[Peace-discuss] Not that Obama's any better

[C. G. Estabrook]

But it's important that a certain primitive psychological splitting doesn't lead 
people to imagine that Hillary's awfulness makes Obama look good.

And BTW I had a long auto trip last week and listened to Limbaugh's full three- 
hour show.  It's interesting to hear how he does it.  What he says is nuts and 
worse, but he has polished a rhetorical form that's supple and inventive.  It's 
good audio theatre.  --CGE


Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> Good article, Carl. Thanks for posting it. However, the subject line 
> should have read "Hillary Strangelove" as that's what the editorial is 
> about. "Not that Obama's any better" is off-topic and soooo totally Rush 
> Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly.
>  --Jenifer 
> 
> */"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>/* wrote:
> 
>     GLOBE EDITORIAL
>     Hillary Strangelove
>     April 27, 2008
> 
>     AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the
>     rhetoric in a
>     campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary
>     Clinton and
>     Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be
>     crossed.
>     Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary,
>     when she
>     told ABC's "Good Morning America" that, if she were president, she
>     would
>     "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran attacked Israel.
> 
>     This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media
>     coverage. But it
>     reverberated in headlines around the world.
> 
>     Responding with understatement to a question in the British House of
>     Lords, the
>     foreign minister responsible for Asia, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, said of
>     Clinton's implication of a mushroom cloud over Iran: "While it is
>     reasonable to
>     warn Iran of the consequences of it continuing to develop nuclear
>     weapons and
>     what those real consequences bring to its security, it is probably
>     not prudent
>     in today's world to threaten to obliterate any other country and in
>     many cases
>     civilians resident in such a country."
> 
>     A less restrained reaction came from an editorial in the Saudi-based
>     paper Arab
>     News. Being neighbors of Iran, the Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs
>     have the most
>     to fear from Iran's nuclear program and its drive to become the
>     dominant power
>     in the Gulf.
> 
>     But precisely because they are most at risk from Iran's regional
>     ambitions, the
>     Saudis want a carefully considered American approach to Iran, one
>     that balances
>     firmness and diplomatic engagement.
> 
>     The Saudi paper called Clinton's nuclear threat "the foreign
>     politics of the
>     madhouse," saying, "it demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has
>     distinguished Bush's foreign relations."
> 
>     The Saudis are not always sound advisers on American foreign policy.
>     But they
>     understand that Rambo rhetoric like Clinton's only plays into the
>     hands of
>     Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a
>     nuclear
>     weapons capability. They argue that Iran must have that capability
>     in order to
>     deter the United States from doing what Clinton threatened to do.
> 
>     While Clinton has hammered Obama for supporting military strikes in
>     Pakistan,
>     her comments on Iran are much more far-reaching. She seems not to
>     realize that
>     she undermined Iranian reformists and pragmatists. The Iranian
>     people have been
>     more favorable to America than any other in the Gulf region or the
>     Middle East.
> 
>     A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran -
>     and,
>     presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran -
>     should not be
>     answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.
> 
>     ###
> 
> 
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> 
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