The Washington Post discovers Climategate: “In an effort to control what the public hears, did prominent scientists who link climate change to human behavior try to squelch a back-and-forth that is central to the scientific method? Is the science of global warming messier than they have admitted?. . . Phil Jones, the unit’s director, wrote a colleague that he would ‘hide’ a problem with data from Siberian tree rings with more accurate local air temperature measurements. In another message, Jones talks about keeping research he disagrees with out of a U.N. report, ‘even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!’” Next, perhaps we can find out why it took the Post weeks to report on the story.
Make it twenty Iranian enrichment sites!
The most disturbing item in this Rasmussen poll on Afghanistan: “53% of voters believe the president places higher importance on ending the war. Just 28% say Obama thinks winning the war is more important. Another 19% are not sure.” It seems imperative for the president to explain himself if he is to convince allies and foes that he is determined to win.
Even Marc Ambinder can’t quite spin Max Baucus out of his trouble over recommending his mistress for a position of U.S. Attorney. Although Ambinder tries awfully hard to distinguish Baucus from conservative scandal-makers (“Mr. Baucus does not hold himself up to be a paragon of rectitude; he is not known for insisting that others follow a code of sexual morality or be damned or otherwise treated as second-class citizens by the government”), he concludes that “Baucus would ignore the conflict of the interest or so easily dismiss it calls into question his judgment and his ethics. That’s a scandal.”
The unmatched Iowahawk is at it again, with a faux Obama West Point address: “Anyhoo, after receiving General McChrystal’s request, I carefully reviewed and focus tested it with some of the top military strategist of DailyKos and Huffington Post. As an alternative, they suggested sending a special force of 200 diversity-trained surrender consultants. After several months of careful deliberation, polling, and strategic golfing, I told the General I would provide him a force of 30,000, which is fully 75% of a 110% commitment.”
The parents of Daniel Pearl on the civilian trial of KSM: “We are not concerned about the safety issues that this trial poses to New York City — we trust our law enforcement officers. Nor are we concerned about the anguish of our children who will be seeing the memories and values of their loved ones mocked and ridiculed in the court room — they have known greater pains before. We are concerned about the millions of angry youngsters, among them potential terrorists, who will be watching this trial unfold on Al Jazeera TV and come to the realization that America has caved in to Al Qaeda’s demands for publicity. The atrocity of 9/11 and the brutal murder of Daniel Pearl are vivid reminders of terrorists’ craving to dramatize their perceived grievances against the West.” Read the whole thing.
As much as liberal pundits are whining about it, Dick Cheney really is closer than Obama to most Americans when it comes to terrorist interrogations. And a plurality of Americans think Obama is not “tough enough.” Again, Cheney thinks so too.
Obama’s foreign-policy supporters are still skeptical. They just don’t believe anything Israel and Bush say anymore.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/24/the_syria_nukes_narrative/
And that’s not going to change until Bush is out of office. They would even be more willing to believe McCain, but they wouldn’t even believe Bush if Bush told them that 2 + 2 = 4.
I think people are just now waking up to the fact that a man IS judged by the company he keeps. Obama has a natural propensity to associate with and pick people who could potentially be very dangerous for America’s safety.
or he is a good enough politician to sense the trend for sacrificing the jews to placate radical islam and he’s riding it.
dumping advisers don’t mean a thing. assuming one does not recruit advisers with whom one disagrees fundamentally, the real problem is obama himself. if he gets elected, with or without those advisers, beware. but my guess is they’ll be hired back.
oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/
It doesn’t matter whether Obama’s supporters believe ‘Israel and Bush’ (nice juxtaposition, that). If the Democrats trot out another presidential candidate with flowers in his hair, they will go down in flames just as they have every time they’ve flashed a Peace Symbol as their foreign policy. Some elements of the Democratic base never learn this and never want to believe it, but the boneyard is full of the Democrats’ landslide losers who thought that “peace” was a “policy.”
The Donks have the best chance of taking the White House in a long time (even better than when Clinton actually won), but if they would like to find a way to blow it, nominating a peacenik on the subjects of Syria and North Korea is a good one.
Off topic, but…Curiel and curiouser…
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352378,00.html
http://www.espionageinfo.com/Lo-Mo/Mexico-Intelligence-and-Security.html
Add advisor Cirincione to advisor General McPeak, the Air Force general who always wanted to be an admiral. No doubt about Cirincione’s in-depth knowledge on all things nuclear, but when North Korea complained about the air strike BEFORE Syria, even casual observers saw something was up. Assuming Mr. Obama goes on to win the Democratic nomination, it will be interesting (revealing) as to who he selects for his running mate and even more important, those names that will be bandied about for cabinet positions. I should think that Jimmy Carter could be drawn out of his unoffical diplomatic endeavours for official endeavours.
That’s possibly the most interesting element. Deir er Zeur is about 80 minutes, up the Euphrates from the Coalition outpost in Al Quaim. In addition, that same city, according to the West Point Center for Studying Terrorism; is a major supplier of jihadists into Iraq.
If Obama should by some miraculous catastrophe be elected President we would have an administration that would be likr Carter’s administration on steroids. After four years the damage may be irresversable.
The leftist hatred of Israel is boiling over into our mainstream politics.
The Democrats will find any way whatsoever to lose a presidential election.
It’s astonishing that they will blow what should be a cake walk to the presidency.
Mr. Schoenfeld:
No one bats 1.000. The evidence now seems strong that Syria was building a reactor. But you are not doing so hot yourself. I am not a top advisor to Senator Obama. I have never met the Senator. I have written occasional memos to his campaign and publicly endorsed his candidacy, but I am afraid there is no way I could be considered “Barack Obama’s top expert on matters nuclear.”
And, if I recall correctly, Commentary was absolutely certain Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of WMD and was close to a nuclear bomb. Those, like me, who doubted the claims and advocated the inspectors be given the time they needed to verify any weapons were called fools.
And for the record, I have family in Israel. I am just as concerned for their safety and security as you are. I am strongly pro-Israel. My views on Israeli politics are nothing you will not read in the national press or hear around the dinner table.
Joe, you’re not even close to batting 1,000. You have consistently played down Iran’s nuclear weapons program and have been dead wrong about a number of foreign policy issues. Your paranoid style, seeing “neocons” under every bed, is a substitute for analysis. And here in your response you once again elide, like your boss Obama, the issues at hand.
First you claim you’re not an advisor, but you are listed all over the place as one of his foreign policy advisors. Have you sent in corrections to all these publications? And writing a few memos may not be as benign as you make it out; if his top issues staff goes back and forth with you on this and gets your views to the candidate, then you’re a key advisor.
Then you change the subject. Commentary was wrong about WMD. Please. Everybody who was not consumed with BDS, including all our major allies and most liberal Dems (from Kennedy to Kerry to Pelosi and Levin and on and on) believed that they had some WMD arsenals but more importantly WMD programs with the potential to break out in the near future. Which of course was true. You were wrong then and remain wrong today.
Finally you offer the old ‘some of my best friends are Jews’ defense. What does having family in Israel possibly have to do with your hyper-critical views on Israel? Slippery, very slippery.
Olmert went out of his way to lawyer Syria’s case when Washington was talking tough re Damascus. Some Zionist machination. Feh.
Like Kerry, Obama projects an effete, snobbish, elitist persona. His self-induced blunder about Blue-collar types and Typical White Males. Is Kerryesque in a tragically self-indulged way. His spokespeople then cry RACISM adding insult to injury. Finally, add to the mix the lurkings of Teresa Heinz Kerry in his recently proud of America spouse, and you can understand why the Super-delegates aren’t stampeding to his banner…
I think it’s time for an investigation of AIPAC … oops, I meant the German-American Bund.
Given the denial by Cirincione that he is ‘Barack Obama’s top expert on matters nuclear, one is left to conclude that when the 3AM call comes in, Obama will start by looking for a new top expert. Not exactly a reassuring scenario.
I think you will find at 3.00am Senator Obama will call his real ‘top advisors’ on matters of national security Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake both former national security advisors. If the writer had done any kind of research he would have found that out instead of making up a story out of whole cloth. Yes Senator Obama has met with both of them on numerous occasions.
“I am strongly pro-Israel.”
If by “strongly pro-Israel” you merely mean that you permit the country to exist, but write your fastest to undermine it’s security — and the security of your friends and family — then I think that we would need to question the intention of nearly every word in the quoted sentence.
narciso — you have a good catch regarding the location of the reactor and the collection/support spot for terrorists crossing from Syria into Libya (Dayr az-Zawr). I actually wouldn’t make too much of it, however. The proximity of the two features would be more a convenience dictated by geography than a matter of political intention.
Syria’s east-west traffic has funneled to the Euphrates river valley for centuries, as you would expect, and Dayr az-Zawr has long been the last major Syrian waypoint. The reactor would be situated next to a reliable water supply, dictating a site on the Euphrates (the Mediterranean coast would be too vulnerable). It makes sense to site the reactor downriver from where the Khabur R., a tributary from the northeast, joins the Euphrates.
Syria has an air force base at Dayr az-Zawr, although not a major one. Its other military sites, including chemical weapon and missile sites (e.g., Al-Safira, Palmyra), are all located further west. Dayr az-Zawr (spelled in various ways) doesn’t host a concentration of Syrian specialty sites, either nuclear, chemical, or military — nor is it likely to, given the wariness of Middle Eastern nations about locating too many things in one place. Too easy to target from the air that way.
On another subject, the CTC piece on the Sinjar papers was excellent info. The number of Libyans who came into Iraq for jihad was a surprise to everyone. The CTC suggestion that Qaddhafi is “dumping” them, to keep militancy in his own region under control, has a lot of possibility.
Just curious. Does anyone know for the record if that actually is Joseph Cirincone? If it is then Obama’s advisors or whatever they are really need to learn to shut up as a matter of political prudence. For someone purporting to be an expert on nuclear proliferation blithely passing off the his absolute incredulity regarding the possibility of nuclear proliferation in Syria (incredulity that seems strange enough given what we have learned about Pakistan, North Korea, Libya, and of course Iran) despite even at the onset an avalanche of circumstantial evidence does not inspire confidence in himself or the presidential hopeful who has made use of his “expertise”, be it as a top expert or an occasional writer of memos.
This is a priceless Cirincione quote. I love the bit about “I’ve been following this issue for fifteen years, and…”
A STRIKE IN THE DARK. By: Hersh, Seymour M., New Yorker, 2/11/2008
“Joseph Cirincione, the director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, told me, “Syria does not have the technical, industrial, or financial ability to support a nuclear-weapons program. I’ve been following this issue for fifteen years, and every once in a while a suspicion arises and we investigate and there’s nothing. There was and is no nuclear-weapons threat from Syria. This is all political.” Cirincione castigated the press corps for its handling of the story. “I think some of our best journalists were used,” he said.”
JF Dyer,
Dayr az-Zawr [or Deir ez-Zor] was also significant as the killing ground for masses of Armenian civilians murdered by the Ottoman army during WW One in the Armenian genocide.
Just as masses of Jews were brought to the camps in Poland from all over during the Holocaust, masses of Armenians were brought to the Deir ez-Zor area, where many were shut up in caves and massacred.
Elliott Green — indeed, Dayr az-Zawr (or DAZ, as intel types call it) did host that terrible slaughter. And you raise another excellent point, which is that the area is full of natural caves. I haven’t done a study of the topography right around the intended reactor site (although I expect the IC has), but I would bet it’s ideal for underground demolition and construction.
Dear Gabe,
Dear Gabe:
1 The “world net daily” article that links to this site leads with this Cirincione character saying that “Israel should give up its nuclear weapons to ensure Iran halts its illicit nuclear program, argues an adviser on nuclear issues to Sen. Barack Obama.” Such absurd logic has not been sufficiently exposed. If it were, the entire farago of nonsense that it advances would be immediately dismissed for the malicious nonsense that it is and might even be another “incongruity” to expose this Manchurian candidate.
2. Nice job a few years back in leaving Big Al D speechless on Fox News. They and he thought they had a nice little fellow (you) who would go away quietly. I had to chuckle when you busted big Al’s unsound attack and left him talking to himself.
3. I also caught your act on the “My Word” show when “his word” addressed you as he would a well-meaning grad student. Hilarious. You looked ready to laugh in his face.
4. Anyway, yesterday’s obviously transparent straw man setup whereby the “Rev.” Wright blatantly “retierates all previous agitprop with max shock value so he can be “rejected”
by Baschlock O’Bama (a wee County Cook laddy). All of this is presented by the “mainstream” media as truth from El Altisimo, with nary a one critiquing it for the phony ploy that it was.
5. I know you run a family ‘zine, but we want more about the recent prosecutions of Israeli “spies.” You deserve a citation with 4 J’lem clusters for bravery. I love the “cultures” of the opponents of the war on terror. Somehow it’s always the same ones,which cannot be named. (see Tear Jerk Larsen, Tweetie Afern, et alia).
6. I knew Fox would”shift” once they got mixed up with certain investors. Their coverage of the hezb’ollah war was a total sell out. Also, neither (that’s KNEE-THER not the NY-THER of the slandering class) Fox, nor anyone else notes that O’Bama gets tons of loot from the financial and energy sectors – far more than anyone else. Why?
Huzzahs for a correct readingf o Zeke 38 and 39