Hot Air - Fox News Ratings Up Almost 10% - Probably not the effect the White House was looking for.
Patterico's Pontifications - Things That Make You Go: Hmmmmmmmmm -
In re-researching the ACORN scandal for my letter to Nick Goldberg, I ran across something interesting that I had missed before. Apparently, Giles and O’Keefe went to ACORN in Los Angeles — and an L.A. Times columnist implies they got kicked out.
By contrast, Breitbart says they didn’t get kicked out anywhere.
Someone is going to end up with egg on their face. Who do you think it will be? Breitbart? Or the L.A. Times columnist?
After the guy in San Diego offered to help smuggle teenage prostitutes up from Mexico I don't know how it could get any better. Maybe the LA office will reveal that they are involved in smuggling Korean prostitutes to massage parlors across the US and offer to join forces or something
Belmont Club - How did Britian go from infatuation with the left to supporting fascism in such a short period of time? - In short because aside from some racial policies there really isn't that much different between the two. Both believe in the state as ultimate moderator of the public good, so making the switch really isn't that hard.
If fascism and Left wing socialism share most of their political DNA then this process is easy to understand. When the vital 5% — or whatever crucially differentiates them — flips then one becomes the other. The BNP is not a ‘conservative party’ in the American mold. It is essentially a racist but economically Left wing organization which accepts a large state role in managing the economy. Where it differs with the Left is for whose benefit the economy should be managed. For the Left the answer is: for the benefit of what it defines to be the historical victim — Muslims, immigrants from former colonies and people with special sexual needs. For the BNP the answer to the question is: for the benefit of the poor white; the indigene; the people who have lived in the British isles.
...
What the Left and Fascism share is a belief in the transformative power of the state. Both regard government as the “high ground” of society and not, as some Americans still believe, simply a necessary evil. It is a prize to be seized by main force; the castle to be stormed. In the long run there is little reason to think that Nick Griffin will allow any more freedom than Gordon Brown. What is likely to happen is the substitution of one set of sacred cows for another. When the Left and fascists contend for power, the surveillance cameras are in every case fully employed.
Instapundit - John Kerry's Speech to Council on Foreign Relations foreshadowing Obama's decision on Afghanistan? - No decision for at least another two weeks, maybe more, and if Kerry's speech is a trial ballon it looks like the hybrid approach that the Pentagon wargamed as essentially unsupportable / unwinnable.
Nice Deb - Obama's Cynical Afghanistan Policy - The takeaway is:
You, Paul and Stephen have the story dead to rights. I was involved in the the Bush administration’s 2008 Afghanistan review and it was every bit as in depth and serious as the one several years earlier for Iraq. It involved many of the same people who helped conduct Gen. McChrystal’s recent review and included Democrats, Republicans, our British allies, Afghans, etc. The strategy put forward was sound and competent, and carbon-copy similar to the one that President Obama announced in March.
It is also true that team Obama was briefed on this review before assuming office. In fact, we began briefing both campaigns even before the election. I don’t remember the dates, but well before the election we began bringing together the national security teams from both campaigns for in-depth briefing sessions under the auspices of the Aspen Institute. These were long events where Bush administration cabinet-level officials spent days — yes, days — briefing the two candidates’ advisers. After the election we began spending hours with the transition team on the details of the plan and the situation on the ground.
It is also true that Obama’s transition team asked us to hold the Afghanistan review findings, a request to which President Bush acquiesced because (as it was relayed to me) he did not want to box the new president into a narrow set of options. In March, when Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy, I did not notice a single change from the new plan that we had given him…only Obama did not resource it with enough troops. (emphasis added)
someone is lying the question is who
The Other McCain - If Hoffman Wins all will be right with the world -
Doug Hoffman is a sworn opponent of ObamaCare. If a guy like that wins, in an underdog third-party bid where nobody gave him a snowball's chance two weeks ago, what's the message?
The message is that Democrats had better watch out in 2010. If a guy like Hoffman can win in a district that went 52% for Obama less than a year ago, it will be like a flare shot skyward from a ship on a moonless midnight. Add in a victory for Bob McConnell in Virginia (which also went for Obama last year) and any Democratic senator or congressman with half a brain is going to start thinking, "Ruh-roh. This kinda looks like 1994 all over again."
If Hoffman can pull off a miracle upset victory in NY23, it would be a shot across the bow of Obama, Pelosi and Reid that they won't be able to ignore.
What if he loses? What message does that send? It will tell the GOP conservatives can't win for one thing. It will also give Blue Dogs and RINO's cover to vote yes on Obamacare. Equal and Opposite reactions and all that.
more at memeorandum
Update - The Washington Post has a good article about a Foreign Service Officer that has resigned over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. I don't know if I agree with him but his experiences area worth considering.
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