That’s true. I meant they hadn’t put it in an ad yet, but you’re right that Obama fired a warning shot there.

In 2008, the Obama campaign very famously adopted the lie-low-until-September approach (drawing criticism from many progressives — obviously not for the last time! — who wanted a nonstop fighting approach).

However, they’re probably also looking at the model of Clinton’s reelection in 1996, when his campaign aggressively sought to define Dole early on.

Wow; I used to live near School & Southport in the mid-’90s.

Oh, I thought you meant this Republican Jesus…

…I suspect even Nixon is spinning in his grave over what he created.

Well, that could be the reason, or maybe Satan’s turning him on a spit. ;-)

It is really amazing how infrastructure somehow became a “liberal” issue, simply because government doing anything — or, now, even people traveling in groups — violates the conservative obsession with making sure we’re all isolated, selfish individuals to the greatest extent possible.

On top of everything else, it turns out that Anthony Shadid was also a friend and mentor to a long list of Arab-American journalists:

http://www.ameja.org/2012/02/18/fellow-friends-and-journalists-respond-to-death-of-anthony-shadid/

… the GOP base is so extreme and crazy that nobody who is sane enough to win is still allowed in the party.

Fixed that for you.

Bo put out an excellent album in ’95 called “A Man Amongst Men” with several great songs, including the title track (a rewrite of “I’m a Man” based on years of live improvisation–some of the lyrics in the video above are actually from the newer song).

But my favorite Bo song of all time is called “Stabilize Yourself,” a hilarious, funky account of a trip into outer space from an album he recorded in 1984.

Yes, it does make sense. Bo himself described his guitar style in exactly that way.

I’m not so sure what Maliki is up to is simply a predictable continuation of Shiite consolidation, or worse, a brazen attempt to go dictatorial, or an unprovoked attack on his political enemies.

Or a mix of all three… now that events have made Maliki the point man for the core elements of power the Shiite hierarchy is unwilling to share, it’s not a big leap to thinking, “I am the state” and making decisions based on personal desires and resentments.

My gut hunch is that the embassy will undergo the same gradual diminishment that occurred with keeping troops there.

I doubt anyone in power harbors any illusion that we will “control” Iraq. As with the notion of “countering Iranian influence,” that horse left the barn a long, long time ago. The only question now is how long to maintain the pretense for U.S. domestic consumption.

I read Porter’s article on that, and I agree. That was a part of the story I didn’t realize, though I did try to tell people in 2008 that Maliki was sincere in pushing for a withdrawal agreement (a lot of other folks were convinced he was just putting on a show and would knuckle under to what Bush wanted).

Not true. Under Saddam, there was plenty of intermarriage and mingling. There certainly weren’t walls between Sunni & Shia neighborhoods & forced expulsion from neighborhoods & geographical areas of Iraq, and from Iraq as a whole, creating huge numbers of internally & externally displaced.

Creating conflicts among competing groups within a conquered area is a time honored means for the conqueror to increase its control. Civil war in Iraq did not exist before the U.S. invasion.

I would agree with this, with the clarification that “the conqueror” would be Iraq’s Shiite power structure. Sectarian-based “majority rule” was their game plan from the moment the U.S. invaded. It’s why Ayatollah Sistani forced elections as soon as possible, and created & endorsed an essentially all-Shiite slate back in 2004 (which, despite some internal shifts, has held power ever since early 2005).

The U.S. certainly had a lot of troops there and killed an ungodly number of people, but it would be a huge stretch to say they ever had “control.”

The most popcorn-worthy thing about Newt’s capacity for self-destruction is that the higher he rises, the more likely it may be to show up.

Karl Rove, perhaps speaking of himself as well, said that the test for Newt would be “whether he can handle success. When a man of his self-confidence begins to feel on top of the world, bad things often happen.”

Yeah, CT, it’s of a piece with the Romney ad… they look forward to the challenge of topping their previous lows (so to speak).

This is the same blog that didn’t like the Iraq war then, doesn’t like it now.

Didn’t like excessive Executive Power then, doesn’t like it now.

Didn’t like conservative governing principles then, doesn’t like them now.

I don’t think I ever found the right opportunity to use it in a post, but I’ve had a line in my head ever since the HCR fight wondering how “FDL managed to slide all the way to the extreme left of the spectrum simply by standing its ground.”

So, anyway, about Cain…

Ouch.

Also, from Reidar Visser: “Muqtada al-Sadr feels he won the debate about withdrawal, instructors, and immunities, and has moved down to the next target on the agenda: The US embassy in Baghdad.“

http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/sadr-demands-resistance-against-the-us-embassy-in-baghdad/