More Dire Portents
Clarke via Peggy Noonan at WSJ: Short-term pessimistic, long-term optimistic. For Congress maybe but the presidency is McCain’s to lose, Dem “this is the year” chatter notwithstanding. And he will if he stays on the fantasy meme.
Meanwhile, a partisan McCain gotcha that doesn’t quite get. James Rubin at Washington Post:
… given his own position on Hamas, McCain is the last politician who should be attacking Obama. Two years ago, just after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News’s “World News Tonight” program. Here is the crucial part of our exchange:
I asked: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”
McCain answered: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”
“Sooner or later … one way or another” is not exactly unconditional direct talks with Iran, or a Hamas endorsement, or 20 years spent in the pews listening to a raving anti-American Israel basher. Elected Hamas, rather than putting its terrorist past behind it, started throwing Fatah members off rooftops, summarily executing them in the street, and launching rockets at Israel. Fatah-linked Abbas emerged as the moderate. And we have in fact dealt with Hamas since then. By successfully encouraging the utter isolation of this terrorist organization.
Andrew Sullivan: “Biden was right, this is BS.” … Hey, he’s right. It’s BS now.
Ambinder: Deal with Hamas, recognize Iran’s role in the region!
Think Progress: The Ultimate Flip-Flop!
It starts to become clear why these people think you can deal with terrorists and terrorism-supporting nations. It’s the difficulty they have understanding plain English sentences, never mind when any degree of complexity is introduced. In the case of terrorists and terrorism-supporting nations, of course, it’s necessary to be able to understand when they are lying and when they are saying exactly what they mean. That, and the assumption that excuses for terrorism positions have some kind of legitimacy and if we try hard enough, we all can just get along.
Then there’s the context thing.
Hotair: McCain’s Hamas comments, context restored.
Israel Matzav: More context.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:38 am on Friday, May 16, 2008
4 Responses to “More Dire Portents”
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May 16th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Jules,
That’s the exact same thing I was thinking. People can no longer understand plain English sentences or read something into what someone says when the person said no such thing. When I saw that headlines about Bush dissing Obama in the Israeli Knesset, I went to the transcript posted on the WSJ site, read it and thought how could these people translate it in such a fashion (well, I can understand how they could do that but that is putting words into Bush’s mouth that he never once said). It reminds me of when I lived in Boston and Larry Summers allegedly made the comment about women and science (and that some women were so nauseated by what he said that they got up and walked out). After reading the actual transcript it was clear that they were applying a much more ominous meaning to his speech than what he actually said (which was really more or less a synopsis of the research that had been presented by others). Sorry for the long post.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
The problem is Jules that you give them credit for ignorance, I believe that they know the English language with the certainty of one who is able to define the language as desired. (Understanding of course, that the definition of is, is still fluid.) After all a leading philologist (Noam Chumpsky) is one of their point men.
I think that gaining power over the proles is the driving force in their machinations.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
You’re right, I was being charitable, assuming stupidity rather than malice. The truth varies.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Yeah, I’m sure it was just an honest misunderstanding of language when they took McCain’s “hundred years in Iraq” comments out of context, too.