Netanyahu Outmaneuvers Obama?

[Razgovory]

Don't even start.

[Brazen]

Now, THIS is creepy:
http://theridiculant.metro.co.uk/2009/09/the-eternal-smile-of-barack-obama.html

[The Minsky Moment]

Berk, I don't claim to be an expert on US politics, but a quick search throws this on his political career in the Senate

He's the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.  That's a very foreign policy heavy committee.

[Berkut]

McCain has been actively working foreign policy pretty much his entire political career - in fact, you could argue that foreign policy and defense are his specialties. Head of the Armed Services Committee for however long, the guy has visited pretty much, well, everywhere innumerable times in the course of his duties.

He is as qualified from experience as anyone who hasn't been President or Secretary of State possibly can be, at least from the foreign policy perspective.

Quick blurb from some article abck when he was running about his FP experience:

Now 71, he was born in the Canal Zone, where his father, a naval officer, was stationed. A graduate of the Naval Academy, Mr. McCain flew in Vietnam and was a prisoner of war for more than five years. In the Senate, he is the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
He has visited every region of the world, including Antarctica and the Arctic Circle, and frequently meets with leaders of the countries to which he's traveled, both when he visits their countries and when they visit the United States.
Mr. McCain has been across the world so many times that aides named off the tops of their heads some 69 countries he's visited — including Azerbaijan, Estonia, Laos, and Palau — and warned the list was far from exhaustive.
Aides say he keeps up to speed on the politics and policies of many nations — a passion he regularly displays to reporters traveling with him — and understands the long-term ramifications of having well-established personal relationships with foreign leaders.
He makes it a point to meet with up-and-comers, too. Aides say he met Angela Merkel at a Munich conference several years ago before she became German chancellor. In summer 2004, Mr. McCain met at a restaurant with Viktor Yushchenko before the Orange Revolution when he was elected Ukrainian president.
Next week, Mr. McCain is expected to meet with Prime Minister Brown of Britain for the first time, and President Sarkozy of France for the third time. He met and corresponded with Mr. Sarkozy both before and after he was elected. The two last saw each other last summer.
Mr. McCain has relationships with every leader in Israel he plans to see, including Prime Minister Olmert, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, the defense minister, Ehud Barak, and the hawkish opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The senator last met with Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq last Thanksgiving, and he's also gotten to know other members of the Iraqi government.
He returns with two of his chief presidential supporters, Senators Lieberman, an Independent of Connecticut, and Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, but he insists it is a fact-finding venture, not a campaign photo opportunity.
"There's nothing like being on the ground," he said. Mentioning a mountainous area in northwestern Pakistan, he added, "I went to Waziristan once and it gave me a much better understanding of how difficult it is to get Osama bin Laden."

You can knock McCain for a lot of things - but not having foreign policy cred isn't one of them.

[Neil]

Europeans have trouble with the link between the armed services and foreign policy.  They don't appreciate how strong the link is in the US.

[derspiess]

http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Random/hillary_clinton_scary_smile.jpg

Like I said.

Oddly enough, that's not a Hillary picture that IMO should be on fugly.com.  There are quite a few others that fit the bill, though.

[Queequeg]

His own fault. I wanted to give it to him, but he had to go and spurn me for some two-bit idiot with nice legs.

And this is the way it would have been; gut-based "mavericky" decisions on par with picking Sarah Palin or supporting his friend in Georgia after he launched a war because he was off his mood altering medications.

Not to mention that as a Republican he couldn't really ever hope to put any kind of pressure on Israel, or do anything other than say "Israel is America's greatest ally and the only Democracy in the middle east and all the colonies happy camps in the West Bank are ultra awesome, and full of comely Israeli maidens, who doth frolic among the rosebushes and sing merry songs."

[Admiral Yi]

And this is the way it would have been; gut-based "mavericky" decisions on par with picking Sarah Palin or supporting his friend in Georgia after he launched a war because he was off his mood altering medications.

Not to mention that as a Republican he couldn't really ever hope to put any kind of pressure on Israel, or do anything other than say "Israel is America's greatest ally and the only Democracy in the middle east and all the colonies happy camps in the West Bank are ultra awesome, and full of comely Israeli maidens, who doth frolic among the rosebushes and sing merry songs."

How do you know he wouldn't  have been a slave to the Republican establishment about Georgia and gut-based mavericky about Israel?

[Jaron]

Okay so visiting countries gives you " foreign policy " credit.

Unless you are Obama, then its just vacation.

Give me a break Berkut. You'll do anything to build this guy up. He didn't win because he is infinitely less experienced and qualified than Obama to do the job.

McCain would have gotten bitch slapped in every foreign policy decision he made. It would have been an angry old man wagging his cane at the younger passerbys leaving trash on his lawn. What a joke of a politician that man is.

[Queequeg]

How do you know he wouldn't  have been a slave to the Republican establishment about Georgia and gut-based mavericky about Israel?

McCain's insane rhetoric during the Ossetian war managed to push Obama's initial rational position towards a totally pro Shaakash.  And he is as pro-Israel as anyone I know.  I don't think there is a reason to believe his position would change so much. 

[Admiral Yi]

McCain's insane rhetoric during the Ossetian war managed to push Obama's initial rational position towards a totally pro Shaakash.

If his insane rhetoric could push Obama, it could probably push the rest of the world.  Problem solved.

[Queequeg]

McCain's insane rhetoric during the Ossetian war managed to push Obama's initial rational position towards a totally pro Shaakash.

If his insane rhetoric could push Obama, it could probably push the rest of the world.  Problem solved.

Yup.


You think better than that Yi.  You aren't Berkut.

[Eddie Teach]

Maybe we'll get lucky and the Russkis will send all their nukes at Chicago.

[Queequeg]

Maybe we'll get lucky and the Russkis will send all their nukes at Chicago.

I'd only die if the fallout head in a weird direction.  And I know that I should cover my entire body to avoid inhaling fallout. 

[Eddie Teach]

And I know that I should cover my entire body to avoid inhaling fallout.

You can use your sex sheets!