Month: January 2010

What Was He Looking For?

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James O’Keefe, the investigative journalist who uncovered the corruption of ACORN, got busted in a (possible) attempt to bug the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office. [h/t Instapundit] It’s clearly a case that comes from a Greek tragedy in which success leads to hubris which leads to the hero’s downfall. I rather expected something like this to happen to O’Keefe or someone seeking to emulate him.

However, when I first read this story, the first thought that popped into my mind was, “What was he looking for?” You don’t go around randomly bugging the office phones of US Senators. No, O’Keefe must have some information that made him think bugging Landrieu’s phones would reveal information damning enough of Landrieu that people would overlook the wiretapping when he made it public.

What does O’Keefe suspect about Landrieu and is he right about it?

[Update: I though the entire Greek tragedy bit explained what I thought but just to be clear, I’m not excusing O’Keefe if he did in fact try to wiretap a US Senator. That is very serious if no other reason than US Senators deal with National Security information and we wouldn’t want to establish a precedent were anybody could listen in on them. Non-leftist should always be aware of the dangers of setting a dangerous precedent merely for short-term gain because leftist certainly won’t.]

Phil Troyer and the Class of 2010 Compact with America

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My friend and law school classmate Phil Troyer is running for congress.

He is promising to fight for the principles embodied in a very solid-sounding Compact with America.

Phil apparently came up with this without even consulting our recent post on a Contract with America.

I won’t say great minds, necessarily … .

But a lot of us seem to be thinking alike.

Disclaimer for Eric Holder: No one paid me for this post, I get no benefit out of it, I have no affiliation with Phil’s campaign, he did not ask me to put it up and I have not told him yet, and I am exercising my core political speech under the First Amendment with this post. I hope that is still legal.

What kind of delusion is this?

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Watched Charlie Rose last night. He and some of his guests were discussing President Obama’s political fortunes – post a Scott Brown victory – and what the President might do in order to reverse the downward trend. To give you a flavor of the conversation, I present the following excerpts from the transcript:

“CHARLIE ROSE: Joining me now, Jon Meacham, editor of “Newsweek”
magazine, in Washington, Tom DeFrank of the “New York Daily News,” and Anne
Kornblut of “The Washington Post.” I’m pleased to have all of them here as
we take a look at this week, which is important for the president, and a
state of the union which is very important to him.”….

JON MEACHAM: “Well, he has clearly found that history is a more
complicated matter than the speechifying and the glamour, really, of the
campaign…..

In politics, you don’t get credit for what didn’t happen. So I think
we should say that he did in concert with the outgoing administration and
with his own folks, he did keep us out of a more severe downturn in 2009.”….

To my mind, the real problem has been that he has a kind of
intellectual snobbishness about being simple and clear about what he wants
the country to be. What does he want it to look like when he leaves? And
it sounds odd to say that sound bites are important, but they are. Jesus
spoke in them, and his stuff has aged rather well.”….

THOMAS DEFRANK: “Why is he where he is today? I think it’s because they made a real
miscalculation on health care. They thought they could sell it. They
didn’t sell it. They lost control of the message. The critics have
controlled the message on health care for the last four or five months, and
it’s a negative message.”….

ANNE KORNBLUT: “I guess it’s confusing to me why it’s so difficult for
them to show what his emotions are. All of us who have been around him or
covered the campaign know he isn’t a robot. He actually does have emotions
and a family he cares about, and he’s extremely good at talking about the
feelings he felt growing up in extraordinary circumstances.” ….

Seriously, the entire transcript and conversation are like that: He’s misunderstood, he’s misrepresented, he’s under appreciated for all that he has done! What?

The Post-COIN Era is Here

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Learning to Eat Soup with a Spoon Again……

There has been, for years, an ongoing debate in the defense and national security community over the proper place of counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine in the repertoire of the United States military and in our national strategy. While a sizable number of serious scholars, strategists, journalists and officers have been deeply involved, the bitter discussion characterized as “COINdinista vs. Big War crowd” debate is epitomized by the exchanges between two antagonists, both lieutenant colonels with PhD’s, John Nagl, a leading figure behind the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual and now president of the powerhouse think tank CNAS , and Gian Gentile, professor of history at West Point and COIN’s most infamous arch-critic.

Read more

Afghanistan (Arghandab, etc) links….

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– “The Taliban launched their initial attack into Arghandab in October 2007, after the natural death of Mullah Naqib. This assault marked the beginning of an intense campaign to erode the will of the population in Arghandab to resist Taliban control.

The Taliban gained control of Arghandab by using targeted violence to intimidate local leaders, supplemented with an intimidation campaign and the implementation of a judicial system to increase the Taliban’s legitimacy.”

– “The Dahla Dam and irrigation system, located in the heart of the province of Kandahar, is Afghanistan’s second largest dam. Eighty percent of Kandahar’s population lives along the irrigation system. Since it was built in the 1950s, years of disrepair have left the dam and irrigation system functioning at reduced capacity.”

– “The Kunar Provincial Reconstruction Team visited the Kunar Prison construction site Jan. 14 to conduct a quality assurance check and address security issues.

PRT leaders and engineers met with Afghan National Police representatives and the construction site engineer and foreman to discuss the progress on the prison.”

– “As U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is visiting Pakistan for the first time in three years to encourage greater cooperation between Washington and Islamabad and ask what the country’s plans are for a possible military offensive against extremists in the tribal region of North Waziristan, a Pakistani Army spokesman said any action there would not happen in the next 12 months, citing the Pakistani government’s desire to consolidate current gains.”

– “Images from the most-talked about place of 2009.“