I taped the RNC to watch the Aggies get absolutely spanked by Utah. Oh well, Aggie football is my albatross; choices had to be made. It’s going to be another long season for those who bleed maroon and white. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, I’ll see some signs out of this young team that we’re heading in the right direction.
Now, I’m going to go take a look at the president.
I was torn between using the headline of this article or substituting my own, which would’ve been “French Press Begs for GOP Reach-Around.”
More than a year after falling out with the United States over the Iraq war, France is still a prime target for the rage of Republicans, who are not showing much amour for the longtime US ally.
Democrat John Kerry may be enemy number one but France is a close number two at the chest-thumping Republican national convention, where the word Paris is code for weakness, indecision and international cooperation.
“Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations,” Senator Zell Miller said in a thundering address to the party faithful on Wednesday.
“Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd.
As usual, the Frenchies don’t get it. The Republicans know who the enemies are — radical Islamic terrorists. Kerry is a political opponent and France is an obstacle, a target of deserved ridicule doing all it can to hamstring our efforts while doing nothing to ensure its own long-term security. Unless you count headscarves on kids.
France helped lead opposition to the Iraq war on the UN Security Council, which set off an orgy of French-bashing nationwide last year.
Bottles of champagne were emptied into sewers, French cheeses went unsold on store shelves and angry US politicians called to rename America’s favourite snack “Freedom Fries.”
After it emerged during the presidential campaign that Kerry spoke the language, he reportedly stopped giving interviews with foreign media in French, for fear of giving the Bush camp more ammunition.
The connection between anti-French anger and Kerry’s policy statements — which sometimes don’t sound much different than what comes out of the French government — has been an easy one for critics to make.
This all makes me chuckle.
The article then wraps up with this:
…Italy is now one of the staunchest US allies on the war on terror, robbing Republicans of at least one European nation to target with scorn and abuse.
But they shouldn’t worry: they’ll always have Paris.
That’s just it — anybody can have Paris. Took about a month using WWII-era technology.
Sometimes, it seems a country is just begging for attention.
Israel rattles its saber at Syria.
Israel ratcheted up its rhetoric against Syria today, hinting of possible military action following this week’s suicide bombing of two buses in southern Israel.
Israeli officials repeatedly have accused Syria of backing the Hamas militants who carried out Tuesday’s attack, which killed 16 people in Beersheba, 15 miles south of the West Bank. The Hamas leadership is based in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
“Syria is responsible for acts of terror and giving patronage to terror groups,†Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said today. “When we see Syria as responsible, it of course has to understand that this kind of thing will have very clear consequences for it.â€
Security sources said Israeli leaders have not begun discussing possible military actions against Syria and analysts said the two countries are not likely to go to war any time soon.
But Israeli officials are warning that they might move against Hamas leaders in Syria. The Damascus-based leadership’s influence has grown following Israel’s assassination of top Hamas leaders in Gaza.
Syria dismisses Israeli threats.
SYRIA today rejected Israeli threats of military strikes against it and denied any involvement in deadly bomb attacks in southern Israel this week.
“The Israeli threats against Syria are not based on any evidence and are completely lacking in credibility,” Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara said, the official SANA news agency reported.
The U.S. and France demand Syria butts out of Lebanon.
The UN Security Council is due to vote on a draft resolution calling on Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and respect Lebanese sovereignty.
Proposed by the US and backed by France, it accuses Syria of interfering in Beirut’s internal affairs.
Syria is pushing for an extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term, despite a constitutional bar on this.
Syria mocks U.S. interest in Lebanon.
Syria’s state media lashed out on Thursday at U.S. pressure for a United Nations resolution telling Damascus to stop interfering in Lebanon’s presidential election.
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“No one can believe that the United States can possibly be concerned about Lebanon or any other Arab country,” an editorial in the official Tishreen newspaper said. “American policies confirm just the opposite and point out that the present U.S. administration relies on a clear method of antagonism to Arabs.”
On the first night of the RNC convention, I caught snippets of their After Hours show with Ron Reagan and Joe Scarborough and quickly dismissed it because of Ron. I’ve caught more of it the last two nights and have been impressed by the balance and the often interesting contributions from their mixed panel. Check them out after Bush’s speech. By the way, I think Scarborough’s star is on the rise.
because of a late, lengthy dinner with my girlfriend and some of her visiting family. I’ll read the speeches later and may post something, but I wanted to blog a little flip-flop that I came across earlier.
“When it comes to Iraq, it’s not that I would have done one thing differently, I would have done everything differently.”
After hearing this earlier in a clip from Kerry’s speech at the American Legion national convention (screw the tradition of laying low during the opposition’s convention — that doesn’t apply to Kerry, just like the concept of not stabbing your fellow soldiers in the back while they’re still in the field to further your personal ambitions), I wandered over to the Kerry campaign site to see exactly what he’s claimed he would do differently.
Unfortunately, my search was quickly derailed as I sat puzzling over this, the very beginning of his Iraq page:
More than a year ago, President Bush stood on an aircraft carrier under a banner that proclaimed “mission accomplished.” But today we know that the mission is not accomplished, hostilities have not ended and our men and women in uniform stand almost alone with the target squarely on their backs.
Our military performed brilliantly in the war’s first mission: ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Mission accomplished?!! No, mission not accomplished!!! Well, a mission was accomplished, brilliantly even, but, well … crap. I don’t know. How can the Kerry campaign, in back-to-back sentences, manage to muddle what has been a major talking point of the shrill left?
Kerry’s handlers have been inept. Kerry’s strategists have been inept. Kerry’s web writers are now inept. Kerry’s Secret Service agents have been inept on the slopes. Or are they all inept because of the empty suit they must support?
Note: I needed to enter an email address to access Kerry’s site. Apparently, lookingforinfotopost@myblog.com worked just fine.