"It marked the moment when Obama became a leader,

[NJmaverick]

defined as an individual who chooses the hard road because he believes it is the right one. "





A rather thoughtful editorial from Kathleen Parker

An American triumph at Oslo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121003638.html

[MineralMan]

1. Recommended. Now, we'll see what the detractors have to say.

I'm sure it will be plenty.

[bluestateguy]

2. Parker was kicked out of the conservative treehouse earlier this year

nt

[avaistheone1]

3. What a horrific puff piece. Oh barf !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:








:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[NJmaverick]

4. hey profile hider, you find postive things said about our DEMOCRATIC President disgusting?

While I will admit your point of view left me a bit queasy, I think the suggesting that it is vomit inducing to be mindless hyperbole

[tavalon]

5. God knows, there's no hyperbole to be found here at DU

[NJmaverick]

9. So do you think it's a good thing?

[tavalon]

10. That our newly minted war President used the Nobel Peace Prize

acceptance speech to justify getting his war on? No, not at all.

[NJmaverick]

13. No, I am referring to the fact that hyperbole is so common here at DU

[tavalon]

55. Same as it ever was

[Algorem]

6. i guess obama will be comfortably dead before anyone can figure out if

anything he did was worth doing,according to his asshole "philosopher".sort of like bush,in 50 years all the historians are going to be saying how great he was.




the serenity to not have the courage to change the things he can?he's bolloxing the whole thing.

[Enrique]

7. you can retract this post if you like

approvingly posting a Kathleen Parker column praising Obama for proving he's not a Muslin infiltrator was obviously a mistake. It happens to everyone.

[NJmaverick]

8. It's sad that posting positive articles on our DEMOCRATIC President is now considered a mistake or

vomit inducing disgusting.

[Enrique]

11. Kathleen Parker was one of the most mindless cheerleaders for the Iraq war

wrote some really really stupid thoughtless columns about that war and about anti-war people.

Now she's praising Obama for being hawkish, to prove he's patriotic, and that's supposed to be a good thing?

Suppose Dick Cheney came out and wrote a column on how patriotic Obama is for escalating the war, would you like it because it's saying something good about a DEMOCRATIC president?

[NJmaverick]

12. Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war. That doesn't mean I discount Ms Clinton

So the idea that one bad position precludes a person from being right in the future is a false one.

[Bjorn Against]

15. So do you agree with Parker when she says in this very column that...

"Obama aligned himself with conservatives", and if you do agree with this column do you think it is a good thing that Obama aligned himself with the right on Afghanistan?

[NJmaverick]

17. Context matters

"With those words, Obama aligned himself with conservatives, who believe in the fallibility of human nature and in an enduring moral order. "

Now for the "words"

"For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."


With the full context I don't see an issue. I am discouraged that you would attempt to use a phrase out of context though.

[Bjorn Against]

20. I am not taking it out of context, I don't like Parker but I think she was right on that point

Obama did align himself with the right when he spoke those words you quoted, he did not align himself with my views however.

[NJmaverick]

23. Context= The information that I provided. The information to fully understand the statement

You took your phrase out of that CONTEXT. So despite your claims to the contrary, what you did was the very definition of taking a phrase out of context.

[Bjorn Against]

25. I knew exactly what words she was referring to before you posted them

I read the whole column and I saw the words in their full context, I did not take her words out of context in any way.

[Enrique]

16. one bad position?

maybe the problem is that you don't know who Kathleen Parker is. A hint: she's not Hillary Clinton.

[Bjorn Against]

14. "With those words, Obama aligned himself with conservatives"

Hearing this from Kathleen Parker is not exactly encouraging, Parker was a very loud and vocal supporter of Bush's illegal wars and I do not know why people would be proud to have her coming out in favor of Obama's Afghanistan policy.

[NJmaverick]

18. Context matters

the "words"

"For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

With that context it's reasonable. Only a fool would believe there is no common ground with liberals and conservatives.

[Bjorn Against]

22. I don't have common ground with the right-wing on Afghanistan.

I never said there is no such thing as common ground, but on this particular issue there is no way in hell that I am going to find common ground with the right-wing when they have shown just how wrong and destructive they are.

[NJmaverick]

24. Al Qaeda used Afghanistan as a base of operation

there is common ground between the left and the right that what Al-Qaeda did on 9/11 was wrong. So what is your position on this, that you don't share our common ground?

[Bjorn Against]

28. Al Qaeda also used Florida as a base of operations, I don't think we should bomb Florida.

I do think the crimes that were committed on 9/11 were wrong, but that does not mean I support war against Afghanistan. Bringing up 9/11 is a strawman because that is not the issue here, the issue is the war.

[NJmaverick]

29. We have and have used the ability to deny Florida as a future base of operation

at this point we can't say the same about Afghanistan.


On another note- You think 9/11 was wrong, so you do have common ground with right wingers. See and you didn't think that was possible.

[Bjorn Against]

31. There is no way to deny any region as a base of operations

Al Qaeda can still have operations in Florida and they will always still be able to have operations in Afghanistan, they operate underground and if we discover one base they will just open another somewhere else and war does not prevent that from happening.

And I never said we can never find common ground with the right on any issue at all, you dishonestly put those words in my mouth. What I said is that I do not have common ground with the right on the war in Afghanistan, you do obviously but that does not mean I am going to.

[NJmaverick]

32. You are saying you were opposed to going after Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan?

[Bjorn Against]

33. I have opposed the war in Afghanistan from the beginning

[NJmaverick]

35. What was your alternative?

[Bjorn Against]

37. My alternative was pursuing the individuals responsible instead of bombing an entire nation

[NJmaverick]

38. How were you going to pursue the ones hiding in Afghanistan?

[Bjorn Against]

39. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, exactly none of them were from Afghanistan

[NJmaverick]

40. The hijackers were all dead, I am talking about the people that planned the operation

and ran the operation. They were hiding in Afghanistan. We you in favor of letting them walk?

[Bjorn Against]

41. Can you name me one person who is in Afghanistan right now that helped plan the 9/11 attacks?

[NJmaverick]

42. You are side stepping an important question. You can't enjoy the benefits (the removal of Al-Qaeda

from Afghanistan) if you were opposed to the war that accomplished that.

[Bjorn Against]

43. No you are sidestepping an important question...

If you insist that we need to go to war with Afghanistan because the people who planned 9/11 are located there then surely you should be able to name one person who is living in Afghanistan right now that helped plan 9/11.

I don't believe war will remove Al Qaeda from Afghanistan so I sure don't see any benefits to keeping this war going.

I am waiting for you to name one person who is still in Afghanistan that helped plan 9/11.

[NJmaverick]

44. Your question assumes that no Al-Qaeda have been captured in this war

and that is a completely false assertion.

[Bjorn Against]

45. No my question does not assume that, not everyone in Al Qaeda worked on the planning of 9/11

I ask again, can you name one person who is in Afghanistan right now that helped plan the 9/11 attacks?

[NJmaverick]

46. Ohhhh I understand. You will take credit for the good the war, you opposed, did

and now you want to take some sort of high ground and say the war is wrong because at this moment in time there are no Al Qaeda members. The only problem with that is to buy into your position I have to ignore the reality that if we were to leave Afghanistan today the Taliban is poised to take over (you remember them the ones that hosted Al-Qaeda). Sorry I simply can't agree with not only your position but how you arrived at it.

[Bjorn Against]

48. You understand what? I simply asked you a question I never took credit for anything.

And you are dishonestly putting words in my mouth once again, I never said there are no Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan I said that not all Al Qaeda members worked on the planning of 9/11. There are Al Qaeda members all of the world, most of them are in countries that we are at peace with.

You obviously are unable to answer my question which tells me that for all of your talk about 9/11 you know damn well that there is no evidence that any of the people who planned 9/11 are in Afghanistan right now.

Until you answer my question and give me a name I will stop debating you because you obviously can not provide evidence for your assertion that the people who planned 9/11 are in Afghanistan and you simply try to dodge the question.

[NJmaverick]

49. Declare your victory for illogical thinking my friend

[bertman]

19. By the third paragraph I was ready to vomit. This woman thinks that just because President Obama

agreed to commit 30,000 more American troops and escalate the war, he has now become a leader.

That is sickening in too many ways to describe.

If I believed in using the Unrec function I would have used it on this post.

[NJmaverick]

26. Wow talk about a deliberate twisting of the facts

the man taking the harder road because he believes it the right one- is what she said. You twist that to "agreed to commit 30,000 more American troops and escalate the war, now he is a leader". Maybe that nauseous feeling you are feeling is caused by your own conscience.

[bertman]

34. That harder road was the same "harder road" that Dubya decided to walk. President Obama's

justifications may have made Ms. Parker happy, but they were simply repeating the Neo-con talking points as far as I am concerned.

Hard choices about protecting America from al Qaeda or the Taliban. Give me a break.

Try protecting the pipeline for Exxon, Shell, et al.

[NJmaverick]

36. What was hard in declaring war over lies? How does that compare to Obama's

efforts to protect our nation?

[bertman]

50. You and I differ over whether the war in Afghanistan has anything to do with protecting our nation.

I think it's all about protecting the Empire of Big Energy and their Corporatist cohorts.

If we were there to protect America from al Qaeda we did that when we drove them into the border areas where the Pakistanis could have finished them off IF THEY WANTED TO. Our mission never had anything to do with the Taliban, despicable though they are--but if we want to talk despicable let's try the Saudi Wahabbis. Our mission never had anything to do with "nation building" in Afghanistan either, but now that is what it has become as part of the Obama Ruse.

Bottom line: security for the oil and natural gas pipeline. All of those humongous bases in Iraq and Afghanistan will be there for U.S. forces to inhabit until the wells run dry. The vaunted "withdrawal" from Iraq leaves 50,000 advisors there for the foreseeable future. Karzai says 15 to 20 years before Afghanistan can stand on its own. Ha ha ha ha ha. Anybody believe that guy?? What he means is Keep Sending Me American Taxpayer Dollars. In the meantime we'll have over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. If we need to deal with any other Middle Eastern problem areas we'll have plenty of military hardware right there and ready to rock n roll.

The 189 (or whatever it is now) military bases we have all over the globe are not there for humanitarian purposes. They are there to ensure that the locals don't get any funny ideas about using THEIR natural resources instead of having them commandeered by the Energy and Mineral, etc. giants.

If we wanted to protect America from al Qaeda we'd be well served to do it police style in cooperation with our allies. But that doesn't keep the tanks rolling, the helicopters flying, the transport trucks rolling, the armored care makers busy making replacements for the ones blown up, etc. etc.

[DaveT]

21. I'm disappointed but not disgusted

by President Obama so far. I find much of the condemnation of him to be unpersuasive and I agree with the rationalization that we should give him more time before rejecting his performance.

That said, the Parker piece is preposterous. This is not criticism of Obama, it is a rejection of the idiotic premise that Parker assumes about "leadership" -- that leaders go to war, while political manipulators fear to fight. In point of fact, in the perverse American system it takes courage to avoid war, while the cowardly move is to give in to the unholy political bloc that always wants war. Decade after decade the "enemy" is always changing -- The Evil Empire, Panama, Libya, Grenada, Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and just over the horizon, Iran. There is always a powerful constituency in favor of war.

War is a racket and tens of trillions of dollars depend upon a continued war against somebody. Hacks like Parker make a living tricking up the political cover for blood profiteering.

Given the omnipresent power of this war bloc, I can relate to the Obama Shuffle in Afghanistan. Okay, General, you have two years to turn Afghanistan into a modern country.

It remains to be seen whether Obama will have the courage and the political power to make this gambit work come 2011.

In the mean time, what are we going to do?



But as for Parker, she is a warmongering hack.

[NJmaverick]

27. To be fair to the facts, she says taking the harder road because he believes it to be the right one

is what she said, not "that leaders go to war, while political manipulators fear to fight."

[DaveT]

51. While I have to concede

that she did not say the words I wrote, I do think it is a fair reading of her clear message in the piece.

She was playing off the irony of the "peace" prize being the occasion for the "leader" to explain why he is pursuing a policy of war. She strongly implies that it takes political courage to go against the wishes of his core constituency, and she explicitly invokes the alleged courage it takes to face the fact that his decisions will cause people to die. In context she is praising this firm determination to go to war, implicitly contrasting it to what a non-leader would do -- let the people of Afghanistan sort their destiny out for themselves.

This basic thought is one of the most common assertions of the perpetual pro-war propaganda machine -- that the higher purpose of the American Presidency is to order troops into battle for whatever ludicrous cover story is in play at the time: spreading democracy, liberating people from brutal dictators, protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, and now, keeping Al Qaeda from having safe haven in Afghanistan.

For what it's worth, of all these lame assed reasons to slaughter human beings that our government has propounded since World War II, the one that comes closest to making sense is this one about Afghanistan. I do not deny for a second that it would be much better for America and for most of the world if Afghanistan could become a modern country with a civil government that effectively prevents an awowedly terrorist organization like Al Qaeda from operating within its borders.

Unfortunately, the USA is not going to make that happen. Not in two years or two decades. Not with 30 thousand more troops -- or 30 million troops.

So, rather than do the rational thing and withdraw from Afghanistan, I actually support Obama's Shuffle. Lots of people will die in this gesture, but the alternative would be for Obama to face the brunt of the National Security State and all its propaganda power. Obama cannot throw his Presidency away like that.


Like I said in my previous post, I am still in Obama's camp -- not because I am all that happy with his policies, but because I appreciate what he is up against. Parker is a tiny snippet of that opposition -- and her praise for him is worthy of derision, as far as I am concerned.

[Enrique]

30. Kathleen Parker's other great leaders

and guess how Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz proved it? With the Iraq war, of course!

What's next, a column from Fred Phelps praising Obama for opposing gay marriage, which we must like because it's praising a DEMOCRATIC president?

http://townhall.com/columnists/KathleenParker/2003/04/12/liberation_tastes_like_crow_to_anti-war_crowd?page=2

It's also hard to be humble when you're right, but guess who is both? Guess who first cautioned against glibness, hubris, immodesty and arrogance? Those mean men Dowd can never bring herself to address as adults: her Bushy, Rummy and Wolfie. The lead players in this epochal drama have spoken with the restraint and authority of grown-ups undistracted by childish antics, either from the pacifist nursery or from exuberant Iraqis tasting freedom, in some cases for the first time. "Let them rant" or "Let them loot," as the case may be, is an attitude of tolerance born of higher sights.

[Tutankhamun]

47. For the most part, Republicans and their corporate RW media will bash anything Obama does.

Yes, there will be exceptions. The occasional conservative voice will praise him as he veers right. I, however, don't celebrate when some hawkish RW columnist praises Obama for escalating an already lost war while our nation starves.

[Warren Stupidity]

52. You are on a roll.

I'm pretty sure that if you just keep on posting these missives, surely we will all start agreeing with you.

[NYC_SKP]

53. I'm glad the unreccers are not at all representative of progressives. K and R. n/t

[winyanstaz]

54. If it was wrong for Bush to start those wars...

it's wrong for Obama to escolate...
War is wrong.
War is harmful to the planet and children and other living things.
War is not an answer to our fuel problems.
War is a cancer to mankind.