Palin had said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show on Wednesday night that Obama's new nuclear policy was "kinda like getting out there on the playground, a bunch of kids ready to fight, and one of the kids saying, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not gonna retaliate.'"
It sure does seem like Palin doesn't respect that one kid on the playground, doesn't it? I mean, only an idiot would fail to retaliate when they're about to get punched in the face, right?
Except that's exactly what this one guy, of whom Sarah Palin is very famously quite a fan, said we should do.
Posts
Jesus only holds that view on Tuesday and Thursday. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, he agrees with Paul's Romans 13 passage. Sunday, he's into Peace through Superior Firepower, and Saturday he's in shul.
ReplyDeletePresident Barak "skin thinner than a tenth of an Angstrom" Obama must love Sarah, since he's putting her in the news, yet again. She knows how to get in that guy's head, doesn't she?
You mean, with the quote he gave when someone else asked him a question? You call that "getting into his head"? I would be incredulous, but I think we're well past that point in our ongoing interaction.
ReplyDeleteDid you actually think about his reply? He wasted no opportunity to go after SP. Cynthia Yockley nailed it, ridicule is BO's kryptonite.
ReplyDeletePres. Thinskin could have omitted "the last time I checked..." Yeah, SP isn't a nuclear policy expert. We know. But BO isn't a nuclear policy expert either. Is it imaginable that SP's advisers are at least as smart as BO's advisers on nuclear policy? Yes, it is.
Pres. Scary-smart opening his yap in unscripted moments is always good for a laugh or three. Did you catch the "if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin." He simply can't let it go when anyone disagrees with him.
BTW, even though I'm not a Harvard educated ConLaw scholar like Pres. Scary-smart, I happen to know that the SecDef and CJCoS have precisely two public options regarding Presidential policy; "get comfortable" or resign. He is the CoC, not the SecDef and not the CJCoS. His decision counts. But Barry isn't about to take a stand unless he can hide behind some else in case things go awry.
Yessir, that's real Presidential behavior on display.
But BO isn't a nuclear policy expert either. Is it imaginable that SP's advisers are at least as smart as BO's advisers on nuclear policy? Yes, it is.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not. It's just really, really not. And I can't imagine that you really think it is.
You're free to hate the President for smiling the wrong way, but I can't possibly take your criticism seriously.
ha DrDanny. I had no idea that Sarah Palin kept a staff of Foreign Policy experts on hand to consult with at all times. And what is even more amazing is that they would give her to use a schoolyard analogy, but hey, if gadfly john says so, it must be true...
ReplyDeleteIt is almost impossible not to ridicule caribou Barbie. I have yet to come across a single statement from her that I would consider astute, much less wise. She truly is a nitwit.
charo
What bugs me the most about the folksy approach to public policy is that her analogies are so egregiously wrong. And not analogous. Saying we're going to spend our resources making what we have better instead of increasing the stockpiles is nothing at all, even in the slightest, like getting a bunch of combative children to fight by promising not to hit back when (not if) punched. Seriously, to whom does that make sense? About two-thirds of our country really scares me, because at least a third will agree with her, and another third won't know that her argument is flawed but will disagree just because it's her.
ReplyDelete[Shudder.]
charo, I suspect Ms. Palin doesn't keep a fulltime staff for Foreign Policy. OTOH, I do think her staff has a list of numbers to call when she wants information. She isn't bad at analogies, in fact, now that we've passed the bill, "death panels" ("So figuring out how we can say no may be the single toughest and most important task facing the people who will be in charge of carrying out reform. “Being able to say no,” Dr. Alan Garber of Stanford says, “is the heart of the issue.”) are becoming quite the rage in government circles.
ReplyDeleteNTW, no one is arguing that our stockpile ought to be increased AFAICT. If you have cites to people who are making that argument, please post them, I'd like to see them. And the contentious issue is making the incoherent announcement that we won't use nukes, regardless of provocation up to and including existential threats, against NPT compliant States. Unless, of course, Pres. Obama thinks we ought to do so.
Wow, GJ, that's a pretty impressive misreading of the article you linked to, complete with out-of-context quote and everything. Do you expect that I'm just going to take your characterizations at their word without checking the link?
ReplyDeletelove how gj construes one central aspect of US nuclear deterrence which has been around for a generation, namely strategic ambiguity, as incoherent. Astounding how completely oblivious some people are to history and how in tune to Fox propaganda they are.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, sure, Palin called a former nuclear arms negotiator for his take on the issue and she simply distilled it down to a schoolyard analogy. Hey gj, Sarah wants to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, are you interested?
We've got to learn to say no to people needing medical care, and we've got to do it for budgetary reasons. It isn't going to be a decision between the patient and the doctor, but will include impersonal, distant bean counters and assorted government types. Basically, we've exchanged eeeevil, greedy insurance companies for the kind, gentle ministrations of our pols, who always know what is best for us (and who will skim an extra 30% off the top in graft and corruption like they do in Medicare). So when Granny can't get that operation, well, it was for the Greater Good (tm)(c).
ReplyDeleteBTW, I put the link in so you could read the original. If you have anything of substance, I might be able to address it. Otherwise, we simply disagree.
Hi charo! So, are you telling me that Pres. Scary-schmott didn't really change anything at all, and he was simply talking out of his, ahh, hat when he proposed a new policy?
ReplyDeleteWhile you are at it, why don't you explain to our allies under the US nuclear umbrella that we really don't mean we'll sit tight while they are overthrown; President Lightworker is sure to respond with lots of American troops, right? It isn't as though taking down the umbrella will backfire and encourage those nations to get their own WMD because they can no longer depend on the US under Barack the Mild. I mean, what could go wrong?
I see an article about cutting health care costs by eliminating unnecessary (and sometimes harmful) testing and interventions. You see "death panels." Yeah, we're going to have to disagree on this one.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what you are talking about gj. Of course Obama hasn't changed the policy of strategic ambiguity since you yourself referenced it as a critique. You are like a pin ball machine with the ball going all over the place. The umbrella is not being taken away, there will still be enough nukes to destroy the world 10 times over, and we still retain the capacity to build more at any time. There is no new policy, we are simply reducing stockpiles, something that has been going on since Nixon/Brezhnev. (and which God Reagan did at Reykavik)
ReplyDeleteThis debate is beyond stupid, hell even George Shultz thinks it is beyond stupid. Not every issue has to be filtered through your wingnut filter.
charo
by the way gj, read the 49-page Nuclear Posture Review and then cite to me the passages that claim what you claim. You can't because there aren't any.
ReplyDeletepoint, set, match.
charo
Dr. Dan, are you trying to tell me that there is a large amount of unnecessary and/or harmful testing now carried out by the medical profession? Other than defensive medicine[1], what are y'all doing that the Feds would stop in the name of Better Outcomes, and why aren't doctors making these changes anyway?
ReplyDelete[1] Defensive medicine is a special case, because the Dem party made it clear that sort of Reform will not be supported by Congress.
charo, charo, charo. Silly boy, it is "game, set, match", not "point, set, match." And the nuclear posture review is 72 pages, not 49.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I said -- "And the contentious issue is making the incoherent announcement that we won't use nukes, regardless of provocation up to and including existential threats, against NPT compliant States." And the NPR says -- "....the United States is now prepared to strengthen its long-standing 'negative security assurance' by declaring that the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT] and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations."
I said -- "Unless, of course, Pres. Obama thinks we ought to do so." The NPR says -- "Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons and the rapid pace of bio-technology development, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and U.S. capacities to counter that threat."
Any questions, charo?
No, that's not what he said.
ReplyDeleteThe Nuclear Posture Review does say that we would respond with a "devastating conventional military" blow if a non-nuclear, non-NPT-violating country attacked us with biological or chemical weapons. But you yourself listed this caveat:
Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons ... threat.
In other words, if some country ever did develop the ability to inflict catastrophic damage on the United States, and if it actually launched such an attack, we would reserve the right to retaliate with nuclear weapons, even if that country had no nukes of its own.
This is called strategic ambiguity and has been a hallmark of US defense for generations. For you, gj, it is incoherent because you are an idiot. We all know this. And yes, I made a mistake with my number, bfd.
By the way, it is also game, set, match.
Game, set, match 50 up, 3 down
Used to indicate that a person has definitively beaten the opposition in a given situation. Derived from the game of tennis in which the winner of a match is the player who wins two out of three (for women) or three out of five (for men) sets; each set is made up of a number of games. Thus, the final winning shot is the one that wins the player the point that wins the game that wins the set that wins the match.
"When the prosecutor pulled out the security cam photo showing Darryn in the convenience store with the gun, they had him game, set, match."
tennis winner match point player beaten
by ahrien Nov 14, 2007 share this
2. Game, Set, Match 17 up, 1 down
In a heated debate, your side makes a point and then a counter-point is made by the opposing team. You dish out another point only to be countered by....nothing. If enough time goes by and no valid counter-points have been made, or nothing has even been said, then it's time for you to say, "game, set, match."
There's been over 8 seconds of silence from the opposition. You've won. Celebrate.
Synonymous with: For the Win. To school.
A: We should really replace our lightbulbs with compact florescents.
B: How much money do you think it would cost to replace these technologies, and how much e-waste would that produce?
A: This one-time thing? Compact florescents last much longer than typical lightbulbs so we'd actually be saving money and producing less e-waste.
B: ....
A: Game, Set, Match.
game set match for the win schooled
by GSMer May 25, 2009 share this
3. game, set, match
int. Used to accentuate how completely and thoroughly done someone is with someone else, some thing, a given situation, or the like. Much in the vein of eight ball corner pocket. A derivative of this could be "game, set, and match."
Any questions gj?
Oooh, another knockout, he is down for the count. Ha
charo