Well, isn't *this* interesting.
By the way: Amber Wilkerson? Great line. *Great* line. Show this to your boss.
By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Note the two passages below [UPDATE: both are from the same AP piece making the rounds].
But during a later appearance before about 800 people in Nashua, Obama made a comment likely to further the spats he was warned about.
Answering a question on how he would refocus U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism, he said, "We've to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."
and
But during a later appearance before about 800 people in Nashua, Obama made a comment likely to further the spats he was warned about.
Asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, he brought up Afghanistan and said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."
[Bolding mine; H/T to Crush Liberalism for the link]
Interesting how including the bolded text changes the entire meaning of that passage from a call for more troops in Iraq to mere ignorance of history*, doesn't it? One of them was from the Guardian; one, from Breitbart. Guess which one?
Actually, no, it was Breitbart that included the context.
Read on.
Consider yourselves fortunate, as my computer just ate about four paragraphs of turgid prose. To summarize: this isn't a conspiracy, but it does suggest a certain bias in the media towards neat story lines. In other words, most of the media has defined Barack Obama as this year's Plucky Outsider Who's Here to Shake Things Up, Then Lose - so expect judicious snippings like this. Breitbart, on the other hand, is following the Democrats Don't Know Much About History story line**... so there's no need to remove it, is there?
Besides, either way you get to keep this passage unchanged:
Obama explained infighting among the candidates is part of the process.
"Some of that's OK, it thickens your skin. ... Putting you through the paces like that is part of the hazing that's required for the job," he said.
A Republican National Committee spokeswoman said Obama's characterization of the presidential campaign shows he's unfit to lead.
"Unfortunately for Barack Obama, this campaign is not a fraternity hazing ritual, and Americans are not going to elect a rookie politician who has ditched his 'politics of hope' mantra and gone on the attack now that he's dropping in the polls," Amber Wilkerson said.
That really was quite good, Ms. Wilkerson. Not much to do with my main point, but it was sort of shoehorned into the original piece, too.
Moe
*We don't really have time for a refresher course in Afghan history, and I'm a firm believer that people who visit Republican blogs should catch up on their historical reading first. This and this are not exhaustive discussions on the topic, but they'll at least get you started.
**I expect that many Democratic politicians actually do; they just can't act on that knowledge in any useful fashion. The distinction is perhaps a minor one.
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Well, isn't *this* interesting. 11 Comments (0 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
My eyes passed right over that passage as being completely unsurprising.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
I believe he was referring to aerial bombing of suspected hideouts which have doubled in the last year instead of ground operations to investigate (hence the more troops bit). Evidently this is a problem because Afghanistan's PM brought it up with Bush like 2 weeks ago when he was here and we promised to try to increase efforts to limit collateral damage. There is even a new bomb with a smaller warhead or something developed and just starting to be deployed for this purpose.
It's a minor-penetration weapon. It'll go into an unfortified building before exploding but it's explosion is such that it brings the building down rather than blowing it up and out.
Kills everything inside, very little of what's outside.
"It's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die, and then dies...
...But if the man does know he's going to die and dies anyway. Dies, dies willing, knowing he can stop it, then...
Well, isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"
Karen Eiffel, Stranger Than Fiction
IMHO, the point is more that Obama claims we're "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." Which is nonsense for both Iraq and Afghanistan, and an insult to our troops to boot.
With or without context, Obama is a dangerous man. No amount of MSM airbrushing can hide that.
One wonders what our armed forces underhim would do in Pakistan than they are doing in Afghanistan now, that doesn't include the alleged air raiding and killing.
is suffering from the drip, drip factor. Each new week provides a new gaffe and this is the latest. He is twisting himself up on lot's of issues and frankly there is a lot of problems that he leaves for the general election that his opponents aren't touching. For instance, his speech in front of La Raza in which he stated that he marched side by side with illegals will be a Republican's dream in the general election. He voted to cut off funds for troops in the field. That doesn't play well. He voted against warrantless wiretapping and that also doesn't play well.
This is now at least the second time he has shown, with language, contempt for our military. He has as Mitt Romney said, gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in a week.
I think his biggest problem is that he is out front in defeatism. I firmly believe the tide has turned in Iraq. The Dems won't be able to stop it. They won't muster the votes to stop the surge. By this time next year, the picture will look a lot better and his defeatist language will be a deal killer.
"The nine most dangerous words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'"
Ronald Reagan
If he keeps making these horrific gaffes to the point where Hillary can't name him as her VP, what happens to the black vote? I sure wouldn't mind if she disenfranchised black voters by keeping their candidate off the ballot.
is now the candidate of the special interests and lobbyists. She said so herself. She has plenty of her own problems. Only a cocky, arrogant, and extremely overconfident party would ever nominate someone with her negatives and baggage. We haven't heard the last of the Peter Paul fiasco. Frankly, all of us are near certain that somewhere she has broken some law and it can and will come out. Her Iraq stance is unrecognizable changing by the day. Does she really want to re debate Hillary care. She is a flat out communist and each and every Republican will paint her as such. She wants to give 1 billion dollars to deadbeat homeowners, does she really want to debate that idea? Hillary has plenty of her own problems.
"The nine most dangerous words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'"
Ronald Reagan
Shouldn't that comment about "Afghani history" be "Afghan history?" Afghani is the currency, Afghan is the adjective.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Obama just called our troops in Afghanistan a bunch of killers. But, its not their fault. It's Bush's fault for not giving them enough reinforcements to kill innocent villagers on a grander scale.
What a despicable hypocrite. This should be remembered as Barack's "Durbin Moment."