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Tag: "Realpolitik"

Scoring Points and Still Failing

Jimmie | December 1, 2008 | Comments (0)

This observation on the State Department is dead-on. At the State Department, success isn’t measured by ends, but means. Because the ends are never positive. The point is to fail with grace, humility, and in the convivial company of other failures around the globe. The memoirs of lifetime negotiators are full of false soul searching [...]

Powell and Obama, Not as Different as All That

Jimmie | October 20, 2008 | Comments (0)

From Jeff Goldstein’s piece on Colin Powell and Barack Obama that is worth your consideration: Colin Powell is — and always has been — a “realist,” and as such was of course at one time despised by the left precisely for his Nixonian realism. Interestingly, though, he was, at a later point, despised by the [...]

Colin Powell has Already Endorsed Saddam Hussein, The Mullahs in Iran, Ted Stevens, and Richard Armitage. Who Cares Who Else He Endorses?

Jimmie | October 18, 2008 | Comments (2)

Some folks are abuzz at the news that Colin Powell may endorse Barack Obama on Sunday. Word is that a Powell endorsement “would be the jewel in the crown for either beneficiary”. Of course, Colin Powell was the one who counseled George H.W. Bush not to help the Shiites and Kurds when they when they [...]

The AP Discovers the Bush Doctrine, Pronounces It Desireable

Jimmie | October 5, 2008 | Comments (0)

I’d like to formally welcome the Associated Press to 2002. See, when we went into Iraq to topple the despicable Saddam Hussein, one of the things President Bush was saying building a stable Iraq was something that was squarely within our national interest, insofar as a stable Arab democracy would exert a huge amount of [...]

Ugh. You Call That an Interview?

Jimmie | September 11, 2008 | Comments (2)

That was an absolutely dreadful interview. Oh, I don’t mean to say that Sarah Palin did poorly. She didn’t romp like she has this past week, but she didn’t stink it up either. ABC News, on the other hand, stunk up the joint like a week old skunk on the median strip in the middle [...]

Condoleeza Rice Sounds Like A Carter-Era Throwback

Jimmie | August 18, 2008 | Comments (1)

I’ve been really disappointed with the Bush administration over the past year or so. I had thought, with the twin invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the robust and vocal support of the downtrodden in Iran, and the huge push to establish ourselves as something much less than the Devil in Southeast Asia, that the President [...]

A Return to Realpolitik?

Jimmie | August 13, 2008 | Comments (3)

Ross Douthat, in a post titled “unrealpolitik” asks an interesting question. After he recounts that russia could make our lives much more difficult with Iran and Afghanistan if we take a hard line on them, or arm the Georgian military with truly modern weaponry, he comes to the real nut of the matter: Is the [...]

No, Sir. Liberty is Our Business.

Jimmie | May 6, 2008 | Comments (0)

Mark Krikorian is wrong, wrong, wrong. Two things about Laura Bush’s official White House briefing room statement on the “inept” response by the Burmese government to the recent cyclone: 1. It’s absolutely none of our business. 2. What the heck is the president’s wife doing making U.S. foreign policy?! The cult of the presidency, as [...]