[Terez]

By the way, there are some locals at the Salt Lake Tribune endorsement keeping it sane in the comments. It's pretty awesome. Apparently hardcore Mormons read Deseret News, but the Tribune is a much more respected paper with a larger distribution by far. And the most active locals are liberals. They have a resident troll. It kind of reminds me of my home newspaper, but it's much tamer. There's one guy who is keeping track of all the morons who register an account just to say something hateful about Obama. "First time poster #271..."

Is anyone else nervous about tonight?

[worry]

Nervous but semi-confident. Dreading the number of times we're gonna have to hear the name "Bibi" spoken. Also, I sent in my vote today.

[worry]

Also, Romney is already planning how he's gonna flip-flop tonight: http://nationaljourn...debate-20121022

[Terez]

 worrywort, on 22 October 2012 - 10:32 PM, said:

Also, Romney is already planning how he's gonna flip-flop tonight: http://nationaljourn...debate-20121022

Yeah, Dan Senor is his spokesman on this apparently. Like I said earlier, he was on Morning Joe talking about it today. It was funny; he came on late in the show, but during every segment before he showed up, they mentioned he would be on the show and seemed kind of amazed and amused that he was actually going to be on their show, with Romney's approval. It's kind of like putting Jack Ambramoff out as a frontman for your campaign, but worse.

PS—I hope Obama is prepared for Romney trying to draw him into a similar semantic trap as the one he himself got caught in last week.

This post has been edited by Terez: 22 October 2012 - 10:38 PM

[Terez]

Dan Senor inspired me to pick up a book I started reading about a year ago and never finished, to get in the mood for the debate. I had the page marked with the dust cover, so I opened it up to where I had left off. It was the beginning of Chapter 4, "Kebabs in Fallujah", of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq by Dahr Jamail. This is how the chapter begins (and I checked the index, and this is the only time Dan Senor is mentioned in the whole book...but only a small example of how he earned his reputation):

Quote

On December 19, 2003, nearly a fortnight after the event, the Coalition Provisional Authority released its official statement about an attack on Paul Bremer's convoy. The civil administrator announced that he had survived an "impromptu" attack on December 6. The CPA at that point was still unwilling to acknowledge that the Iraqi resistance was already a well-coordinated, sophisticated movement backed by an efficient intelligence system. The official line from the U.S. government, therefore, projected this and other attacks as random unorganized incidents.

Less than two months earlier, on October 27, 2003, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the number two civilian in the Pentagon, was nearly killed when between eight and ten rockets slammed into the heavily defended al-Rashid Hotel where he was staying. The future president of the World Bank narrowly escaped death when the rockets reached the eleventh floor, just one floor beneath his own.

At this point, we were delivered what was soon to become the refrain of the official U.S. line on attacks by the resistance. It was first mouthed by Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, (and echoed later by Secretary of State Colin Powell, and repeated ad nauseam in the following years on occasions that marked each "tipping point" or "turning of the corner" for the operation). Dempsey told reporters, "If we look back at some of what we might describe as more sensational attacks, I think you'll see it's usually the case that they follow some positive event in the lives of the Iraqi people." He added, referencing a recent lifting of the curfew that shrouded Baghdad, "This is another example of that. We take three steps forward and they try to pull us one step back, and in fact it doesn't work."

Dempsey told reporters he didn't believe Wolfowitz was the target of the attack. "I think this...probably took a couple of months to prepare. His travel itinerary certainly wasn't known at that point in time." This was the exact line taken by Pentagon officials to describe the attack on Bremer. In that instance, the press was told that the attackers probably didn't know that it was the CPA head's convoy that they were attacking. It may have been pure coincidence that the rockets were aimed at the side of the hotel where Wolfowitz was and had missed his room by a few yards. A coincidence similar to the attack the day before on the al-Rashid Hotel, when a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter guarding Wolfowitz in Tikrit was hit by RPG fire, which wounded some of its crew. According to U.S. officials, this was certainly another opportunistic, random, and desperate attack.

This same propaganda was recycled to describe the attack on Paul Bremer's convoy on December 6, 2004, the day Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq.

Coalition spokesman Dan Senor let reporters know at a press conference that there "was no evidence of a planned assassination attempt on Bremer" and that "it was probably a random kind of attack." To reinforce the point further, he elaborated, "Attacks occur there all the time and he happened to drive through it."

(Three months after Bremer was attacked, General John Abizaid, the top-ranking U.S. general in the Middle East, was attacked by a flurry of RPGs that struck his convoy when he went visiting Major General Charles Swannack in Fallujah. General Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, was confident that the group who carried out the attack was not representative of the rest of the people in Fallujah.)

[Terez]

Bob Schieffer took a cue from Martha Raddatz and went straight for Benghazi. That's a good sign, considering. (I think Raddatz did it to head off claims of bias. Not that it worked.)

[worry]

Yah, I've seen Senor's face a few times on talking head shows, and he's always putrid...he and John Bolton will make a great foreign policy team in the White House, I'm sure. They're surely 100% behind Romney on this not-at-all brand new diplomacy with Iran thing, given all their track records. Am I right or am I right?

[worry]

P.S. I'm DVRing yet another debate, so be sure to catch my remarks later on tonight. They're sure to be sharp and pithy!

[Ulrik]

Oh Jesus, Romney babbling about muslim countries smells with arrogance of white man looking at (maybe) noble savage...

[Terez]

Stuttering Obama is back. Not a good sign. He's repeating himself. Where is the Obama from the second debate? He had better return.

PS—He temporarily got over it. Hope it lasts.

This post has been edited by Terez: 23 October 2012 - 01:16 AM

[Terez]

 Briar King, on 23 October 2012 - 01:15 AM, said:

This is entertainment. I did like Obama throwing that little side com about Romney having no foreign policy exp.

I didn't. Romney's line about ad hominem (attacking him) was almost expected; Obama went for first blood, and he did it with jingles. That's dumb.

[Ulrik]

Finally someone told that there is strong jihadist group in Syria. Sadly noone is interested.

[HoosierDaddy]

"We should have taken a leading role?"

How? Oh, do what we did? Ok.

[Terez]

Now Romney is the one repeating himself.

[Ulrik]

So far its from both sides ton of cliche, empty phrases and exchanging empty ad hominem attacks. Foreign policy is simply too complex, too delicate and not important for voters...

[HoosierDaddy]

Love how the chicken-hawk is the one promoting peace. Google, "Romney and Iran" and "Romney and Syria." It's not hard.

[Terez]

Ahhh, Moderate Mitt. If I didn't know him, I'd be tempted to vote for him.

[HoosierDaddy]

 Ulrik, on 23 October 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

So far its from both sides ton of cliche, empty phrases and exchanging empty ad hominem attacks. Foreign policy is simply too complex, too delicate and not important for voters...

Welcome to American presidential elections. They aren't going to say anything outrageous on t.v. They save that for their rallies to rile up the base.

[HoosierDaddy]

Ooh, he's shading his two trillion dollar military increase without outright saying it. Sneaky, sneaky. Dog-whistle.

[Terez]

And Obama just implied that every other country in the world is 'dispensable'.