http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/03/20/mcfarland_obama_iran/

from Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland

. . . saying nice things to the Iranians isn’t enough. The thing I learned from my old boss Reagan is you ratchet up the pressure while you have leverage, you don’t suspend it — because negotiating without leverage isn’t negotiating, it’s begging.

The U.N. and the Europeans and the U.S. have tried the carrots and sticks and diplomacy approach with Iran for a decade. As long as oil prices were high, Iran ignored them. But now that oil prices have fallen, we’ve finally got some leverage.

Now we need to ratchet up the pressure — economically, diplomatically and financially. Because of Iran’s vulnerability we have a narrow window to get what we want from them -– a halt to their nuclear program before they develop nuclear weapons.

. . .

Obama is great at speeches and an offering diplomacy. The test will be whether he has the guts to play hardball with the Iranians. Apparently Obama likes to be compared to Reagan; they’re both great communicators. Unless he can prove he’s as tough a negotiator as Reagan, the leader he’ll be compared to is Neville Chamberlain.

Strikingly original.

ever write about BSG without getting in a dig about Star Trek?

BSG is sometimes enjoyable, but it is by far the greatest scifi show ever. It is filled with plot holes and leaps of logic and simplistic renderings of social, economic, and political issues. Just adding a lot of bogus mysticism and sweaty sex and models doesn't make it revolutionary. That the ending was so preposterous and all-over-the-place shows just how lazy the writing could be.

And, of course, the acting was often over the top, a la Rashomon.

I like the sci in my scifi. I don't like "angels" being chucked in to make up for an incoherent narrative. And I don't think a literal deus ex machina fits into a scifi verse.

But I do think that Trek at its best surpasses this show, and has left a meaningful and lasting legacy that should not be dismissed.

From the Klein article Glenn linked to:

Unlike many of my colleagues in the mass media, I am suffering from outrage-deficit disorder. It's not that I'm not angry. I am, in fact, frustrated that we've civilized ourselves out of really satisfying scapegoat rituals: The ancients would have staged a mass immolation of the AIG casino pigs in their private jets or crucified Bernie Madoff on the 18th hole at the Palm Beach Country Club, preceded by a public show trial with Jon Stewart as chief magistrate. You probably need an over-the-top catharsis or two like that to get the popular rage under control. As it is, guilt and anger are being splashed about chaotically and inefficiently--and people like Barack Obama, who had nothing at all to do with the creation of this mess, are being blamed. That is very dangerous at a moment when there is a desperate need for patience and rationality.

Let's do a close reading of the work of that paragon of the Civilized Man, Joe Klein, shall we?

First, he distances himself from his colleagues, who, we are to understand, are hysterically and unreasonably pushing this AIG story. No, he is not one of those overpaid, overheated hacks--he is one of us, the regular folk: In his heart, he feels the same way we do. Yes, he understands, this charmingly paternal man, that there is a little part in all of us that wants swift and brutal justice. Oh, yes, he joins all of our inner savages in secretly wanting to brandish the pitchforks and light up the bundles of wood under the feet of the "scapegoats." And to make his hook complete, he refers to the beloved Jon Stewart. We all love Jon Stewart! With a wonderful economy of words, this modern-day sophist has gained our childlike trust. We want to be reasonable like him. We understand, now, that the people who took enormous bonuses at the taxpayers expense were just part of a larger system that had gone haywire. Is it reasonable to scapegoat them?

Having lured us into his rhetorical maze, he goes on to point out what should now be obvious to us: the "popular rage" has to be brought under control. Because even though we and Joe admit there is a tiny part of us that likes to indulge in violent fantasies, we all are really civilized beings and understand, like our bourgeois counterparts during the French and Industrial Revolutions, the immense danger of the MOB. The MOB is chaotic and inefficient. And we cannot turn their useless rage upon Barack Obama, who, after all only inherited this mess.

Oh, the joys and comforts of patience and rationality! Joe doesn't mention Congress's role in this, or Geithner's, or even the very minor fact, for instance, that the money that poured so freely into Congress's hands from AIG, Citicorp, and the rest has bought the deregulation that brought us to this precipice. Such minor points really have nothing to do with the fact that we should trust our government, and the father figure at its head, to do the right thing in steering us all out of this mess. That is the most important thing. Just as Joe elides extraneous matters from the text, so should we elide such considerations from our consciousness.

I will be looking for that film.

Texas seems to be the poster child for injustices of all kinds.

The only way I’d watch it, I’d have to be handcuffed, tied to a chair and you’d have to tape my eyes open.

Fascinating comment. Hasn't this become one of the touchstone principles of US-American life, at least to the henchmen of our oligarchy? Not to look at things that make us uncomfortable?

Seriously, I think we'd all like to hear accounts of anyone who dares to go up against those Goliaths.