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A Commentary By Susan Estrich

“Do you really like her?” they say in a whisper. “Leaves me cold,” I hear all the time. “Ice cold.” I should add that most of the people saying these things are Democrats, and many of them are women who will be the first to admit that they might actually have a lot in common with her.  

But what about all those people in markets who sidle up and say the same thing? What about the flight attendants who tell me how much they like him, but that she makes their skin crawl?

ar·ri·viste (²-r¶-v¶st“) n. 1. A person who has recently attained high position or great power without due effort or merit; an upstart. 2. An unscrupulous, vulgar social climber; a bounder. [French, from arriver, to arrive, from Old French ariver. See ARRIVE.]

My main line of experimental research began as an attempt to understand the “Trolley Problem,” which was originally posed by the philosophers Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson.  

    First, we have the switch dilemma:  A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. Is it morally permissible to turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one?   Most people say “Yes.”Continue reading “Moral Dilemmas and the “Trolley Problem””

The spectacle of two duelling speeches with a mile of each other in downtown Washington was extraordinary. I was at the Cheney event and watched Obama’s address on a big screen beside the empty lectern that the former veep stepped behind barely two minutes after his adversary had finished.

So who won the fight? (it’s hard to use anothing other than a martial or pugilistic metaphor). Well, most people are on either one side or the other of this issue and I doubt today will have prompted many to switch sides.

But the very fact that Obama chose to schedule his speech (Cheney’s was announced first) at exactly the same time as the former veep was a sign of some weakness.

Obama’s speech and Cheney’s empty lectern. Pic: Toby Harnden

The venues for the speeches said something. Obama showily chose the National Archives, repository for many of the founding documents of the US, and spoke in front of a copy of the Constitution – cloaking himself in the flag, as Republicans were often criticised for doing.

To hear Cheney speak, we were crammed into a decidedly unglamourous and cramped conference room at AEI, favourite think tank of conservative hawks.

The former veep’s speech was factual and unemotional and certainly devoid of the kind of hokey, self-obsessed, campaign-style stuff like this, from Obama’s address today: “I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offer. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land.”

In terms of Obama’s purported aim for his speech – to present a plan for closing Guantanamo Bay aimed at placating Congress – he failed. The reception on Capitol Hill was lukewarm with even Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Dick Cheney responds Pic: Toby Harnden
>>Article

Just came across this; it is worth another listen

And three weeks before his death

I read an article on Politico about Leon Panetta’s message to his employees saying:

“Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead
Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated
previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records
from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the
interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been
employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and
reach its own conclusions about what happened.”

Below is a comment from a commenter/ranter giving his bi-partisan response. This is the mentality we are dealing with from too many on the left. All caps, he must be shouting. He must be getting tired, he left out Rove and Halaburton.

‘THE CIA WAS NOTHING BUT A LAP DOG FOR BUSH & CHENEY AND THEIR CALCULATED INVASION OF IRAQ. THE FBI WIPED THEIR HANDS OF THE STENCH-BOMB BUT
THE CIA DIDN’T. ONLY A CLUELESS AND IGNORANT PARTY I.E. THE REPUBLICAN TEABAG PARTY WOULD BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF THEIR MOUTHS. HOW DO YOU THINK
CIA UNDERCOVER AGENT VALERIE PLANE’S NAME GOT OUT? THIS IS NOTHING BUT A DISTRACTION WITH NO LEGS BUT THE REPUBLICAN TEABAGGERS & THE MSM WILL PLAY IN THE HORSE MANURE FOR AWHILE. ITS ALL A BIG JOKE TO THE GOP, ANYTHING TO TAKE THE FOCUS OFF OF THIS RECESSION-THIS ECONOMIC MELTDOWN THAT HAPPENED ON THE REPUBLICAN TEABAG PARTY’S WATCH

entire article here

Received my $250 in ObamanMoney in my account. Had to double check to see if I am still alive. Surprisingly, I am.