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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | Liz Cheney

Testosterone, Weinergate, Women and Leadership

By on 13 June 2011

“We inject less libido… We don’t necessarily inject our own egos…” – Christiane Lagrande, French Foreign Minister (possible IMF replacement for Strauss-Kahn)

Foreign policy studies find that when women are included in a nation’s national dialogue that country has not only a better chance of stability, but it’s the only way developing nations can thrive. There are now studies that women make companies more economically successful when they’re in the lead. On ABC’s “This Week” yesterday, Christiane Amanpour teed up the topic with Cecilia Attias (ex-wife to Pres. Sarkozy), Torie Clarke, Claire Shipman.

Rush Limbaugh was even more unhinged than usual today because of this subject. Limbaugh talked about the “chick-i-fi-cation” of the U.S. One female caller said that women today having affairs with politicians are “greedy,” because in the old days they’d keep their mouth shut. Classic example of Rush’s female audience. This same caller opined that men should run the household, while Rush blamed liberal women for the fate of a bullies, Weiner and everything that ails the male populace.

After all these years of tuning in to Rush, however briefly when I can. I’m still amazed that his criteria for a successful woman includes marriage, children, heterosexualism, but especially beauty.

But while countries and corporations need women to thrive and succeed, there are other examples where women haven’t made any difference at all.

Where foreign policy, diplomacy and militarism meet, women still fail as miserably as men, because they’re intent on channeling what any man would do or say. Sometimes, of course, foreign policy answers aren’t gender based, with the obvious answer showing itself no matter the gender. But in tough geopolitical situations, so far women still have not found their own way.

Let’s remember who was at the forefront of Obama’s decision to get involved in Libya, which began with Samantha Power and Dr. Susan Rice, but also Sec. Clinton, who was convinced bombing Libya was the right move. It wasn’t.

There is no evidence whatsoever of women being more restrained, thoughtful or less militaristic. See Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, but also women like Anne-Marie Slaughter, who wrote an op-ed entitled “Fiddling While Libya Burns.” You could also add Sec. Madeleine Albright’s comment that Colin Powell recalled in his memoir: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about, if we can’t use it?” It blew his mind.

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Herman Cain: Muslims Require Loyalty Oath

By on 09 June 2011

It's hard to know where to start with this one. It starts with Cain demanding loyalty oaths from Muslims, but no one else. Charming, I know.

Herman Cain was voted to have won the first Republican debate. He didn't have a clue about anything on foreign policy, but that didn't matter. With Republican primary voters all you need is to plug in your ideology and away we go.

It's the Liz Cheney theory, too.

But sitting down with Glenn Beck, Cain took his ignorance to a new level, adding bigotry to it.

BECK: So wait a minute, are you saying that Muslims have to prove, there has to be a loyalty proof?
CAIN: Yes, to the Constitution of the United States of America.
BECK: Well, would you do that to a Catholic or a Mormon?
CAIN: No, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t because there is a greater dangerous part of the Muslim faith than there is in these other religions. I know there are some Muslims who talk about but we’re a peaceful religion. I’m sure that there are some peace-loving.

When a politician manages to make Glenn Beck look like the sane one he's got trouble.

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Liz Cheney: Bush Blew the Middle East

By on 06 June 2010

Finally.

Someone on the right admits how Israel, but also her allies, got saddled with Hamas in the first place. It’s about time. A good foreign policy motto is to first do no harm; meaning the U.S. shouldn’t make political matters worse than when we began “helping,” aka engaging in another sovereign entities domestic business.

Of course, Liz Cheney didn’t exactly say it as I wrote in the headline, but from 2006 forward it’s what I’ve been writing. If it hadn’t been for Bush involving the U.S. in the Palestinian election process, pushing them when they were not ready, Israel would likely not have Hamas leadership to contend with today.

On “This Week” with Jake Tapper, Cheney came clean, the first politician on either side to point the finger at the Bush-Cheney administration, which was more responsible for Hamas taking a leadership role than anyone else.

“You were at the State Department in 2005, 2006 when these [Palestinian] elections were pushed,” host Jake Tapper said. “And some people were saying ‘Don’t do it, they’re not ready for it.’ Do you think that was a mistake in retrospect?” Tapper asked.

“I do,” Cheney replied. “I don’t think they were ready for it. I don’t think we should have pushed it.”

She emphasized though that “no matter how they came into power, they are a terrorist organization.”

What’s ironic is that for all Liz Cheney and the neoconservative right’s rants, she doesn’t get the irony that Republicans helped put a terrorist organization in power on Israel’s doorstep. Not exactly a friendly act. It caused Israel’s challenges, as well as their domestic headaches, to increase exponentially. Not to mention what a nightmare it’s been for the United States and our Arab allies, but also for the international community.

This is what the right does consistently: They bray about national security, but never make us safer.

They didn’t do anything for Israel’s security during the Bush-Cheney years. Helping put Hamas in power is just one example.

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Do Women Have to Talk Like Men to be Taken Seriously on National Security?

By on 11 April 2010

“If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off.” – Sect. Hillary Clinton

Call her Obama’s pit bull.

Sitting next to her good friend and colleague SecDef Gates on “Face the Nation,” Sect. Clinton said what I wrote the other day after Pres. Obama announced his new nuclear policy. That “all options are on the table” at all times when it comes to U.S. national security, regardless of who is president. It’s just unfortunate she was the one who had to imply it by channeling male lingo. We get Pres. Obama creating 21st century strategic nuclear policy using 21st language, while his female secretary of state is left to rattle sabers to send messages to America, but particularly to the right, that the Obama administration isn’t soft on national security. Considering Obama is targeting an American for assassination, going one step further than Bush-Cheney, it’s astounding that the Administration feels the need to go on the defensive at all.

However, that’s where we are, which was proven recently in a Democratic poll showing that since George W. Bush left office, the security gap is back.

On national security, the poll found that 50 percent of likely voters prefer Republicans, while only 33 percent prefer Democrats. It’s the return of a “security gap” that all but vanished in 2008 because of Obama’s popularity and Bush’s mishandling of Iraq, Bennett said.

It’s Sect. Clinton’s job to defend Pres. Obama’s policies, but it’s easy to see how she got into trouble on Iraq, as her language remains moored in 20th century shaping. It’s one reason why Obama likely picked her for State, along with her world grasp of issues. But beyond her voice on women’s issues, Clinton’s language doesn’t do much for placing women beyond the 20th century macho military machine mumbo jumbo. The impression Clinton leaves behind using this “all bets are off” bravado is that women don’t own their own language, or can’t use it if they do, or they’d be considered soft.

After all, even though Pres. Obama is more like Bush-Cheney on security issues, at home and abroad, he’s got a security gap when compared to Republicans. We expect men to defend their positions using bellicose language. However, Pres. Obama is progressing forward by re-invigorating nuclear zero and putting it as a priority.

Perception is reality in politics, so get out there and rattle those sabers, Sect. Clinton, rattle them.

Even the smartest woman we have on the international scene won’t shake the 20th century language of war. As if talking about nuclear zero, plus the beefing up of conventional weaponry and other technology, isn’t enough to show toughness, without resorting to the macho, cringe-worthy swagger of “all bets are off.”

Clinton’s language close to a defensive response to Liz Cheney speaking at the SRLC:

Cheney told the roughly 3,500 conservative activists and donors gathered for the conference that there are three prongs to the president’s foreign policy: “apologize for America, abandon our allies and appease our enemies.” “The Obama administration is putting us on the path to decline,” added Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Both women, though on opposite sides and of widely different stature, seeing who can one man up the men or at least perpetuate their talking points more effectively.

Segue to Sarah, who responded to Obama questioning her nu-cular, as Mrs. Palin pronounces it, acumen, saying “all that vast nuclear nucular expertise he acquired as a community organizer, a part-time senator, and a candidate for president.”
Palin went on to say that Obama hasn’t accomplished anything regarding North Korea or Iran.

“In foreign policy now we’ve got the makings of the Obama doctrine, which is coddling enemies and alienating allies.” – Sarah Palin

To Sarah and Liz, diplomacy is “coddling,” while expecting Israel to stop settlements that are causing trouble on peace “alienating allies.” Mrs. Palin even going so far as to say settlements in Israel were just “a zoning issue.”

We have come to expect women on the right to channel Margaret Thatcher, because they don’t have a prayer with their base if their language isn’t strapped on.

There is, however, no longer any excuse for Sect. Clinton, as she has no base to keep, her political years now behind her. But still we get the unimaginative machismo of “all bets are off.” It’s discouraging as much as it is lazy.

As for our current challenges with Pres. Karzai, as I predicted, Liz Cheney made brothers of Mr. Karzai and Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Afghan President Karzai, whose support we need if we are going to succeed in Afghanistan, is being treated to an especially dangerous and juvenile display from this White House. They dress him down publicly almost daily and refuse to even say that he is an ally. There is a saying in the Arab world: “It is more dangerous to be America’s friend than to be her enemy.” In the age of Obama, that is proving true.

So, we’ve got Sect. Clinton talking about “all bets are off,” while Obama invokes nuclear zero and a progressive 21st century nuclear policy. Liz Cheney accusing Obama of “appeasement.” While Sarah Palin criticizes Pres. Obama’s reaching out as “coddling.”

Pres. Obama gets to sound progressive and forward thinking, while the women remain stuck in 20th century war rumbling.

Pres. Obama talking softly as Sect. Clinton wields the big stick may be a good mix and useful for the Administration, but Clinton’s willing acquiescence perpetuates the stereotype of a supposedly serious national security spokesperson that can only be represented through swaggering male lingo.

If Hillary, Liz and Sarah are any representation, and they’re the leading women on the scene right now, even understanding that Hillary Rodham Clinton is out of politics for good. What we’re headed for in the future is a woman acting like a man as president. But women can’t simply mimic men, talk like them, manufacture machismo in order to effect change on national security and diplomacy, and hope to win the presidency and make the first female president matter by leading differently than her male counterpart might.

So, if we get a Liz or Sarah, what’s the big deal about having the first female president some day? That goes double because the left has no anti-Sarah/Liz. At this rate, the way these three talk on national security, I’d say it would be a wash.

Unless you think that looks are all that matter.

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How Far Will Democrats Go?

By on 17 March 2010

cross-posted on Huffington Post

The final push for passage of health care legislation has brought out the worst in many Democrats. It’s been a depressing spectacle to watch, with the latest NBC News/WSJ poll a testament; especially for those who want health care reform, but find little reform in the current bill to trumpet mainly because there is no competition like a public option built into it, but also because the language against full reproductive health care makes it more difficult for women to get something that’s so important to them. Democrats seem to be lining up against women over the bill.

On Monday, Speaker Pelosi convened a small, select new media roundtable to talk about the final health care push. It wasn’t reported by the men who attended, except by one via Twitter, but there was not one single woman in attendance, which I confirmed. It was an embarrassing moment for the first female Speaker of the House who is pushing a health care bill that marginalizes women’s reproductive care.

Today, The Hill is reporting that Speaker Pelosi is convening an all female meeting of House members. The topic for discussion was reported as “to be determined.” One can only guess what this is about.

Then, MoveOn.org released an ad targeting Democrats on patriotism, shown above, channeling Liz Cheney and right-wing tactics to threaten them if they vote against the current health care bill. MoveOn’s message: Vote for this health care bill or you’re un-American!

The believe it or not aspect of all this is that Democrats are blithely willing to bargain women’s rights away by codifying the Hyde Amendment instead of challenging it or making the health care bill at least neutral in this area. Whether it’s Stupak-Pitts or the Senate Nelson language currently in the bill, the result is the same. A George Washington University Study lays it out:

One of the great challenges in insurance reform is the unintended consequences of regulation. The Stupak/Pitts Amendment is intended to reach only a specific part of the market. But the cumulative effect of the provision, in combination with existing federal laws governing Medicaid and federal employee health benefits (as well as the law of certain states) inevitably can be expected to move the entire health benefits industry away from its current inclusive coverage norms and toward a new norm of exclusion. The provisions of the legislation, as well as the technical challenges that arise in benefits administration, militate against the creation of a supplemental coverage market. Thus, if the result of national health reform is to move millions of women into a market that operates subject to the exclusion, then it is fair to predict that the entire market for coverage ultimately will be affected as a product tipping point is reached and virtually no supplemental market appears.

Shorter: As time goes by it will be too cumbersome and no longer cost effective for insurance carriers to offer full reproductive services to women, or a rider to procure what you need, which will further curtail these services. That’s the point of the Stupak-Pitts-Nelson anti women coalition. The current health care bill that Democrats are pushing actually limiting rights women have won through the courts over years.

Then came the legislative game moves of “deem and pass,” which Pelosi and Slaughter were once against but now they’re for, having lost a case on the issue, but are now considering using this tactic to get the Senate bill passed in the House. A former staff director of the House Rules Committee doesn’t think what either party does in this regard is good policy, which Karen Tumulty of Time magazine already reported on the self-executing rule, aka the “Slaughter rule.”

For political reasons, elite Democrats from Robert Reich to Donna Brazile are circling the wagons making all sorts of declarations about the current legislation, while threatening Democrats with primary challenges who are considering voting against the bill.

Taking the health care fight even further, CNN reported yesterday that Senior Obama campaign official Steve Hildebrand is considering challenging a female House member in South Dakota, Herseth Sandlin, based on her vote on the health care bill, which is expected to be a no.

There isn’t a Democrat, progressive or liberal who is against health care reform, real reform, that is, one that offers competition via a public option, but also doesn’t codify the Hyde Amendment in health care language that takes women backwards from the rights we’ve already won through the courts.

What most people I’m hearing from don’t want is the current legislation being forced through Congress. As for Pres. Obama and the current Democratic Party supporting women’s rights, well, in the current bill being considered, they go a long way to prove they do not.

It doesn’t have to be this way, as we all want real health care reform, starting with a public option, something that actually is worth all the pressure now being exerted to get passed.

The other reality we all have to face is that after remaining coy on women’s reproductive rights, Pres. Obama has now finally shown his hand. He’s willing to sell women out to get any health care bill that offers him a “win,” regardless of whether it’s actually good policy, which without a public option it is not.

Unfortunately, Democrats aren’t listening to the majority of the American people or women protesting loudly against what they’re doing. Women are once again being asked to take one for the team, but this one is for all time, reversing what we’ve already won. Democratic elites and their institutional partners who depend on big cash to survive have decided that to save Pres. Obama’s presidency and Democratic face it’s the current bill or bust.

However, come November, as polls stand today, it looks like Democrats are blindly heading toward bust. They can’t say they weren’t warned.

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Tough Gal, Kathryn Bigelow, Makes History

By on 08 March 2010

“Now we need to elect a wom(a)n to the US presidency!” – Margot Grimmer (via Facebook)

ScreenHunter_01 Mar. 08 10.24

Well, it’s not the presidency, but it’s history none the less.

The Academy tired of giving it to the guy with all the muscle, choosing a female who built her machine one brick at a time against all odds over him.

Seeing Barbra Steisand hand Kathryn Bigelow the Oscar for best direction, going to a female for the first time in history, you couldn’t help but think of Hillary. Hollywood quenching the thirst of their community for a new kind of acknowledgment that our country still can’t deliver.

I’ve called it the Hillary hole, that space Hillary Clinton’s lost nomination bid left in so many people’s psyche, which has in no way healed.

“24′s” Cherry Jones, who plays the president on the show, the first female to reveal the building tide. “Oh, I would always vote for Hillary,” her comment when asked last September.

Kathryn Bigelow, the tough female director putting together a far flung independent Oscar bid film about war and the heroes who fight it, becoming our fantasy female commander in chief the country is ravenous for it at this point.

Looking at the ineptitude of the Democratic party with its aimless wandering for purpose the last year, who doesn’t long for “Pres. Kathryn Bigelow”?

It’s part of why Sarah Palin is so popular and why her fans are tied to her so strongly. It’s also why she is so dangerous to Democrats.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy did more than make 18 million holes in the hardest glass ceiling on planet earth. It gave a vision to American women of a woman actually competent, strong and ready to fill what has historically been a man’s job. It’s something that women are holding tight in their dreams, while instances continually pop up that provide opportunities to keep the dream alive, even if it is only the Oscars.

While fully realizing it won’t be Hillary Clinton who gets the nod for commander in chief, American audiences of the presidency are glued to the prospect that it’s now a woman’s turn, so eyes are peeled for the first female who can fit the bill.

The disarray of the Obama White House has only made the passion grow. There is no way to imagine a woman doing worse.

The frustration for many in both parties and women is that the only female in the spotlight right now is Sarah Palin, someone people still are not convinced is ready to occupy the oval office. Liz Cheney’s hope of president residing in being chosen vice president or through a Senate bid, which is still years away. But with the sober reality that unqualified men have run for president before and gotten in, why not Sarah? First of all, women will be much tougher on their first potential female nominee, with Mrs. Palin having a lot more convincing to do.

The Democrats won’t have another chance until 2016. Jennifer Granholm a natural who would need a law to make her eligible, but since that same law would open the door for Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’m not so sure anyone would be eager to try it.

However, the Hillary hole is real, that’s for certain, with the only one eligible to fill it in the immediate term a Republican named Sarah Palin. She knows it and is working it. The details won’t much matter if the emotional tide towards a female commander in chief keep building.

While Democrats long for a “President Bigelow,” a woman who is as good as a man in the field of battle. Even if there’s no one yet to cast in that role.

March 8th is International Women’s Day—a day to reflect on the progress the world has made in advancing women’s rights, and to recognize what work remains to be done.

This year marks an anniversary very close to my heart. Fifteen years ago, along with women and men from around the world I attended the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The message from that conference rang loudly and clearly, and still echoes across cultures and continents: Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.

One hundred and eighty-nine countries represented at Beijing adopted a Platform for Action that pledged to increase women’s access to education, healthcare, jobs, and credit, and to protect their right to live free from violence. We have made great progress, but there is a long way to go. Women are still the majority of the world’s poor, unhealthy, underfed, and uneducated. They rarely cause violent conflicts but too often bear their consequences. Women are absent from negotiations about peace and security to end those conflicts. Their voices simply are not being heard.

Today, the United States is making women a cornerstone of foreign policy because we think it’s the right thing to do, but we also believe it’s the smart thing to do as well. Investing in the potential of the world’s women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women — and men — the world over.

So on this International Women’s Day, let us rededicate ourselves to advancing and protecting the rights of women and girls, and to join together to ensure that no one is left behind in the 21st century.

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The Ineptitude of the Democratic Majority

By on 03 March 2010

“These Democrats are a bunch of wusses. They don’t have the courage of their convictions. They won’t stand and fight.” – Michael Moore, via Raw Story

From Michael Moore to Kathleen Parker, Democrats are getting the same review. The performance of the Democratic majority something that no partisan could defend. Led by Barack Obama, his party has come unglued to the point that not only have Democrats wasted an entire year, but they’ve managed to represent the worst of governmental incompetence while giving the government is bad crowd a serious boost. It’s hard to argue with Kathleen Parker on a couple of points she makes today:

… Meanwhile, incumbent Democrats are in trouble. If they pass health-care reform without Republican support, those from conservative districts likely won’t be returning to Washington next year. If they don’t pass health-care reform, they may be tossed out anyway. [...] … At the same time, more and more Americans are abandoning traditional political parties, with about 40 percent of the electorate identifying as independents. A perfect storm this way comes. …

Meanwhile, under the radar Liz Cheney and her group begin the swiftboating of the U.S. Justice Dept. and Eric Holder through nothing less than McCarthyism. The Ben Smith, Spencer Ackerman, and Glenn Greenwald have all covered it (also see pmichael’s In the News diary). The Republican party mainstream, represented by Liz Cheney, who carries on her father’s disappointingly despicable legacy, is now suggesting that due process and a fair trial should not be part of the American system of justice. Going further to say that lawyers who represent detainees are traitorous, “terror sympathizers.”

Rushing to their defense is retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor of the Cheneys’ beloved military commissions, who told me the attacks are “outrageous.” … “It is absolutely outrageous for the Cheney-Grassley crowd to try to tar and feather Neal and Jennifer and insinuate they are al-Qaeda supporters. You don’t hear anyone refer to John Adams as a turncoat for representing the Brits in the Boston Massacre trial.” [...] “If you zealously represent a client, there’s nothing shameful about that,” said the retired Air Force colonel. “That’s the American way.” – via Spencer Ackerman

Meanwhile, there is silence from the Democrats on this as well as a host of other issues. Because after over a full year of being in the majority they’re still bogged down on health care, as they argue with themselves, play defense, while allowing the Republicans to chip away at a policy prescription that everyone knows is desperately needed. Just today Democrats deciding that reconciliation is a go, something that should have been figured out way back in July 2009, because anyone with knowledge of the stakes for Republicans on health care would have known they never had any intention of helping Democrats get a win. It’s political malpractice that Democrats have just now figured this out, but did so by also voluntarily giving up the one part of health care to which the American people approve, the public option. The ineptitude boggles the mind.

Never before has the Democratic party been so thoroughly humiliated.

It would eave an opening for Republicans, but nobody wants them either, which is understandable.

Teeing it up for the Tea Party, because independents can’t seem to find a candidate to rally around.

The state of American politics is in shambles.

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Jon Meacham Turns Newsweek into The Onion

By on 29 November 2009

In the quest to sell magazines, evidently Mr. Meacham thinks train wreck journalism is the way to go. So, he’s turning Newsweek into The Onion, with no offense intended to the far superior latter named, whose mission is actually purposefully on point. The title tells it all: Why Dick Cheney Should Run in 2012.

But I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers spitting out their lattes.)

Why? Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people. The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting. A contest between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions. One of the problems with governance since the election of Bill Clinton has been the resolute refusal of the opposition party (the GOP from 1993 to 2001, the Democrats from 2001 to 2009, and now the GOP again in the Obama years) to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction. A Cheney victory would mean that America preferred a vigorous unilateralism to President Obama’s unapologetic multilateralism, and vice versa.

Where to begin?

How about “bracing referendum on competing visions,” with Meacham evidently forgetting all about the 2008 race. Oh right, John McCain isn’t a conservative, so there was never a real fight about “competing visions,” right?

And never mind Dick’s denials, starting in 2005, which aren’t enough for Meacham, who after his mind blowing Sarah Palin sexpot cover is certainly on a roll… straight down hill.

Now, when Mr. Cheney’s daughter Liz first floated that her dad was her candidate, it was an unremarkable moment that was only worth ignoring. Not because it couldn’t happen or that Dick Cheney denies it, but that this stuff is just so predictable. Just like David Broder’s whining.

In Meacham’s mind, Barack Obama losing to Dick Cheney would prove something that Obama seemingly didn’t prove to these people by beating McCain-Palin; running a campaign that was basically the anti-Bush platform, promising the opposite of everything his Administration and Dick Cheney stood for and represented. To Meacham, these milestones only count when it’s the conservative doing it. You know, someone from The Establishment, never mind the never ending resume of mistakes dragged along.

Liz is more likely to run than her dad (which I’ve already written). But Meacham’s misogyny won’t allow him to think about that horror.

Let’s also not forget that this isn’t the era of J.F.K. and multitudinous ailments hidden in plain sight, with Dick Cheney… Oh no you didn’t. Now I’m even arguing in the negative, taking on this preposterous notion offered from a man who would be fired for his incompetence or laughed out of the business if he wore a bra.

A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.

Denied us, really? Meacham is hopeless.

Besides, that’s the job of Congress, unfortunately Democrats don’t have the spine.

p.s. Skip Newsweek. Read this instead. It’s about Afghanistan and one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush-Cheney era. Maybe somebody will send it to Meacham.

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All Out of Love

By on 23 November 2009

Coming after China “jammed” Pres. Obama with the “press conference” anything but a press conference, no questions, just monologues, James Fallows offers his continuing rebuttal of Obama’s “manufactured failure,” which is now in part 5. Meanwhile, Afghanistan questions continue, with a 9th meeting on AfPak scheduled for tonight in the Situation Room.

Pres. Obama is under more pressure now than he has been since taking office. Political pressure on the left, with others working hard to concoct a “Carteresque” theme on the right, as one of his most ardent fans, Chris Matthews, predictably loses that tingle even before the Christmas jingles in Obama’s first year have begun. For Pres. Obama, winter’s already here.

Rep. Obey fires the first serious shot from a friendly. From ABC News:

“There ain’t going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan,” House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it.”

Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin, made it clear that he is absolutely opposed to sending any more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and says if Obama decides to do that, he’ll demand a new tax — what he calls a “war surtax” — to pay for it.

Politically, this is going to get very tough for Obama, as the right takes advantage of the optics, to use the word of the moment, where Obama and leading as commander in chief are concerned.

Enter Liz Cheney on “This Week” yesterday, someone who touts her former State Department creds, but obviously has not one clue that Afghanistan and Iraq are completely different situations. Yesterday she went on about how McChrystal can do the same thing for Afghanistan he did in Iraq, if we but give him what he needs. This is patently absurd. First, Iraq has always had a functioning centralized government, while Afghanistan has not. The terrain is also completely different, with Afghanistan relying on tribal leaders and jirgas to keep order and hold their people together. The country has never had a centralized government, so because we want to make it so doesn’t mean it can be, should be, or can hold together if that’s what we concoct. It goes with the other nonsensical notion that we can “defeat the Taliban,” an indigenous group that is part of Afghanistan’s consciousness, as experts like Peter Bergen, David Loyn and many others have stated. Don’t try telling that to Ms. Cheney, or giving her numbers on al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Cheney lets ideology be her guide. In politics that’s fine, but it’s a disaster where foreign policy is concerned. See Iraq, or for that matter anything having to do with Iran or Israel where the right is concerned.

And I say this as someone who believes in what our involvement in Afghanistan can ultimately manifest, though right now it’s clear we’re at cross-purposes with no strategy and too many casualties to show for no progress. Couple that with the civilian aid corruption, and you’ve got a recipe for failure. In that, waiting for Pres. Obama’s decision is indeed torturous.

However, I think Pres. Obama is getting undo blame on Afghanistan from Democrats pushing a sur-tax or withdrawal from the left, just as he is from his critics on the right. I also think it’s unfair to think the President should not be allowed to alter his thinking from this past spring after the Afghanistan election where it was clear Karzai had help manipulating the election. A “good war” can turn bad quickly when the people have their country hijacked by a leader they don’t trust.

Are people actually positing that a president shouldn’t reverse himself if he sees something that requires rethinking strategy, including the need to redraw expectations and goals? That would simply render us all in the third term of George W. Bush.

But Obama’s deliberations are clearly now hurting him politically, if only temporarily, even if people like Liz Cheney don’t understand winter’s come to Afghanistan so the President has time to be sure about what he wants to do. In today’s political pace, however, thinking and contemplation are not seen as positive signs of leadership. There are many facets to presidential effectiveness, not the least of which is perception, with Pres. Obama now suffering from an expectations gap, where so much was promised, but little has yet been manifested.

Of course, this can all change back as fast as Chris Matthews’ lost tingle. A win on health care would help, though there is rising doubt if what will finally pass has been worth a whole year’s work. Another problem amassing.

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Russia Hedges on Iran Sanctions

By on 13 October 2009

After Obama backed away from missile defense, with the news of Iran’s newest nuclear revelations, the President had received signs from Medvedev that Russia might consider sanctions against Iran. However, today in Russia they clearly brushed Clinton off.

That noise you hear is Liz Cheney and her “Keep America Safe” characters clucking over it. As you’ll see in the video, complete with comic voiceover, they’re ready. No doubt the Kremlin’s behavior will incite Liz and her benefactor, Bill Kristol, the father of revolving neocon groups, to ratchet up the chatter against Obama even more.

Secretary Clinton met with Foreign Minister Lavrov in Russia and after the meeting both were asked about sanctions on Iran. The Washington Post reports Lavrov’s response was cool at best:

Emerging from four hours of talks with Clinton, Lavrov told reporters that “threats, sanctions and threats of pressure” against Iran would be “counterproductive.”

State Department has Clinton’s side of the news conference:

QUESTION: On Iran, what did you ask the minister with regard to pressure and sanctions, and did you receive any assurances? … ..

SECRETARY CLINTON: [...] I think what President Medvedev said was that they may be inevitable, not that they are inevitable. He said that they’re not always preferable, but they may be inevitable. But we are not at that point yet. That is not a conclusion we have reached, and we want to be very clear that it is our preference that Iran work with the international community, as represented by the P-5+1, fulfill its obligation on inspections, in fact, open up its entire system so that there can be no doubt about what they’re doing, and comply with the agreement in principle to transfer out the low-enriched uranium. Those would be confidence-building measures, and that would give us an opportunity to take stock of where we are on the diplomatic track.

According to what’s being reported, it seems clear that Russia believes Iran has made concessions worth not only acknowledging, but also rewarding with softer language that pushes sanctions from the discussion, as far as they’re concerned.

Cue Liz Cheney.

That’s just how these things work.

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Wall Street Journal Touts Regime Change in Iran

By on 28 September 2009

Iran reported Monday that it successfully test-fired its most advanced and powerful medium-range missiles as part of war games it said were intended to deter the country’s enemies. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps tested the Shahab-3 and Sejil missiles in the third phase of a two-day exercise called The Great Prophet IV, state-run news media reported. The missiles are believed to be capable of striking Israel, U.S. military targets in the Middle East and parts of southeastern Europe. …- Iran Test Fires Most Advanced Missiles

Liz Cheney’s going to love this one. The “red state rock star,” as she was called at the “Smart Girls Summit,” Mrs. Cheney is taking her place among the leaders of the Republican Party, as I predicted a long time ago. It goes to her motto:

“We can’t win if we don’t fight,” Ms. Cheney said, noting that she was taught that lesson years before “by a great American, my dad, Dick Cheney.”

It won’t matter that Gates has been emphatic: “There is no military option that does anything more than buy time.” The only hope is that the Iranian government comes to the conclusion that their security is diminished by going nuclear. Anyone taking bets on that one?

But seriously, could there be a worse idea than regime change? From the WSJ:

It is, therefore, in the American interest to break with past policy and actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Not by invasion, which this administration would not contemplate and could not execute, but through every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard. And if, as is most likely, President Obama presides over the emergence of a nuclear Iran, he had best prepare for storms that will make the squawks of protest against his health-care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day.

The author Eliot A Cohen, teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, which doesn’t say much for that department. There is nothing “advanced” about the notion of regime change in Iran, though it’s an idea Dick Cheney championed, which is likely something his daughter will also embrace.

Maybe the GOP’s new “it” girl, Liz Cheney can be the spokesperson on this, because regime change seems to be right down her alley.

Netanyahu and his champions are going to love it.

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Liz Cheney’s Ideological Blindness Revealed in Hoax

By on 01 September 2009

Anyone watching “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday saw he was clearly out muscled by the non-stop motor mouth debate tactics of Liz Cheney. Tom Shales takes Stephanopoulos to task for letting the rising right wing star get the better of him, though nothing less than a Vaudevillian hook would have succeeded in shutting her up. This is especially true when Liz gets on one of her Cheney tears defending torture, waterboarding her favorite technique. Regardless of truth or reality on record, Liz Cheney babbles on, inspired and fueled by her embedded right wing ideology, which no fact can dent, because with ideological blindness you can never be wrong. Shales on Liz Cheney’s “Chatterbox Summer”:

She doesn’t just finish a thought, she doesn’t just finish a sentence, she’ll go right into a new paragraph and ignore all attempts to head her off.

But for all of Liz Cheney’s babbling, her ideological blindness recently led her into embarrassing territory. How can someone charged with being a “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs”, then promoted to “Principal” in that same post, not know basic information about Jordan? Liz Cheney getting suckered into what some have called the first great hoax of the 21st century.

This is something that has not garnered much attention even with “Forbidden Lie$”, which is about the Norma Khouri hoax, hitting Showtime. Khouri is a now disgraced fabricator who perpetrated this fantastic hoax, writing a book about her friend who she claimed was a victim of an honor killing in Jordan.

This tale was good enough to suck in Liz Cheney, someone who touts her experience as “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs,” which some have claimed was a post specifically created for her by her father, with Cheney promoted in 2005 to Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For Near Eastern Affairs. A position that should have given her, at the very least, rudimentary knowledge of Jordan. Meaning that when Khouri talked about women needing escorts around the streets, let alone that they had to be covered, warning bells should have gone off in Cheney’s head. It’s just not reality for women in Jordan. But Ms. Cheney fell for Khouri’s fiction hook, line and lie, not even aware the Jordan in the book has little relation to the country it chronicles.

Honor Lost was initially published in 2002 in Australia, under the title Forbidden Love, and became a bestseller. But in 2004, the literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that, although Khouri had indeed been born in Jordan, she had been living in Chicago during the years her story took place. Khouri’s book was withdrawn from publication, but the author didn’t slink so quietly into the Australian night. – Vanity Fair

Evidently, hearing about a supposed honor killing that allegedly happened in Jordan was all Liz Cheney needed to know.

You can forgive NBC news anchor Lester Holt for an interview with Khouri, the author, which is shown in “Forbidden Lie$”. But someone with Liz Cheney’s background should have easily recognized some of the more glaring and obvious factual errors in Khouri’s book. Like where the Jordan River flows (and where it doesn’t).

Enter Rana Husseini, an award winning journalist and expert on honor killings in Jordan, whose book is called Murder in the Name of Honor, who is also featured in “Forbidden Lie$.” Ms. Husseini did interviews asking women about the conduct expected of Jordanian women alleged in Khouri’s book, only to get laughter as a response. The places mentioned, like a unisex hair salon, not even in existence in Jordan.

Liz Cheney’s part is a side story, but is influential:

First was the granting of the visa. The department doesn’t define “Distinguished Talent” outside the circularity of “people who are internationally recognised for exceptional and outstanding achievement”. Assessing that talent is left to the nomination process. Those who nominated Khouri were her victims: publishers, literary agents and others who believed her memoir was a true story. Supporting material was provided by Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of the US Vice-President, who was also sucked in. Her “Distinguished Talent” rested on pure deceit. We can only speculate on how much weight the name Cheney carried in the department.

This is just background on the type of shallow knowledge Cheney has accrued while spinning a career readying herself for higher office.

But to be taken in on an honor killing story is particularly dangerous. Countries are sensitive to Americans lecturing and any interference in their affairs, so getting caught in an honor killing hoax reduces our standing to ideological reaction. It’s one thing to come out strong where honor killings are hidden, but this is not the case in Jordan, because when it does happen they are prosecuted fully.

Liz Cheney’s ideological performances have become very popular on political shows, because everyone loves a spectacle. No problem with that, as politics on TV is now seen as entertainment. But as much as I think it’s important to get women on TV, Stephanopoulos choosing Michelle Malkin, then Liz Cheney, shows a disturbing trend.

However, the real issue is more serious. When someone like Cheney uses her clout and name on a sensitive issue like an honor killing, but ends up being duped because she didn’t know basic knowledge of a country like Jordan, which has supposedly been in her purview for years, it makes us all look bad, because our actions are reduced down to primitive emotional and ideologically driven spasms.

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