Iraq is “so much more important” than the war in Afghanistan. Iraq is a “country in the heart of the Middle East, one of the most important countries there, an oil-producing country.” He added, “Compare that with there’s a Taliban offensive in southeastern Afghanistan. You talk about the middle of nowhere!”
It’s going swimmingly there:
The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.
And in the world of Fred Barnes, this is completely not worth considering:
A suicide car bomb exploded outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing 28 people* and wounding 141 in the deadliest attack this year in the Afghan capital, officials said.
The massive bomb exploded near a row of metal turnstiles outside the embassy, where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas. The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry in the city center…
While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared the random bomb attacks that Taliban militants use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.
This is how Bush usually appears from Fred’s angle
However, getting some sap to buy this…is completely worth considering to Fred.



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God, he’s a f#$%ing idiot.
First class toady. Second to none.
The Penguin to Nowhere…
They’ve jumped the shark. Murdoch Propaganda no longer makes sense.
hi again ET!
don’t want to give you a hard time over at DWT, but seriously – look at S.3044 (”Consumer-First Energy Act”). imo, that was a seriously crappy piece of legislation. if the dems wanted to do something to end energy speculation, it’s hard for me to see that this was the bill to do it. it almost looks like it was designed more as a publicity stunt than a serious attempt to deal with speculation. as much as i don’t like stevens, i can’t hold a “NO” vote on this one against him and as i result i think it weakens your argument.
also, guess i’m coming at this from the perspective of wanting something effective to be done and i think the dems need some pressure to move in the right direction. because so far it looks like they’ve been either doing nothing or doing stupid things. (i don’t think s.3004 is the kind of thing we should encourage.)
p.s. i haven’t gone through all the pending legislation yet, but H.R.6330 looks pretty good so far.
Good morning, pups. It’s [gag] Kristol, Cohen and Krugman today. That idiot Kristol asks “So Where’s Murphy?” He excreted something in which he says in this election, Senator John McCain could use the help of his former campaign strategist Mike Murphy. The question is, will he get it? Mr. Cohen writes about “Obama’s Message to Europe,” and says when Senator Barack Obama meets with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany at the end of the month, he needs to remember the lessons of Berlin. At least with Obama she’ll be safe from unwanted “massages.” Mr. Krugman’s column is titled “Behind the Bush Bust.” He says other politicians besides George W. Bush share the blame for the economic mess we’re in — but most of them are Republicans.
http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/
The coffee and tea are ready, and the biscuits are out of the oven. Have a grand day.
thanks marion. i think krugman’s argument would be stronger if he addressed the neoliberal policies of the clinton era – trade, deregulation, etc -instead of being an apologist for the).
pincus is moving up. only page a11 today:
Morning Attaturk,
Let’s get ready to kick ass.
I didn’t realize one could “win” a rape,news to me.
The FISA vote this week boils down to – would we rather be ruled by a sovereign or the constitution,simple.
indeed. even if our political class refused to acknowledge this.
Morning Attaturk
lmao
Washington Journal
piecing together the lineup
7:00
call-ins on whether or not Bush should go to Olympics opening ceremonies
7:30
Congressional action on Housing
8:30
Russian relations
I love how all of the other panelists (even Kristol) are looking at him like he’s carrying a highly communicable disease.
So I guess the new ”conditions of victory” is never leaving or saying your sorry.
Do you think there is any chance we could convince the Chinese to keep the turkey there? We could send them all the damn bushies, babs, poppy, jenna and not jenna, jeb, neal, loopy laura… the fuckin lot of them.
sadly no
OK, the WJ page finally came up
7:30am – Benton Ives, Congressional Quarterly, Economic Reporter
SENATE HOUSING BILL
8am – Susan Gurley, Association of Corporate Travel Executives, Executive Director
8:30am – Stephen Cohen, New York University, Russian Studies Professor — Nation Op-Ed
9:30am – Newspapers & Viewer Calls
Buyohboy. Benton Ives is pretty inarticulate. Do I want to watch the trainwreck during Qs or should I switch channels?
oh, a train wreck. guess i should turn off santana and turn on c-span?
I switched to CNBC.
I know I would be just awful on TV,
where you comfortable with the online interviews from the git-go when you were on CNBC?
lol. not an option for me.
Yes I was comfortable from the start. When I finally got on TV, I had been a professional economist for over a decade, so I really knew my stuff. Also, most of the interviews were instant analysis of just-published economics data, and the response to that is formulaic: if the data don’t agree with your forecast, you talk about volatility in the data, and if they agree with your forecast, you talk about that. Finally, the interviewers don’t want their guests to look stupid, so they’re not going to ask any zingers.
any supporter of the president and his policies is either an idiot or thinks the rest of us are idiots
one or the other
Murdoch is waiting to put both Kristol and Barnes on the editorial board of WSJ. Once Barnacle leaves office he won’t be buying up all the copies of The Weekly Neocon so Murdoch will be another million in the red annually.
ah, thanks.
It is painful to watch someone sputter around like this guy.
oh, no. i didn’t want to know this. *g*
Tricks of the trade, revealed online!
i’d suck too. the only time i’ve been comfortable speaking in public is when i know the topic far better than anyone in audience.
But isn’t that exactly the point of being a speaker, that you know more than the audience?
I noticed that too – Juan’s eyes are about to roll back into his head… Evan Maura can’t believe what she’s hearing, and she’s been drinking the kool-aid for years.
I believe it was a coup to get krystol on the nyt and he’s gonna stay there until he’s fired
krystol earned instant credibility as a reasonable voice when the nyt hired him, not to us and not to plenty of people who read the paper but to most people
as an international player the times deminished their role by hiring the man who is wrong every time he opens his mouth
but I don’t think they move krystol from the times unless the times says “krystol, this isn’t working out for us”
well, the new “winning in Iraq” IS staying
interesting, “winning” USED to be leaving, now winning is staying
when did th goal in Iraq switch to staying?
I know that’s the intention privately but when did it swithc publicky?
Scarecrow’s up!
more misdirection on Iraq
in the most narrow sense – yes. but there are frequently peripheral issues that may have important bearing on the main topic. and there’s no way to know what i don’t know – so there’s always an element of uncertainty.
The instant Sen. Obama said he wanted to leave.
Colombian “rescue” actually a ransom operation, according to a report cited on democracynow.
CSPAN topic: the downloading of info from traveler’s computers
and there is the thing, democrats can make it easy on themselves when asked if “we want to win in Iraq”
the answer is;
“we win when we leave, as long as we remain we are failing”
and then point out all the claims of this being a “one week, one month, certainly not 6 month war”
democrat when asked if we want to win in Iraq;
“according to the president himself, this was going to be a 6 month war, and when they wanted us out we would leave, they want us out now and this is far more then a 6 month war, the president made our troops lose, he is the most inept commander in chief we have ever had
it is brutally obvious, the president’s claim from the beginning, which he abandoned is true, we can only win when we leave, don’t YOU want to win in Iraq?”
wathc his head explode
Caught Barnesy yesterday explaining Jesse Helms. “priceless”
What could be more convenient?
Since it’s in “…the middle of nowhere…”, how could ANYONE anticipate that ANYTHING bad could happen there?
Fred Barnes: Just go back to sleep…
Attaturk– thanks for remembering Afghanistan.
Afghanistan where suicide bombings never happened before.
Afghanistan — a country and people under the scourge and horror of war for over 30 years.
Afghanistan– the country where the UN envoy has just said that:
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cp…..enDocument
Barnes’ statements are just representative of the general attitude toward Afghanistan of most of so many asshats in our country– they quite simply do not care.
(They don’t understand or even know history, either.)