October 5th 2008

Sunday Scan - 10/5/2008

Sunday Scan items are published as each is completed; most recent at the top, so be sure to click through if you see the “continue reading” note at the bottom of the post. This note will be removed after the last item is posted, so if you’re reading this, please come back for more.

Palin Packs ‘Em In

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ere’s the report from Shawn Steele (fomrer Cal. GOP chair) from last night’s Sarah Palin event in SoCal:

Not since Ronald Reagan’s final campaign rally at Orange County’s Mile Square Park on the eve of the 1984 election, have thousands of Californian Republicans gathered. Neither Bush could do it. None of last year’s Republican presidential candidates could fill the Home Depot Tennis Center.

The Center has 13,000 court side seats. All those seats plus the suites were filled to capacity. Still thousands more were slowly streaming into the stadium quickly filled up the court yard. Thousands more found standing room around the rim of the stadium. Over 20,000 people were there to celebrate, shout and scream.

SNL can continue to poke fun at Palin, but real people get her and want to get close to her. If you have any doubts what she’s done to the ticket, check out who introduced her:

Shelly Mandell, the current President of Los Angeles National Organization for Women [NOW] — in the Republican OC suite several of us were scratching our heads— introduced Sarah Palin. It was an awkward introduction. . Mandell, stated she didn’t agree with Sarah on everything, that she is a democrat, that she Mandell supported the failed Equal Rights Amendment campaign but the crowd exercised tolerance. Ms. Mandell will get a lot of angry calls from the hard left, but she embraced the moment and stood with Sarah Palin.

The OC Register also covered the event:

“Electrifying,” “genuine” and “inspiring” were a few of the adjectives that Orange County voters used to describe Sarah Palin after her rally at the Home Depot Center in Carson on Saturday.

The lead of the LA Times story was a bit different:

You can’t say she didn’t warn them.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin introduced herself to the nation with a now-famous joke about lipstick being the only difference between a certain dog breed and a hockey mom. On Saturday, the Republican vice presidential nominee unleashed her inner pit bull, accusing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of being someone who would “pal around with terrorists.”

The reporter let us know that in her opinion (yes, yes, it was a news story, I know) Palin’s new tone was “abrasive.” That’s a fine alternative for “truthful,” isn’t it?

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September 22nd 2008

Offers From Iran? A Big Horse For Troy?

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n yesterday’s Sunday Scan, I referenced a Thomas P.M. Barnett article on 12 lessons we should (have?) learned from the war in Iraq, including one I didn’t agree with.

The redirect on Iran was a complete waste of effort.

Due to our strategic tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan, America can’t stop Iran from getting nuclear unless we go nuclear. We won’t do that, meaning we should have welcomed Iran’s offered help in both locations and not wasted our troops’ lives in the meantime.

I protested that going nuclear is not the only option, and that welcoming Iranian offers of help is a risky business, like accepting large horsey gifts from Trojans Greeks (thanks, Bob). Behind my thinking on the risks of working with Iran is the utter failure of the European initiative to talk Iran out of its nukes. They’ve had five years to convince Ahmedinejad and the Mullahs to behave themselves and play by the most rudimentary of international rules, and have gotten nowhere.

I take that back: They have gotten somewhere, and it’s worse than where they started. The Europeans have been corrupted by the Iranians and are doing foul deeds at their behest - hardly a get tough policy on Iran’s nukes. Here’s what I’m talking about, from Spiegel:

Hoping to accommodate Tehran, [the EU] placed an Iranian dissident group on the EU list of terrorist organizations — and got the bloc’s agriculture ministers to rubber stamp the decision without any debate. Now lawyers from across Europe are accusing the EU of abusing the law.

Europe’s agriculture ministers had been bickering over the usual topics for hours: the reform of agricultural policy, the economic misery of many fishermen, the import of genetically modified varieties of soy, the distribution of fruit and vegetables in schools.

Then they had to deal with a particularly unusual point on the day’s agenda: the European Union’s new list of terrorist organizations. Following an “exhaustive examination,” according to the press release, the ministers voted unanimously in favor of the list.

However, those who took part in that meeting on July 15 recall that the submission was approved silently “without any discussion, without a single word being spoken and without a formal vote.” Most of those present had “no idea” what the document was about. The agriculture ministers could hardly have realized that their silent decision would lead two months later to a huge political stir.

Part of any reasonable Iran strategy is to encourage dissent within Iran, yet here we see the EU shoring up the corrupt and dangerous regime, by turning its back on a group that could attack the Mullahs from within - while getting nothing to show for it in return.

How did the EU decide to add the group - the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) - to the terrorist list? Simple … and foul:

The decision that the agriculture experts made in their meek ignorance had been prepared and formulated by a group that meets in secret. The names of the members of the group is classified as is the location where they meet and the dates of the gatherings. Every six months they update the so-called black list, which currently contains 48 organizations and 46 individuals suspected of terrorist activities. Those on the list can have their accounts frozen, and it is illegal to donate money to them or to support them in any other way. The organizations in practice lose the means to support themselves.

The EU’s handling of the matter - slipping the measure through secretly while proclaiming a public process - shows how dangerous it is to trust the Europeans with sensitive diplomacy when issues of the magnitde of nuclear weapons are in play.

If the Europeans have failed so miserably with Iran, we cannot afford to blame it entirely on the wimpy vicissitudes of the Europeans; we have to also give the Iranians their due: They are set in their policy, they are unwavering; they don’t feel threatened; they are threatening. Are these the sorts of folks we should accept offers from?

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