Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Basically

I came across this quote today from Josh Marshall, editor of the liberal Talking Points Memo, while doing some research for a column. It's a good one.
"Basically everything Barack Obama has done since coming into office has been to unwind the thicket of commitments, practices and open wars begun under George W. Bush."
Smart take, career wise. But I bet the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Guantanamo Bay have a different one.

14 comments:

  1. He said "open wars".

    -- MrJM

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  2. David Mizner12:11 PM

    This is the man, remember, who felt "immense pride" watching Zero Dark Thirty.

    https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/315672884796334080

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  3. I personally feel much less committed than I did back when Bush was on the throne. Or maybe I'm ready to be committed. I've heard it both ways.

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  4. Josh Marshall has been a lick spittle Obamafan since Obama began his run for office. If you're inclined to think well of boot lickers then you'll think well of him.

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  5. Anonymous7:43 AM

    lol

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  6. I am ashamed that I read Marshall's TPM almost daily when Bush was President. I thought he was a fair and honest commentator. I actually thought he was anti-war and ant-corruption, and I used to communicate with him and send him tips.

    Then Obama became President, and the scales came off my eyes.

    Marshall is a straight-out tribalist and hypocrite, completely in the tank for the Democratic Party, a total shill who'll excuse everything the Blue team does for the same offenses he had guns a-blarin' when the Red team held office.

    I know better now. Josh Marshall is a phony.

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    Replies
    1. Perfectly expressed!

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    2. Anonymous1:09 PM

      Fillerzine and John, Count me among the suckers who thought TPM was a nice read -- before Marshall's true stripes came out . . . .

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    3. Anonymous9:36 AM

      Count me in. I actually thought he was a real muckraker. Turns out he is simply partisan.

      Delete
  7. I wrote Josh Marshall, it was back when Obama was running for his first term. I was calling him out on having hollowed out his site, in terms of principles. He replied with a bunch of expletives and invited me to go pick up political skinny elsewhere (like I hadn't come to that conclusion).

    Here he is now, doing this

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  8. Anonymous11:31 AM

    Unwinding commitments and opening wars sounds right, actually.

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  9. http://www.nationaljournal.com/u-s-troop-withdrawal-motivated-by-iraqi-insistence-not-u-s-choice-20111021

    "President Obama’s speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren’t being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They’re leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.

    Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House -- anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq’s continuing political and security challenges -- publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension."

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    1. More insight into why Obama wants to destroy Bradley Manning and Wikileaks.

      Without those docs, the Iraqis would never have demanded that American forces be eligible for war crimes prosecutions.

      Obama wanted standard immunity for war criminals. He didn't get what he wanted. So he left with his tail in the air, pretending the decision to leave was his courageousness and righteousness alone.

      More phoniness that the water-boy Josh Marshall's of the world either ignorantly swallowed whole or deliberately exploited to bamboozle the public.

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  10. You are delusional. Carry through, solidify, augment and bring the war on terror to the home front, is more like it.

    Inflection Point - http://notionalvalue.blogspot.com/

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