitted repeatedly that Democrats are hoping for American failure in the Middle East. To be sure, this is not true of all Democrats, Soderberg speaks only for herself, and she says she is ambivalent ("But as an American . . ."). But we do not question her expertise in assessing the prevailing mentality of her own party. No wonder Dems get so defensive about their patriotism.
Interesting too is Stewart's acknowledgment of his own "cognitive dissonance" and "mixed feelings" over the Iraq liberation. It's a version of an argument we've been hearing a lot lately: As our Brendan Miniter puts it, "The president's critics never seem to tire of claiming that the war in Iraq began over weapons of mass destruction and only later morphed into a war of liberation."
Miniter correctly notes that "this criticism isn't entirely right," but for the sake of argument let's assume it is. What does it mean? President Bush has altered his arguments to conform to reality, while his critics remain fixated on obsolete disputes. This would seem utterly to refute the liberal media stereotype. Bush, it turns out, is a supple-minded empiricist, while his opponents are rigid ideologues.
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