No! Chuck Hagel? The pacifist left's favorite "Republican"?

There's no way that could be the plan. Because I know for a fact that Obama is was a kill-crazy super-trooper when it came to Afghanistan -- he told me so himself, and, like Superman, he never lies -- and there's no way he'd install a conveniently-Republican dove as his most important civilian military official.

Meanwhile Obama's deputy NSA has resigned in order to go back to the Navy, because he loves the Navy so much.

I don't doubt he loves the Navy. But presumably he loved the Navy before he accepted the job as Deputy NSA, too.

So why is he bailing on the position?

The speculation is obvious: McChrystal has threatened to resign, reportedly.

It could be that a lot of military folks willing to give Obama a chance are now running from the administration now that it is show its true color.

Posted by: Ace at 12:07 PM | Comments (1)
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He keeps waving around a letter he wrote to the President a while back, which he quotes as sage advice. (Quoting himself -- nice.) He claims the letter establishes why we can't send additional troops to Afghanistan, and must abandon the counterinsurgency strategy that worked so well in Iraq.

But the Weekly Standard has the letter. Opening paragraph:

“We support your decision to set a new course for U.S. policy in Afghanistan. We agree that the United States has a vital national interest in ensuring that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven from which al Qaeda can plot attacks against our homeland, and that achieving this objective requires that we put in place a well-resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy.”

Gee, I don't understand. Carl Levin and assorted other leftists swore up and down on a pack of Bibles to me that they really, really were super hard-ass ultra-warriors as regards Afghanistan, and that they only wanted to surrender to Al Qaeda in Iraq so they could be all the more bad-ass in Afghanistan.

And yet... now we find... not so much?

A new Fox Poll finds this is a wedge issue for the Democrats: sixty-four percent of Americans think that Afghanistan is either "very" or "extremely" important to win for the War on Terror, but a slight minority of Democrats feel that way (49%).

Overall, 64 percent of Americans support the U.S. military action in Afghanistan and 27 percent oppose it. There is a huge partisan gap, as 80 percent of Republicans support the action compared to 49 percent of Democrats. Among independents, 66 percent support it.

...

As a candidate, Barack Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" and made clear his commitment to the U.S. action there. As president, 37 percent of Americans say they think Obama is doing what it takes to win in Afghanistan, while half -- 50 percent -- say he isn't.

Somewhat related: The same poll finds that 61% of Americans support military force to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

According to a new FOX News poll released Thursday, a sizable 69 percent majority of Americans thinks President Obama has not been tough enough on Iran. That includes over half of Democrats (55 percent), two-thirds of independents (67 percent) and almost all Republicans (88 percent).

Some 16 percent of Americans think the president's actions have been "about right" and hardly any -- 6 percent -- say he has been "too tough" on Iran.

By a two-to-one margin the public thinks the U.S. will eventually need to use military force to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons -- 59 percent think so, while 29 percent think Iran can be stopped without the use of force.

Furthermore, 61 percent of Americans support the U.S. taking military action to stop Iran, including majorities of Democrats (53 percent), Republicans (73 percent) and independents (55 percent). Some 28 percent of Americans oppose military action against Iran.

Note again the close split between centrist liberals and dovish leftists.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (1)
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Ed Shultz claimed this a week or so ago. A host on MSNBC. True, MSNBC is not rockin' the ratings, but still: Here is a man deemed by the left to be respectable enough to broadcast on a major (ahem) news channel. instructing the nation that Republicans want you dead.

Representative "Teacups" Grayson of Florida stated that the Republican healthcare plan consisted of, mainly, "DIE QUICKLY." And he's not apologizing.

Meanwhile -- I've wanted to mention this for a while -- former "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones, supposedly a respected and respectable voice on the left, so respectable, in fact, he was part of Obama's unofficial cabinet of czars, was recently instructing black folks that "white power companies" are literally pumping their communities with poison in order to kill them.

Well! That's the sort of rhetoric that's certainly conducive to lowering racial tensions!

Think about that: Any black person who takes Van Jones partly seriously believes that "white power companies" (which, of course, I support) are attempting to murder them and their children.

Ponder exactly what sort of post-racial rapprochement can occur between myself and a black person when the elephant in the room, the first thing I have to overcome in order to prove my goodwill, is the idea that I am literally, not metaphorically but literally, a supporter of a conspiracy among white power companies to murder this black person, his or her spouse, and his or her children.

That's... that's kind of a major cockblock to racial reconciliation right there, isn't it? You know -- my complicity in genocide by toxin, and all. I'm really not sure how on earth we're too proceed to mutual goodwill when I am, again, attempting to murder him and his relatives and everyone who looks kind of like him.

But, I am told, we need to "tone down" the rhetoric, because saying stuff like the left said for the past eight years like "take our country back" is now racist and most likely a criminal incitement to political violence.

Well, At Least the Left Is Not Encouraging Grayson to Continue with His Holocaust-Rhetoric By Sending Him Millions of Dollars or Anything: Or... are they?

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 AM | Add Comment
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The SS is calling it a "prank" and will not prosecute.

What the little idiot did was wrong. But it's also stupid to attempt to lay blame for a "juvenile's" stupidity upon an entire party of millions of people.

This is what pisses me off about this whole subject: The left never takes ownership of its own crazies. They are "apart" from the left, they are other. Liberals know (or believe) that such crazies -- the anarchists, ALF, Truthers, Islamists and Islamist aplogists -- do not "represent" them. They are outside the respectable liberal cohort.

Well, you know what? We in the respectable right feel precisely the same way about the crazies the left says we're responsible for, or who represent us. We don't believe they represent us, and we too believe they are separate from us. We want nothing much at all to do with them.

But the left, controlling the media as it does, insists that our crazies are indeed ours, whereas their crazies... don't exist. They have no crazies. Those are just "anti-globalization protesters." Those are just "animal rights extremist." Those are just "crazy 9/11 conspiracists."

When speaking of the leftward crazies, the media is very careful to call things by their proper, specific names, and thus avoid putting them under the reductivist rubric of "the left."

But on the right? All of our nutters are, in their telling, "on the right." The "far right," they will sometimes say, or the "extreme right." But on the right nevertheless. As if a Nazi skinhead believes precisely what I do; he's just more strident and insistent upon it.

No sale.

It still astounds me that the liberal chattering class was talking about the "extremism" of the Tea Partiers, and claims (without evidence!) of a "rightwing murder" of a census taker, and how we are corrupting the public debate, even as dozens of committed leftists were throwing rocks at police and rioting in Pittsburgh.

But they're not us, liberals will tell me.

Oh? Right. Okay. But assuming the liberal dream scenario of a "rightwing murder" of the census taker turns out to be accurate -- that guy is me? Right? That's what you're saying? I didn't give some random meth-lab hillbilly a strong enough talking to about the principle of political civility and lawful conduct, but you have no obligation to give a similar stern lecture to the black-masked anarchists rioting in the streets every year?

Really?

No, not really. I decline your generous offer to accept the most despicable, hateful elements called by the media "the far right" as my brothers-in-arms even as you simply ignore your own problem children.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Add Comment
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I know, I know -- yet another Polanski post.

Still.

Some of the industry's most prominent women said they believe Polanski, who faces a sentence as low as probation and as high as 16 months in prison for pleading guilty to having sex with a minor, should be freed. "My personal thoughts are let the guy go," said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "It's bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It's crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things."

We could also stop prosecuting all rapes and spend that money on "other things," too. We could stop prosecuting all sorts of criminals. Somehow, though, I don't think this person's logic goes that far, or if she's willing to commit to such an odd agenda.

This quote is great:

In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He's not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. "Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," Weinstein said. "We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe."

That is shocking on so many levels. Among them, the implication that celebrities were necessary for the 9/11 fundraising, or that they should have the great bulk of the credit, rather than the millions of much poorer people who donated more than an hour of their time for a telethon. Same with Katrina.

This guy really is pushing the idea of droit du seignor. He really believes that. The Kings provide to the peasants in the field, and the peasants owe the Kings certain indulgences in repayment of that benevolence.

But there's another semi-prominent crack in the Wall of Sound, and this guy says (as I suspected) that Hollywood really doesn't believe this. It's just that the Pro-Rape lobby is intimidating the Anti-Rape people into timid silence.

Producer Bo Zenga ("Scary Movie," "Soul Plane"), is one of the few executives taking a different view. "I don't actually believe that people in Hollywood would put protecting their own above a 13-year-old girl who was raped," he said.

"I think these people have honestly forgotten what this is really about. Everyone needs to go back and read the grand jury testimony to remember how vicious this rape was because right now everyone thinks we're debating whether or not Polanski got a raw deal. It irritates me that people around the world think that all of Hollywood is saying that the rapist is the victim. Because I don't feel that way, and neither do most of the people I talk with."

Via Andy Levy's Tweet.

BTW: Anne Appelbaum continues covering herself in glory.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (2)
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I didn't really watch the show but I know the opinion here is widely shared: It started out very well, and then stopped making any sense at all halfway through its run because the producers and writers were determined to create an Iraq War allegory that made no sense at all in the context of the story.

Sci-fi and politics geek Jonah Goldberg ponders the rise and fall.

Posted by: Ace at 09:32 AM | Comments (1)
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Behold! The Top 100 Videos in Youtube history in 4 minutes. I'm not really sure how official that is but go with it.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:52 AM | Add Comment
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I don't know about you but I'm feeling pretty silly right about now for doubting the world changing capabilities of Smart Power!

Iranian state television later reported that the negotiators for the seven nations agreed to hold further talks before the end of October.

Western diplomat sources confirmed such an announcement was planned and said preparations were also underway for the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit Iran's new enrichment facility near Qom before the next meeting takes place.

In the first such high-level talks between Washington and Tehran in years, the chief U.S. negotiator, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns, had a private discussion with his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, during the morning session of the conference, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. He said he could not immediately offer any additional details. The meeting, which took place as the other delegations were getting ready for lunch, lasted 30 minutes, a Western diplomat said.

Wow, more talks! That's so awesome. This is so much different than all the talking and inspecting of Iranian facilities we've been doing until now. No, this is nothing like the almost 10 years that came before. It's different because this time it's S-M-A-R-T.

See? You don't, do you? Because you're a wingnut.

Of course, while we bask in the success of our amazing President and wait for the next round of talks, Iran continues work on producing a nuclear weapon but clearly, we got the better end of that deal.

Thank you Obama!

(No word on whether Undersecretary of State Burns had to wash any blood off his hands after shaking hands with his Iranian counterpart.)

EXCLUSIVE: Must Credit Ace Of Spades HQ---Obama plan to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons uncovered!

Step 1-Talk to Iran
Step 2- ???
Step 3- Victory!

Note: Some folks in the comments are saying Obama is abandoning sanctions. That's not the takeaway from this. What they said was they wouldn't push for them during this meeting but they are still possible in the future (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Posted by: DrewM at 08:03 AM | Comments (4)
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I expected this kind of indecision from Obama but not from Gates.

In an interview Wednesday, a senior defense official said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates now worries that counterinsurgency might no longer be a viable approach for countering the Taliban violence roiling once-stable parts of north and west Afghanistan.

Mr. Gates, a Bush administration holdover, has emerged as one of Mr. Obama's most trusted advisers, so his views carry significant weight in the deliberations.

"Even 40,000 more troops don't give you enough boots on the ground to protect the Afghans if the north and west continue to deteriorate," the official said. "That may argue for a different approach."

A shift in Mr. Gates's thinking would be particularly striking because he has long been a major advocate of counterinsurgency, which is credited with helping to sharply reduce Iraq's once-unrelenting violence.

Here's the thing, when Gates, with the support of Adm. Mullen and Gen. Petraeus replaced then Afghanistan commander Gen. McKiernan he emphasized Gen. McChrystal was uniquely qualified to lead a counterinsurgency fight.

Gates repeatedly said that McKiernan had done nothing wrong but that given the new strategy adopted by a new President he wanted 'fresh eyes' on the ground. Well, McChrystal and his eyes have looked around and he says he needs more troops to do the job he was sent to do. Now Gates and Obama are saying, well maybe we need a new-new strategy.

Liberals will say this is a sign of Obama's vaunted intellect, that he is always assessing and reassessing given new facts. Bull. At some point you need to pick a strategy and go with it. Yes, consider feedback and adapt but within the frame work of your strategy. And yes, you need to reevaluate your strategy at some point, but 3 months in and before your new commander even has the resources to implement it, is not the fish or cut bait point.

Obama and his team are floating the idea that the Afghan elections were a key decision point and the amount of fraud and corruption were shocking. Allow me to use a very technical term to describe my reaction to that...duh. Anyone who had their sensibilities shocked by the level of cheating in the recent election hasn't been paying any attention.

These Washington battles are being fought behind closed doors and on many levels so a lot of this is tea leaf reading but what we are seeing is deeply worrying. Obama needs to pick a strategy to fight and win or be honest that he's looking for a way out. It's immoral to keep American servicemen and women in harm's way if you are clueless about what to do or too gutless to do what you really want.

I hope that behind closed doors Gates has the fortitude to stand up for the General he put in this position or resign on principle if the President isn't willing to support him and the General.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:50 AM | Add Comment
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October? Never heard of it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:54 AM | Comments (1)
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