Re Mark Halperin’s op-ed, I don’t think it is what it purports to be. I think it is an indirect attack on Hillary.

Halperin’s theme supposedly is that good campaigners don’t make good Presidents. So what examples does he give? Bill Clinton and George Bush.

This is your typical false comparison that MSM types love to use. Look how Clinton is described:

For instance, being all things to all people worked wonderfully well for Bill Clinton the candidate, but when his presidency ran into trouble, this trait was disastrous…

As for Bush:

When George W. Bush ran in 2000, many voters liked his straightforward, uncomplicated mean-what-I-say-and-say-what-I-mean certainty. He came across as a man of principle who did not lust for the White House…
As with Mr. Clinton, though, the very campaign strengths that got Mr. Bush elected led to his worst moments in office. Assuredness became stubbornness..

But more than this, what Halperin is doing is equating Bush’s Presidency, the worst in our history, with Bill Clinton’s which is usually considered a fairly successful one.

And in fact the two characteristics that he says resulted in failure are direct opposites. He says Clinton should have been a less flexible and more of a stubborn idealogue, while Bush was doomed by not being more flexible and not so stubborn.

Amazing that Halperin can suggest two opposite things and conceal it in a pile of verbiage.

rwcole @ 113

Don’t know where the “war” is headed, but the casualty rates are fallin rapidly. If they stay down through the election- it could turn the war into slightly more positive issue for the goops.

This is standard bait and switch. The goal of the surge was not to reduce casualties. That was actually the goal of the previous strategy of Generals Casey and Abizaid who wished to reduce troop numbers and concentrate US forces on a few large and more defendable super-bases. The goal of the surge was to facilitate a political settlement. It was to do this by securing Baghdad not Anbar, and supporting the majority Shia not the Sunnis.

None of this happened. The Sunni truce in Anbar was happening before the surge began. It was not our success against al Qaeda in Iraq but Sunnis tribal sheiks turning on them that has reduced suicide bombings. Baghdad is quieter because it has been effectively ethnically cleansed. Our casualties are also down because the US military is running fewer big sweeps in which many Americans were getting killed.

I don’t doubt that this is the story that Republicans and Bush will try to be selling but it is important to remember that it is a narrative constructed, not on facts, but for a political purpose.

This is why I’m glad that Bill Richardson on ABC’s This Week brought up the fact that violence dropped 90% in Basra after the Brits left. Troops leave, violence drops.

What will matter on election day is general perception.

I really don’t understand what’s goin on in Anbar- some see it as a suckering move- I don’t know. The US seems to have moved a bit to a more pro sunni position- what the long termm effect of that will be will be interesting.

Don’t know where the “war” is headed, but the casualty rates are fallin rapidly. If they stay down through the election- it could turn the war into slightly more positive issue for the goops.

This is standard bait and switch. The goal of the surge was not to reduce casualties. That was actually the goal of the previous strategy of Generals Casey and Abizaid who wished to reduce troop numbers and concentrate US forces on a few large and more defendable super-bases. The goal of the surge was to facilitate a political settlement. It was to do this by securing Baghdad not Anbar, and supporting the majority Shia not the Sunnis.

None of this happened. The Sunni truce in Anbar was happening before the surge began. It was not our success against al Qaeda in Iraq but Sunnis tribal sheiks turning on them that has reduced suicide bombings. Baghdad is quieter because it has been effectively ethnically cleansed. Our casualties are also down because the US military is running fewer big sweeps in which many Americans were getting killed.

I don’t doubt that this is the story that Republicans and Bush will try to be selling but it is important to remember that it is a narrative constructed, not on facts, but for a political purpose.

Don’t know where the “war” is headed, but the casualty rates are fallin rapidly. If they stay down through the election- it could turn the war into slightly more positive issue for the goops.

It really is great the casualty rates have fallen.

They will fall even more when we pull out.

We can most likely credit the sad fact that hundreds of thousands have left the area and/or been killed; there’s simply less people around to target.

As for this becoming a gooper positive, remember even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.

We watched a couple of dvd’s yesterday that had my husband & I looking at each other saying more than once ’sounds very familiar’.
1st one was “Ellis Island” by History Channel. Anti immigrant attitudes in the past are pretty much the same as the present: Immigrants taking american jobs & hostility toward immigrants in war times.
2nd one was “Fire and Ice, The Winter War of Finland and Russia”. The Soviets planned to take over Finland in the 1930’s thinking it would be a cakewalk lasting only a matter of days. The Soviets were extremely confident of this believing the Finnish people would welcome them. The troops even brought their dress uniforms along. One statement either by a historian or Finnish general about Soviet ideology trumping facts was eerie. “Fire and Ice” is a fascinating documentary. I highly recommend it.
Humans, especially those in power, are highly resistant to learning from the past.

Hitler had the menu for the victory banquet at a hotel in Leningrad printed too. i saw a copy of it when i was there in 1993.

What much of the country found endearing in a candidate was troubling in a president.

I know I found eight years of rising prosperity and peace to be troubling.

Mauimom @ 48

The Barnes Foundation collection is phenomenal, although they way they are forced to hang/display it detracts. The collection toured a number of years ago, and I saw it. You’re so lucky!! Enjoy.

the Barnes Collection toured Europe. i saw it in Munich.
Matisse’s “Joie de vivre” hadn’t been seen in Europe in over 80 years.
people were mesmerized.

The Barnes collection is actually moving to a new location:
The foundation says that by moving its collection of 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos and other works to a museum near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum that 200,000 or more people could see it each year.