Interesting that there are nationalists/chauvinists even here on this board. I wonder if there are any racist users too...

Such people must really feel insulted when they have to read that all nations, all "races", all people are supposed to be equal; that there is no #1 people, no #1 race, no #1 nation.

Of course there are nationalists here. After all, many of us are proud of whatever nation we live in, and naturally think it is the best. Nothing wrong with polite, non-abusive discussion about why each of us think that our nations are 'better' than others. It gives each of us a glimpse into the nature and culture of other nations.

By, 'chauvinists' do you mean gender prejudice? I take a dim view of that.

I take an even dimmer view of racial prejudice.

While there undoubtedly are people around here that hold gender and racial prejudices, I respectfully request them to keep it to themselves.

By "chauvinists" I meant all kinds, also those according to the original meaning. The word "chauvinist" was originally used to describe one who has a fanatical loyalty in one's country. In the 60's it was applied by the "Women Liberation Movement" to describe men who think they were superior to women.

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Account frozen...

Dealing with Syria and Iran on Iraq

MICHAEL GERSON
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 20, 2007

One of the most infuriating problems in Iraq seems to generate precious little fury.

In a kind of malicious chemistry experiment, hostile powers are adding accelerants to Iraq's frothing chaos. Iran smuggles the advanced explosive devices that kill and maim American soldiers. Syria allows the transit of suicide bombers who kill Iraqis in markets and mosques, feeding sectarian rage.

This is not a complete explanation for the difficulties in Iraq. Poor governance and political paralysis would exist if Iran and Syria meddled or not. But without these outside influences, Tony Blair told me recently, the situation in Iraq would be “very nearly manageable.”

America does not merely have challenges in the Middle East; we have enemies who contribute to the deaths of our troops. Yet Americans have shown little outrage, and the military reaction has been muted.

A stronger response would be justified, but the choices are neither obvious nor easy.

Iran, the main strategic threat, has two conflicting tendencies: It doesn't want long-term chaos in neighboring Iraq, but it wants America to decisively fail there. The second tendency is currently ascendant because the Iranians are hopeful that America is on the verge of a humiliating collapse of will – for them, an irresistible source of immediate pleasure. So Iranian paramilitary groups train and arm radical Shiite militias, and provide explosive devices that also find their way to radical Sunni groups.

Engagement and deft diplomacy are not likely to change the Iranian interest in American defeat. Iran would require an unacceptable inducement to bail out American interests in Iraq: permission to proceed with its nuclear program. America would purchase tactical advantages in Iraq at a tremendous price – a strategic nightmare in the entire Middle East.

Additional economic pressures on Iran and its proxies would increase the cost of its current course. This week President Bush issued an executive order financially targeting groups and individuals that recruit and send terrorists to Iraq. But any real leverage in this area will require the Europeans to take actions of their own.

There are also more straightforward approaches. Earlier this year, Bush announced a dragnet directed at Iranian paramilitary activity in Iraq, and the troop surge has taken on the radical militias more directly. Further action might involve stepping up raids against Iranians in Iraq who exploit legitimate jobs as cover.

Beyond Iraq's borders, the options become difficult: engaging in hot pursuit against weapon supply lines over the Iranian border, or striking explosive factories and staging areas within Iran. This sort of escalation is opposed both by the Iraqi government and by American military leaders. The Department of Defense fears what is called “escalation dominance” – meaning that in a broadened conflict, the Iranians could complicate our lives in Iraq and the region more than we complicate theirs.

Syria, however, is what one former administration official calls “lower hanging fruit.” The provocations are nearly as severe. Syria's Baathist regime provides a base of operations for their Iraqi Baathist comrades involved in the Sunni insurgency. Suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia and North Africa arrive by plane in Damascus, and, with the help of facilitators, some 50 to 80 cross the border into Iraq each month. The Syrians say they lack the ability to stop them; what they lack is the intention.

Pressuring Syria is not without its own complications. The regime can cause more suffering for its hostage Lebanon, or increase tensions with Israel. And our European allies are weaker on sanctions against Syria than against Iran, because Syria is not a nuclear threat.

But here the forceful options are more serious. Recent successful operations in Anbar province were undertaken, in part, to disrupt the trail of suicide bombers that leads through Syria. It might also make sense to pursue targets into Syria on this theory: The Syrians say they are powerless to stop the flow of murderers killing innocent Iraqis, so we will try.

Increasing pressure of all types on Syria would demonstrate that being part of an anti-American alliance with Iran brings unpleasant consequences. And when that pressure builds sufficiently, it becomes possible to offer Syria a way out that separates it from Iran.

These are realistic responses to the serious provocations of Iran and Syria: Ramping up economic pressure on both regimes; intensifying operations within Iraq against foreign influence; and taking limited but forceful actions against Syria's Ho Chi Minh Trail of terrorists.

In combination with the Petraeus strategy, these measures hold out the promise of something unthinkable a few months ago: America, once again, on the strategic offensive.

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me@rescam.org

Securing our border with Canada

MARCELA SANCHEZ
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 21, 2007

In the months following Sept. 11, 2001, Bush administration officials floated the idea that Canada and the United States should work to create a common front against terrorism – a so-called “security perimeter” that would focus on protecting the North American continent.

Both then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his successor, Paul Martin, distanced themselves from the notion. They and other Canadian politicians worried that they would be perceived as turning over the “keys to sovereignty” on issues such as immigration, customs and border control to Washington.

Lacking Canada's cooperation, the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security went ahead and imposed on border-crossers new fees, inspections and demands for documents.

Needless to say, Canadians – and many Americans that cross with regularity – aren't too happy about the changes. They question the wisdom and effectiveness of such measures and decry the tightening, or “thickening,” of the world's longest undefended border. The changes were a “shock to our collective system,” Canada's public safety minister, Stockwell Day, said in a speech in Washington early this year.

Day was referring in particular to DHS' Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and its requirement, beginning this past January, that all air travelers arriving in the United States from Canada must show passports. Previously, both Canadians and Americans could enter with any document, such as a driver's license, deemed sufficient to demonstrate citizenship. The measure has created chaos at passport agencies on both sides of the border and, because of much confusion, has even cut down by 23 percent on the number of U.S. travelers crossing by car into Canada. Despite having to adopt some exceptions to allow people without passports to complete their travel plans, DHS is plowing ahead with plans to require passports by next summer for all travelers crossing by land or water – 10 times as many as those who travel by air.

Public anger with the red tape and political frustration with the unilateral nature of how the border measures are imposed have prompted the government of current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the first conservative to hold the office in more than 12 years, to step up collaborating with the United States on security issues. Indeed, Harper officials suggest that the perimeter idea is no longer a non-starter.

Some observers of U.S.-Canada relations say that since Sept. 11, 2001, the security perimeter is being erected regardless of what Canadian officials call it. U.S. customs officials have long been posted at major Canadian airports to pre-clear passengers heading to the United States. Inspectors from both countries also work side by side in Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver, as well as in Newark and Seattle, screening cargo containers destined for U.S. or Canadian ports. And 23 binational Integrated Border Enforcement Teams now share information on criminal activity at the border.

Yet deeper cooperation is destined to move into more controversial territory. A task force of former officials from Canada, Mexico and the United States recommended two years ago the adoption of a biometric North American border pass, harmonization of visa and asylum regulations, and data sharing on foreign nationals entering and exiting the region, among other measures. No substantial action has been taken.

What's more, it's not clear how receptive Washington is to Canada's new interest in deepening cooperation, especially if officials here truly believe a new terrorist attack is imminent. Observers on both sides of the border agree that so far, DHS appears to not be particularly interested in entering into serious security negotiations with Ottawa.

DHS is wary that more Canadian involvement in security operations “will give them a chance to say no,” according to Christopher Sands, Canada expert at the Hudson Institute. Sands added that U.S. officials are suspicious of Canadian intentions, thinking they would use the opportunity to delay implementation of new programs or undermine current ones.

In particular, DHS would likely reject anything it might consider a distraction from its aggressive stand on documents it deems acceptable for crossing the U.S.-Canada border. DHS has also shown that it is not eager to compromise when it comes to how information is obtained in its hunt for terrorism suspects. The department scuttled the creation of a joint immigration facility in Buffalo, N.Y., because Canadians refused to fingerprint all travelers. Canadian law forbids fingerprinting those who have no criminal charges against them.

Deeper collaboration won't exactly be easy, and it is unclear what form it will take in the years ahead. Had cooperation started earlier, perhaps today, the U.S.-Canada border would look less like a gulf between mutually suspicious nations and more like a bond between neighbors.

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me@rescam.org

The following is a quote I found today at unity08.com:

The Democratic Party has the true American values I believe in, but NO BACKBONE to defend and promote them.

- Tom Ulcak, San Marcos TX

See, he's an idiot but just doesn't understand why.

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Dual plans for Middle East peace

DAVID IGNATIUS
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 22, 2007

The Bush administration is groping toward a diplomatic firewall strategy that might help keep the inferno in Iraq from spreading in the Middle East.

This approach has two basic components: pushing harder for negotiations to establish a Palestinian state, and creating a standing “Iraq neighbors' conference” to prevent states in the region from taking advantage of Iraq's chaos or being infected by it.

Officials stress that the diplomatic strategy isn't a static attempt at containment, but a proactive effort to deal with issues at the heart of instability in the Middle East – the long-festering wound of the Palestinian problem and the regional and sectarian tensions that are fueling violence in Iraq.

The new effort makes sense, as senior officials described it in interviews this week. But as the administration has so painfully demonstrated over the past six years, it's easier to talk about positive change in the Middle East than to make it happen. To make real progress on either front – Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations or a concert of Iraq's neighbors – will require an intensity and deftness in diplomacy the administration hasn't yet shown.

President Bush outlined the new push on the Palestinian issue in a speech last week, in which he proposed a peace conference of nations that support a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem. He used language intended to woo the Arabs, referring to Israeli “occupation of the West Bank,” and saying that peace must include “agreement on all the issues, including refugees and Jerusalem.”

The Bush speech seemed to push the right buttons in Riyadh. Senior administration officials were pleased by a Saudi statement that endorsed Bush's proposal and said its points “correspond with the Arab Peace Initiative” the Saudis have been backing. U.S. officials took the Saudi statement as a sign that Riyadh wants serious negotiations to begin soon.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes that the Saudis will attend the peace conference planned for this fall. She wants that meeting to provide an Arab umbrella for serious bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, which could begin soon after the conference takes place.

The goal of the conference is to get Arab buy-in before negotiations, and thereby give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas some political cover. Administration officials complain that in the past, the Arabs have given verbal support to the idea of a negotiated settlement only to abandon the process when the bargaining reached sensitive issues that would require compromise.

The new talk about negotiations reflects the changed dynamics in the Palestinian territories, following the radical Hamas government's armed takeover in Gaza last month. The unintended consequence of that putsch by the radicals was that it opened the way for Abbas and his moderate allies to intensify their diplomatic contacts with the United States and Israel. This amounts to a “West Bank first” strategy, since that's the only territory Abbas now controls. But administration officials hope that as negotiations move forward, those in Hamas who want a Palestinian state will split from more radical allies and form a political party that could draw Gaza into the negotiations.

The push for a conference of Iraq's neighbors is a joint project of Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who seem to have formed a working partnership on Middle East strategy. They will travel to the region together next month in what a senior official described as an attempt “to reassure allies that we will defend our interests and theirs,” despite the current instability in Iraq. As part of that effort, the senior official said, “We're going to move to a more regular or permanent version of the Iraq neighbors' conference.”

The administration recognizes that Iran would be an essential part of any such regional conference. And Rice still seems hopeful that although the Iranians haven't delivered any practical help yet in stabilizing Iraq, the long-term process of engagement is worth continuing. The basic agenda for the second U.S.-Iranian ambassadorial meeting, which was announced this week, will be similar to that for the first – setting ground rules for reducing violence in Iraq. The larger framework for the talks is the conviction that the United States and Iran have overlapping interests in Iraq. Rice seems, if anything, more convinced of those shared interests than she was six months ago.

Rice and Gates seem to agree that this diplomatic push is an essential response to the continuing violence in Iraq. In an administration often marked by intense disagreement between State and Defense, their alliance will help focus thinking about how to stabilize a region that is dangerously out of control.“

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me@rescam.org

Time for Musharraf to restore democracy

San Diego Union-Tribune editorial

July 26, 2007

The Bush administration rightly regards Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf as a vital ally – and Pakistan's cooperation as indispensable – in the war against Islamic extremists and their favored tactic, terrorism. But that doesn't mean that Washington should now shrink from encouraging Musharraf, discreetly but firmly, to broaden his political base and restore at least some measure of democracy in Pakistan.

The growing turmoil and violence in Pakistan makes it clear that the time is right, indeed overdue, for Musharraf to look to democratic alternatives to his authoritarian rule. With his popularity in steep decline and the legitimacy of his government in growing dispute, Musharraf is running out of time to fashion a broader base of support. That can only be accomplished by reaching out to a politically moderate opposition that, like Musharraf, opposes Islamic extremism.

The bloodless military coup that then-Gen. Musharraf staged eight years ago was a response to undoubted corruption and, arguably, abuse of power by Pakistan's civilian government. But after eight years in power, Musharraf has piled up more problems than his government can handle without the legitimacy and popular consent conferred only by free elections and the participation of a democratic opposition.

None of those problems is more urgent than containing the rising tide of violent Islamic radicalism that threatens Pakistan's stability, and Musharraf's government. The next urgent problem is prompt action to eliminate the safe haven carved out by al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in the tribal trust areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Musharraf's gamble on signing a truce with the tribal leaders last year has failed. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are back, using their cross-border sanctuary as a base to attack U.S., NATO and Afghan government forces inside Afghanistan.

Musharraf has scheduled elections for later this year. They won't be credible without participation of opposition parties and leaders, notably including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Letting Bhutto return from exile and lifting restrictions on opposition political parties would augur well for keeping Pakistan a stable and staunch ally against Islamic terror.

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me@rescam.org

A woman simply is what she wears

ELLEN GOODMAN
THE BOSTON GLOBE

July 27, 2007

Among the endless reasons I will never run for public office is a deep-seated fear of having my wardrobe subject to the fashion police. Excuse me, the fashion shrinks – those media monitors who seek deep meaning in every shoe, sexual clues in every hemline, and psychological insights in every shirt collar.

Just imagine the casual summer wardrobe that I am modeling so stylishly at this very moment. What would the fashionbabblers have to say about my well-worn khaki capris? That they display a certain comfort-first sensibility? Or does that flash of calf reveal a senior citizen insouciance? What of the green polo shirt? Does it symbolize my bond with the Land's End sisterhood? Or my rebellion from the designer-label sophisticate? And what to make of my lime-colored Crocs with their peek-a-boo holes. Do they express a certain post-feminist funkiness? Or do they expose a feminine (if chipped) pedicure?

This self-couture analysis comes in response to the latest piece on Hillary Clinton's attire by The Washington Post's resident fashionista. Robin Givhan's cultural critique began with a holy-moly observation: “There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton.”

Givhan's 750-word plunge into the shirt of the presidential candidate had women throwing up their hands (among other things) all over the blogosphere. Cleavage! Omigod! As one blogger responded, the senator has breasts. Two of them. Details at 11.

Only in Washington would a fashion reporter get tips watching C-SPAN2. But the Post piece managed to make a media mountain out of a half-inch valley. As one of the thousands who have scrutinized the black V-neck top on the Internet, I can attest that it barely (in both senses of the word) fits Wikipedia's definition of cleavage, as in: “The cleft created by the partial exposure of a woman's breasts, especially when exposed by low-cut clothing.”

Nevertheless, Givhan fashionbabbled the heck out of the V-neck. Clinton's cleavage, she wrote, was a “small acknowledgment of sexuality and femininity.” It was “like catching a man with his fly unzipped.” It was also a “teasing display.” And to wrap things up, she explained: “To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d'oeuvres is a provocation. It requires that a woman be utterly at ease in her skin, coolly confident about her appearance, unflinching about her sense of style.”

Not even Nora Ephron, who wrote a book called “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” could have spent more energy deconstructing a neckline. Isn't there, somewhere, a booby prize for covering pulchritude instead of policy?

Hillary is not the only female pol to have made more news with what she wore than what she said. Just a few weeks ago, a camera from on high focused down on the chest of Jacqui Smith, the British home secretary, and created what some Brits called the Tempest in a D-Cup. The failed female candidate for president of France, Segolene Royal, was captured in a bikini looking like an ad for “French Women Don't Get Fat.” Meanwhile, Condi Rice has had her high-heeled boots put on the couture couch and Nancy Pelosi has had her suits power-rated.

Candidates' wives, too – as Hillary well knows – have long been subject to scrutiny. Joe Scarborough wins the prize for trash-talking Jeri Thompson, second wife of Fred Thompson. In his best Don Imus voice, Scarborough asked, “Do you think she works the pole?” He did not mean Gallup.

Yes, men in politics are also subject to fashionbabbling about masculinity. Al Gore was famously mocked for wearing earth tones. Barack Obama was dubbed the pin-up in the 2008 swimsuit competition. John Edwards was YouTubed for styling his hair. Even John McCain's V-neck sweater was labeled, at least, “metrosexual.” But this is nothing like what happens to women.

I do not say this in a lofty, superior voice. Do I notice what a woman wears? You bet. At the CNN/YouTube debate, Hillary was coral in a sea of gray. Watching her campaign, I'm glad she's finally gotten it right – right colors, right style, right fit. I'd give her clothes the female presidential seal of approval. But is there one?

In the end, the question is not whether a candidate can show a hint of breast but whether you can have breasts and be president. It's not a matter of cleavage in fashion but cleavage in the voting population. Does anyone remember what Hillary was talking about on C-SPAN2? Education. Need I say more?

Fashionbabblers of the world, let me remind you of the famous quote attributed to Sigmund Freud: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a V-neck is just a V-neck.

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me@rescam.org

Can Obama perform on world stage?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 28, 2007

For Barack Obama, it was strike two. And this one was a right-down-the-middle question from a YouTuber in Monday night's South Carolina debate: “Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?”

“I would,” responded Obama.

His explanation dug him even deeper: “The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them – which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration – is ridiculous.”

From The Nation's David Corn to super-blogger Mickey Kaus, a near audible gasp. For Hillary Clinton, next in line at the debate, an unmissable opportunity. She pounced: “I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year.” And she then proceeded to give the reasons any graduate student could tick off: You don't want to be used for their propaganda. You need to know their intentions. Such meetings can make the situation worse.

Just to make sure no one missed how the grizzled veteran showed up the clueless rookie, the next day Clinton told The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, that Obama's comment “was irresponsible and frankly naive.”

To be on the same stage as the leader of the world's greatest power is of course a prize. That is why the Chinese deemed it a slap in the face that President Bush last year denied President Hu Jintao the full state-visit treatment. The presence of an American president is a valued good to be rationed – and granted only in return for important considerations.

Moreover, summits can also be traps if they're not wired in advance for success, such as Nixon's trip to China, for which Henry Kissinger had already largely hammered out the famous Shanghai communique. You don't go hoping for the best, as Hillary's husband learned at the 2000 Camp David summit, when Yasser Arafat's refusal of Israel's peace offer brought Arafat worldwide opprobrium – from which he sought (successfully, as it turned out) to escape by launching the second intifada. Such can be the consequences of ill-prepared summits.

Obama may not have known he made an error, but his staff sure did. In the post-debate spin room, his closest adviser, David Axelrod, was already backpedaling, pretending that Obama had been talking about diplomacy and not summitry with rogue state leaders.

Obama enthusiasts might want to write this off as a solitary slip. Except that this was the second time. The first occurred in another unscripted moment. During the April 26 South Carolina candidates' debate, Brian Williams asked what kind of change in the U.S. military posture abroad Obama would order in response to a hypothetical al-Qaeda strike on two American cities.

Obama's answer: “Well, the first thing we would have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response – something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.”

Asked to be commander in chief, Obama could only play first-responder in chief. Caught off guard, and without his advisers, he simply slipped into two automatic talking points: emergency response and its corollary – the obligatory Katrina Bush-bash.

When the same question came to Hillary, she again pounced: “I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate.” Retaliatory attack did not come up in Obama's 200-word meander into multilateralism and intelligence gathering.

These gaffes lead to one of two conclusions: (1) Obama is inexplicably unable to think on his feet while standing on South Carolina soil, or (2) Obama is not ready to be a wartime president.

During our 1990s holiday from history, being a national security amateur was not an issue. Between the 1991 death of the Soviet Union and the terror attacks of 2001, foreign policy played almost no part in our presidential campaigns. But post-Sept. 11, 2001, as during the Cold War, the country demands a serious commander in chief. It is hard to imagine that with all the electoral tides running in their favor, the Democrats would risk it all by nominating a novice for a wartime presidency.

Do the Democrats want to risk strike three, another national security question blown, but this time perhaps in a final presidential debate before the '08 election, rather than a midseason intraparty cattle call? The country might decide that it prefers, yes, a Republican – say, Sept. 11, 2001, veteran Rudy Giuliani – to a freshman senator who does not instinctively understand why an American president does not share the honor of his office with a malevolent clown such as Hugo Chávez.

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me@rescam.org

Can Obama perform on world stage?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 28, 2007

For Barack Obama, it was strike two. And this one was a right-down-the-middle question from a YouTuber in Monday night's South Carolina debate: “Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?”

“I would,” responded Obama.

His explanation dug him even deeper: “The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them – which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration – is ridiculous.”

I agree. It is ridiculous. Communication and diplomacy are the most important things today worldwide - and meeting between the leaders of countries with (at least) different points of view are important to bring back peace or at least co-existence.

From The Nation's David Corn to super-blogger Mickey Kaus, a near audible gasp. For Hillary Clinton, next in line at the debate, an unmissable opportunity. She pounced: “I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year.” And she then proceeded to give the reasons any graduate student could tick off: You don't want to be used for their propaganda. You need to know their intentions. Such meetings can make the situation worse.

She is wrong - and right. Sure you need to know their intentions first. And sure no-one wants to be used for propaganda - that's the points I agree.
But propaganda and misquoting already happens, even ignoring the government is taken for propaganda, like: "Look what they do to us, and America doesn't even protest - so they must support them".
Such meetings would make things clear instead of worse.

Just to make sure no one missed how the grizzled veteran showed up the clueless rookie, the next day Clinton told The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, that Obama's comment “was irresponsible and frankly naive.”

To be on the same stage as the leader of the world's greatest power is of course a prize. That is why the Chinese deemed it a slap in the face that President Bush last year denied President Hu Jintao the full state-visit treatment. The presence of an American president is a valued good to be rationed – and granted only in return for important considerations.

That IS a slap in the face and tells about Bush's total lack of diplomatic skills: all leaders of countries are officially on one level no matter what system they represent, no matter if they are named President, Prime Minister, King, Chancellor or General Secretary: as long as their position means to be the leader of their country they are on ONE POLITICAL LEVEL with the President of the USA, and earn to be treated likewise. Who ever becomes the next President never should forget this.

Moreover, summits can also be traps if they're not wired in advance for success, such as Nixon's trip to China, for which Henry Kissinger had already largely hammered out the famous Shanghai communique. You don't go hoping for the best, as Hillary's husband learned at the 2000 Camp David summit, when Yasser Arafat's refusal of Israel's peace offer brought Arafat worldwide opprobrium – from which he sought (successfully, as it turned out) to escape by launching the second intifada. Such can be the consequences of ill-prepared summits.

Obama may not have known he made an error, but his staff sure did. In the post-debate spin room, his closest adviser, David Axelrod, was already backpedaling, pretending that Obama had been talking about diplomacy and not summitry with rogue state leaders.

Even a summit is using diplomacy. If summits are needed to bring back peace and stability in these "rogue states" (which are "rogue" because the Bush administration said so) without killing more people so why not?

Obama enthusiasts might want to write this off as a solitary slip. Except that this was the second time. The first occurred in another unscripted moment. During the April 26 South Carolina candidates' debate, Brian Williams asked what kind of change in the U.S. military posture abroad Obama would order in response to a hypothetical al-Qaeda strike on two American cities.

Obama's answer: “Well, the first thing we would have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response – something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.”

Asked to be commander in chief, Obama could only play first-responder in chief. Caught off guard, and without his advisers, he simply slipped into two automatic talking points: emergency response and its corollary – the obligatory Katrina Bush-bash.

Well, what's wrong with that? First take care of the victims, then you can find out who it was and punish them. Strange that they need months of investigation when people are murdered to get all evidences to get their killer; but on 9/11 the killers were "known for sure" just a couple days later...

When the same question came to Hillary, she again pounced: “I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate.”

That's BS. Retaliation leads to retaliation, to a mere coil of violence - Hillary wants war? This way she never stops it.

Retaliatory attack did not come up in Obama's 200-word meander into multilateralism and intelligence gathering.

These gaffes lead to one of two conclusions: (1) Obama is inexplicably unable to think on his feet while standing on South Carolina soil, or (2) Obama is not ready to be a wartime president.

Is that so bad nowadays? Haven't the USA lost just more than enough lives? Aren't all the deaths caused by US troops in the wars and invasions since 1945 not enough? The next USA President should stop seeing themselves as a war president but rather should be "The President Who Brings Back Peace"

During our 1990s holiday from history, being a national security amateur was not an issue. Between the 1991 death of the Soviet Union and the terror attacks of 2001, foreign policy played almost no part in our presidential campaigns.

Big mistake.

But post-Sept. 11, 2001, as during the Cold War, the country demands a serious commander in chief. It is hard to imagine that with all the electoral tides running in their favor, the Democrats would risk it all by nominating a novice for a wartime presidency.(/quote]Time to stop that war started by Bush.

[quote]Do the Democrats want to risk strike three, another national security question blown, but this time perhaps in a final presidential debate before the '08 election, rather than a midseason intraparty cattle call? The country might decide that it prefers, yes, a Republican – say, Sept. 11, 2001, veteran Rudy Giuliani – to a freshman senator who does not instinctively understand why an American president does not share the honor of his office with a malevolent clown such as Hugo Chávez.

Even if Chávez were a malevolent clown which he isn't, he actually IS the President of his country and earns the same respect as the President of the USA and each other country. But this the Washington Post and other media of right-wing people can't understand.

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Account frozen...

Report details US refusals of foreign aid after Katrina
Nick Juliano
Published: Friday July 27, 2007

A new report reveals the US government turned down offers of help from across the globe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling one diplomat "human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list."

The report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relies on a review of 25,000 documents obtained from the State Department. The report reveals the US was interested mostly in cash assistance and materials, rather than direct aid from foreign relief workers and doctors, after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.

"A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude," CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement. "Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers and of aid never received it."

Offers to help came from 145 countries and 12 international organizations. The US did accept help from its top allies around the globe, but CREW's report shows it left unclaimed hundreds of thousands of prepared meals, water pumps, doctors and medicine.

Many of the offers were turned down because of a strict adherence to bureaucratic regulations, the report reveals. For example, questions about medical licensing prevented foreign-trained doctors from helping in the Gulf Coast.

"All, The (sic) word here is that doctors of any kind are in the 'forget about it' category," read an e-mail from the State Department responding to an offer of assistance from Argentina. "Human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list ... It's all about goods, not people, at this point."

A ban on British beef in place over fears of Mad Cow disease prevented Meals Ready to Eat from the UK being given to Katrina refugees. The uneaten MREs were kept in a storage unit at a cost of $16,000 per month, according to the report.

The disorganization that plagued Katrina cleanup efforts also strained diplomatic relations, when the US ignored offers of aid from other countries.

"It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on flood relief," Jeffrey Goldstein, a U.S. Embassy official in Estonia, wrote in an e-mail to several State Department officials. "... We know that what the Estonians can offer is small potatoes and everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even 'thanks but no thanks' is better than deafening silence."

An Israeli plane filled with supplies for the relief effort sat fully loaded on an airport tarmac for more than 48 hours because of a lack of communication from the US, according to another e-mail released with the report.

"The vendors are getting restless. They offered this stuff 48 hours ago, and the government hasn't responded," wrote an unidentified State Department official. "I've been on the phone with the [Israeli] attache every couple of hours since noon ... they're patient, but not amused by our delay, obviously."

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Report details US refusals of foreign aid after Katrina
Nick Juliano
Published: Friday July 27, 2007

A new report reveals the US government turned down offers of help from across the globe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling one diplomat "human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list."

The report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relies on a review of 25,000 documents obtained from the State Department. The report reveals the US was interested mostly in cash assistance and materials, rather than direct aid from foreign relief workers and doctors, after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.

"A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude," CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement. "Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers and of aid never received it."

Offers to help came from 145 countries and 12 international organizations. The US did accept help from its top allies around the globe, but CREW's report shows it left unclaimed hundreds of thousands of prepared meals, water pumps, doctors and medicine.

Many of the offers were turned down because of a strict adherence to bureaucratic regulations, the report reveals. For example, questions about medical licensing prevented foreign-trained doctors from helping in the Gulf Coast.

"All, The (sic) word here is that doctors of any kind are in the 'forget about it' category," read an e-mail from the State Department responding to an offer of assistance from Argentina. "Human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list ... It's all about goods, not people, at this point."

A ban on British beef in place over fears of Mad Cow disease prevented Meals Ready to Eat from the UK being given to Katrina refugees. The uneaten MREs were kept in a storage unit at a cost of $16,000 per month, according to the report.

The disorganization that plagued Katrina cleanup efforts also strained diplomatic relations, when the US ignored offers of aid from other countries.

"It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on flood relief," Jeffrey Goldstein, a U.S. Embassy official in Estonia, wrote in an e-mail to several State Department officials. "... We know that what the Estonians can offer is small potatoes and everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even 'thanks but no thanks' is better than deafening silence."

An Israeli plane filled with supplies for the relief effort sat fully loaded on an airport tarmac for more than 48 hours because of a lack of communication from the US, according to another e-mail released with the report.

"The vendors are getting restless. They offered this stuff 48 hours ago, and the government hasn't responded," wrote an unidentified State Department official. "I've been on the phone with the [Israeli] attaché every couple of hours since noon ... they're patient, but not amused by our delay, obviously."

just another proof of the arrogance and superiority thinking of some government people.

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Account frozen...

Report details US refusals of foreign aid after Katrina
Nick Juliano
Published: Friday July 27, 2007

A new report reveals the US government turned down offers of help from across the globe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling one diplomat "human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list."

The report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relies on a review of 25,000 documents obtained from the State Department. The report reveals the US was interested mostly in cash assistance and materials, rather than direct aid from foreign relief workers and doctors, after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.

"A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude," CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement. "Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers and of aid never received it."

Offers to help came from 145 countries and 12 international organizations. The US did accept help from its top allies around the globe, but CREW's report shows it left unclaimed hundreds of thousands of prepared meals, water pumps, doctors and medicine.

Many of the offers were turned down because of a strict adherence to bureaucratic regulations, the report reveals. For example, questions about medical licensing prevented foreign-trained doctors from helping in the Gulf Coast.

"All, The (sic) word here is that doctors of any kind are in the 'forget about it' category," read an e-mail from the State Department responding to an offer of assistance from Argentina. "Human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list ... It's all about goods, not people, at this point."

A ban on British beef in place over fears of Mad Cow disease prevented Meals Ready to Eat from the UK being given to Katrina refugees. The uneaten MREs were kept in a storage unit at a cost of $16,000 per month, according to the report.

The disorganization that plagued Katrina cleanup efforts also strained diplomatic relations, when the US ignored offers of aid from other countries.

"It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on flood relief," Jeffrey Goldstein, a U.S. Embassy official in Estonia, wrote in an e-mail to several State Department officials. "... We know that what the Estonians can offer is small potatoes and everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even 'thanks but no thanks' is better than deafening silence."

An Israeli plane filled with supplies for the relief effort sat fully loaded on an airport tarmac for more than 48 hours because of a lack of communication from the US, according to another e-mail released with the report.

"The vendors are getting restless. They offered this stuff 48 hours ago, and the government hasn't responded," wrote an unidentified State Department official. "I've been on the phone with the [Israeli] attaché every couple of hours since noon ... they're patient, but not amused by our delay, obviously."

just another proof of the arrogance and superiority thinking of some government people.

Ok, the handling of the Katrina disaster was FUBAR. No debating that. Critical missteps happened on ALL levels of Government, from the Bush Administration down to the Mayor of New Orleans. Lets start local and work our way up.

The Mayor of New Orleans, to his credit, was highly motivated and did a lot of screaming and begging for help, even before Katrina hit. However, he could have saved many more lives had he properly implemented the City of New Orleans' Disaster Plan. Part of that plan was to use the city's school buses to help evacuate people out of the region in advance of the storm's hitting. However, days after Katrina hit, the school buses were still sitting in their parking lots, flooded out and useless. The Mayor screwed up. Those buses could have saved countless lives had they been used AS INTENDED to evacuate the ill from nursing homes and hospitals, and the poor without other transportation from their assembly point at the Superdome.

The Governor of Louisiana. Lord, what a piece of work. In the face of one of the worst disasters to hit the US Mainland EVER, with at least two days notice before it hit, what did she do? She cracked up and had a breakdown. For two entire days AFTER Katrina hit, all she could do was sit around and watch. For FOUR ENTIRE DAYS between getting notified that Katrina was going to hit and when she finally did her job, she basically did NOTHING. The Bush Administration is frequently criticized for delay on helping Louisiana. Well, the Federal Government is legally unable to help in a disaster like this until the State Governor officially ASKS them to do so. Other affected States got aid and assistance much quicker, for their Governors did their Job and officially REQUESTED Federal assistance on time.

Now, we get to the Bush Administration. FEMA was woefully under-prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, that much is certain. FEMA seemed to have no idea what it SHOULD do, let alone seemed capable of actually doing it. More is owed to various National Guard and regular Military commanders in relieving the suffering of the people hit by this disaster than to ANY/ALL of the rest of the Federal Government. The military had its act, for the most part, together and was just awaiting the 'go' order from Washington. FEMA was, for the most part, useless in the immediate aftermath, and showed lack of management skills and leadership for the entire rest of the disaster recovery operation.

Bush himself is soundly criticized for waiting too long to give the 'go' order to the military for help in Louisiana. His hands were legally tied on this by the Louisiana Governor's lack of official request. What would I have done differently? Well, before Katrina hit, I would have made sure that the Louisiana Governor was put on the telephone with me, and I would have gotten at least a VERBAL request for help as I reminded her to fill out the paperwork and send it in ASAP. People's lives were at stake. Failing that, I would have said 'Damn the Constitution!' and sent in the military anyway. People's lives were at stake. The Constitutional niceties could be ironed out and observed post facto. Why should the people in a state suffer in a natural disaster of this magnitude because the Governor of their state 'loses it'? It would seem to me that a reasonable constitutional case in support of acting anyway could be made on the basis of the 'equal protection' clause of the 14th Amendment. Why didn't Bush see it this way? I dunno. Bush did obey the law in this case, if not the dictates of a reasonable person's moral and ethical sense of justice.

Now, we get to the various international offers of aid and assistance. The USA's turning much of it (almost all of it, in fact) down is nothing new on the international stage. Frequently, during episodes of natural disasters, other nations turn down our offers. Mostly because they don't like us.

Another reason they were either responded to slowly or outright turned down is that the disaster response situation was a logistical nightmare. Getting all the relief supplies to the exact locations they are needed when they are needed is not exactly easy. For instance, with doctors and medical supplies: you don't want the doctors going places they aren't needed, and the medical supplies going elsewhere. Having doctors on the ground in the area is kinda useless if they are not where the sick and injured are and they don't have the needed medical supplies on hand. The FEMA staff in charge of distributing needed relief workers and supplies choked, and choked badly. It took hours, sometimes days for other officials to be able to contact them and see 'do you need this?' and if so, 'where should it be sent?'.

Plus there was always the risk of accepting too much of one needed supply, and not enough of another. This reminds me of the post-911 aftermath. Yes, the Red Cross needed some blood in NYC. However, they had a mass donation nationwide of far more blood than could be used. Much of it had to be destroyed once it passed its shelf-life, and the Red Cross suffered a huge PR nightmare when they did what they had to do.

In the Katrina aftermath, they first had to figure out what they needed. Then they had to figure out where they needed it. Then they had to figure out if they had enough already. Only then were they in a position to accept a planeload of doctors and medicine from another country and tell them where to land. And yes, sometimes this process took a couple of days.

Hunting for villains and scapegoats

JIM HOAGLAND
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 30, 2007

When spectators jeered Michael Rasmussen, a world-class Danish cyclist, at the end of a long day's climb through the Pyrenees in the Tour de France last week, they turned the sporting world upside down.

Les fans were not upset because Rasmussen had performed badly. He had in fact set a blistering pace to clinch what looked like ultimate victory in the bicycle race that is France's summer glory. The spectators were booing precisely because Rasmussen (and others in the race's leading rank) had performed like Superman.

His numbers were too good to be true without the aid of performance-enhancing drugs, the fans had concluded. They did not need to wait for the scientific testing of athletes that is redefining the public's faith in sports industries on both sides of the Atlantic.

Their instinctive judgment – which was validated a few hours later on July 25 when Rasmussen's embarrassed team expelled him from the race – parallels the increasingly skeptical reaction voiced by many American baseball fans as Barry Bonds closed in on Hank Aaron's home run record this summer. Even golf became embroiled in controversy this month when old pro Gary Player said some championship golfers now use banned substances to produce “massive change” in themselves and their scores.

Former champs do not take kindly to being erased from the record books by chemicals. “It is impossible to say who is the best cyclist of this generation,” observes Greg LeMond, an American who won the Tour de France three times before retiring 13 years ago as performance-enhancers came into the race. “Doping increases a cyclist's capacity by 30 percent. At the top form of my career, I could not have finished in the leading 15 in the Tour today,” LeMond told French journalists last week.

It is not just steroids that make this a global summer of doubt and distrust for the sports industry, which depends on public respect for heroes and their accomplishments. Allegations of game-fixing by a referee in the National Basketball Association and arrests of National Football League stars have diminished confidence as well.

And it is not just in sports that faith in leaders and heroes flags. We in journalism are no strangers to the process of building up celebrities, idols and politicians – and then tearing them down. But the destruction arrives more quickly and with greater violence and vengeance today. The sports controversies are only a highly visible part of the zeitgeist of this Inquisitional Age.

Defense always trails offense: New medical technology makes cheating in sports easier and more tempting, before even newer technology ensures detection. Every athlete (with a little laboratory help) becomes for a time his own pharmacy, just as on the Internet every person can become a newspaper publisher. And on YouTube everyone becomes his/her own movie producer, a CNN interviewer hoping to embarrass or even derail presidential hopefuls, or both.

In Iraq, every man can become his own guerrilla army by setting off improvised explosive devices, often constructed by small gangs that sell their deadly know-how to investors who seek returns in the form of mayhem and disruption. The perverted genius of Mohammed Atta on Sept. 11, 2001, was to use a few fuel-heavy American airliners as al-Qaeda's air force of assault.

This era's miniaturization of power in the hands of the individual favors destructive forces rather than creative ones. In their very different ways, devastating new military technologies and their wide availability, the Internet, and the greatly increased flow of money, goods, ideas and people across national borders have all wrought changes that defenders of the existing order struggle to comprehend and counter.

The most vindictive bloggers and many others eager to push mainstream media, established politicians or other remnants of the status quo off a stage that they want to occupy, smash reputations with abandon to call attention to themselves. What do they have to lose in the unpoliced badlands of the ether? They contribute to a general deepening of cynicism in the land at no perceived cost to themselves.

But deeply polarized nations that devote an inordinate amount of their time and energy to hunting and prosecuting villains and scapegoats – at the expense of failing to recognize and respect heroes and helpers of the common good – do pay an enormous collective price. Such nations descend into easily manipulated despair and resentment that inevitably lead to ever greater destruction. Americans would do well to ponder that in a summer of doubt and division.

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me@rescam.org

Corruption rankings hold good news

ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
THE MIAMI HERALD

July 31, 2007

If you ever wondered which are the most corrupt countries in the Western Hemisphere, a new study by the World Bank offers concrete answers: the regional champions are Haiti, Venezuela and Paraguay.

The ranking is buried in myriad statistics contained in a recently released World Bank study, “Governance Matters 2007: World Wide Governance Indicators 1996-2006,” which contains a statistical measure of 212 countries' effectiveness in controlling corruption.

Granted, the World Bank didn't publicly present the figures as a world ranking of corruption, perhaps fearing that member countries would raise hell if ranked at the bottom of the list. Rather, it listed all countries alphabetically, with the figures on how they measured in their anti-corruption controls on a scale of 1 to 100.

Even that has created an internal political upheaval at the Washington financial institution: Argentina, China and Russia officially complained to the World Bank's top authorities about the report, World Bank officials confirmed to me last week after The Financial Times and Reuters reported the story.

In fact, it doesn't take a genius to put the World Bank's alphabetical list into a computer program and rank all countries' figures on any of six categories, including “control of corruption.” A charitable World Bank economist did that for me, and obtained the following results:

Haiti is one of the world's most corrupt countries, with a 2.4 percentile rating, meaning that 97.6 percent of countries around the world are less corrupt than Haiti. Venezuela is second in the region with 12.6 percentile points, and Paraguay third, with 13.6.

Other countries in the region listed in the lower half in the worldwide ranking of countries that are least effective in controlling corruption are Honduras (22.3), Nicaragua (23.8), Ecuador (24.8), Guatemala (26.7), Bolivia (31.1), Argentina (40.8), Peru (45.1), Mexico (46.6) and Brazil (47.1).

The countries in the region that are above the middle of the list, meaning that they perform better than average in controlling corruption, are Costa Rica (67), Uruguay (75.2), the United States (89.3), Chile (89.8) and Canada (93.7). The least corrupt country in the world, according to the list, is Finland, with 100 percentile points.

Daniel Kaufmann, the leading author of the World Bank report, says the study is the most comprehensive global database on governance and is based on surveys of hundreds of thousands of citizens, executives and experts around the world, compiled by 33 organizations, including Latinobarometro, Freedom House and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Asked which Latin American country has fallen the most since the World Bank started compiling these indicators, Kaufmann said Venezuela. “Over the past eight years, there has been an important deterioration there,” he told me.

Conversely, Paraguay – despite its poor ranking – has improved somewhat, while Colombia and Chile are improving steadily, to the point that Chile is in a statistical tie with the United States.

My opinion: My first reaction when I heard about this study was to wonder whether the World Bank has the moral authority to do a corruption ranking – the institution itself was recently at the center of a corruption scandal, when its former president, Paul Wolfowitz, was found to have given a cushy job to his female companion.

But when Kaufmann and others reminded me that the World Bank acted swiftly to clean up its act in that respect and sacked Wolfowitz – which is more than most countries do when their presidents try to help their girlfriends – I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt.

I was not surprised by its conclusions. Haiti has been in disarray for as long as I can remember, and Venezuela is going through one of its usual oil boom-generated corruption sprees, aggravated by an authoritarian regime that has taken over independent institutions and is curbing press freedoms.

The good news for Latin America is that the ranking shows that corruption is neither a biological nor geographic condition – it lists Chile as less corrupt than the United States, and Uruguay and Costa Rica as cleaner than Greece and Italy. With democratic institutions, a free press and a professional – not politicized – civil service, corruption can be reduced anywhere.

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me@rescam.org

Will white America elect Obama?

EUGENE ROBINSON
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 31, 2007

Are white Americans really, truly prepared to elect an African-American president? Seriously, is a nation with such a long and shameful history of brutal slavery, Jim Crow segregation and persistent racism actually going to put a black man in the White House?

One of Barack Obama's principal tasks in the coming months may be convincing African-American voters that this whole phenomenon – a black candidate with a well-financed campaign, proven crossover appeal and a real chance to win – isn't just another cruel illusion.

I hear from African-Americans who are excited about Obama's candidacy but who suspect that somehow, when push comes to shove, “they” won't let him win. It's unclear who “they” might be – white voters, the “power structure,” the alignment of the stars – and it's unclear how “they” are going to thwart Obama's ambition. The point is that, somehow, he'll be denied.

This anecdotal evidence finds some empirical support in the polls, though it's far from definitive. A recent CNN poll of Democrats in South Carolina – a crucial, early primary state where African-Americans will cast about half the Democratic vote – showed Hillary Clinton leading Obama by a bigger margin among blacks than among whites. And while white respondents thought Clinton had only a slightly better chance of winning the 2008 general election than Obama, blacks who were polled thought Clinton was fully twice as likely to beat a generic Republican opponent next November.

The CNN poll's sample of black voters was so small, and its margin of error so great, that it's impossible to draw firm conclusions. For that matter, it would be a mistake to take any of these early polls too seriously. But isn't Obama the least bit concerned that black voters might succumb to a kind of historical fatalism about how race works in America?

“What I see is a lot of press fascination with a black candidate who does not yet have 100 percent of the African-American vote,” Obama said Monday in a telephone interview. “It's fascinating to me that people would expect that somehow I would be getting unanimous black support at this stage of the campaign, when probably only about 50 percent of black voters know much about me at all.”

Obama pointed out that “black folks have known the Clintons for a long time.” He also noted that when he ran for the U.S. Senate, his poll numbers among African-Americans started low but later went stratospheric as voters got to know him.

Still, the Obama campaign recognizes the importance of South Carolina as the first primary state with a substantial African-American electorate. A win there could resonate in other states where the black vote will be a key factor in the Democratic primary. A bad loss in South Carolina would resonate, too – not in a good way, from Obama's point of view.

Last week, the Obama campaign began running a new radio ad on 36 black-oriented radio stations throughout South Carolina. Its two themes: “We have more work to do,” and “It's Barack Obama time.”

Asked about fatalism or resignation among black voters, Obama said, “I'm sure there's some of that going on. The way to solve that problem is to win.”

That I reached Obama in the midst of a campaign swing through Iowa was no accident. “If I do well in Iowa, and if I do well in New Hampshire . . . then by the time we get to South Carolina I think we will have dispelled the notion that somehow whites won't vote for African-Americans.”

The dispelling of notions seems to be a specialty of Obama's – or maybe it's just his fate in life. Last week, in his fight with Clinton over whether a president should meet with foreign leaders who are adversaries in addition to those who are friends, Obama dispelled the questionable notion that a politician who learned his craft in rough-and-tumble Chicago, where Marquess of Queensberry rules do not apply, somehow had failed to learn how to take or deliver a punch.

“That was a fun debate . . . an important, substantive debate,” he told me, before sticking in another jab about how “experience means reciting the conventional wisdom in Washington . . . that got us into the Iraq war.”

Obama had spent weeks dispelling the notion, held by some in the national media, that somehow he isn't “black enough.” He still gets asked that question, but by now he has mostly put the question of his racial identity to rest. As he knew all along, he's black.

Now he has to dispel the notion that because he's black, somehow “they” will slap him down.

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me@rescam.org