Thursday, March 05, 2009

Of political sideshows, legitimate governments, and the fine art of Karzai-confronting


Another, late contender for Name of the Day: Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, running for election to the South African Parliament.



John Boehner pens an op-ed piece for the Post accusing the Obamahoovians of a “carefully calculated campaign” to distract people from their nefarious budget with all this talk about Rush Limbaugh. A budget that “increases taxes on every American”. “Something is wrong,” he says, “when the discourse in Washington is more focused on a political sideshow than, say, the fact that Congress is attempting to terminate a school choice program that serves thousands of needy children in the District of Columbia...” Oh, he does hate him some sideshows, does John Boehner.



Hillary Clinton stood next to Mahmoud Abbas today, saying that his regime was the “only legitimate government” of the Palestinian people. Abbas’s term of office expired eight weeks ago.


She described the Israeli government’s plans to demolish scores of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as... those of you with delicate sensibilities may wish to skip to the next paragraph... “unhelpful.”

During her trip, she said that “The two-state solution is the inevitable, inescapable outcome of any effort” but she also said that the US would support any Israeli government. So what she’s saying is that it’s okay to give unflinching support to Netanyahu while he works against the outcome she claims to be working towards, because that outcome is inevitable and inescapable. So that’s okay then.



Speaking of legitimate governments, there’s an article in the WaPo on Karzai and the debate, largely between Karzai and the Obamatonians over the timing of presidential elections in Afghanistan (Obama clearly wants Karzai out, but it’s very unclear, at least to me, what sort of government he wants in Afghanistan and who it would be run by. Gosh, isn’t it nice that he’s learned so much from Bush’s mistakes like, for instance, not having an exit strategy in Iraq?). The WaPo author, Pamela Constable, says Karzai, while “once perceived as a charming leader and famous for wowing tribal elders and international conferences, has grown increasingly unpopular and remote as his government becomes tarred as weak and corrupt.” It’s not “tarred” as weak and corrupt, it actually is weak and corrupt. Some of that has to do with all the “wowing” of tribal leaders, many of whom are strong and corrupt.

She writes that Obama “finally confronted Karzai in a phone call about his frequent complaints over civilian casualties at the hands of coalition forces and air raids.” Which tells you something less than pleasant about Obama: he not only “confronted” Karzai over his oh so unreasonable objections to the killing of innocent Afghan civilians, but evidently leaked the fact to the press, thinking that standing tall for America’s right to bomb civilians made him look manly and presidential (or should I say preznidenshul?). I’d give a lot to see the transcript of that conversation.

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