Jack
- : Gillis
- : 55
- : liberal
- : Democrat
- : http://jfxgillis.newsvine.com
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William:
Howdy. I'm a lib-lefty who suddenly found I had a bigger streak of paleoconservatism than I thought:
Melos, Morals, Matryoshkas and Majorities: Of Sudetenland and South Ossetia
Posted at August 15, 2008 8:03 AM in response to Georgia: Background to War
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Don't want to be a garden-party skunk, but let's get real people.
What Charlie Black said last week about Terrorism and Republican prospects is undoubtedly true, notwithstanding that fact that it was impolitic to state it so baldly.
What Wes Clark said yesterday is also undoubtedly true, again notwithstanding the fact that it was impolitic to say so.
Perfect and complementary exemplars of Michael Kinsley's famous dictum that in Washington, a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.
Posted at June 30, 2008 1:38 PM in response to Obama Campaign Condemns Wes Clark's Comments About McCain
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Oh. Wow. Turns out, I "broke off" the audio of the December 12, 2006 Farewell luncheon and clipped many highlights (TPM, just wrote to on the tips e-mail):
Intro:
"On April 20, 2008, the New York Times published an expose, "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand," by David Barstow, detailing the close--in many cases, close business--relationship with a group of retired military officers who have spent much of the last five years as supposedly "independent" military analysts in the mainstream media, mostly on television and especially on the newschannels, Fox, CNN, and including MSNBC (proprietors of Newsvine)"
Money graf:
"On Thursday, May 8, the Department of Defense released to the public all the items they had turned over to the New York Times relating to the Military Analysts story. One item that was released that has generated no notice in the media accounts so far is an audio recording of a valedictory luncheon Rumsfeld hosted for those analysts on December 12, 2006--a month after Rumsfeld had been cashiered by President Bush and only a few days before Rumsfeld's replacement Robert Gates assumed the post of Secretary of Defense."The recording is just over an hour long, so I clipped a few of the more notable moments. By 'notable' I mean 'at times chilling, infuriating, even shocking.'"
Click the Link to listen to Rumsfeld yearn for another 9/11:
Correctly Political: Liquid Lunch with Donald Rumsfeld
Posted at May 12, 2008 7:04 PM in response to Pentagon Military Analyst Doc Diving Thread
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But, paradoxically enough, neither Matt's nor Mickey's comments are ridiculous. Mickey's arguments are about 75% valid and true, and Matt's arguments are about 80% valid and true.
Properly segmented, politics is mostly concerned with creating, securing and distributing the benefits of economic activity. Political Economy. Land, Labor, Capital, blah blah blah.
Some social forces tend to push wealth up the ladder, some down, some shuffle it. There are good and substantial reasons why in any given case one might support policies to encourage any of those movements.
If Mickey wants to whine about the inefficiency of the Wagner Act, that's fine, or if he wants to complain about Davis-Bacon, that's cool, too. BUT IT'S NOT "LIBERAL" (contemporary "liberal"). It just isn't. It makes you a Capital-oriented corporatist Republican partisan. It puts you in the other segment of the polity by definition.
What makes this discourse "ridiculous" is first, the very dea of "liberalism without unions," and second, the idea that that idea is even worth the dignity of a response.
Posted at September 23, 2005 6:04 PM in response to Two Cheers for Special Interests
