Admittedly, it's a fundraising pre-screen, but the content makes interesting reading:
Meanwhile, over at Knappster, Tom examines the similarities between the Nixon (!) and Obama administrations with regard to both foreign and economic policy, coming up with this separated-at-birth photo:
Hmmmm....
Obama's Cheney on the Warpath
In spite of the alleged advent of "change" in Washington, it looks like one Bush administration tradition is being preserved: the War Party has taken up residence in the office of the vice president. Joe Biden has quickly taken on the role of Obama's Cheney, a hard-liner with a special antipathy toward Russia.
In stationing sophisticated anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, the U.S. basically abandoned the INF arms-control treaty concluded by President Reagan. These provocative policies are not slated to end with Cheney's exit, but are finding new adherents in the incoming administration – including Biden, who announced the U.S. would pursue the missile shield plan.
Biden's belligerent remarks on Russian-Georgian relations – "We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence"! – indicate little change in the frosty air of the new Cold War era. The launch pad for this challenge to Moscow – an international security summit in Munich – is significant: it was the Obama administration's first major foreign policy statement since the election.
Americans voted for change – not a revival of the Cold War, but a new era in our foreign policy. Against the new Cold Warriors, Antiwar.com has been presenting the facts: we told you who started the Georgian war, and why. We challenged the conventional anti-Russian bias of the "mainstream" media from the beginning, and we were proved right.
The Joe Bidens of the Democratic Party aren't going to get a free pass from us. For 14 years, we've taken on the War Party, in all its many guises, and we're rolling up our sleeves for another fight. Yet we can't win that fight without your financial support, and we need it as never before. Times are tough, and many people do not yet grasp how little has changed in Washington.
Meanwhile, over at Knappster, Tom examines the similarities between the Nixon (!) and Obama administrations with regard to both foreign and economic policy, coming up with this separated-at-birth photo:
Hmmmm....
Comments
Biden also voiced a very strong indication towards healing Russian-US relations. A vocal appreciation of Biden's Munich remarks was made yesterday by Russia.
http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2009/02/jobama-reboot-wins-early-favor-in.html
What this means is that interpretation is too often in the eye of the beholder, I think. And that's the problem these days: liberals, libertarians, and conservatives alike tend to take their interpretations from sources they sympathize with, rather than going back to the original sources.
I read Joe's comments as nicer rhetoric covering virtually the same policy toward junking INF agreements on missile defense--inherently de-stabilizing and echoing the Cold War.
"In recent years, European leaders at the annual Munich Security Conference have roundly criticized American foreign policy. This year, things were different. Vice President Joe Biden's speech on Saturday unveiled a new caring, consulting and listening U.S. administration, promising sweeping changes in American foreign policy."
Maybe Joe and Barack can explain this.
"Change you can believe in?" Nope. "Just BS you can fall for."
People.Talking.Over.The.Fence
WMD vs. WMD is a paperchase, no? Why not pose under a guise that is just a wee bit warmer-than-detente when the whole game is one of guise? Human nature.
On war, the American libertarian is rightly concerned with the economics of war; the republican, too often, the blatant recipient of its spoils (an no, I'm not referring to the Hube's but the Pete's of the party).