Hawks Want Their Interventionism Straight Up

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Neoconservatism, War

There’s a surprise: West Point cadets, allegedly, hardly clapped in honor of President Barack Obama, who delivered a message about “limiting the use of American power to defending the nation’s core interests and being smart enough to avoid the temptation to use such power when it embroils the country in costly mistakes such as the decision to invade Iraq.” (CNN)

“Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail,” said Obama, who, rhetoric aside, is hardly a dove.

But hawks are furious. They want their interventionism straight up. If the Empire loses its grip, how will they remain the world’s Top Dogs?

“Is this how a great nation decides matters of war and peace”? demanded Chucky Krauthammer. The neoconservative columnist derides Obama’s foreign policy as “a nervy middle course between extreme isolationism and madcap interventionism.” More like the latter, if you ask me.

Krauthammer also bemoans Obama having “denied night-vision goggles, protective armor” and military assistance to “Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s newly elected president.”

I’m not cut up about it at all.

Bawbawa’s Journalistic Porn

Gender, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

“Bawbawa’s Journalistic Porn” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Barbara Walters has promised to retire. But then so did that lip-licking lizard, Larry King. You can’t take them at their word.

In my journalism-school days one looked up to the legendary, late Oriana Fallaci. These days, it’s mediocrities like Walters and colorectal crusader Katie Couric who’re considered cutting-edge clever.

And they’ve sired a new crop of talking coifs. Although they’re walking clichés—and there’s little they can say that will edify or enlighten—the likes of Brook Baldwin and Erin Burnett of CNN are regularly invited to deliver commencement addresses to university graduates! “Remember, it’s not about you,” Baldwin lectured students at her journalism and communications school alma mater. Yet journalistic evenhandedness regularly tips into self-serving advocacy under the direction of this feminist front-woman. “As a woman, I get frustrated,” Baldwin protested, as she browbeat a British reporter for daring to criticize Kate Middleton’s barely-there underwear.

Coming as she did from a background in “women’s interest stories,” it was only natural for Walters to bring the same one-dimensional perspective to “The View,” a roundtable dominated by women and aimed at the same demographic. “The View” was “charitably” punctured by the occasional “Guy Day Friday.” So successful was Barbara’s formula, that it has been copied by Fox News (where, with exceptions like Gerri Willis, Elizabeth MacDonald, Melissa Francis and Kennedy of the Business channel—the babes are not much better). “Outnumbered” (but not outfoxed) is “The View,” but with a better view of legs and cleavage. Views voiced by the self-congratulatory cyphers in short skirts on the GOP network, however, are just as formulaic as Barbara’s Democrat-friendly debates.

Another of Barbara’s brainchildren was the much anticipated, annual “Most Fascinating People List,” for which she redefined the concept of “fascinating.” Yes, Walters has been a cog in a coarsening culture. Some of her past picks for “The Most Fascinating List” included Paris Hilton, KimYe (Kim Kardashian and Kanye West), and twerker Miley Cyrus. …”

Read the rest. “Bawbawa’s Journalistic Porn” is now on WND.

Again: ‘Thank You For Your Service, Mr. Snowden’

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Homeland Security, Technology, Terrorism

“I think patriot is a word that’s — that’s thrown around so much that it can be devalued nowadays. But being a patriot doesn’t mean prioritizing service to government above all else. Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your Constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen from the — the violations of an — and encroachments of adversaries.” So said Edward Snowden to “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams, to whom he spoke in a hotel in Moscow.

And:

“… there have been times throughout history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing, you have to break a law.”

The guy is the real deal. Again: “‘Thank You For Your Service, Mr. Snowden'”