ABC Reports Bush Will Stay Home
The report, if confirmed, that President Bush will not attend Minneapolis, is a disappointment. It may be GUSTAV related (11 am: White House now confirming the president's decision is storm related), as those clouds over Havana (left) are now headed NOLA way. It may be John McCain's decision. Most likely it is the president's for his own reasons. New Orleans is evacuating now. The storm goes ashore sometime Monday September 1. Tonight is the eve of the end of the opera, and we may assume that John McCain and Sarah Palin will be stage center in the wind. Storm sails! Hollywood says, "The Box Office!"
11 AM AP: "(Barack) Obama has said he is considering whether to visit the Gulf region but that such a trip with the accompanying media "can be a distraction in these kinds of situations."
(Dick Cheney) still planned to speak at the convention on Monday, his office said Sunday. First Lady Laura Bush was to speak Monday as well, and her office did not announce any changes in her schedule.
Categories: General
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| Peter Koelliker, Posted on August 31, 2008 10:27 AM Contrary to popular opinion, Bush is not on the ticket. It is immaterial whether he attends the Republican convention or not. Should he not attend (or speak), it will clean the slate for McCain and deprive the Democrats of twisting (Bush's) words into some kind of damning dirge. |
| Max, Posted on August 31, 2008 12:25 PM Just announced that Vice President Cheney will not be at the Rep Convention due GUSTAV. |
| mombam, Posted on August 31, 2008 3:50 PM JB - Tho' I'm sorry that Dubya will not be there to get the 'thank you' he deserves from those party faithful who still support him (as do I), I agree with Peter that tactically it is a smart move. The MSM is looking, as usual, to 'crucify' him no matter what he does, says or where he does it. Latest reports say he will be monitoring the storm from Austin and San Antonio TX - just wait - it should be only a nanosecond until the 'Bushaters' write some vitriole about the fact that he has decided not to go to LA for the time being. Thank God we've got Jindal there now instead of Blanco - tho' NOLA is still saddled with Nagin. Go, Bobby, Go! Yay Jindal! |
Smart drama to race to the Gulf, shrewd management of the ticket, on the fumes of the ten point flip in poll numbers as tracked by John Zogby, from 49-41 for Obama/Biden over McCain to a 
Orleans (right, Saturday afternoon August 30). Not mandatory yet. GUSTAV moving northwest at 15 mph, looks to be making landfall to the west of the city, in the gorgeous Lake Charles area, live oak trees and a soft sandy shore into the shallow Gulf. This may spare the city of major tides and swamping wind pushing water over the barriers. It will not help the Gulf coast refineries in Louisiana and Texas that were badly damaged in '05, and there could be a spike in gasoline and natural gas soon enough. I expect to watch the price of oil all Sunday night 31 August into the Monday morning September 1 trading day, and show energy correspondent Lou-Ann Hammond, 
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1. BP and Shell are evacuating. Governor Jindal just called for all tourists to evacuate, there is only contraflow - driving away from the city - allowed around New Orleans. still trying to get hold of Chevron to confirm they are evacuating. 
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David Miliband's hawkish pose provides a monolithic facade for the silent, shrewd Gordon Brown, and follows a well-traveled path for the special relationship with the United States. In 1940, the newly installed PM Winston Churchill, after June, had to establish a close working relationship with the two-term FDR, and they managed this with a discreet and anonymous correspondence that lasted through the war to FDR's death. Nineteen-forty was also an election year, and for Churchill to be successful to win favors and support for deemed Britain, it was useful that the flaccid Wendell Willkie on the GOP ticket approved of the pro-British tilt and the internationalism of FDR. The Lend-Lease flim-flam and other naked gun-running followed. Now, seven decades later, Brown prepares for a cold winter in the new Cold War, sending young and hawkish Miliband out to chastise Mother Russia. Ask yourself, is this not a sharp tilt toward the cold warrior in the American election? And wouldn't Brown and Miliband be most comfortable with John McCain at POTUS and the unambiguous Joe Lieberman at State for the winter of 2009? 
August 27: 
Twilight War 
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Tuesday evening in Denver was the moment for Mrs. Clinton to tell her fervent and numerous supporters that she was a loyal Democrat and now supported Barack Obama's candidacy completely. It was the moment for her to say that the better candidate had won the long contest, that she was second best, that though it was tough to say, she was a good loser. It was the moment for Mrs. Clinton to acknowledge that the big picture was not about her or her goals but about a victory for the best man, for the strongest man, for the man who is right for the nation, Barack Obama..jpg)
The close of the speech was the heart of it. Rhythmic, passionate, sincere, dramatic, Mrs. Clinton recounted the drama of a slave escaping dogs and torch lit pursuers if just for an instant to experience freedom; yet she told it not just in terms of chattel slavery of five generations back, but also as the experience of women of her own generation, whose mothers were not free when they were born and whose daughters were now free to vote for a mother for president. Listen to the dance in the sentences. This is persuasive, enduring ambition..jpg)
Mrs. Clinton is not quitting. The message is written in stone. "Keep going." It takes no reach at all to conclude that the HRC supporters at the convention, in the country, understand that they are not beaten, not second best, not good losers, not cowed or tainted or forgotten. "Keep going." And how does this work practically? Wait out the Obama phenomenon, stand back and let the second best man lose in November, and then begin again for 2012. Before Mrs. Clinton finished her speech, it was everywhere that while she would attend the Nuremberg rally of a celebration at Invesco for the candidate's words of change on Thursday, President Clinton would depart Denver earlier in the day. Back on the trail for the next Clinton presidency, when Chelsea Clinton will get the opportunity to vote for her mother for president at the final poll..jpg)
Three adult males (one suspect, Tharin Gatrell, left) and an adult female are under arrest in the Denver, Colorado area with the report of an assassination plot against Barack Obama at the Thursday evening acceptance speech at the Denver Invesco Stadium. 
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August 24: Newsweek: Sean Wilentz (right), Princeton, measuring Barack Obama's candidacy, comments trenchantly and devastatingly, .jpg)
In 1948, Tom Dewey (left) was not ready for the Soviet blockade of Berlin. In 1952, Adlai Stevenson was not ready for the Soviet-backed invasion of South Korea, nor in 1956 was Stevenson ready for the Soviet crushing of Hungary. In 1960, Jack Kennedy was not ready for the crisis over Cuba the led to the Bay of Pigs and then the near cataclysmic Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was not ready for first the Soviet interference and manipulation in the so-called Iranian revolution, nor for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan..jpeg)
One party, the Republican, has maintained a seamless anti-Soviet and anti-Russian bias since State Secretary Charles Evans Hughes (left) in 1921, often to the extreme in times of Russian needfulness or torpor, sometimes too slow to react in times of Russian adventurism; however the posture has been uniformly antagonistic and untrusting. The other party, the Democratic, has sought for ninety years to find a silver living in the Kremlin predation and infamy, sometimes to success in times of mutual needs (World War 2), sometimes to reckless failure in times of Soviet bloody-mindedness, such as right now.
Harry Truman dealt with Berlin magnificently and was stubborn, innovative and heroic in Korea. Jack Kennedy, stumbling badly in Cuba, recovered in time to avoid catastrophe with Nikita Khrushchev. Lyndon Johnson did not solve Vietnam, and was deaf to the Saigon vice. Jimmy Carter botched decrepit Leonid Brezhnev and his Chekist successors. Bill Clinton was dealt a good hand in the post Soviet stand-down. But now, the George W. Bush Administration has been blind-sided by the invasion of Georgia, and while John McCain's rhetoric does sound conveniently bellicose, it is the right key. Barack Obama'sill-preparedness is dumbfounding. And it is impossible not to think that if Putin launched his battalions in April or May, not August, that Mrs. Clinton is the nominee and perhaps Barack Obama is the vice-presidential candidate. This is Harry Truman's party?
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August 24:.jpg)
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inseparable from the McCain/Romney/Fiornia with regard the Kremlin. I said that the GOP convention in Minneapolis will be filled with bloody-minded anti-Kremlin remarks. I said that Dick Cheney made a most apt Dr. Strangelove. "Yes, yes." My impression of the irony we discussed is that the Republicans now appear to have more ideology than the men in the Kremlin. Nina Khrushcheva didn't disagree.
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My first impression is that this forced decision locks in that the campaign after the GOP convention will be dominated by Second Cold War rhetoric as Russia continues to misbehave. The Bush Administration's unsurprising choice to drop the nuclear proliferation cooperation with Russia - "It's no longer business as usual" - means that the MAD doctrine is back in order. Missiles, Patriot 3 anti-missiles (left), ABM, Star Wars, the missile cruiser fleet, the warheads and MIRVS, all back in the glossary of superpower chat. Joe Biden is just the man to gab about SALT II and space-based weaponry, anti-satellite measures, cruise missiles, the missile boat fleet. Welcome back, Joe, to match your wits in the only policy field the Republican Party ever really dominated, Cold War brinksmanship..jpeg)
My colleague Eric Shawn invited me to his Sunday morning news analysis program on Fox News last Sunday 17, and now I have the 
August 22: 
Speaking with Russ Roberts (left), Hoover, author ".gif)
In comparison to the lifelessness of the capital markets, the empty vaults at the frightened banks, the homeowners and car owners now underwater with their loans, and the severely unsmart choices offered for the U.S. presidency, the NATO leadership, the United Nations Security Council and the US. economy into 2009, the crisis in Georgia looks fixable. It would take an act of Dickensian madness to be unafraid in the face of today's facts on the ground. Mr. Micawber, not only is there no money coming in, but also we're 500 months behind in the rent and the streets are filled with looting drunken Cossacks who want your shoes. And not all the marauders are Russians. Some of them are working in denial at the Treasury and especially at the Federal Reserve. My memory seizes on a posted comment at a WSJ blog some weeks back, re the credit crisis and the latest Bernanke homily. To wit the solution for all our ills: "No problemo! Just print more money!" 
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after. The facts support my dry remark. Billy Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn (right) have been close friends with Barack and Michelle Obama for many years. Their relationship predates the fall of 1995 fund raiser event that the .jpg)
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What is fresh here is that the new face of the Kremlin does not need to pretend it is socialist, or revolutionary, or any of the soft-brained ideologies of the early 20th century. It is Kremlin Incorporated, a capitalist, profit-seeking, bloodless enterprise, about as democratic as the next market traded company, for example Google or Exxon or Daimler. Quarter to quarter there must be growth. CEO V. Putin (right) needs to maintain those results. Stock symbol KRML. Accumulate. Outperform. Number of analysts: Yes.
News arrives from Jerusalem source that the Russians are reinforcing and expanding their war fighting force in Syria. This is the Kremlin Arab Desk, dusted off from the old Cold War, new chairs, new communications equipment, satellite offices opening in Beirut, Damascus, Amman, and Cairo. The ports of Latakia and Tartus are mentioned for a Russian naval presence. However the Russians have been a presence in Syria since the fall of '07. So what is new?
Rocket Forces
August 20: London: 
The infamous episode of the February 9, 1933 debate at the Oxford Union (left), the King and Country Debate, produced a deeply ironic and later grim moment in the annals of the Second World War. Winston Churchill speaks of it with disgust in his resounding the Second World War. The facts are tidy and parochial. At the popular debate before the Oxford Union, the questions was, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." After the debate, the assembly voted 275 to 153. Churchill spoke against the report in Parliament within a week. In his book, Churchill tells the anecdote that Adolf Hitler, in Berlin, pointed to the King and Country debate and remarked to an English visitor, "That fact is you English are soft." And Churchill also mentions that Benito Mussolini cited the debate when he moved against Ethiopia in 1936.
The question now is how do we look back upon the NATO meeting of August 19, 2008 in which the vote was that under no circumstances will this body fight for Georgia's sovereignty and security? More, do we look at the George W. Bush Administration, with its helter skelter appeasement of the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Syrians and Lebanese, and of course the craven Palestinians, as having advertised to the Kremlin that in no circumstances will American fight for Georgia? More, does the present confidence of the Barack Obama campaign, an adamant peace-in-our-time advocacy, contribute to the Kremlin's certainty that America will not fight for anything? Have we already voted for appeasement, pacifism, ignominy? In no circumstances will we fight for liberty? Is John McCain a museum piece from the savage 20th Century? Is Winston Churchill a fiction? No.
Tom Clancy's celebrated Cold War thriller, "Red Storm Rising," featured the Kremlin's brutal smashing of NATO's defenses with a sneak attack that rolled up quick victories over men, ships and governments from Germany to the North Sea. (Tactical nukes, see below, were useful.) What the Reds failed to grab and hold was the strategic airfields at Iceland, which they needed to launch on the counter attack from America's fleet. 
All in time. Unless Russia cannot hold Georgia. Like Tom Clancy's genius, the victory depends upon holding onto the original forward base. Russia must hold Georgia. NATO lost the Chapter 1. Chapter 2 begins with the fact that Russia forgot to secure the Georgian airbase at Vaziani, where 1000 US. military are decamped, and the Georgian deep port city of Batumi. Does the fight back begin? Does NATO remember its birth? Does NATO remember how well brinksmanship (nuclear) works? 
Spoke with Cambridge lecturer Boris Volodarsky in England on Sunday 17 re the GRU and the invasion and occupation of Georgia.
Translation: this means so-called territorial dispute between the Russian ethnics in South Ossetia and the Russian ethnics in Abkhazia is part of the script. The Georgian villages in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia were targetted by the GRU to provoke the Georgians, and when that whipped up the blood, the coup de main was a piece of light tragedy. The Russian ethnic victims are Kremlin hired actors (see Ossetian Russian goons left).
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All of them, and their pals, had done so many deals and were party to so many blackmarket arrangements that the clues pile up like dust. Again and again, the direction of the clues is back to Moscow, and to Vladimir Putin and his circle. But there is no single explanation as to why on that day, two weeks after Litvinenko had become a British citizen, that Lugovoi and Kotvun would poison him with a teapot polluted with PO-210.
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August 16: 
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Georgia Occupied
Meanwhile in Tbilisi, the targeted Georgian President and ByronicMisha Saakashvili 
August 15: Moscow: .jpg)
August 15, Warsaw: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (left), 
This is the pay-off of the new Cold War. Caveat: did General Nogovitsyn check with the new NATO map? Poland is a member of NATO. One for all and all for one. We have gone back to the future to the Reagan Administration, when the Star Wars program triggered Soviet intransigence and panic. This time, Russia is oil rich enough to answer with threats backed by cash. And this time the US/NATO has picked off critical pieces of the Soviet goliath, such as Poland and all Eastern Europe, and the Baltic States, and such as the NATO-slated Georgia and Ukraine. Game on.
August 15: 
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August 15: London Times: 
August 14: London Times: "
UN: and the trump card, voting Georgia into NATO, means major trouble in the closing months of the Bush presidency. However the answer still is that John McCain, one man who may be the 44th president or who may be another loser, can take what he represents, ineffable, dogged, superhuman faith in American freedom, to the relief of Tbilisi. The man who got up from tyranny and torture in 1968 is the man to get Tbilisi up again from tyranny and torture in 2008.
August 13: The Black Sea is about to get crowded: 
The U.S. Marine Corps will be on the ground within many hours. No destination landfall announced yet, but the Georgian port of Batumi (left) is big and still open, and there are no reports yet of the Russian blockade sealing off incoming ships. The U.S conducted training exercises with the Georgians at the oil port of Batumi as recently as last fall. The roads from Batumi to Tbilisi run excitingly close by Gori, and can run through Gori if the choice is made. Waiting to hear what Navy ships are headed into the Black Sea. The list will tell the tale, though it is fair to assume a helicopter carrier is preferred. The Navy is tasked with determination. Meanwhile, the annual joint exercise with Russian and American and other European ships in the Pacific out of Vladivostok, FRUCTUS, .jpg)
August 13: WSJ: .jpg)
What happens next is photo op heaven for the West: Andrei Cherny's stunning new book, "The Candy Bombers," re the Berlin crisis of 1948 and the airlift, details that the Truman response to Stalin's aggression was spontaneous and dangerous and heroic. Every DC-3 in the U.S. Air Force rallied to the Berlin flights, and within moments it was clear that the Russians were not going to shoot. The supplies poured in like manna. The Berliners, abandoned by the world into Soviet hands, came to life and bent their backs to help. Tempelhof Field was kept usable by women and children scrambling to fix the pothole-covering iron plates that were jarred loose each time another cargo plane slammed down on the short field..jpg){kind=small}
August 13: Financial Times: 
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buys Moscow a little time to act the good faith adversary yet also to drive its agents to provoke dissent. Saakashvili is vivid and resolute now; but the long days and weeks ahead will see him regarded by Georgians as part of the problem. While the Russian armor columns and diplomats are in a hurry to stop those photos of tanks in front of bombed buildings, the GRU is dogged, stubborn, cocky.
August 13: Financial Times: 
August 12. With Sarkozy with Medvedev in Moscow, Russia blinks and uses the word "ceasefire" without quitting Georgian occupation positions. Meanwhile the Georgian media continues to release breathtaking pictures of Russia aggression. Note that the Georgian priest (left), showing the corpses of a dead journalist and his driver in Gori, does not need a caption to win the moment. The cross is the story. Godless Moscow attacks pious Georgia. The photo of a fleeing Gori couple (right) are guaranteed to befuddle Russia diplomatic games to present Moscow as the peacekeeper. 
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August 12: