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Like a Bad Penny.
“Decision Point: Is it a good idea for me to land on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit with a sign that says ‘Mission Accomplished‘? Key Decision: How is it not a good idea?” On the announcement...
View ArticleThe World they Made.
“When historians look back to the moment when the post-Cold War reign of American power ended, they may well settle on 2010 as a crucial year. Everywhere, it seemed, there were signs that the...
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“Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi.”
“Around dawn on October 23, 1983, I was in Beirut, Lebanon, when a suicide bomber drove a truck laden with the equivalent of twenty-one thousand pounds of TNT into the heart of a U.S. Marine compound,...
View ArticlePax Corleone.
“The aging Vito Corleone, emblematic of cold-war American power, is struck down suddenly and violently by forces he did not expect and does not understand, much as America was on September 11. Even...
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Great Borah’s Ghost!
A busy day traffic-wise here at GitM: In a speech before the Knesset today, Dubya compared Obama to Sen. William Borah of Idaho (and not in complimentary fashion, although that case could be made...
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So Happy Together…| It’s On.
“If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate that I’m happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate I will win,...
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The Mouse that Roared.
“‘Over that summer of 2002,’ he writes, ‘top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war…In the permanent campaign era, it was all...
View ArticlePhase II Complete.
“‘The president and his advisors undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the (September 11, 2001) attacks to use the war against al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam...
View ArticleNorth Korea: Now Not-so-Evil.
“This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea. If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community — much as Libya has done over...
View Article…so why not Iran?
“The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many...
View ArticleWe screwed up Afghanistan…
“Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terror camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States…’The United States faces a...
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Al-Maliki: What Obama Said.
“Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes…Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who...
View ArticleHabbush%*t.
“That it was a forgery can no longer be doubted; that it originated with the White House may be harder to prove. Two former CIA officials — Rob Richer and John Maguire — have gone on record as saying...
View ArticleGeorgia On Our Minds.
“‘I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia,’ Bush said. ‘We strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia.‘” As Georgian forces pull back from South Ossetia in the...
View ArticleOscar Mike at Last?
“‘We have a text,’ Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after a day-long visit Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.” How badly do the Republicans want to keep the White House?...
View ArticleA Shoe of Contempt.
“I didn’t know what the guy said, but I saw his sole.” Say what you will about the 43rd president — and, no doubt, the history books will — the man has cat-like reflexes for his age. The story of the...
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Don’t let the door hit you on the way out…
“I have often said that history will look back and determine that which could have been done better, or, you know, mistakes I made. Clearly putting a ‘Mission Accomplished’ on a aircraft carrier was a...
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Gaza: No Easy Answers.
Speaking of those ostensibly terror-despising free peoples, I haven’t written here on the depressing situation in Gaza, but friend and colleague Liam of sententiae et clamores concisely and elegantly...
View ArticleOut with a Whimper (and a “9/11″)
“This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house – Sept. 11, 2001.” Now, there‘s a surprise. To be honest, there’s not much to be said about Dubya’s dismal farewell...
View ArticleFrere Jacques, Dormez-Vous?
z’[W]ith Reagan, the prophecy appreciation part of his brain functioned quite independently of the part that started wars (there’s nothing in the Old Testament about Nicaragua or even Grenada). Bush...
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