I still think it's funny that even after learning 241 guys before you already wanted to be called "shooter" (I guess you types figure it sounds like a tough cowboy kinda name) you went ahead and stuck with it anyway.

I haven't knocked your books out of your hands and pushed your face into the mud since Glenn got here to Salon, but I notice you've been getting even cockier lately. I also notice the rightwing media giants you tune into 24/7 have gone into overdrive spouting their mindless inanity since the whole country figured out their champion is a blithering idiot who can't tie his shoes without instructions. Obviously these are connected. You guys will probably get even more desperate as things unfold and we learn ever more about the colossal failures of your cult's attempt to run the show, but if this means we have to put up with more of your childish crowings, I'll have to start slapping you around again.

If Gore had won in 2000 and done exactly every single thing Bush has done, you'd be screaming about how stupid the war in Iraq is. So would all of us. Of course you'd go the extra mile and claim it proves that Dems destroy the military when they get their incompetent hands on it, and therefore can't be trusted to run it, and you'd have a very good argument, as it's hard to imagine anybody could run things as ineptly as Bush has. We'd still just think Gore was dangerously stupid.

I would think by now this basic reality would have made you realize your purely partisan hackery with it's utterly predictable sputterings makes your contributions here meaningless. We all know some folks can't get past the little letters next to the names, but the majority of Americans just want the govt to be open, honest, moral and competent. You partisan shills should find an island to slug it out on, and leave the rest of us in peace.

It is highly instructive to read this article:

US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy

Brian Whitaker reports on the network of research institutes whose views and TV appearances are supplanting all other experts on Middle Eastern issues

Those who work for US thinktanks are often given university-style titles such as "senior fellow", or "adjunct scholar", but their research is very different from that of universities - it is entirely directed towards shaping government policy.

What nobody outside the thinktanks knows, however, is who pays for this policy-shaping research. (MORE)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html

Thank you. I have been saying this same thing since the Vietnam days. How can we run a democracy (or representative republic, if how we treat the rest of the world is off the table?

We must have a national discussion on war, intervention, threats, the CIA, and a host of other issues if this country is to survive as a republic. Do we really want to be an empire?

As the hologram says, "That, detective, is the right question." Susan Powers has illuminated a big question, Glenn another, and bucky1 has boiled it down to its essence. Even more essential, I would argue, is that we ask bucky1's question of every last institution we've created in this country, not just the government. What's wrong with the FPC is that they are behaving imperially and using authority to bully others into submission. It's also wrong with our defense policy community, and our journalism community, even many of our scientific and academic communities.

We are learning that when knowledge becomes power, democracy becomes difficult. I for one would love to approach the twenty-fourth century having solved our social problems, as in Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future.

My broken record is that 2% of the country has Ph.D.'s and we have so much gatekeeping that only one percent of them ever contributes a single journal article to the commonwealth of knowledge after their dissertations are done. The rest are in many ways underemployed, usually due to an old labor tactic called gatekeeping. They aren't the only people who can think, but they are the most visible waste of neurons in a country with tons of problems to solve. Imperialism leads to decadence, whether it is intellectual imperialism, political imperialism, material imperialism, or military imperialism.

Should our country be a republic or an empire?

Well,

Should academia be a republic or an empire?
Should business be a republic or an empire?
Should intellectual property be a republic or an empire?
Should pop music be a republic or an empire?
Should the MSM be a republic or an empire?
Should the FPC be a republic or an empire?
Should medicine be a republic or an empire?
Should art, music, cinema be a republic or an empire?

I like this, I could go on and on.

Hey Shooter –

Saw from your comments yesterday, you're back in the betting mode – man, didn’t you learn anything in 2006? You’re going to be working on a third mortgage if you keep this up.

On the topic at hand, what really gets me is that Gates can go on MTP and essentially say the same thing Obama did, and noone raises an eyebrow.

MR. RUSSERT: Before you go, if we had actionable intelligence about Osama bin Laden or high level targets in Pakistan, and General Musharraf—President Musharraf did not act, would we act unilaterally?

SEC’Y GATES: Musharraf has been a very strong ally. The fact of the matter is, if we had actionable intelligence that Osama was in Pakistan, I think—my view is that President Musharraf would work with us to make sure that we could go after him.

MR. RUSSERT: But if he didn’t, would we act unilaterally?

SEC’Y GATES: I think we would not act without telling Musharraf what we were planning to do.

The only difference between the two positions I can tell, is that Gates says he would tell Musharraf before they unilaterally attacked, and Obama might or might not. Big difference.