I can't see Hillary doing something like this:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/obama-emperor-akihito-japan.html

> she's not somebody you can accuse of being
> a shrinking violet.

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

YES SHE IS. FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. This is a woman rode her husband's career to a position of international authority ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. "SHRINKING" DOESN'T COVER IT.

She's not EVEN "shrinking", she's LEVERAGED.

Shit-chatter like that makes me adore, adore Sarah Palin, authoress of her own accomplishments.

If an American burns a flag or a bible, that is protected speech under the First Amendment. By logical extension, Koran burning is protected speech, as well. So, the Feds have no legal authority to stop the pastor from burning the Koran.The Feds can only attempt to persuade the pastor not to burn, which seems to have worked.

Petraeus made public remarks attempting to persuade the pastor. I don't think Petraeus decided on his own to make the remarks. Do you think a commander half a world away with major strategic decisions to make would hear news of this pastor and make the remarks he did without someone in higher rank than Petraeus telling him to do so ?

Anyway, the Jihadists hate us and want to kill us no matter what we do. And now they know they can control us as well just by getting angry. And THAT makes me angry.

I do not support the pastor and I'm glad he is stopped. Just sayin'.

Assuming you agree with the linked article, Amy, I have to ask:

It's cowardice when we don't publish a blatantly inflammatory cartoon from Denmark that will piss off Muslims and possibly endanger troops

BUT

The president has a place intervening to stop a crazy preacher from making a similarly inflammatory (and just as much protected speech) gesture?

I see an inconsistency there. If you don't, I'd like to know why.

Did our president "intervene", or did he comment? I'm not sure a phone call from Gates is all that cumbersome an intrusion on this preacher's first amendment rights, especially given the dicey moral environment of a mainstream media clusterfuck.

PS— Hi, LYT!

Listen, you're the one who always thought OBL was still alive, right? Well, it's been NINE YEARS. And so far, he's made no trouble for anyone... His leadership of a terrifying new wave of global idiocy has amounted to little more than a few readily-disputed recordings. (One of the more recent ones included comments about global warming and a divorce in the Trump family, if memory serves.)

Face it... WE KILLED THIS GUY, probably in October of 2001, probably under a daisy cutter. If not, we've wounded him and his capacity to lead so grievously that we can be just as proud.

Luke, nobody's banning the preacher's speech. It's well within the scope of the First Amendment to simply ask him not to do so.

I don't know why the media gave so much attention to the wack-a-doo pastor. I don't believe we would be having to worry about the safety of our troops or our world leaders feeling compelled to issue public statements against this guy if the media hadn't perpetuated the shit out of this story. If we lost/loose troops because of this it would be on the media's hands - not some obscure preacher's right to burn a Koran. (And I am personally and whole heartedly against book burning, ANY BOOK).

I kinda feel better myself though, if our leaders were focusing on the WAR and the ECONOMY right now rather then some wing-nut burning a book.

And I can't stand Hillary. But I can't stand Obama even more. It's like trying to choose between death by hanging or death by drowning.

Now the question is what would happen if an atheist or atheist group proposed burning bibles and Torahs in a public venue?

Christians and Jews would be outraged, but the level of vitriol would be lower.

And the left would say something like "Quit your whining, its just a book."

I dislike Hillary, but I think she has more guts than Obama. Also, I think Hillary is someone you don't want to get on the wrong side of.

Based on how well Christians deal with South Park's treatment of our religion, I'd say that compares well to how some people acted when South Park was going to do an episode about the Muslim religion.

Christians are more likely to boycot a show we don't like or write letters complaining. We usually don't threaten to kill the people who are being outrageous and the few who do are wing nuts who the rest of us don't agree with.

Besides, LYT—

> I see an inconsistency there. If you
> don't, I'd like to know why.

You shouldn't be that bashful. If there's really an inconsistency, you ought to be able to put it in a sentence rather than just promise that we'll find it if we look for it.

I mean, aren't you sure enough of your position that you WANT to state it in an affirmative manner? Do you think people want to look down your blouse to sniff out your beauty?

Shit-chatter like that makes me adore, adore Sarah Palin, authoress of her own accomplishments.

True, Sarah Palin has earned her accomplishments: a mayorship that left her hometown deep in debt, a partial-term governorship, and the parlaying her VP candidacy into successful turn as a political celebrity and as 2012 presidential contender who appears afraid of a press conference. That's all Sarah.

Hillary Clinton obviously traded on her husband's name to get where she is now. But as far as I can tell, she's been a credible Secretary of State and was well-regarded by her constituents as a Senator; but if she had been regarded as a failure, it's unlikely she would have been reelected, nearly been nominated for President or chosen for Secretary of State.

That other people like her impresses me not at all.

People like country music.

See also. And Amy, as a rule, I think it's the :shrinking violets" who've got the most to fear from infidelity.....

A mix of two issues here:

1. Sure, Hillary would have at least been competent. In the long-run, it may be better to have Mr. Incompetence in charge - hoping that this fuels a genuine "small government" movement.

2. The federal government was out of place even talking about the preacher in Florida, much less putting pressure on him. Burning Korans was a stupid idea. However, once he pledged to do it, he should have carried through. Backing off makes the whole country look craven. Whatever the real reason, the Islamists will assume this followed from their protests.

We're not at war with Christians and Jews. We ARE at war with two Muslim nations, and are trying to convince them that it's their (former) govt, not Islam, that we are at war with.

Bradley, I try not to distinguish and identify individual personalities too often, because it's during disagreement it's easier to cut someone's heart out that way. But I find I agree with you a lot. Are you Seipp's Bradley, perhaps of San Diego?

> We ARE at war with two Muslim nations

Semantic quibble... At war IN two Muslim nations, neither of which has a national identity worth opposing. That's part of the problem!

At least Hillary wouldn't have felt the need to appoint nothing but idiots around her to make herself look bright by comparison.

I think having a General, the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief basically pleading with Jones not to do it for the sake of out troops made us look weak in the eyes of our enemies. That, in itself, may put the troops in more danger than anything Jones may have done.

Friends, this is the devil we've got. We turned down the other one, OK? We did it willfully. Some of us voted for this devil to avoid that one. WE WERE NOT WRONG TO DO SO.

Hillary may well have developed a few strong office skills during her years on the board of Wal-Mart which Obama doesn't possess; but this background only made her more adeptly paranoid in pursuit of her aims, whereas Barry remains childishly offended at the public denial of his greatness. Those years certainly gave her no clear understanding of the nature of wealth generation... Rather, she seems to picture her typical lefty supporter as a hippy too stoned to take notice of her Chavez-like, buccaneering piracy of the resources of others.

(What will it be like when she "takes" YOUR profits, because —after all– she knows she can do kinder things with them than you'd ever do on your own?)

It's not just the recent anniversary: This message stack reminds me of the jaw-dropping, spittle-drooling, head-spinning, infomercial-magnitude inattention of so many Americans. As Pete Townsend of the shabby 1960's arena rock band The Who once put it: "People forget." It's not even that you really mean these things you say, but YOU SAY THEM OUT LOUD sometimes, so lesser folks assume that that's how it's done.

Shortly after the 9/11 wars began, people (especially lefties) forgot how much of the human future seemed up for grabs in late 2001. We can argue about these campaigns if you want. But let's not pretend that the whole body politic did not, in that hour, affirm that the United States had permanent interests in those societies, EVEN THE ONES WITHOUT OIL.

I'll readily concede that Americans have forsaken those interests. Schoolchildren in Kansas City and Seattle don't have pen pals with little schoolgirls in Kandahar and Karbala, as they fucking well should. Every city with a population big enough to support a police station ought to have a sister city in Afghansitan or Iraq. Instead our occupations are all about violence, the crasse$t patronage, and bumping the decrepit subcompact cars of the middle classes off the road with our Hummers. But don't be fooled: The UNITED STATES is not at war over there, and not interested in making history; these are merely military excursions from our government, perhaps to end horribly.

Yet the whole effort was NOT doomed from the beginning. We don't know how bad things would have gotten if we'd made no effort at all, and I don't want to find out. Same with the Hillary Administration.

There was an interesting guy on public radio last night, didn't catch his name, comparing the lefty/intellectual fondness for communism in the middle 20th century with the typical lefty equivocations about religious tolerance today. In truth, today's daydream-addlepated lefties can envision no place for themselves in the hierarchy of an Islamic paradise. Therefore, he affirmed, this fight will never be as big a threat to humanity as was communist authoritarianism, in which the onionheads could imagine chairing important commitees the Proud Commie Order of the Future.

This is probably true. But in both communism and Islam, we get dorkweeds like Hillary and Obama who'll readily transcode minor interpersonal allure into a cancerous depletion of precious and fragile public resources, including goodwill. As we resist these hazards, we make choices.

Don't assume the choices you made last Thursday were wrong just because you don't remember everything you had on your mind that day. "If we had only..." is the beginning of a fool's lament: The "only" is his presumption that there was just ONE contingency which kept him from paradise.

That is NEVER the case. Hillary may not be a historically globe-rocking atrocity in public affairs, but she was plenty bad enough. I'll always be glad we went with her less-imaginative, less-disciplined challenger.

"True, Sarah Palin has earned her accomplishments: a mayorship that left her hometown deep in debt, a partial-term governorship, and the parlaying her VP candidacy into successful turn as a political celebrity and as 2012 presidential contender who appears afraid of a press conference. That's all Sarah."

I can only imagine what you say about a political celebrity now serving as president who served a partial senate term, put this nation into heretofore unimaginable debt.

But he is soooo much different than her, right? Because, well, um, because he...won.

I like mocking my well-intentioned liberal friends who revere Obama, but hate Palin. Pretty much anything people care to lob at Palin applies to Obama, except he went to the right schools. She didn't. Apart from that, I don't see much difference between them.