Barack Obama is George Bush's nightmare, he is about as complete a repudiation of Bush as there can be.

Hillary would represent a business as usual there so is no real threat to his legacy.

Kirchick missed the point?  Are you sure?  

Walker knows no boundaries. He is like the problem child who immediately springs out of bed once the door is closed, flings open the window and descends down the trellis to ground - level, then scampers off to the peril of his neighbors.

"Jamie's missing the point" -- wow, stop the presses, news flash.

How much extra do they have to pay you for you to pretend to take him seriously?

Wasn't a former candidate for president (I believe the name was Clinton) excoriated by the Republicans for protesting in London against the Vietnam War?  Something about politics stopping at the water's edge?  Or does that only apply to Democrats?

Shazaam Chait. I always liked you but with your newly acquired habit of beating Kirchick like an f-ing post, I may just be falling in love...

Keep that Sonny Liston straight left aimed right for his throat....

dang......

Yes, liberal, the perfect description of Bush, all sort of good fun.  

Doesn't your simile strike you as just a bit "beside the point" in light of the devastation wrought by Bush's combination of overweening confidence, rigid commitment to a failed ideology, and total incompetence?  Not exactly "like" "climbing down the trellis" and "scampering off."

Have you no sense of metaphor, humor, or irony, roidubouloi?  I had in mind here a bad seed. I was thinking "arson', "destruction", "mayhem", lovely things like that. C'mon, you can tell me, you are really a self - parody, right?

Chris Matthews skewering a Right wing talking head who did not know anything about Munich.  Wow.  I don't really like Matthews, but I was impressed with his calm performance today.

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../hardball-shoutfest-matthe_n_102020.html

Right after Olberman's tirade - I'm switching over to MSNBC ....

Isn't this kind of a stupid distinction?  Why should it matter if it's "on foreign soil" or in the U.S.?  With the internet, anything Bush says here is instantly and widely heard around the world.  I fail to see why it's important that Bush restrict his criticisms of his political opponents to those made while he's on U.S. soil.

Stick to criticizing the substance of his comments, not their location.

You're right liberal.  You are a wit right up alongside Mel Brooks.  I should have realized that your bon mot was very much in the tradition of "Springtime for Hitler."  It was the very contrast between the gravity of the subject and the apparent empty-headedness of the remark that gave it its punch.  Kudos to you.

bigm, it actually does matter, and for this reason: In the United States, the president is both the head of state and the chief executive officer of the government. In British terms, he is both Queen and Prime Minister. For the most part, when the president acts within the United States, he does so as chief executive -- as Prime Minister. That is a political position, a hand-on, rough-and-tumble, policy job, where basically anything goes.

But when the president travels overseas and addresses foreign legislatures, or otherwise stands as a symbol of the American people and our republic, he is acting as head of state -- as the Queen. This is a ceremonial position, a white-gloves, observe-the-niceties job, where domestic politics has no place.

To go to the Knesset and make a domestic political point -- to attack a fellow American citizen! -- is not only an insult to the office of the presidency. It is an insult to his hosts. It would be as if they invited the Queen but instead the Prime Minister showed up in drag.

When a foreign legislature invites the president of the United States to speak, it is inviting the ceremonial representative of the people of the United States of America to speak on behalf of all Americans. Not a campaign spokesman for the Republican Party. That's why the location matters.

What President Bush did in Israel cheapens his office and insults the people of both countries.

bigm: It is unbecoming for a head of government, let along head of state, to drag domestic political disputes into the parliament of another country.  Regardless of what he said, Bush's behaviour was, true to form, oafish, disrespectful, undiplomatic and generally declassé.

Well, it's the same BS they threw at the Dixie Chicks and used to try to destroy their career - and oh by the way, it is entirely disgusting and beneath a sitting President. And the substance is bullshit too - this guy has failed in every way, shape and form, and anyone thinks anything he says has any credibility at all? He has incompetently screwed up everything he has touched. When Obama is elected president and, by doing so, the American people repudiate everything this current President has done, balance will indeed be restored to the Empire.

...and then comparing Obama to Nazi Germany?? In Israel?? It is mind-boggling sick - I don't even have the words - I need to let Sen Biden express it:

"An exasperated Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, skewered Bush over his comments with reporters, calling the comments "pure politics," "blatant," "beneath the presidency," "truly disgraceful," "outrageous," "disturbing," "ridiculous hypocrisy" and "long-distance Swiftboating." He even said Bush "oughta get a life."

Rhubarbs - you nailed it

Rhubs - what can I say, took the words right out of my mouth ;-).

HuffPo is on a roll.  James Rubin interviewing McCain.  This is what McCain said:

RUBIN: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCAIN: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

Video on: www.huffingtonpost.com/.../exclusive-video-mccain-wa_n_102031.html

This is too much.

Kirchick, I expect either a grovelling apology, or a similarly incoherent attack on John "Apeaser" McCain.  Or your resignation and oblivion.

Mcgumbleton: What would it be to competently screw things up?

Roidubouloi: You think yourself clever but the cleverness has gone missing. Call your hatchet style "exaggeration for non - effect". I am not - nor am I lusting to be - a comedy writer. Williamyard and others are better than I am in that department. I just try for a little levity and metaphor, as opposed to your leaden, literalist approach. I was about to say that you know better than that but the scary thing is that you probably don't. You undoubtedly are decades older than your juvenility would seem to date you.

Very "little levity," liberal.  For that you have to be funny.  You're not.  You're pedantic.

Welcome to the first general-election policy debate! (That sounded more exciting in our head.)

Maybe I'm dreaming or haven't been drinking enough good wine lately, but I think GWB likes Obama.  OK, hear me out.  

I've thought so for awhile. Not that he wants him to win, he doesn't for the reasons Blackton said - but I do think Bush likes Obama.

Obama needs to practice his saber rattling, sound-bite style. I'm a huge fan of his cerebral "we don't do nuance well" shtick as much as the next egghead, but he needs to at least show some saber ratttling, boob-bait-for-the-bubbas ability at SOME level.  

As a rather philo-semite type myself, Bush couldn't have thrown a helpful punch better in a better place.  As if the Israelis don't know every side  of this coin, every issue, every wing of every party.  They probably snooze through any candidates boilerplate bomb-em thing, people know when their rings are being kissed (or asses).  

Maybe I'm romanticizing, but I think Israeli politicians might like Obama's astringent, cerebral, honest ways (gee, I wonder why) and want him to succeed.  

But as Bob Dole once said about Jesse Helms, there is no getting to the other side of the river without dealing with the alligator smack in the middle of it.  Obama can't reason with alligators.  He needs to cut them in half and make it clear in five words or less that that is exactly what he is capable of.  And that he knows when to pick that time.

Effective boob-bait is a political skill, like any other.  If Obama gagged down the frigging Italian hero, he can gag down this.  

Bush knows that.  Hes nowhere near as dumb as he's made out to be.  This is good for Obama.

It is gutless for Bush to do what he did.  

Any American who went to Israel and criticized the President would be condemned for doing so - that places a burden of fairness and decency on the President when he goes overseas.  A burden easily shirked by a man whose arrogant sef-righteousness is only exceeded by the paucity of his intellect.

Neil

I swear I'm not kidding here.  So where in the speech did W actually refer to Obama?  Is this like where the right to privacy is mentioned in the Constitution?

I Haven't seen such false indignation since the Clintons were in office.  The only Dem I can see W was possibly referring to was Jimmy Carter.

Yeah, yeah, W's evil incarnate, I get all that.  But I truly don't get the leap of logic here.

Oh, come on.  Bush is an asshole, and would be one if he gave the same speech in Topeka.  Time to retire the "water's edge" taboo, as Kevin Drum says, and the head of state/head of government distinction, too.  And long past time to retire Bushism.

butchie,

It is not a leap of logic; it's called double-talk, or perhaps you might prefer the terms innuendo or allusion.