It comes from the Majority Leader:
“We need to get this relief funding to the American people as quickly as we can, and we’re going to do that — I’m going to bring a free-standing bill, and we’re going to have a chance to vote on it,” [Harry] Reid told reporters at his weekly Capitol briefing Wednesday. “Some of my Republican colleagues are trying to — I was going to say something that was vulgar and I’m not going to do that — are trying to cater to the Tea Party by holding up relief efforts.”
Can you guess what he wanted to say?
Give them a handjob under the bleachers?
I humbly suggest that this is a better quote of the day:
In an interview with Greta Van Susteren, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims that President Obama has accepted much of the Bush Doctrine out of necessity, contrary to many of his own campaign promises. As evidence, Rumsfeld pointed to the administrations enforcement of the Patriot Act, indefinite detention of terror suspects, and the continued operation of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
“All of those things were criticized,” said Rumsfeld, “but today are still in place two-and-a-half years later because they are the best alternative to other choices” and they are in fact successful in keeping America safer.”
Thus reinforcing my contention that this administration is just the third term of George W Bush.
Let’s not overstate.
I am in general not a fan of the heuristic “the truth is somewhere in the middle”, but in this case I think that Obama has been neither “The Greatest Progressive President Ever(tm)” nor “the Third Term of George W Bush.”
However, while we rightly rant against Bush it is often overlooked that his foreign policies took a sharp turn back towards the center after the 2006 election debacle. He fired Rove, defanged Cheney, and essentially turned over control of the administration to his dad’s buddies. The Bush administration of 2007-8 and the Obama administration of 2010-11 thus far are eerily similar in both foreign policy and economic outlook.
Still, as Boo keeps pointing out, if Obama loses in 2012 we won’t get the GWB of 2007-8, we’ll instead likely get a President who will make the GWB of 2001-6 look moderate. Even Romney, as Digby pointed out today, is on record as supporting policies that are far whackier than Bush implemented.
So Obama is a HUGE disappointment, yes, especially on the issues where he has betrayed the promises he made to those of us who put in so much time and money for his campaign. And if third party or a primary challenge were realistic I’d back those efforts to the hilt. But they aren’t. So we’re stuck with hoping Obama’s team really is the campaign geniuses they think they are and not the buffoons they now appear to be.
Pretty fucked up when you have to look to war criminals and liars to confirm your beliefs.
This is Bush’s 3rd term? why do you say that? Rumsfeld told me so.
yeah go with that. You don’t sound ridiculous at all.
Obama is a war criminal. Most presidents are war criminals, especially the ones who’ve been in office since the reach of the Empire has gone global rather than in regional spots like the Philippines and Panama. Now there’s a certain degree to where they’re so disgustingly criminal that you cannot look back — Bush fits that ticket. It does sound ridiculous to just say he’s Bush’s third term, and I agree with GreenCaboose above about its ridiculousness. But let’s not kid ourselves here; “war crimes” are for losers, not the dominant power forces.
Right, it would be interesting to study just how many war crimes American Presidents are guilty of if you take Nuremberg, Geneva, the UN charter and (more recently) the UN Declaration of Human Rights seriously.
Probably Ford and Carter would come off the best. Ford, in part because his term was so short and in part because except that Mayaguez dust up (not even sure if I spelled it right, and not wanting to bother looking it up) he didn’t actively deploy troops anywhere. Sure, he kept up the normal illegal covert stuff, but that was also when the Church investigations were active so even that was kept under wraps.
Carter came in with the best of intentions – but a lot of the good he did got wiped away in his desperation to lash back at the USSR in his last year.
GHWB, ironically, was actually pretty good if you ignore Panama and some of the over-the-top stuff the military did in Gulf War 1. It’s worth noting that in Gulf War 1 the US military followed the Geneva Conventions for captured combatants virtually to the letter, which was a big part of why literally hundreds of thousands willingly surrendered without fight once the ground war began. Given what the world knows of how the US treats anyone it gets its hands on today you won’t see that scene repeated any time soon.
The worst Presidents were certainly LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and — the winner by far — GWB. Alas, Obama fits right into that group.
I think Teddy Roosevelt fits in that group, too, as would Andrew Jackson. Unless you’re only looking at post-WWII history…
I’m not sure I’d put Obama and Clinton there, though…not with those other four.
I was confining it to the post-WWII era – that’s when Nuremberg, the 4th Geneva Convention, and the UN Charter were established. THe 4th convention was necessary because much of the defense of WW2 criminals was that the first 3 conventions didn’t protect civilians.
Of course, when the War Propaganda Machine (a.k.a. the mainstream U.S. news media) was operating in 2003 they very frequently ignored the 4th and only quoted from the 3rd in a pathetic attempt to justify Guantanamo and all the other crap Bush was doing. The 3rd convention defined soldiers as wearing uniforms, etc, unless they were part of a spontaneous defense of a country to an attack (which, it can be argued, took place both in Afghanistan and Iraq). The 4th convention (ratified: 1949), though, made it clear that if you are human you have certain rights that must be respected, end of story. So, the US media basically ignored that.
TR and AJ – assessments of their behavior have to be made in the context of their times. But starting with Truman’s time the official rules were changed – and mostly at the insistence of the U.S.
And as for Clinton, well, I supported the guy, but a fair assessment does not do him well. The sanctions really hurt the poor of Iraq – to the tune of a half million or more. The continued bombings throughout his term were also crimes – often missing targets and killing the innocent. His bombing in Sudan after the Cole was bullshit.
But the worst had to be Kosovo. We Democrats tend to overlook that, probably because it was under a Democratic president. But it’s worth noting that of the long list of crimes that Milosevic was charged with, only ONE of them was dated before the bombing began – and that one was shown to be a hoax by the Kosovaars. The bombing precipitated the mass exodus, as opposed to being a response to it.
I’m still not sure why the US engaged in that. I don’t want to believe that it was just a Wag the Dog scenario — that doesn’t make sense. But is it worth noting that today the US bases in Kosovo are extremely valuable as staging points for our forces in dictatorships like Uzbekistan and Kazakistan — and other parts of the so-called “Arc of Instability” that contains all that buried carbon which the energy industry has been so busy exploiting for the past decade.
But although NATO endorsed that action (still not sure when NATO became qualified to be an “international body” for the purpose of just war, but there you go) when all is said and done a lot of people died for a purpose that still isn’t clear.
Shit, I forgot about the Iraqi Sanctions. Ok, that’s fair.
The United States got involved in Yugoslavia because it had the potential of undoing European security. It got involved in Kosovo because that was the best way of unwinding a potential persistent source of conflict. Minority rule of a majority population does not work well.
The stability of Europe is since World War II be the first priority of American foreign policy. And that likely is behind America’s joining NATO in enforcing the UN Security Council resolution 1973 when it did not participate in a similar mission in the Ivory Coast. A refugee crisis created by exodus from Libya could have profound effects on European unity.
(The current Eurozone crisis is troubling for the same reason. And there are National Front parties waiting to carve up the EU. The best thing that the US could do to prevent EU collapse is to stimulate job creation in the US economy and start bring the global recession to an end. But Republicans are fixated on only one thing — getting rid of the damned N…….)
Dangerous times.
OK and neither disagreeing or agreeing, but saying it is so does not necessarily make it a reality. So, lay out your case that Obama is a war criminal. Lay out the crimes under which he could be prosecuted as such.
You’re not aware that he has authorized assassinations of individuals? That those people include American nationals?
You’re not aware that he’s continued the program of indefinite detention without recourse?
You’re not aware that he has authorized bombings of homes, including in nations that are not at war with the U.S. (at least, officially), and that hundreds, probably thousands, of innocents have died as a result?
You’re not aware that although the US has officially renounced torture under Obama (but there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest it has continued) that under Obama the US still “renders” accused war prisoners to other countries where torture takes place?
None of these are secrets. I can dig up the links if you’re really not aware of this stuff. But these are the sorts of actions that Cheney, Rumsfeld, King, et al are praising.
“You’re not aware that he has authorized assassinations of individuals? That those people include American nationals?”
Not a war crime. Believe it or not, it is perfectly legal to shoot at people in a war.
“You’re not aware that he’s continued the program of indefinite detention without recourse?”
Not a war crime.
“but there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest it has continued”
False.
Words have meanings. “War crimes” is a term that means a certain thing, and it’s not “whatever internet commenter guy doesn’t like.”
You demean the principles behind Geneva and Nuremburg when you cheapen the term “war crimes.”
Joe, whether declared as war or not the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq clearly fall under the Geneva conventions. So do the “covert special operations” in dozens of other countries such as Pakistan and Yemen.
Read the 4th convention. Indefinite detention without trial of people captured in an occupied country is a clear violation. This is not splitting hairs. Torturing such people, rendering them to others to torture them, and denying them access to the Red Cross and other basic rights of prisoners are also violations.
Depending on the circumstances, targeted assassinations are also war crimes.
Shorter quote: “George Bush caught Osama Bin Laden. We can haz monument now?”
Seriously, it’s deeper than that. Even unrepentant far-reich wing warmongers like Cheney and Peter King (the congress guy, not the football writer) have gone out of their way to praise Obama this year – before the OBL news came out.
Drop the tit-for-tat. The reality is that on these topics Obama has gone against everything he campaigned for (and for which he got the Nobel Prize) and has endorsed the Bush approach. You can respond by pointing out the good stuff he’s done elsewhere (i.e. Lily Ledbetter), but wishing it away won’t change that reality.
“(and for which he got the Nobel Prize)”
He got the Nobel Prize for restarting nuclear reduction treaties.
Your facts are consistently wrong.
Joe, we love you, too.
Speaking of facts, the two of you should get acquainted. Joe, meet facts, facts meet Joe.
Here’s the full text of the Nobel Committee’s announcement. You’ll see that Nuclear Disarmament does get a special mention, but that was only part of it. If you are too busy to read it all concentrate on just the second paragraph.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
I challenge anyone to argue that the Nobel committee would make the same statement, or the same award decision, given what we know about Obama’s governance in September, 2011. I suspect that, even if they may not say it in public, they are just as disappointed as so many of Obama’s supporters in the U.S.
By the way, it’s worth noting that climate change was also given a special mention, though not as prominent as nuclear disarmament.
…and we have a complicit military and intelligence community prepared to make sure they are the only alternatives. Isn’t that right, Mr. President.
Can’t picture Harry Reid cursing so I don’t know what he considers vulgar. I would certainly call the Repubs chickenshit and heartless.
Another quote of the day:
tweeted by Mark Knoller:
QOTD: Pres Obama: “Nascar is a sport where anything that can go wrong will go wrong at some point …similar to being president.”
My guess is that he was going to say:
“Some of my Republican colleagues are trying to kiss the Tea Party’s ass.”
Suck Koch?
unsteady hand at the tiller?
Given Reid’s age and background, my guess is:
“…queer the deal.”
I guess somebody should state the obvious, since it hasn’t been said yet. Probably the vulgar statement was that the GOPigs are “kissing teabagger ass” by holding up relief efforts.
Well, when it comes to stating the obvious, I’m always ready! I just wrote practically the same thing as you did. So obviously we’re both right.