Pivot Pelosi

Crazy Aunt Pelosi may be on to something.

In an interview yesterday with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge failed to accomplish its goal. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians,” claiming that they were responsible for ending violence in the southern city of Basra.

Asked if she saw any evidence of the surge’s positive impact on her May 17 trip to Iraq she responded:

” Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.”

This may not be as stupid as it sounds (and it sounds really stupid). If Tehran has been so accomodating towards ending the violence, there must be a reason.

Could it be that they were faced with a resolute adversary in Maliki? Nope.

Could it be that the hand of Iranian interference was much too visible for successful tactical operations against the Coalition? Nope.

Hadn’t she and other democratics been complaining of unwelcome American sabre rattling towards Iran over the last two years? Yes, they were.

Pelosi is tacitly admitting (without any sense of irony, of course) that the American strategy of isolating fat little Shiite clerics warlords and taking a strong, if not outright forceful, stance against an unshaven, apocalyptical buffoon is sometimes the right approach.

Alien video coming tomorrow

Will it actually be proven a hoax (ala “Alien Autopsy”) before it’s even released?

Finally: Democrat calls for nationalization of oil industry

Heat of the moment caught on tape:  Maxine Waters at her ignorant best.

Legendary hoax officially declared . . a hoax

Anti-Semites have one less passion play in their Pallywood theater.  France2 withers in the Al Dura case.

Why does it take this long for a truth to be known?

By all means, let’s learn more from our past.

Coming to your local revisionist bookstore soon: Aside from all of the atrocities you’re already familiar with, World War II was also a spiteful land grab by the Allies and was entirely avoidable! Churchill and Roosevelt were bloodthirsty warmongers who did more to provoke the conflict than previously believed. Oh, and Lefties — perhaps unintentionally– may finally be starting to exhibit some intellectual curiosity about the true nature of their ideological forefathers:

The most visible proponent of the unnecessary war theory is the novelist Nicholson Baker, an accomplished, gentle and entirely civilized man, whose book “Human Smoke” has made him a darling of leftist critics of the American role in the world.

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“Baker shows, step by step, how an alliance dominated by leaders who were bigoted, far more opposed to Communism than to fascism, obsessed with arms sales and itching for a fight coerced the world into war,” Mark Kurlansky. . . . wrote in a review of “Human Smoke” that appeared in the entirely mainstream Los Angeles Times Book Review.

The Allies (the Americans, at least) were far less opposed to fascism because they were fascists. How existential. Jonah Goldberg is smiling somewhere!

Sock Puppet Censorship

An disturbing attempt to muzzle the media north of the border.  Death threats and fatwas not having the desired effect on your critics?  Sue ‘em in Human Rights Court.

Listen closely

To the American Idol crowd, the typical Obama foreign policy stump speech might sound appealing.

To others, the same speech might sound terribly naive and immature.

To those appreciative to the nuances of political theatre, the same speech sounds like a press release from Socialist International.

Obama’s stance on foreign policy is not naive or immature, it’s socialist.  This is what socialists sound like. He’s not urging for more solidarity between the leadership of our nations.  He’s calling for enhancing the prospects of the Socialist International.  And he’s charging dumb Americans 20 bucks a pop to be part of it.  One hell of a campaign strategy.

No dialog between the US and these iddy biddy countries?  Even his own political machine has its own Congressional backchannel to talk with them (and their terror-loving proxies!).  For what reason?  To lend support to the opposition of the Colombian Free Trade deal. . . . an assistance welcomed by various regional socialist congresses. . . . Very nice indeed.

So, yeah, let’s have the that dialog, if only to covertly undermine US foreign policy.

Bush apparently hits grand slam; since *ALL* leading Democratics fire back.

Speaking before the  Israeli Knesset, President Bush said that:

“some people” believe the United States “should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.”

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

From Joe Biden — Bush’s comments about how to handle terror regimes were ‘bullshit‘:

“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset … and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”

Democrats have interpreted the comments as an attack on Sen. Barack Obama, and Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the president was out of line.

“He is the guy who has weakened us,” he said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It’s his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.”

Biden is doing EXACTLY what you’re accusing the Administration of doing–cherrypicking data from assorted intel reports.

Biden noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both suggested that the United States ought to find a way to talk more with its enemies.

“If he thinks this is appeasement, is he going to come back and fire his own cabinet?” Biden asked. “Is he going to fire Condi Rice?”

This is Biden at his casuistic best.

In a separate statement, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said that Bush “is still playing the disgusting and dangerous political game Karl Rove perfected, which is insulting to every American and disrespectful to our ally Israel. George Bush should be making Israel secure, not slandering Barack Obama from the Knesset.”

Blah, blah, blah. . .

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also weighed in.

“Not surprisingly, the engineer of the worst foreign policy in our nation’s history has fired yet another reckless and reprehensible round,” said Reid. “For the President to make this statement before the government of our closest ally as it celebrates a remarkable milestone demeans this historic moment with partisan politics.”

The White House insists that Bush wasn’t referring specifically to Obama, an argument that Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) called “baloney.”

“There is no escaping what the president is doing,” said Durbin, who supports Obama. “It is an attack on Sen. Obama’s position that we should not be avoiding even those we disagree with when it comes to negotiations and diplomacy.”

Durbin called Bush’s remarks “unfair and really unfortunate.”

UPDATE: In a conference call with reporters later in the afternoon, Biden said his initial word choice was “not very eloquent” and said he should have just stuck with the word “malarkey.” Biden said he “reacted viscerally” when asked about Bush’s speech after stepping off an elevator.

However, Biden again did not mince words when discussing Bush’s remarks, accusing the president of engaging in “long-distance swiftboating” with his speech in Israel. Biden also cited numerous examples of the Bush Administration reaching out to unfriendly regimes in Libya, North Korea and Iran, arguing that Bush’s insinuation that the Democrats were soft on terrorism was “truly delusional … and truly disgraceful.”

Note: No Republicans were apparently consulted for comment.

In which Olbermann channels George Galloway

Olberman’s rant here, which begs the question:  How many Iraqi oil options did Mr. Olbermann exercise between 1997 and 2002?

Didn’t this end badly before?

FOXNews.com - “German Archaeologist on Trail of Ark of the Covenant”

The HRC doomsday scenario. . . .

. . . played out in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery.   There will be no survivors.

Definitely NSFW.

Time to end our dependence on foreign fruit

Cincinnati-based Chiquita weighs the consequences of having to turn itself in to the DOJ for making illegal payments to terrorist organizations.

More true now than even two days ago

Documents confirm that Hugo Chavez had big plans for assisting FARC, a group considered to be a terrorist organzation by the Colombian government, the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Uncle Hugo, your slip is showing

Now what, exactly, could be on a dead terrorist’s hard drive?

It should make some peeps nervous, but I really don’t think they care anymore.

Primary day, CNN, and airports

Business travel usually sucks, but I can cope.   Having to watch CNN’s Airport Network sucks more.  Watching Jack Cafferty bitch on primary night sucks a whole lot more.

Fair and Barracked

Obama may go on the O’Reilly Factor, according to Fox’s Chris Wallace. And why not?  There may be more democratics watching that particular show than Olby’s entire audience that night.

As usual, the fun bits are in the comments.  But how can you run for president and not appear on the most-watched cable “news” hour?

Ohio AG in a bit of a bind

Scandal explodes in Ohio AG office.  His party affiliation is notable absent from the article.

Will we see another “humiliated, but loyal” wife trotted out in front of the cameras for the big mea culpa?