Foreign Policy & the ‘08 Primaries
18 December 2007 11:25 am by Taylor Marsh
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Taylor Marsh LIVE!
3:00 p.m. eastern – 12:00 pacific
Missed the show? Podcast is up.
Foreign policy with Damon Terrill (of Iowa), on GOP v. Dem. and more; Sexism w/ Tweety…
Electability matters. Wow. Ya think?
Among Democrats, Clinton is backed by 45% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, up 6 percentage points from a poll taken two weeks earlier that showed her standing eroding. The modest rebound came despite recent controversy over the tone of her campaign toward Obama.
Obama is at 27%, up 3 points, and former North Carolina senator John Edwards is third at 15%.
This should be fun. Damon Terrill will join me today. He’s the Director of the National Security Network’s Iowa Candidates Forum. Damon and I will be talking national security and the ‘08 horse race. Terrill is an Obama supporter, but I can handle it and I imagine so can he. It will be an honest foreign policy discussion, not candidate pimping, I assure you.
As regulars know, Moira at NSN books my Tuesday radio guests. NSN is Rand Beers’ organization. A great national security blog where they also write and offer invaluable information is Democracy Arsenal. I’d really appreciate it if you’d hit the links and check out their sites, maybe even add a comment if a post strikes you. These people are terrific and have been invaluable to me. I did a forum with Rand Beers months ago for FDL, and I’m quite a fan of them all. This blog post by Lorelei Kelly on the defense budget is a beauty. Brian Katulis, who was a guest on this show, talks about yet another terrorist who escaped on Bush’s watch.
Here in Islamabad, Pakistani authorities are scrambling to explain how Rashid Rauf (pictured here) the alleged mastermind of a August 2006 plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights from Britain slipped away from Pakistani police this weekend.
Though the news media is abuzz about yet another videotape from Ayman Zawahiri (Al Qaeda’s second in command probably somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan), people should carefully watch what happens in the case of Rashid Rauf’ in the coming days and weeks.
The circumstances surrounding Rauf’s escape are still murky. Earlier last week, BBC reported that a Pakistani judge ruled that there was not sufficient evidence to try Rauf, reinforcing skepticism about how real the plot was. The New York Times reports this morning that Rauf escaped after an extradition hearing on Saturday here. One Pakistani newspaper reports today more unusual details and circumstances – that the two policemen responsible for Rauf were transporting him back to jail in a private taxi cab and had allowed Rauf to perform prayers at a mosque, where he escaped using the backdoor wearing his handcuffs. … ..
On another note, Earl Ofari Hutchinson has done a post that will ring bells: Hillary Loathe Fest Drives Obama Surge.
It also explains why Barack Obama has surged. No one has benefited more from the anybody-but-Clinton loathe fest than Obama. If she wasn’t in the race and his opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination were three staid, centrist white male Democrats, Obama’s color and background would make him a curiosity item, but in the end he’d be the just another name in the pack.
But the Bash Hillary mania is so deep and pernicious that it has done the unthinkable for Obama.
It has given him a momentary free pass from the media and much of the public from any of the standard negative racial stereotypes of young and not-so-young African-American males. It has shielded him from the knee jerk double standard nit pick, dirt dig, and doubting whispers about the competence and intelligence of prominent blacks. The Fox Network which has never been accused of biting its collective lip on any politician with the M (moderate) , or L (liberal) words in front of their Democrat tag to progressive publications which routinely slay politicians for their corporate pandering and shilling have applied the hands-off, kid glove treatment to Obama’s record and policy faux paus’s.
I talked about this after the Russert debate, including when I was asked on MSNBC when all the scrutiny was on Clinton. What do we get with Obama? The truth is we just don’t know. That’s what his campaign is counting on. I’ll have a post up after the show on yet another blog that has come under thrall of Obama’s personality.
Lots to talk about.
Hope you can join me.
