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Interview After Words with Frank Luntz C-SPAN, BookTV John McCaslin , Washington Times Frank I. Luntz , Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research |
Will someone please explain to me the obsession with Joe Biden that all the Sunday show hosts have? Dick Lugar I can understand, he is a Republican the democrat-favoring driveby media can count on to prove the dem talking points, but Biden? First of all Biden is running for President as a dem and will challenge such DBM darlings as Hillary and Obama. Secondly, he's not very bright. Finally, he simply appears too much, one would think the hosts would worry that his constant appearances would hurt ratings.
I guess they must get good ratings with Biden as he's always on. I think our little contingent of DBM Sunday watchers mnust be the unimpressed with Biden minority!
Top of the morning A B
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| 06:00 PM EST 1:00 (est.) |
Interview After Words with Frank Luntz C-SPAN, BookTV John McCaslin , Washington Times Frank I. Luntz , Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research |
Oh, good, an authority on the war in Iraq, I assume.
I just read Alas, Babylon a couple months ago and loved it, passed it on to a friend who also loved it.
Kevin Bacon? Six Degrees of Hillary?
I fully agree with you about Biden as many others. Even liberals like Dana Milbank expose Biden's Talk Show & presidential jostling.
(Nice article with humor).
Exciting lineup of guests today. /s
Looks like FNS has the only lineup worth wasting electricity on this morning. Other than that, the same worn out faces are making the rounds again. Wonder where McPain is today? Suspiciously absent again.
Here in Atlanta we don't get MTP or FNS till 10 AM and This Week is on at 11AM.
Maybe Biden shares the same agent as the hosts.
You may be able to watch Senator Brownback disembowel his 2008 Presidential Campaign live on national TV today. IF, as rumored, he comes on and announces he will support the Democrats gutless Iraq Resolution Brownback is finished. You might just get to watch one of the greatest political miscalculations in US History live on your TV's today.
For Brownback to take this position the same week more the 27,000 of the most activist Conservatives in the Country sign this pledge indicates a political tone deafness that makes one wonder just how Brownback even managed to get elected to the US Senate in the 1st place.
http://truthlaidbear.com/thenrscpledge/index.php
27,112 people have signed The Pledge thus far. Will you?
If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.
Booo!
You have FR mail.
John Kerry: some things never change
One of John Kerry's more notable characteristics is his tendency to "flip-flop," to change his position on an issue when it becomes convenient. It's also rather remarkable how he can rationalize it as not contradictory, but entirely consistent and logical and correct.
But in many other ways, Kerry is remarkably unchanging. In those ways, his fundamental character just shines through.
My superb colleague Kim yesterday talked about WHAT John Kerry did in Davos. As the site's resident New Englander, who's lived in the state next door to Kerry's home of record all my life, I thought I would give it some context and show that his actions are entirely typical for him -- and why he (as always) doesn't see why anyone would be upset with him.
As almost everything in his life does, it all goes back to Viet Nam. More specifically, to the 3 months John Kerry spent there, because nearly everything he's done since has been built on those three months.
After Kerry returned from Viet Nam, he threw himself into the anti-war movement. And, I think, he's always trying to relive those heady days, to recapture the time when he was the toast of the town.
There's an old tradition that's dying out here in America -- that politics ends at the water's edge. We fight and squabble and bicker among ourselves, but we keep the arguments "at home" -- we don't duke it out in public, out on the world stage. We keep our disagreements within our borders, and don't take it to other countries. It's a good tradition, and I think we're poorer for it.
In 1970, John Kerry was discharged from active duty in the United States Navy and entered the Naval Reserve. Later that year, he travelled to Paris and met with the leadership of the Viet Cong's political wing (there for official negotiations with the United States). Those contacts helped him win a role in crafting "The People's Peace Treaty," a pie-in-the-sky fantasy Kerry and others "negotiated" with the Viet Cong and then tried to push on the United States government. This was not only a violation of the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from intervening in foreign policy by negotiating with foreign governments, but a serious violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which Kerry (as a Naval Reserve officer) was bound by.
Now, in 2007, Kerry (currently a United States Senator) has attended a world economic summit in Switzerland and denounced the actions of the United States.
In 1971, Lt. John F. Kerry (USNR) testified before Congress about the Viet Nam war. He said that American troops. Quoting other soldiers, Kerry said that
"(T)hey had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war."
Kerry also said he had committed war crimes, specifically participating in "free fire" zones.
Many of those whom Kerry quoted were later exposed as liars and frauds. He, in effect, was using his standing and credibility to give credence to their frauds.
In 2007, in Davos, Switzerland, Kerry denounced the Bush administration's opposition to the Kyoto Accords on greenhouse gas emissions. Here, Kerry is using his "credibility" as a United States Senator and presidential nominee (who just barely lost in 2004) to give cover to those who choose to rewrite history.
Yes, President Bush has opposed the Kyoto Accord. He did so when he was first running, and he hasn't changed his position since. But what does that really mean?
Not a hell of a lot.
The Kyoto Accord first came up for approval in 1998. And as the United States Constitution requires of all treaties, it must be ratified by the United States Senate. At that time, President Clinton opposed it, citing that far too many developing countries were specifically excluded from its mandates. President Clinton directed Vice President Al Gore to sign it on behalf of the United States, but purely as a symbolic act -- he did not want to commit the US to it until it covered all nations, developing as well as industrialized.
At the same time, the Senate passed a measure (co-sponsored by Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) stating the Senate's opposition to Kyoto as written. The measure was utterly meaningless, as President Clinton never submitted the treaty for formal approval, but it was a clear indicator that the Senate did NOT like it. The resolution passed with 95 votes in favor, five abstentions, and zero votes supporting the Kyoto Accord.
Not even John Kerry's.
Finally, Kerry lambasted President Bush's efforts to fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa. Apparently the good senator has not been informed that Bush has directed the spending of a great deal of money on just that problem -- not only several times more than President Clinton did, not only far more than any other president, but quite possibly more than EVERY other president. What's more, it's not just "throwing money at the problem" -- it's getting results.
A while ago, I wrote a piece wondering why the hell the United States should do anything -- anything at all -- for Africa, and came up with a sound reason, one firmly rooted in enlightened self-interest. It's comforting to see that the Bush administration agrees with me.
If I had the time and resources to investigate it, I would like to see just how that funding got through Congress -- and how Senator Kerry voted on the measure. The cynic in me wonders he didn't remember it because the bill came up while he was running for president, and missing over 80% of Senate roll-call votes.
Glenn Reynolds, He Who Needs No Linkage, opined: "Like Jimmy Carter, he'll never forgive America for rejecting him, and he'll console himself with the approval of America's enemies."
It's a great observation, and I think it applies quite nicely to Carter. But I don't think it's what's behind Kerry -- or, at least, to a great extent. Kerry's behavior is entirely consistent with his actions dating back over 35 years.
http://wizbangblog.com/2007/01/28/john-kerry-some-things-never-change.php
Morning AB, All...
Right now I need Snugs. I am making her Red Velvet cake and I want to make sure I am using the right kind of sugar.
I'm not sure what "caster" sugar is although the recipe Snugs gave me does also say GRANULATED. Well I know what that is.
We have something called CONFECTIONERS sugar over here in the states. Should I be using THIS kind of sugar for the icing? CONFECTIONERS is a real powdery sugar, not grainy like granulated. Usually frosting is made with CONFECTIONERS sugar so this is why I am asking.
This is a bit of an emergency here...get your priorities right.
Oh, and I got wild and way out stories about my "controversial" submission to the Sussex county GOP women's newsletter.
Oh, and then there's the attack of the Bichon Frise...I'm not making this up.
For now, the Red Velvet Cake looms.
Did anyone mention Winken Blinken and Nod's trip to Iraq yet?
(for those in Rio Linda, Pelosi and Murtha)
Kerry Slams US In Davos Summit
There's something about the Davos economic summit that drives American leftists to slam their own country while abroad. Two years ago, Eason Jordan lost his job at CNN over his accusations in Davos that the US military had a policy of assassinating journalists in war zones. Today, John Kerry used the forum to scold the Bush administration for its foreign policy while specifying two issues that predate it:
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry slammed the foreign policy of the Bush administration on Saturday, saying it has caused the United States to become "a sort of international pariah."
The statement came as the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee responded to a question about whether the U.S. government had failed to adequately engage Iran's government before the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005.
Kerry said the Bush administration has failed to adequately address a number of foreign policy issues.
"When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy," Kerry said.
"So we have a crisis of confidence in the Middle East - in the world, really. I've never seen our country as isolated, as much as a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons as it is today."
[BEHOLD]
Once again, we have the spectre of Kyoto haunting the Bush administration, when it was the Clinton administration that refused to submit the treaty to the Senate -- and the Senate that unanimously passed a resolution saying they'd never ratify it. The Byrd-Hagel Resolution in 1997 made it clear that the US would not allow itself to be bound by the treaty as long as it exempted India, China, and other developing nations. That's the same position as the Bush Administration has taken -- and the same position that John Kerry himself took in 1997 when he voted in favor of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.
That's yet another example of the hypocrisy of John Kerry -- but there's more.
He took the time to scold the Bush administration for its lack of effort on AIDS and other diseases in Africa. However, Bush has already spent more on these issues than the last Democratic administration did in eight years. Humanitarian aid to Africa comprised $1.4 billion a year at the end of the Clinton administration, but Bush has tripled that to $4 billion per year -- and wants to more than double it over the next two years:
President Bush's legacy is sure to be defined by his wielding of U.S. military power in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is another, much softer and less-noticed effort by his administration in foreign affairs: a dramatic increase in U.S. aid to Africa.
The president has tripled direct humanitarian and development aid to the world's most impoverished continent since taking office and recently vowed to double that increased amount by 2010 -- to nearly $9 billion. ...
Bush has increased direct development and humanitarian aid to Africa to more than $4 billion a year from $1.4 billion in 2001, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And four African nations -- Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt and Uganda -- rank among the world's top 10 recipients in aid from the United States.
So not only is John Kerry a hypocrite, he's also an ignoramus. However, we have noticed that the Davos forum has become, over the years, a convention of sorts for both. Kerry should feel right at home.
UPDATE: Allahpundit has the video at Hot Air.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/27/kerry-rips-bush-in-front-of-former-iranian-president-at-davos/
UPDATE II: Glenn Reynolds sums Kerry up in his link back to this post: "Like Jimmy Carter, he'll never forgive America for rejecting him, and he'll console himself with the approval of America's enemies."
http://instapundit.com/
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/citizen.cgi/9021
Footnote Links:
Clinton refused to submit to Kyoto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
Kerry took the same position as the Bush Admin. (which was the same as the Clinton Admin. on Kyoto re: Kerry's 1997 Byrd-Hagel Resolution vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205
Bush has triped humanitarian aid/AIDS funding to Africa (now 4 mil a year):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/30/AR2006123000941_pf.html