I was upset to see that this little girl’s SOTU response was slightly more popular than mine but then I actually watched it and it’s pretty awesome:
Well said.
Monomania-mania
Here’s the Financial Times‘s Gideon Rachman on high-level Israeli officials, American hawks, and John Edwards getting together at the shop and here’s his take on the Israeli view of things: “they clearly think that it is most likely that Israel and the United States will soon be faced by the decision over whether to take military action. They hope the US will do it. But the strong implication is that Israel will take action alone if necessary. But they are far from sanguine about the potential regional consequences, in terms of a wider war, terrorism and so on.” Well, I’m not sanguine either, which seems like one of several good reasons not to do it.
Here’s what John Edwards told the audience. It’s not quite as bad a talk as I was initially led to believe. That said, with the United States and Israel drifting in the direction of a disastrous Iran policy Edwards is rather clearly choosing not to push against the drift. How much of this is political expediency and how much is convictions?
UPDATE: Stoller is harsh but fair: “The issue for John Edwards has always been credibility. Why should we trust a man who sold us out on the war vote? His answer is that he’s changed. But has he?” I agree. I understand the political realities here, but I’d be much more inclined to give Edwards slack on this had he shown better judgment in the past.
Hagel Chides Colleagues On Iraq Vote: ˜If You Wanted A Safe Job, Go Sell Shoes
This morning in his opening statements before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, “The American people are far ahead of us” on what to do next in Iraq. “They’re not conflicted with the nuances of life. They understand what’s going on.” According to a recent Gallup Poll, 56 percent of Americans want a withdrawal from Iraq within a year.
Hagel chided his fellow colleagues for being too concerned about the politics of their Iraq positioning. “If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes,” he said. Hagel concluded that all 100 Senators have a responsibility to take a position on escalation. “We owe it to those men and women that we continue to send in that grinder.” Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/01/hagel_grinder.320.240.flv]
Transcript: Read more
Nothing to See Here
I know Petey thinks monomania is an unattractive quality in a blogger, but it does seem to me that somebody should pay attention as the Iran war drums keep beating. Here‘s Amir Taheri in The New York Post and here‘s Benny Morris in The New York Sun (see Robert Farley’s refutation) and here‘s New Republic editor Martin Peretz’s endorsement of the latter.
UPDATE: Here‘s moderate warmonger Patrick Clawson from WINEP writing in the World Jewish Digest. Clawson, to his credit, recognizes that the international blowback from unilateral Israel or American strikes would, at this point, be extremely severe and advocates not bombing but rather laying the diplomatic and logistical groundwork for future bombing.
