Category Archives: Obama Administration

What Palin says about McCain

Election 2008, Journalism and Media

What Palin says about McCain
By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera, September 4, 2008

If selecting a running mate is a real test of a presidential candidate’s judgment, then John McCain’s decision to name Sarah Palin as his choice reveals a poor sense of astuteness and serves to underline his desperate political expediency.

Beyond the much taunted image of a maverick, his critics argue McCain’s decision has once again exposed his opportunistic tendencies.

They draw an unflattering profile of a spoiled son of a Navy admiral who misused the good name of his political guru and predecessor in the Senate, the late Barry Goldwater, and who callously left his first wife and children to marry into a $100 million fortune.

And this time, by choosing Palin, he betrayed all of that which he preached over the last 18 months – even 18 years.

“Barack Obama can start writing his inauguration speech,” wrote me an informed friend the night McCain held his first appearance with Governor Palin.

I am not sure I would go that far. Continue reading What Palin says about McCain →

Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage

Election 2008, Ethics, Iraq War, Terrorism Issue

[Webshaykh’s Note: This is the most cogent and responsible commentary on McCain and Palin that I have read anywhere.]

Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage
By FRANK RICH, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, September 7, 2008

SARAH PALIN makes John McCain look even older than he is. And he seemed more than willing to play that part on Thursday night. By the time he slogged through his nearly 50-minute acceptance speech — longer even than Barack Obama’s — you half-expected some brazen younger Republican (Mitt Romney, perhaps?) to dash onstage to give him a gold watch and the bum’s rush.

Still, attention must be paid. McCain’s address, though largely a repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn’t smug or nasty.

The only problem, of course, is that the entire thing was a sham. Continue reading Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage →

Maliki drops the mask

Election 2008, Iraq, Iraq War


U.S. President George W. Bush walks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Tuesday, June 13, 2006, at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

Maliki drops the mask
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, The Guardian, Friday September 5, 2008

What’s up with Nouri al-Maliki? As security anxieties subside in this slowly calming city, political speculation has rarely been so intense. First, it was Maliki’s demand that all US troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Then came signs that his government wants to undermine the Sunni tribal militias, known as the Awakening councils, on whom the Americans have relied to defeat al-Qaida in Iraq. Now there are moves to take on the powerful Kurdish peshmerga troops and push them out of disputed areas in the strategic central province of Diyala.

Why is the prime minister doing this? Is “the puppet breaking his strings”, as one Arab newspaper put it? Or is the more appropriate metaphor “dropping the mask”? Those who knew Maliki in exile in Syria during Saddam Hussein’s time now recall that he opposed the US-led invasion. His Daawa party did not attend the eve-of-invasion conference of US- and UK-supported exiles in London, and he opposed the party’s decision six months later to join the hand-picked “governing council” set up by the first occupation overlord, Paul Bremer. Continue reading Maliki drops the mask →

Accounting for Family Values

Election 2008, Luke R. E. Publican

The most fascinating thing about the GOP nomination of John McCain and Sarah Palin as their ticket to extend Republican control of the White House is that there is no accounting for family values this time around. Starting at the top, there’s John McCain himself. After fourteen years of marriage (the kind that most in the Bible Belt would say has “to-death-do-us-part” vows) he went to a party (not a revival meeting) and fell in love with a 24 year old socialite who just happened to be an heiress to a fortune from her father, who owned the main Budweiser Beer (a kind of alcohol that Christians must not let touch their lips) distributor company in Arizona. So he did what any other God-fearing gentleman would do, right? He dumped his wife, who waited patiently while he was a POW and had suffered a severe auto accident, and married the younger celebrity. Cindy’s daddy apparently had doubts about the love, since a pre-nuptial agreement kept John from access to her millions. Contrast this to Barack Obama, who fell in love with his wife, has two kids and is still married (imagine that, and he’s a radical liberal, no less).

Now we get to the bottom of the ticket, and indeed it scrapes the bottom. Enter stage right Sarah Palin, who virtually no one outside of Alaska had ever heard of until last Friday. Continue reading Accounting for Family Values →

Maverick Rolls the Dice

Election 2008, Film and Video, Luke R. E. Publican, YouTube Watch

John McCain is running for President as the maverick, not any old maverick but “the” maverick frozen in American popular culture. The original Maverick was an ABC television show that ran from 1958-1962, starring James Garner as an inveterate (rather than a veteran) and not very chaste gambler. You have probably seen some of the reruns even if you did not see it in your living room (as I did) almost a half century ago, and, of course, you can always go to You Tube. Here is how the nostalgia site for the show describes the Black and White version of the Red, White and Blue riverboat gambler:

Maverick told the story of Bret Maverick, a card shark who lived during the Old West era. The show was originally a straightforward tale of his adventures, but it evolved when the writers began adding comedy into the scripts. Bret quickly became the television western’s first mercenary, a character who would help the forces of justice only if he stood to profit from doing so. Continue reading Maverick Rolls the Dice →

Hula-Hoop for Peace

Election 2008, Iran

Move over Barack. Lawyer and activist Melody Moezzi is organizing an event to coincide with the Democratic National Convention in Denver and all you will need besides a commitment to peace in the Middle East is a hula hoop. Here is how she describes it.

I am an Iranian-American. I have two homelands: the United States and Iran. I am not half-Iranian. I am not half-American. I am 100% Iranian and 100% American. Thus, peace, particularly between the US and Iran, is not simply a political issue for me: It is deeply personal. Any attack on Iran by the United States would constitute the eruption of an internal civil war within me and so many other Iranian-Americans. It would be a conflict that I am not certain my soul could withstand, and it would be a conflict that would result in the loss of my countrymen on both sides. Indeed, I am not taking up peace as a cause because I am some delusional hippie (far from it) and have nothing better to do (I assure you, I do). I am doing this for unabashedly selfish and painfully practical reasons: I do not want my family, my countrymen, or my generation to die or struggle at the hands of others. I have presented my “home,” which includes all my biases and underlying intentions here, so if this is too much for you, then HHP is likely not your ball of wax, or more specifically, your ring of plastic. Continue reading Hula-Hoop for Peace →

Playing Games with Iran

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Iran, Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue


Clergymen watched a missile during war games Thursday near Qum, Iran. The exercise was conducted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Fars News Agency, via Agence France-Presse

by William O. Beeman, Foreign Policy In Focus, July 21, 2008

By now the structure of the U.S. game with Iran is clear. In the first move, the United States and Iran make some small progress toward improved relations. In the counter move, hardliners in the United States and Israel launch attacks against Iran in order to sabotage these improving relations.

In the latest iteration of this game, the U.S. State Department has made an interesting gambit. It announced that Undersecretary of State William Burns would sit at the table on July 20 as members of the European Union entered into talks with Iran over its nuclear program. At the same time, the United States has been reported to be considering opening a formal American Interests Section in Tehran. These two actions will be the first serious public diplomatic activities between the two nations in nearly three decades. (Three earlier meetings in Baghdad between U.S. Iraqi Envoy Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi-Qomi focused on security in Iraq). Continue reading Playing Games with Iran →

Obama’s other Muslim problem

Election 2008, Indonesia, Islamophobia


In Kenya on Sunday [August 27, 2006], US Senator Barack Obama on a visit to his late father’s homeland, is pictured with a camel at an animal market in Wajir, an area hit by a severe drought.

By Mark Levine, ALJAZEERA, June 25, 2008

As soon as Barack Obama rose to the top of the field of Democratic presidential contenders, he developed a “Muslim problem” based on false accusations that he is, or once was, a Muslim.

There is little doubt that these accusations will be raised again, however unfairly, when Obama squares off against John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, in November’s election.

But if we were to assume that Obama overcomes this and other obstacles to win his historic bid for the White House, a far more serious Muslim problem awaits “President” Obama: A majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims have an utter lack of trust in the US.

Senator Obama’s experience of living in a Muslim country (Indonesia, where he attended school during his childhood), along with his relative youthfulness and message of hope, have the potential to heal this rift, however.

He has the merits which can energise young Muslims in the same way he has inspired millions of young Americans. Continue reading Obama’s other Muslim problem →