Eric Martin

by Eric Martin During the debate last Friday, John McCain, as predicted, spent much time lauding The Surge as one of the greatest strategies in the history modern warfare.  In so doing, he misattributed every positive development in Iraq to its influence, while exaggerating the parameters and permanence of those encouraging trends.  On the flip … Read more

by Eric Martin Matt Yglesias points to a 1998 interview with John McCain in which the Senator appears to downplay the danger posed by Osama bin Laden.  Said McCain, "Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that’s depicted?  Most of us have never heard of him before."  Not that I blame McCain much … Read more

by Eric Martin During the most recent debate – as well as in the weeks preceding it – the McCain camp tried to score political points based off of Obama’s statement regarding air strikes targeting al-Qaeda in the tribal-ruled Waziristan region of Pakistan.  By way of background, in one of the Democratic primary debates Obama … Read more

by Eric Martin Julian Sanchez methodically obliterates the "Free Sarah Palin" meme that is all the rage in conservative circles these days (via Teh Henley).  For those unaware with the tenets of the Free Sarrah movement, the theory is that she has been over-coached and over-prepared, and as a result, she stumbles through interviews sounding … Read more

Fareed Zakaria lets his exasperation show: Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell … Read more

by Eric Martin I realize that others have pointed out that McCain’s obsession with earmarks, and his quest to "make them famous," doesn’t make sense when you consider earmark spending in proportion to the federal budget as a whole.  But after watching the debate on Friday, it has become increasingly clear that despite the dubious … Read more

© Eric Martin, Inc. All Rights Reserved. "Gary Farber Threadetron 3000" and "Gary Farber" are trademarks of Eric Martin, Inc. A little something for the weekend.  I assume that my Supreme and Eternal Overlord (aka hilzoy) will do the right thing and live blog the debate tonight while I’m busy carousing to the wee hours … Read more

by Eric Martin While our elected representatives remain locked in a showdown over bailout legislation, Iraqi lawmakers were able to come to a pretty decent compromise regarding provincial elections law.  No word yet on whether or not the passage of the Iraqi law was made possible only after McCain suspended his campaign to make an … Read more

by Eric Martin Sarah Palin, renowned foreign policy authority, derides neophyte Henry Kissinger as "beyond naive."  Via Ilan Goldenberg: Couric: You met yesterday with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is for direct diplomacy with both Iran and Syria. Do you believe the U.S. should negotiate with leaders like President Assad and Ahmadinejad? Palin: … Read more

by Eric Martin Lisa Schiffren on how Bush is free to do the right thing and make sure that none but the wealthiest see a piece of the bailout largesse: My objection to having either McCain or Obama playing a big role in this bailout is this: because they both need votes now, they have … Read more

by Eric Martin My friends, Sarah Palin knows how to fight terrorism: Palin was asked if she thought the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was helping to mitigate terrorism. "I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security for our nation. We can never again let them onto our soil," … Read more

by Eric Martin Christopher Hitchens reviews Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention by Gary J. Bass in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs. As one might expect given the title of the work reviewed, Hitchens is pretty near insufferable in this piece – still brandishing the same haughty sense of moral superiority by … Read more

by Eric Martin Quotes of the day which are, I’m fairly certain, connected.  First Daniel Larison* (via Henley) on the "ZOMG!!! PANIC!!! must act now on the bailout" canard: Haste is the state’s greatest ally, and delay is the shield of the people.  As I said yesterday: A useful thing to remember in the days … Read more

by Eric Martin One of my cobloggers at American Footprints, Haggai, had an interesting observation regarding Max Boot’s discussion of the McCain foreign policy outlook.  From the article: In an interview with the Atlantic magazine over the summer, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) insisted that in his presidency he would serve as the chief negotiator … Read more

by Eric Martin More evidence that a McCain administration would be guided by neoconservative foreign policy principles (as discussed in a prior post): A McCain administration would discourage Israeli-Syrian peace talks and refrain from actively engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. That was the message delivered over the weekend by two McCain advisers — Max … Read more

by Eric Martin Last week, Amir Taheri, a columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post (with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts), made a rather shocking claim as noted by Marc Lynch: Amir Taheri is getting some attention today with a remarkable piece in the New York Post alleging that Barack … Read more

by Eric Martin This post at Arabic Media Shack is an interesting follow up to a previous piece on this site discussing the evolution (and, in many instances, lack therof) of relations between Iran and al-Qaeda.  The author of the Arabic Media Shack  post translates and paraphrases a recently released tape from al-Qaeda’s number 2 … Read more

by Eric Martin (inspired by the work of Gary Farber) A place to collect threads for the weekend.  Have a good one all.  I’m off to drop kick my liver into a wood chipper.  He had it comin’… 

by Eric Martin Yet another example of how, under Bush administration stewardship, the Shining City on the Hill is falling into disrepair: Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World … Read more

by Eric Martin Matt Duss highlights some salient aspects of the recent attack on the US embassy in Yemen: The use of two vehicle bombs — one to breach the perimeter of a compound, a second to drive inside and explode — is a tactic used by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. […] … Read more

by Eric Martin Matt Yglesias, commenting on some of the warped logic surrounding our Cuban policies: One obstacle to the adoption of a more humane and sensible Cuba policy is that the country has found itself on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. It’s pretty clear to anyone who thinks about it … Read more

by Eric Martin Following up on Hilzoy’s post below, the McCain camp has come up with an explanation for their candidate’s apparent giant-sized gaffe regarding the Prime Minister of Spain.  Like Sarah Palin’s attempt to explain away the firing of Walt Monegan by arguing that he was too aggressive in going after child-molestors and rapists, … Read more

by Eric Martin On Tuesday, some of the highest ranking officials in the American Foreign Policy establishment came out in support of one of the planks in Barack Obama’s foreign policy platform: Five former U.S. secretaries of state said on Monday the next American administration should talk to Iran, a foe President George W. Bush … Read more

by Eric Martin Like Matt Yglesias, I can’t help but tear my hair out scratch my head at the suggestion by Lynn Forester de Rothschild that Barack Obama is too "elitist" for her liking (what a name considering her charge!) , but John "Too Many Houses to Count" McCain is just regular folk.  Then again, … Read more

by Eric Martin Like Paul Krugman who has been beating this drum for some time, I firmly believe that Obama should make accessible health insurance the centerpiece of his domestic platform.  Loud and clear.  The contrasts between the Obama plan and the McCain plan could not be more stark.  Kevin Drum is right on the … Read more

by Eric Martin This is just getting outright bizarre: At a fundraiser in Canton, Ohio, this evening, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had an interesting description of her speech to the Republican convention. “There Ohio was right out in front, right in front of me," Palin said. "The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, … Read more

by Eric Martin I’m with K-Drum, this is good Biden: Eight years ago, a man ran for President who claimed he was different, not a typical Republican. He called himself a reformer. He admitted that his Party, the Republican Party, had been wrong about things from time to time. He promised to work with Democrats … Read more

by Eric Martin You know you’re setting a new standard for shameless dishonesty when even Fox News and Karl Rove call you out.  Karl Freakin Rove!  The man who took the baton from Lee Atwater and [deleted] it up a rat’s [deleted].  I apologize for the vulgar imagery, but John McCain refused to do a … Read more

Eric J. Martin, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht Something to fill the time this weekend.  Not much to say other than I’m currently finishing up Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes, and I could not recommend it more (I know people say this all the time but I really mean it).  The beginning … Read more

by Eric Martin Another day, another couple of howlers from John McCain.  I particularly like the utterly shameless lie about Palin never accepting an earmark as governor.  Wow.  That one was so bad that even Jake Tapper took notice. Seriously, John McCain has decided to completely sell out.  He’s just going to lie over and … Read more

[It is my pleasure to present a guest post from Benjamin Orbach, whose book was reviewed by me on American Footprints – with a follow up interview.] Jerusalem – I was in the U.S. the week that included the VP selections, the DNC convention, and the Sarah Palin media mushroom cloud. Courtesy of Delta, I … Read more

by Eric Martin This should be unremarkable news: Al Qaeda has issued a video marking the September 11 attacks, in which deputy group leader Ayman al-Zawahri accuses Iran of taking part in a Western "Crusader" war against Islam, Al Jazeera television said on Monday. […] In a segment on the video aired by al Jazeera, … Read more

by Eric Martin Matt Yglesias is making sense: Nobody’s paid any attention to this, but as Mark Goldberg points out probably the most significant news of the weekend was the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s decision to give the go-ahead to the US-India nuclear deal. Daryl Kimball and Joseph Cirincione have described the deal as “a non-proliferation … Read more

by Eric Martin One of the selling points trotted out to make Sarah Palin appealing to moderates is her supposed environmentalist bona fides (relative to other Republicans at least – an admittedly low bar).  However, in addition to her denial of humanity’s contribution to global warming, and reluctance to countenance the polar bear receiving protected-species … Read more

by Eric Martin Gregory Gause (a professor at the exceedingly awesome University of Vermont), has a guest post up at Marc Lynch’s place that is, as they say, well worth the read.  Gause describes some of the recent actions undertaken by Prime Minister Maliki and suggests that they form part of a larger strategy to … Read more