Calculating Politics
August 7th, 2006In Connecticut, Joe Lieberman is being decimated by the Primary, and it appears that he’s done for, politically. Given that Lieberman has been challenged due to his support of the War, it’s fair to look at the climate for Hawk Democrats, and he concludes that it doesn’t look good for Hillary Clinton, who might not run now. “For the first time, it seems entirely plausible to me that Hillary will look at the terrain and choose not to run in 2008″.
Does it? I think not. Clinton isn’t going to get younger, and, if she sits out 2008, she’ll never be a candidate for President past the preliminary stages. What if a Democrat wins, or a popular Republican (oxymoron?) takes over? However, I think her lust for the Presidency is overstated in the press. I’m sure she’s interested in running, and would love to be the President, but she’s a cautious, shrewd woman, and I’m sure that her husband’s penis, the controversies that dogged her in the White House, and her age will all make her hesitant about running. Will she run? I think so, but if she doesn’t, it isn’t because she didn’t think she could win due to Lieberman’s loss: it’s because she a) doesn’t think she can win because the mood isn’t conductive to a woman/a Democrat, and/or b) she fears the reaper’s scythe.
George Bush today teamed with Condi Rice and France to create an International Odd Couple, and they’ve presented the “resolution” to the “conflict” in Lebanon.
The U.N. plan, drafted by the United States and France, calls for an end to fighting by Hezbollah, which ignited the conflict July 12 when it staged a cross-border attack and captured two Israeli soldiers, and by Israel, which has been bombing Lebanon for three weeks in an attempt to decimate the terrorist strongholds, a military campaign that has also killed civilians. A second resolution would create an international force, under Lebanese direction, to serve as a buffer while Israel withdraws its troops and the Lebanese army takes control of the area from Hezbollah.
In my blog (and, hey, this is my blog) this is common sense and simple, something that should be obvious after a minute’s worth of analysis. Condi Rice talks about it as if they were brainstorming for hours, and, apparently, that really is the time it took.
And she said there is “more agreement than you might think about how to prevent, again, a situation in which you have a state within a state able to launch an attack across the blue line.” For instance, she said, her counterparts at the U.N. agree that the Lebanese government needs to control the southern region and that there should not be armed groups able to operate as Hezbollah has since Israel withdrew its troops six years ago. Rice said the weeks of diplomacy to reach that consensus has been “time that’s been well-spent.”
No, Rice, it isn’t time well spent. What is this world coming to, when the people who are supposed to be the best and the brightest take weeks to come to these simple conclusions? In real life, the turtle doesn’t beat the hare, and this snail’s pace by the governments of the world (although I imagine that much of the stalling is on account of George Bush wanting to give Israel more time to root out the villains) has caused lives to be destroyed and a country’s infrastructure to be destroyed. Worse, it’s ongoing today, when a simple “Stop this now” from the President of the United States would’ve done wonders that, alas, a UN Resolution can’t match.