At least that is what the Guardian UK is saying. I am beginning to wonder if an Obama administration is going to be more of a Clinton II administration rather than a Dhimmi Carter II administration. Obama has 31 of the 47 Move.gov advisers are Clintonistas . I am just wondering why he is doing this, and what the people that voted for him are going to say???? They voted against Hillary in the Primaries and wanted someone other than a Clinton in the White House. But Obama is tapping all of Clinton lackeys and insiders for all his Change. Does that seem like change to you????

H/T to The Right Perspective

Hillary Clinton to accept Obama’s offer of secretary of state job

President-elect Barack Obama reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama’s advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton’s foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.—Guardian UK

Having been driven out of Iraq despite Barack Obama’s heroic efforts on their behalf, al Qaeda’s western wing (as opposed to the eastern wing in Pakistan) has found a new home - which they, er, christened with a bang:

Yemen, the site of a car-bomb attack yesterday on the American Embassy, is quietly emerging as a base for Al Qaeda veterans of the Iraq war, who are seeking refuge there and are close to establishing the kind of safe haven the group enjoys on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

American intelligence officials believe that Osama bin Laden’s organization is regrouping in the governorates of Ma’rib, al-Jawf, and Hadhramaut along Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia, and that Al Qaeda in Yemen is now being led by a former military aide to Mr. bin Laden, Nasir al-Wahishi.

“The foreign-fighter flow in Iraq has slowed down to a trickle,” a retired four-star general and adviser to Multi-National Force-Iraq, General Jack Keane, told the New York Sun. “They can’t get to their operational cells to be a bomber or a fighter, so some of them are going to other safe havens. A lot of this has to do with where they came from. But two of the places certainly are Pakistan and Yemen.” That assessment was supported by two American intelligence officials whom the Sun contacted for comment on the bombing of the American Embassy yesterday in Sana’a. The attack killed sixteen Yemeni nationals but no Americans, the Associated Press reported, and the attackers included at least one suicide bomber, as well as gunmen wearing Yemeni military uniforms and armed with rocket-propelled grenades. One of the tasks of the FBI, which will investigate the attack, will be to determine whether members of Yemen’s armed forces participated in the attack.

Interesting, huh? Not so much the embassy attack, which wasn’t the first one even this year, but some of the attackers wearing Yemeni military uniforms. Could the jihadis have pilfered them? Sure; it’d be emblematic of  Yemen’s all around indifference to and marked lack of enthusiasm for aiding us in the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism. But if those “gunmen” were Yemeni military, that means either that they went rogue, or their government is now in passive cahoots with AQ, not unlike the even more hair-raising state of affairs in Pakistan.

As Ensign Ed observed, by the terms of the original Bush Doctrine, this would bring the Yemeni regime into our crosshairs for punitive action free of the complications of Islamic nuclear arsenals and keeping them out of the wrong hands. This would also be important in order to prevent a revival of the attempted Islamist takeover of Somalia that the Ethiopians crushed two years ago. The imperative of the (original) Bush Doctrine was to pre-empt mass-casuality Islamist terrorism by denying the enemy state sanctuaries where they can headquarter, gather resources, train, and mount offensives against Western targets. We’ve beaten them in Iraq (despite Barack Obama’s heroic efforts), we could beat them in Afghanistan did they not have a state-allowed sanctuary in northwest Pakistan. Gifting them much less isolated Yemen is a complacency we cannot afford.

Similarly, anybody who has consulted my thoughts on Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons knows that I have staunchly maintained since at least the end of “major combat operations” in Iraq over five years ago that Iran needs to be liberated by American military power even more urgently than Iraq did in order to avert the doomsday scenario of an irrational, theocratic, viciously anti-Semitic and anti-American Islamist regime launching a nuclear holocaust under the banner of a “holy” religious quest. Throw in the revanchist neo-Cold War hostilities with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the ever-arming, ever-scheming Red Chinese and the picture of the world that the next president is going to inherit is one of a world that will spin into bloody chaos in the absence of firm American leadership backed by unchallengable American power.

John Sith McCain, whatever his myriad perfidious faults, would provide such leadership on the world stage. This, on the other hand, exemplifies the leadership vacuum in store if the voters throw caution, prudence, and sanity to the four winds and opt to “make history” instead:

“We are pleased to inform you that the keynote speakers at the “Stop Iran. Now!” Rally are confirmed to be Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Governor Sarah Palin and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel,” read an e-mail from a leader of a Jewish group planning the event.

But the curtain came down on the comedy sketch-turned-reality before the duo ever hit the stage: Clinton officials soon said they had not been told Palin would be on hand — and that her presence, which made the event a political one, would mean the absence of the New York senator.

The McCain-Palin campaign has not yet said whether Palin herself will still be attending the event, but released a statement criticizing Clinton’s withdrawal. “Governor Palin believes that the danger of a nuclear Iran is greater than party or politics,” said spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. “She hopes that all parties can rally together in opposition to this grave threat.”

Feel free to jump in at any time here if you think I’m in desperate need of advice, but wouldn’t the presence of ANY politician make this event “political,” by that broad a definition? Indeed, wouldn’t having a prominent member of BOTH parties present balance out the rostrum and drain the program of any partisan perceptions? AP correctly argues that Her Majesty’s fleeing Palinmania is what brought politics into this equation. What possible harm could come from Mrs. Clinton and Barracuda speaking jointly or severally on behalf of a cause that no truly “patriotic” American can possibly oppose? 

Answer: None, if your top priority is protecting our country and its allies from mortal threats; is avoiding the horrific spectre of American and/or European and/or Israeli civilian death tolls in the tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions; is doing everything possible to avoid one city after another going up in hellish mushroom-shaped pyres of atomic conflagration.

But if your top priority is to diminish the United States as a world power, is an incurable neurosis of post-modernist guilt and multicultural self-loathing, is the at-all-costs furtherance of suicidal pacifism, and most immediately is to keep your party’s neoBolshevik crazoid base from mutinying in a geyser of utter, shrieking rage, then letting Hillary Clinton even be in the same zip code at Sarah Palin is an act of fratricide that you dare not contemplate.

I tend to think, though, that snubbing the cause of denying the mullahgarchy nuclear weapons was secondary; after all, the Dems know that the window of gumption for a Bush strike against Iran has long-since closed, and Darth Queeg isn’t about to suggest re-opening it. Hell, the Bushies won’t even let the Israelis do it for them. They’ve been cowed and browbeaten and all but physically bludgeoned into submission, and are doing what Dubya once vowed he would never do: punt the issue to the next administration. Besides which, the Dems are convinced that False Messiah will “judge between the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. The [Iranians] will beat their [nuclear] swords into plowshares and their [atomic] spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

No, the idea here wasn’t to defect to Tehran, but to deny Governor Palin a public appearance on an equal footing with the Feminazi Popette. A suspicion whose confirmation was not long in emerging:

The Obama campaign in turn offered to send Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida to the event, but the appearance that the non-partisan group was aligning with the Republican ticket put the group and its president, Malcolm Hoenlein, under heavy pressure from Jewish Democrats, including members of the conference, members of Congress, and the liberal group J Street, not to give Palin a platform, sources said. Hoenlein told the McCain campaign that he would have to rescind Palin’s invitation or cancel the rally.

The organizers, I’m told, have formally disinvited all elected and political officials, but the move was about Palin.

You know, the Robert Wexler who smeared Governor Palin as a “Nazi sympathizer” based on the lie that she backed Pat Buchanan for president in 2000 (in reality, she supported Steve Forbes) and the smear of PJB as a Nazi. Just the sort of “non-politician” to send to a “non-political event” sponsored by Jewish organizations.

These Jewish Donks - at Team Hussein’s usual insulated direction - weren’t playing around, either:

Sources tell CBS 2 HD that a decision to disinvite Palin from the high profile rally after Clinton pulled out in a huff came as the result of intense pressure from Democrats.

“This is insulting. This is embarrassing, especially to Governor Palin, to me and I think it should be to every single New Yorker,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, told CBS 2 HD.

Sources say the axes were out for Palin as soon as Senator Clinton pulled out because she did not want to attend the same event as the Republican vice presidential candidate…

The groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN were reportedly told, “it could jeopardize their tax exempt status” if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden on hand…

“It’s an absolute shame that this has happened,” Hikind said. “To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don’t withdraw the invitation to Governor Palin we’re going to look into your tax exempt status … that’s McCarthyism.”…

“I’m absolutely appalled at the behavior of the Democrats,” said Bob Kunst of Defenders.net. “I’m a Democrat and for the first time in my life I’m going to vote Republican. I can’t take it anymore.”

And who leaned on Hillary to back out on a booking to which she had committed months ago? Barack Hussein Obama. His dirty, rotten, slimy, stinking, McCarthyist surrogates took it from there. Because as we will all be re-educated to know, Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency is an infinitely greater threat to the national security of the United States than nuclear weapons in the hands of men who have openly and public declared their sacred intent and duty to commit anti-Semitic genocide and bring “The Great Satan” to its knees.  

Parting point to ponder: Pretend you are Adolph Ahmadinejad reading the following lament from “Stop Iran Now!” organizer and Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations chief Malcolm Hoenlein and ask yourself what your reaction to it would be:

Some Jewish activists are blaming Hillary Clinton for [the rally’s] collapse; in the interview, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations chief Malcolm Hoenlein blamed board members of some of the organizations involved, and a “vile” campaign by the National Jewish Democratic Council.

“Pressure really grows from the grassroots and from people on their boards. People feel very strongly these days. Irrationally strongly. I can’t even describe to you the kind of reactions and threats that they came under – and intimidation,” Hoenlein said. “It’s rampant. I have never seen an election that has evoked such deep division and response and emotion on the part of people – Jews and non-Jews.” [emphases added]

Is it any wonder that the Iranians are practically drooling at the prospect of President Obama? Or that Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, the ChiComms, et al are rubbing their hands together with glee as well?  With B.O. in charge, they won’t even have to soften us up before they take us down. [cross-posted at ]

Hmmmmm….:

Sarah Palin found some unlikely allies Wednesday as leading academics and even former top aides to Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed the Republican charge that John McCain’s running mate has been subject to a sexist double standard by the news media and Democrats.

Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, who has written best-selling books on gender differences, said she agrees with complaints that Palin skeptics — including prominent voices in the news media — have crossed a line by speculating about whether the Alaska governor is neglecting her family in pursuit of national office.

“What we’re dealing with now, there’s nothing subtle about it,” said Tannen. “We’re dealing with the assumption that child-rearing is the job of women and not men. Is it sexist? Yes.”

“There’s no way those questions would be asked of a male candidate,” said Howard Wolfson a former top strategist for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

This from the same bunch that made a very prominent public spectacle of crying “sexism” against Team Messiah back in the primary season, which was another way of morally condemning Lucifer for denying the Empress her rightful throne - “Sweetiegate” not withstanding.  Just, of course, like the opposite result would have generated snarls of “RACISM!” - and, of course, Obamanation rode that card to nominational victory.  Not a very….practical result given that there are more women voters in the country than African-American voters.

Which makes the defamation campaign against Governor Palin by The One’s nutter surrogates this week all the more self-defeatingly foolish, as evidenced by this rather stark admission of weakness in the face of a genuinely strong woman:

Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Governor Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said Thursday…

Obama aides said they were counting on not only Mrs. Clinton but also Democratic female governors to rebut Mrs. Palin — and, by extension, Mr. McCain. Those governors include Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas…

“What McCain has done with Governor Palin’s nomination is aim right at a demographic that Obama needs to address quickly: noncollege-educated women,” said Mike McCurry, a former spokesman in the Clinton White House. “They need to maximize Biden’s ability to reach out to them, but at the end of the day, it is Obama who has to get that very, very critical group.”…

Advisers to Mrs. Clinton said that she stood ready to help the Obama-Biden ticket, but they urged the campaign not to overestimate the impact Mrs. Clinton could have, noting that she had other commitments this fall, like campaigning and raising money for Senate candidates.

There’s an old joke that goes, “What do you have when you hold two tiny green objects in your hand?  Answer: Kermit’s undivided attention.”  False Messiah rode his ethnicity to the Democrat nomination, but burned quite a few gender bridges behind him en route.  He could have repaired those bridges in one fell swoop by taking Her Nib on as his running mate, even though he would have been condemning himself to four years as a de facto figurehead.  He could also have repaired those bridges by picking Governors Sebelius or Napolitano, or at the very least from the short list of female Donk Senate colleagues, which would have made an undying enemy of Medusa but blunted any attempted sabotage from La Clinton Nostra down the fall home stretch.  Instead, he went with what amounts to a white, twenty-years-older version of himself, Joe “Gaffe-A-Minute” Biden, leaving the door wide open for John McCain to blow everybody away with Sarah Palin.

Now Barack Obama is in the worst place imaginable: right where Hillary Clinton wants him.  At her never-tender mercy.  He needs her to rally the PUMAs to his banner or risk getting swamped by Palinmania, and they both know it.

And in that context comes several top Clintonoids promptly stoking the “sexism” fires again, and Hillary coyly pledging to play the good soldier (heck, she DID put Barry over the top in Denver last week) but dousing it in a deluge of patently phony modesty and “scheduling conflicts.”

Given the dismal fate of pretty much every Democrat for whom Bill and/or Hillary have ever campaigned, I’m baffled that the Chief Stumbling Block wants either of them on the same continent.  I wonder if he realizes just how disappointed Jesse Jackson is going to be to find that Mrs. Clinton got to his own set first.

UPDATE: J-Ger imagines the phone call:

“Hey, sorry about that bitter primary thing, calling your husband racist, and the lack of campaign debt relief. Could you do me a favor and alienate a certain portion of your voters, obliterate your newfound respect from some corners of the right, and incinerate your chance to head a Democratic ticket in 2012 by making a kamikaze run at America’s newest sweetheart, in order to save my tuchus? Thanks.”

[cross-posted at ]

Readers of this space (and God bless you, each and every one) know by now - really, should have known long, long ago - that I have believed with unshakeable conviction ever since Bill Clinton rode off into the sunset seven years, four months, and twelve days ago that his wife, the Wicked Witch of the West Wing, the Queen of Mean, the Empress, the Woman With The Upside-Down Legs, and the biggest beer-swiller this side of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would be the next president of the United States.

The reasons were legion: she wanted it, everybody in the Democrat Party KNEW she wanted it, everybody in the Democrat Party knew WHY she wanted it, everybody in the Democrat Party knew HOW MUCH she wanted it, and since the Democrat Party still belonged to La Clinton Nostra lock, stock, and French tickler, everybody knew to not get in her way.

Except, as it turned out, Barack Hussein Obama.  But he was such a rube, despite his charisma, personal magnetism, and rich mahogany goodness, that the Clinton Machine would chew him up in no time and stick the remains in the veep slot where he belonged so as to make Mrs. Clinton the double-maker of “history” in ensuring that no white European male would occupy the post of Leader of the Free World for the next decade and a half.

Her coronational processional was the conventional wisdom up until the Donk primary season began, and BO didn’t get out of her way, but actually took a small delegate lead and held it ever since.  This has not shaken my belief that Hillary would, nevertheless, capture the nomination and go back to the White House.  I lived through the ’90s; I watched La Clinton Nostra in action; how they never made a mistake; how they were always several steps ahead; how they survived swarms of scandals any one of which would have been enough to torpedo any of their predecessors; and how they effortlessly ran rings around their clumsy, hapless GOP opponents at Election time and all the calendar pages in-between.

The Clintons do….not….lose.  EVER.  PERIOD.

Or, to quote the recently retired “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man.”  Nobody has beaten the Clinton Machine in twenty-eight years.  You just don’t bet against that level of unbroken success.  By hook or by crook (by both, really), no matter what the pledged delegate count was, no matter what “It’s over!” rumors were floating around, enough superdelegates would be “reminded” of where their “best interests” lay that the junior senator from New York would get what she wanted.  I had seen nothing yet to persuade me otherwise.

Until now:

After hours of emotional testimony and sometimes contentious debate, Democratic Party officials agreed yesterday on a pair of compromises to seat Florida’s and Michigan’s delegations to their national convention. But a part of the deal drew an angry reaction and the threat of a subsequent challenge from the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The compromises by the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee called for both delegations, originally barred from the convention for violating party rules, to be seated in full in Denver but with each delegate casting only half a vote.

The actions by the committee were aimed at bringing the long and sometimes-bitter Democratic nomination battle between Senator Barack Obama (IL) and Clinton (NY) to a close and to ensure party unity as the Democrats head into the general election. But the decisions prompted bitter and sometimes-tearful reactions from some members of the audience, who repeatedly shouted over the committee members as they voted….

One of the things I have maintained is that Hillary’s Clintonoid clout would ensure that the full Michigan and Florida delegations would be seated with full voting power.  Sure, those two swing states violated the DNC’s primary scheduling rules, and Mrs. Clinton left her name on the ballot in Michigan after the other candidates withdrew theirs, but that wouldn’t matter, because she wouldn’t even have to remind Donk poobahs whose party it still was.  The notion of shutting out both, or even a half-assed “compromise,” simply was not going to happen.

Imagine my astonishment.  I don’t know whether to call this ingratitude, or an uprising, or a coup, but the DNC has done the unthinkable: they’ve crossed the Boss.

And even given La Clinton Nostra a taste of its own thieving medicine:

But it was the Michigan plan, approved by a 19-8 vote, that drew sharper opposition because of the way that state’s delegates will be awarded. Under the plan, Clinton will be given 34.5 delegate votes in Denver to Obama’s 29.5 delegate votes, a percentage distribution recommended by leaders of the Michigan Democratic Party but opposed by the Clinton campaign officials, who said it violates the results of Michigan’s January 15 primary.

“This motion will hijack - hijack - remove four delegates won by Hillary Clinton,” said Harold Ickes, who oversees delegate operations for the Clinton campaign and is also a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. “This body of thirty individuals has decided that they’re going to substitute their judgment for 600,000 voters.”

Arguing that the Michigan compromise “is not a good way to start down the path of party unity,” Ickes warned that Clinton had authorized him to note that she will “reserve her rights to take it to the credentials committee” later. Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson later affirmed that Clinton will reserve her right to challenge the outcome.

Hillary Clinton, in plain, non-Vulcan English - and in her entitlement-addled mind - is getting screwed.  “For the good of the party,” of course.  I suppose I should be laughing until I puke, and if my party had actually nominated, you know, a Republican instead of Benedict McCain, I probably would be.

I’m not sure what this means for the rest of the campaign.  The Dem establishment has now officially closed ranks behind False Messiah.  Without the full seating of Michigan and Florida, Mrs. Clinton probably can’t get the nomination, even as her superior-electability arguments gain more and more  and more heft.  However, on the other hand, this compromise raises the nomination-clinching threshold by ninety-two delegates, placing it out of Obama’s reach in the last three nominating contests (Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota), and making him dependent on tipping enough superdupers his way to get over the top.

Yes, he’ll be closer than she is.  This DNC compromise is probably indicative of the difficulty she’ll have in turning the superduper tide.  But if hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, God only knows the wrath that a jilted Hillary Clinton - and her First Gigolo wannabe husband - can wreak on the party that rejected her and its gaffe-a-minute naif of a candidate.  Double-H sums it up succinctly:

What will fascinate is his and Hillary’s conduct between now and November.  Will he and she undermine the already troubled Obama candidacy, having concluded that four years of McCain and a return to the White House in 2013 is to be preferred to eclipse at the hands of a rookie and his band of radical friends and backers?

That, gentlebeings, is the grand bull moose gold medal winner of rhetorical questions.

I have also been rigidly skeptical of all this “Obamanationals will defect to McCain if Hillary wins” and vice versa nonsense.  There’s simply no way, with total power within their grasp, that Democrats would take ANY chance on losing a third straight presidential election, no matter how self-destructive the GOP has become.

I still think that in the event of a Hillary victory.  But if Obama goes over?  In THESE circumstances?  With the party that cannot forget Florida 2K turning those very same imagined tactics on La Clinton Nostra for real, with a sprinkling of Dred Scott-ism (Michiganders and Floridians as half-delegates) for good measure?  I think you have to figure all THOSE bets are off.

The third article of certitude I have stood by throughout this campaign to date is that John Sith McCain has a better chance of making the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team than he does capturing the presidency.  In a cycle as anti-GOP as this one, with Level-5 force hurricane winds at the Democrats’ backs, and THE notorious RINO usurper as the incumbent party’s standardbearer, the question isn’t whether Darth Queeg is going to lose, but whether he can beat Goldwater and McGovern for biggest margin of defeat.

But with La Clinton Nostra on his side to do the heavy-lifting dirty work Senator “Comity” won’t touch?  Heck, who knows?

All I do know is when I attached the slogan “Don’t let it happen again” to my “Blogs Against Hillary” banner, this isn’t quite what I had in mind.

But either way, one immutable constant remains: no matter how you rearrange the deckchairs, the Titanic is still going to the bottom.

And we conservatives are riding third class.

[cross-posted at ]

Fighting Words, Revisited
Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK

Back in 2004, when the Senate intelligence committee began investigating whether public statements by U.S. officials about Saddam Hussein’s pre-invasion Iraq were “substantiated” by existing intel, Republicans controlled Congress and the committee’s inquiry was aimed at figures on both sides of the aisle. The idea was to examine the fighting words of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as well as prominent Democrats including Al Gore, Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Hillary Clinton. But Democrats, who took over the panel after winning Senate control in 2006, decided that the final report would examine only statements by “policymakers”—in other words, the Bush administration. So in the report, due out this week, no Democratic comments will be parsed. That includes an Oct. 10, 2002, speech by Clinton in which she criticized Saddam’s WMD ambitions and accused him of giving “aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.” (Continued…)

President-in-waiting Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a classic illustration of promising the ends while denying the means in part ‘cha of her O’Reilly Factor interview Thursday night.  Indeed, it appears to be the essence of her foreign policy vision:

Under aggressive questioning from host Bill O’Reilly, Senator Clinton played down some of the danger Iran poses, unless it becomes a nuclear power.

“I think [Iran] is [dangerous] in combination with the other threats we face,” she said. “Clearly if Iran were ever to obtain a nuclear weapon that would be unbelievably bad for us and the world and I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that from ever happening.”

Really, Senator?  You’re going to to EVERYTHING you can to prevent that from ever happening?  Including mililtary action?  Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities?  An Iraq-style invasion to topple the mullahgarchy once and for all?  Pre-emptive nuclear strikes?  EVERYTHING???

Well, I guess it depends on the definition of the word “EVERYTHING”:

Noting that Iran wants the U.S. to pull its troops out of Iraq so Iran can dominate its neighbor, O’Reilly asked his guest how she planned to stop Iran, since she wants to withdraw our forces from Iraq.

Hillary responded with the standard Democratic Party claim that there can be no military victory in Iraq and that the Iraqis must now take charge of their own situation.

O’Reilly shot back that if Iran decides to dominate Iraq, oil and gas prices may double. Hillary simply answered, “We need to end the war in Iraq and win the war in Afghanistan.”

So much for denying Iran nuclear weapons.  So much also for winning the war in Afghanistan as well.  Which, of course, is the exact same war as in Iraq.  The Bush Administration may be only fighting half the war, but at least they’re trying to win the half they’re fighting.  The Empress would overtly quit half of that half, and implicitly jettison the other half of the half once quitting the first half of the half made winning the second half of the half untenable.  Kind of a perverse twist on the old “domino theory.”

Speaking post-scripturally of the second half of the half…:

The two then discussed the problems of Pakistan’s failure to stop the Taliban attacks launched from Pakistan, with Hillary advocating a diplomatic solution to the problem.

See above.  D’ya s’pose she’s triangulating off of Barack Hussein Obama’s bright idea from last summer of invading Pakistan if they don’t evict the Taliban from Wiziristan?  And with which party does she want to employ “diplomacy”?  We already have diplomatic relations with the Paks.  A 2009 summit meeting with Mullah Omar, perhaps?  I guess it depends on her definition of the word “winning”.

Turning to homeland security, Mrs. Clinton pre-emptively ruled out waterboarding despite the fact that (1) it is NOT “torture” and (2) it broke Khalid Sheik Mohammed and yielded intelligence that prevented numerous follow-up attacks after 9/11.  She doesn’t even concede the Jack Bauer/24 scenario where there’s a nuke planted in an unspecified American city and we’ve got the guy who planted it.  She’d sacrifice the lives of millions of innocent American civilians just to spare a few, or one, illegal enemy combantant some minor discomfort.

She’d also let Mexico passively overrun the continental United States.  But then all three of the Democrat (de jure and de facto) presidential candidates have all these stances more or less in common.

What strikes me about this Factor interview - other than the spectre of Hillary appearing on Fox - is the old trademark Hillary Clinton smugness.  She practically radiates supreme self-confidence, like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary.  She didn’t look or sound rattled or “embattled,” as you might have expected given the crazed pro-Obama tilt of the Enemy Media and all the rumors alleging congressional super-duper delegates surreptitiously stampeding to BO.  She had the air of a candidate who knows that the fix is in and whose dreams of world domination are moving forward right on schedule.

Hillary Clinton is what Barack Obama will be after serving as her vice president for the next decade.  If any Democrats - particularly the superduperdelegates - are thinking on a time frame beyond next Tuesday, they would do well to keep that little piece of foresight in the front of their minds.  It could give their party a lock on power for the next generation.

Or until America collapses under the disasters their rule will precipitate, whichever comes first.

[cross-posted at  ]

TONIGHT on my radio program, we’ll talk with Richard S. Lowry, military historian and author of The Gulf War Chronicles and Marines in the Garden of Eden about today’s testimony by Gen. Dave Petraeus and Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker before the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations committees.

Also on board: Jim Antle of The American Spectator with analysis of former Congressman Bob Barr, Republican turned Libertarian, who is contemplating a third party run for the presidency.

Join us at 9p EDT on Blog Talk Radio — hit the link. We’ll be there.

*****

Predictably, Hillary, when the National Archives released 11,000 pages of your schedule as first lady, the media focused on the unenlightening and the inconsequential. Where were you when Bill soiled Monica’s blue dress?

Where were you when Bill was impeached? When did you first start work on health care reform?

But Hillary, there is one question that needs to be asked, one that cuts right to your own claim to the presidency: where were you at 3 a.m. on the morning of July 18, 1996?

Jack Cashill asks the question. Tonight he’ll tell us why it’s important that we know.

Join us at 9 p.m. EDT on my internet radio program. Your calls are welcome - 646-478-4604.

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