Dick Cheney slams President Obama for projecting ‘weakness’

In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”

“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.

Live-Blogging Oprah by Andrew Sullivan

4.57 pm. Now it's a love-fest between two celebrities with talk-shows.

4.53 pm. "You don't need a title to make a difference." Here again she uses the term "title" as opposed to "office." She really does see politics as an extension of being a Beauty Queen, subject to nice p.r. events, interviews that are restricted to the "light-hearted, working mother" puffery that Oprah is enabling, and cover images on magazines. The idea that a politician holding public office is required to address tough questions about policy and record and the truth of various factual statements does not seem to have occurred to her. I find this disturbing in a politician. It means a contempt for the Fourth Estate and for full public accountability.

4.52 pm. She's clearly hoping to run for president in 2012.

4.50 pm. Still no credible reason why she suddenly quit as governor. Until ... she's worried about opposition research. Hmmm. And can we verify if Obama sent any researchers? I haven't heard of it. Another possible lie to be checked out.

4.48 pm. A question: how many vice-presidential or presidential male candidates had a just-born infant child when running? Secondly: how would Todd be able to help if he is physically absent for months at a time?

Why It's Not Smart to Call Women Conservatives 'Whores'

Conservative women should be strongly criticized. But using gendered language to attack them doesn't help progressives.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger typically attaches a message to bills he signs or vetoes telling lawmakers why he took the action.

A Democratic assemblyman who heckled the governor during a recent event in San Francisco actually received two messages: the veto letter itself and a not-so-subtle rebuke creatively hidden within it.

Like a find-the-word puzzle, the second message was visible by stringing together the first letter of each line down the left-hand margin. It consisted of a common four-letter vulgarity followed by the letters "y-o-u."

"My goodness. What a coincidence," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear. "I suppose when you do so many vetoes, something like this is bound to happen."

Read full article here

A wary respect

Oct 22nd 2009
From The Economist print edition

“OUR future history will be more determined by our position on the Pacific facing China than by our position on the Atlantic facing Europe,” said the American president as he contemplated the extraordinary commercial opportunities that were opening up in Asia. More than a hundred years after Theodore Roosevelt made this prediction, American leaders are again looking across the Pacific to determine their own country’s future, and that of the rest of the world. Rather later than Roosevelt expected, China has become an inescapable part of it"

Read more here..........