http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXe8M-EsgwM

on the other hand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJMufGx7fo

Iran-Contra prosecutions could have prevented Iraq war crimes by letting those involved know there will be consequences.

What happened...did they threaten the Oabam girl's lives?

How can Obama, just out of the blue, start turning into a Bush/Pelosi clone. Prosecuting Bush will interfere with "policy making"?

We vote for one person and another shows up for work. It's like listening to Bush being forced by congress to justify his Iran policies. From all sources there is no evidence of Iran seeking a nuclear weapon...nor would a nuclear Iran be anymore threatening than a nuclear Israel or Pakistan or India is.

Who has Obama been talking to...or listening to? Has he just got his "marching" orders from the 'shadow' government or what?

In '06 dems were overwhelmingly elected with a mandate to accomplish 2 things...1)end the Iraq war; 2)end the government corruption of the Bush administration. They did neither...didn't even try. They did just the opposite...legalizing Bush's corruption while giving him everything he demanded from them. They boast of an increase of a (non-livable) minimum wage as their biggest accomplishment.

After our elected officials take office they disconnect with the people who elected them. It is no Democracy when the people are unable to control the actions of their elected government...a government supposedly of, by and for the people.

Obama had no good explanation for voting for telecom immunity. He has no good explanation for saying he may not be able to close Gitmo...and certainly no good reason to let the Bush administration get away with breaking the law.

Bush comes from the position of being a self serving selfish, egotistical spoiled brat asshole...Obama is none of those things so there is every reason to believe he will be more open ans sensitive to the will of the people with intentions of doing the right and Just thing. Perhaps (like FDR) he wants our voices to be loud and clear("...now make me do it").

Iran once offered its help and total cooperation, even offering to end it's nuclear program without complete oversight...but it was ignored and hidden by Condi Rice. If we treat them differently they will respond. They have condemned the building and the use of WMD unlike all their neighbors for which they have little protection. Remember the "We are the change we've been looking for". Stop acting like Bush is good advice. How can you change something you refuse to re evaluate? I did not vote for kings or dictators but for someone to "represent" me as he 'indicated' he did. So I still expect he will.

Holy Conflation Batman! Obama did not tout the original NIE as authorative, he just said it made a "compelling case" for more diplomacy. He didn't say he agreed with those findings, he said the NIE findings, not his own, make a compelling case and that Bush was irresponsible for his saber rattling rhetoric.

(my emphasis)

Why would his own findings be other than an estimate produced by some 16 separate agencies? How would these be generated?

If there was a "compelling case," what made it compelling, if the NIE in questions wasn't authoritative?

There's much parsing going on here and it's not clear to me why. Do we really need to start, rhetorically, divining the entrails of birds here?

As Glenn observed:

Yesterday, with no explanation, he embraced the opposite of the NIE's finding and claimed that they were still pursuing nuclear weapons.

This is accurate. Why has Obama changed on this? If he knows something different, something new, he could've said so.

... and meddle in other countries' affairs, as long as it is policing what you perceive as "good", and so long as mission creep doesn't find its way back into your home. ..." -- Chis in a snark

I find the lack of questioning the very morality of using force on others to be the main problem.

You and I both know that it is utter stupidity from a pragmatic standpoint because we will ultimately get badly bitten because of our actions. But I maintain that even if we somehow could beat the odds and the fate that history says is our due, and police the world without anyone being able to punish us for doing so: we would still be morally wrong.

How come so few seem to care about the basic morality of our actions?

Plenty on the left,"

Who? Who is plenty? And your post was just so much blather.

"Plenty on the left" who? That famous socialist Plenty Left?

(I hope it's okay to call you T3)

Since Brennan's will be a newly-created role, it's only speculation, but it seems quite possible that he will be closer to Obama's ear than he would have been as CIA Director.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

more at link or click sig

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I think the chief Rabbi is at odds with international law; but then I am no lawyer. (or Rabbi)

if it is eaten from the left or the right!

have we ever had a poster who blathered about "the Left" who had a goddam useful thing to say?

Ah, but "progressive" is on the way up. I'm letting go of my old criticism about "progressive" not meaning anything politically. It's coming on strong, with more people identifying themselves that way, and lots more organisations using "progressive" in their names. Perhaps we will have a Progressive Party again soon?

But that "the left" they're always talking about, sorry, it's gone, for better or worse.

However, one could generalise as "the left" anyone who does not internalise and spew the melodramatic and vicariously brutal and dehumanising tropes of the right on all subjects. Yes, I could see that as "the left"

So basically, as soon as you are not spouting facism by proxy, you are on "the left"

Sad, isn't it? When expressing even the most minimal social decency is equated with Stalinist Communism.