Tuesday Open Thread 8.27.13
Here is history that not many people who didn’t live through it remember or know: President Gerald Ford was the victim in two assassination attempts. Who would want to kill Ford? He was just a harmless klutz. Anyway, his testimony in one of the cases (that of would be assassin Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme) was released yesterday.
From the Sacramento Bee: “The 20 minutes of testimony, which Ford gave in room 345 of the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House on Nov. 1, 1975, was conducted at the request of Sacramento defense attorney John Virga and played for jurors during Fromme’s trial. The tape, which includes several minutes of audio discussion among lawyers and the judge before and after Ford’s testimony, was later sealed and has been largely forgotten and removed from public view in the years since.”
Here’s the video:
I think one of President Ford’s legacies is providing these images of a President submitting himself to the rule of law or to one of the co-equal branches of government after the scandal that was Watergate. For example, he traveled to Capitol Hill and testified, under oath, pursuant to a Congressional Subpoena, before a Congressional Committee investigating as to whether there was an quid pro quo involving Nixon’s resignation and Ford’s pardon of Nixon. And here now is Ford under oath testifying as a witness in a criminal matter. This testimony set a precedent for later testimony from President Reagan in one of the Iran Contra trials and of course, President Clinton.
The AFL-CIO is targeting six Republican governors for defeat: “The six governors are primarily from the Midwest: John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, plus Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania and Paul LePage in Maine. Mr. Hauser [AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser] says the AFL-CIO will not neglect important state and congressional races in the rest of the country, but its “focus” will be those six battlegrounds where the majority of its 12 million members are located.”
History says don’t do it. Most Americans say don’t do it. But President Obama has to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s homicidal regime with a military strike — and hope that history and the people are wrong.
If it is true that the regime killed hundreds of civilians with nerve gas in a Damascus suburb last week — and Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Monday that the use of chemical weapons is “undeniable” — then Obama has no choice. Such use cannot be tolerated, and any government or group that employs chemical weapons must be made to suffer real consequences. Obama should uphold this principle by destroying some of Assad’s military assets with cruise missiles.
I say this despite my belief that Obama has been right to keep the United States out of the Syrian civil war. It is not easy to watch such suffering and destruction — more than 100,000 people killed, millions displaced, cities pounded into rubble — and do nothing. Now I believe we are obliged to hit Assad. But then what?
Obama should have never drawn a red line. By doing so, he boxed himself in to using military force if the line was crossed.
So, are we about to go to war over the possible use of weapons of mass destruction? I think I’m having a deja vu moment.
Could this be the catalyst for the initiation of a political pendulum swing?
“Could this be the catalyst for the initiation of a political pendulum swing?”
How so? It’s not as if the GOP is anti-war; the strongest voices for involvement are on the Republican side.
The strike the President should be talking about is a detailed challenge to show up at an internationally convened peace conference, also inviting the opposition leaders. This should include a demand to turn over remaining chemical weapons to an international overseer and an immediate cease fire and peace talks. If they no show or refuse, then let them stew in their own miserable juices. Missle/bomb strikes in retaliation for their violence is not a solution; it is a repetition of the same kind of horrific conduct we are condemning.
I voted for a solutions President and one who ran on an anti-war platform, not one sucked into the war games promoted by his joint chiefs parading around with their apparently intoxicating medals and insignia, as seemingly all our Presidents have since Eisenhower. I once respected Kerry for his anti-war leadership too, only to have to expose his hypocracy on Iraq at a Democratic gathering during the ’04 campaign. Why can’t even a brilliant guy like Obama get it?
Eugene Robinson is repeating the same liberal buy into the war machine as most of the working press back in the early Iraq days.
True Geezer, but now it may seem like the Democrats aren’t anti war either, and that may set up the swing vote.
Yeah, you go with that, FBH. Sweet dreams.
FBH, there is no analogy between Iraq and Syria at this point. Here, we have evidence of recent immediate use of chemical weapons by Assad. Bush did not have that by Saddam. Indeed, there was no evidence at all that Saddam possessed WMD of any kind. And yet we went to full scale war.
Here, the most I expect is a no fly zone and/or bombing strikes like Kosovo. No boots on the ground.
And this President seems to be very hesitant to do even that. Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq the minute he was inaugurated.
And Geezer is right. This will produce no pendulum swing back to the Republicans, since it is the Republicans who want a full scale invasion of Syria.
Where is the UN report from the weapons inspectors? The Democrats freaked out about a unilateral attack on Iraq. Where is the outrage now? Where is Hans Blix when you need him….lol
DD, iraq kicked out the UN inspectors. Who knows what they did after that.
The inspectors are in Syria right now.
The only people who care about this are the conservative dead-enders. They already vote Republican.
The world financial markets seem to care, and the weapons inspectors have delayed their inspections because they were shot at.
Iraq did not kick out the weapons inspectors. They were told to leave by the US before we started dropping bombs on the place.
The world financial markets are more worried about the end of the Fed’s tapering policy than they are Syria.
If the republicans want to be the party that gets us totally out of the middle east (including letting Israel grow up and look after itself) I’ll vote for republicans. The bleeding-heart world-saver in me has been beaten into submission by my practical/rational side.
There is NO saving Afghanistan/Pakistan/Syria/Iraq/Saudi Arabia….. etc. You can have a world where people are of different faiths and colors and what have you. you cannot have a world where whole areas are solidly in the 7th century. Eliminate our interests in that part of the world. Provide aide/evacuation to people who want to leave and participate in the 21st century and let the rest sink.
Here’s something refreshing:
So Nikki Haley brings in the Evil Chaos team of Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal to announce her re-election bid and only 60 people show up.
I’m with Ben.
@CAss – LOL – thanks for that link. Looks like some of the 60 were protesters.
“Flanked by three Republican governors and standing before a crowd of about 60 supporters and protesters at a rally in Greenville,”
Obama is an idiot of the first order and the Middle East is going bad because of his weakness and posturing. His red line comment was DUMB, FYI the Israeli PM never makes a stupid statement like that one. The PM stands bold and does not rattle off some obscure phrase.
What an idiot.
Obama is an idiot blah, blah, blah. Middle East was okey-dokey paradise before Obama. The Israeli PM give me a boner. The PM’s bold erections on the west bank make me quiver.
What an idiot.
LAI, you are free to move to Israel if you find Netanyahu so alluring. Little did you know that all citizens there must serve in the military. Let’s see how you, a flying keyboardist, deal with that.
Two people think Glen Urquhart is going to be the next Governor. Just sayin’
So apparently Glen has his own vote and that of liberals are idiots. Provided the latter can find his way out of his crate.
Of the six Republican governors named 3 or 4 are easily beaten, all six not likely. Syria? I could give a damn if they all die, fly or explode. Military force? Double HELL NO!!!! We have become the pathetic puppet of the war lovers and the military industrial complex, a.k.a. democracy mega fail.
A not very flattering story about Starbucks today:
Go read the whole thing.
@c “A not very flattering story about Starbucks”
Just one more reason to avoid Starbucks. They’ve given us quite a few lately.
For a company that sells crappy coffee and hides the fact that it’s crappy by basically burning it…
I’ll bite. Who serves better coffee than Starbucks?
Plus, they have a policy against employees eating out of date food. He could get sick and not be able to finish his shift. I’m pretty sure all fast food places have a similiar policy.
Peet’s. But I think the closest retail venue is at PHL.
Understand about eating out of date food. Even though it is unlikely to be especially spoiled at that point. There is still something essentially heartless about telling an employee on Food Stamps that a sandwich that was OK a half an hour ago (but expired now) he should lose his job. Because he was hungry.
Even Dunkin Donuts uses better coffee beans…
My wife insists that Wawa has the best coffee.
DD wrote:
We do? Who do?
I have absolutely no problems with an aggressive foreign policy, and no problems with using military force, but only if we have a clear cut, reasonably achievable goal, with a real plan about how to achieve it. In Syria, neither the President nor the conservatives have articulated either. The Obama Administration has said that the supposedly inevitable strikes will not be meant to topple President Assad; if that’s not the goal, then what is?
On page A-4 of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer were the back sections of a couple of front page stories about the potential strike against Syria, and, on the left hand side, a story noting that Moammar Gadafi’s son will be tried in Libya. That, in a nutshell, explains Bashar al-Assad: he learned the lessons of Moamar Gadafi, Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein, that if you lose power, all that awaits you is a lynching, a prison cell or a rope. President Obama wants to punish President Assad for using chemical weapons, but in Mr Assad’s position, you have to do everything in your power to win, whether it’s nice and civilized or not. If he thinks he needs to use chemical weapons to win, he will use chemical weapons.
Mr Merriman wrote:
Maybe he isn’t quite as bright as you think.
Peet’s I have never heard of let alone tried, but DD and Wawa both taste pretty flat and one dimensional to me. Vive la difference.
I agree firing seems harsh for such a minor infraction but as the company spokesman alluded to there were likely other issues with this fellow that pushed him along through the disciplinary process despite what he claims.