I say I think so, because I haven’t read it yet, which is often considered a prerequisite for saying something intelligent about a book. However, I have read an extract that appeared in Politico Magazine, claiming that Bush 41 launched the first invasion of Iraq in 1991 out of moral revulsion, not realpolitik. Around Christmas…
Search Results for: Robert Gates
Michiko Kakutani does the (almost) impossible; she makes me feel sorry for President Obama
After Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, almost everyone who ever knew him lined up to say what a shit he was. Moaned Richard Cohen, “I hate Richard Nixon’s friends. They make me feel sorry for Richard Nixon.”1 Well, Barack Obama is no Richard Nixon, and I don’t hate him, but still. I don’t like…
Leon Panetta, backstabbing asshole
If the U.S. spends the next 30 years wallowing aimlessly, and profitlessly, in an endless succession of Middle Eastern wars, one of the people you can blame is former CIA Director former SecDef Leon “The Sky is falling and it’s all Obama’s fault” Panetta. I bitched about Leon in the past for a long time…
George F. Will, finding that elusive middle ground for right-wing hypocrisy
In a column largely, and justly, devoted to pointing out that President Obama’s excellent Libyan adventure, like his predecessor’s Iraqi incursion, was based on false pretences and has resulted more in chaos than democracy, Georgie F then launches as remarkable a series of non sequitur, false assumption, and disingenuous innuendo as I’ve seen since, well,…
The surge that wasn’t, the surge that didn’t
Max Boot’s rather un-Bootish* review of Robert Gates’ memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, gives me an opportunity to take another whack at Bob, who in some ways was not that bad a SecDef. I mean, he didn’t bomb Syria or Iran. Nice guy! Still, there are things from Bob’s memoir that rub…
Obama Bubble? Nuh-uh
What’s Obama’s problem? The Wash Post’s Dana Milbank “explains”: In one account of what even administration officials acknowledge is a debacle, the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama’s policy advisers were aware long ago that the president’s promise that “if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it” wouldn’t hold up. “White House policy…
So does that mean we lied?
Yesterday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking in Kabul, offered “sincere condolences and personal regrets” for recent deaths of Afghan civilians as a result of U.S. air strikes. You may remember that on August 22 a U.S. airstrike killed “five to seven” civilians, according to the U.S. military. Or was it closer to 90? Gates…
Keeping Posted: The Myths Keep Coming
Myth debunking has become a full-time job on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. Last Sunday, Jacob Heilbrunn debunked five myths regarding “those nefarious neocons.” On Monday, Ann Marlowe took on two myths regarding Afghanistan. Myth 1. Hamid Karzai is a good president who looks after American interests. Myth 2. The second is that…
Yeah, I flunked Econ 101! What’s your point?
As a matter of fact, I I didn’t flunk Econ 101, because I never took it! So what? To quote Mel Brooks, I’m an old man and I’ve got a right to talk. And, to quote another old man, Richard Nixon, “I am not an intellectual, but I do read books!” Well, I do and…
Q: Why did neoliberalism replace social democracy? A. Because social democracy failed. Next question!
“No, I Do Not Think the Microprocessor Doomed Social Democracy”, a substackin’ Brad DeLong exclaims, linking to a “very nice” (Brad says) piece by Arthur Goldhammer in Democracy, Chip Shots, a review of Chris Miller’s Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology and quoting an extensive chunk of it, edited by Brad,…