I have no fucking clue…

   

IMO it’s a passel of DLCers running. Senate level. They drew lots for who should be whom to the hapless electorate:  You be Mary Mary Quite Contrary, and I will be Little Miss Muffet…thank goodness it’s easy to remember that the Republicans are the Big Bad Wolf….   

Well, all but.

But, in the spirit that someone will win, some last minute interviews that Obama and Edwards gave to the NYT (guess Hillary fended them off).  The preamble states it is edited, so …

Interview with John Edwards…

and this appears at the close… sigh.  I’d feel a lot better [not that I care, mind you] if he did not so clearly need Elizabeth with him as much as possible.

Q. Thank you for your time.

A. Thank you for making the trip here.

Elizabeth Edwards: My only criticism is that you did not talk about training outside of Iraq, the training of security forces.

Q. Basically what you seem to be implying is that we are out of the training business for training the Iraqi soldiers.

Mr. Edwards: Oh No. I think we can do training outside of Iraq.

Q. Well, go ahead. So your point is that you would continue it outside.

Mrs. Edwards: You’re looking at me. It’s the one thing you forgot.

Q. Well, you’re the one who made the point. It’s not in the White Book; I looked.

Mr. Edwards: I have talked about this in the past. I think we can do some ongoing training outside of Iraq. I think the problem of doing the training inside of Iraq is the troop level that is required.

Q. What you can do outside Iraq is limited.

Mr. Edwards: Of course, it is limited.

Q. You have to take the forces there away from the fight, and you can’t do unit training. There’s not very much you can do outside Iraq but you can do some.

A. You can do some. You can do some.

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Interview with Barack Obama…

Q. In your plan presented in September, you mentioned if there was widespread sectarian killing, you said you would reserve the right to send American forces back into Iraq as part of an international effort to stem the sectarian killings and to protect the population. So there are some circumstances that even after the pullout of combat forces, you would envision a population security mission. Would you be prepared to do this unilaterally? How bad would it have to be before you would contemplate going back into Iraq?

A. I don’t think this is something that you can perfectly calibrate. You have to look at the situation on the ground. As I’ve already noted, I believe that there will be a spike in violence as we make a transition. Keep in mind that I think that there’s going to be more violence over the long haul by us not changing the course, so I’m weighing – again – bad options.

It is conceivable that there comes a point where things descend into the mayhem that shocks the conscience and we say to ourselves, this is not acceptable, anymore that what happened in Darfur is not acceptable. At that point, my strong, strong preference would be to work in concert with the international community. Now I think there are some things that we can do to prevent some of that, that are non-military. I think it’s important, and I mentioned this in the speech in September, for us to start setting up an international commission that is tracking some of the activities that are going on in Iraq and allow for the perpetrators of mass violence to be held accountable.

Now, obviously, we’re not in a very strong footing right now to do that, when we just provide immunity to Blackwater Security Forces. That undercuts that message. Part of what we want to have is a structure in place that says, ‘We’re starting to keep track of what’s going on and there’s an international mandate to insure that crimes against humanity are not taking place.”

Oh it’s a nice thought, vaguely stated, the capitulation already embedded.  So typical.  And if you read it carefully, he does not mean violence, “things that descend into mayhem” or “crimes against humanity” as perpetrated by US forces.  Not at all.

Such a valiant opponent of the war.  And for all I know he had Michelle AND Samantha in attendance and they just did not pipe up.

Q. Presumably, the purpose would be to discourage the sectarian acts that would compel you to go back into Iraq. In terms of enforcement, would you then try to apprehend the war criminals, the way it’s done in the Balkans, taken into custody? Or would it be to simply put them on a list?

A. If you’ve got a red line and that red line is crossed, part of what you want to see is the international community taking action. This is not going to happen smoothly, but it hasn’t happened smoothly in the Balkans. It hasn’t happened smoothly in Africa. But it begins to create a norm that people understand the international community may enforce and it offers not a perfect, but a modest prophylactic to the kind of activities that not just the United States, but all people around the world want to prevent.

Another meddler and quite anxious to be one. 

No one else really applies for the job, by now it advertises quite openly that it is blood work, making sure the gutters in the abattoir are filled.

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Just for ridiculous, poor Larry Johnson (and his sidekick Susan Hu)… it is impossible to open a diary based site that does not carry one of their pro-Hillary shill works.  How appalling. 

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The Washington Note, in support of the distasteful and lying parade of nearly elderly, center-right, congealing fuckball of pols past any prime they ever had (and the thread is a hoot, the commenters just lined up Gatling guns and shot at all those failed and passe pols), Clemons did, however, get off a good graf or two on the national situation:

[T]his kind of effort reminds me of former Council on Foreign Relations Vice President Nancy Roman’s “Both Sides of the Aisle,” a well-intended but policy-lite treatment on what it would take to rebuild common cause across party lines and foster more bipartisanship. One of her core recommendations was that Republican and Democratic Members of Congress travel together on Congressional Delegations (CODELs) more frequently.  [I’d support this if the trips are one way!  No Return!  Sans Retour, bar the borders against THEM!!— Mcat]

Traveling together does not remedy the fact that Republicans and Democrats were complicit in the Iraq War. Both parties have been complicit in the appropriations corruption that came with obscene Homeland Security spending around the nation. Both parties have been complicit in refusing to solidly challenge the most aggressive expansion of Executive Branch authority in more than a century. Both parties have been complicit in failing to shore up investment in the American economy and its workforce. Both parties have been complicit in allowing Americans to be spied on. Both parties have been complicit in allowing low level soldiers to take the hit for Abu Ghraib and allowing the decision-makers in the White House and Pentagon to get a complete pass.

The situation we have today was produced by aggressive, high-fear tactics of minority political operations within both the Republican and Democratic parties — that then cowed a party membership that passively followed.

Mooo… 

What I see, still, is a passel of DLCers who want the really big Mcjob. Top of the greasy heap, flipping the world on the griddle.  And collecting  the perks.  I do think EE had some version of a Murtha moment (best I could ever figure he began to weep one day at a bedside at Walter Reed, it lasted for two years, almost to the day, and was all about him, so typical)  – EE, probably genuinely, wants to help people, in some missionary, welfare from above sense.  It is not enough.

 

       from Common Ills by isaiah…

Christ, can they get nothing straight?  You know they all were thinking, 2063, or ’73 or…

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