31 Comments

1. Fen:

Yes, another Oil for Food scandal. That’ll leave them shaking.

Sep 25, 2009 - 8:23 am 2. glenn:

Two points:

1. Going public with this story might be a way of telling the Iranians to move/hide the facility so the Israelis can’t destroy it. Buys some time while they do that.

2. It may not be a bad thing that Obama is giving the Euros a chance to really take the lead with Iran. If those wacky mullahs actually get their hand on the bomb it’s the Euros who are (initally) on the spot.

Sep 25, 2009 - 9:09 am 3. Steve:

Reality is mugging the left.

Sep 25, 2009 - 12:38 pm 4. Rob:

Obama is such a disaster.. he is in WAY over his socialist head in world issues. He didn’t know he was elected by most people as a way of assuaging white guilt. He thought he had a mandate to turn America into Cuba. Well, he has another thing coming. Gallup has him at 50% today down from %70 when he ascended the throne. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I hope the racist socialist fails in all his nefarious plans for the United States.

Sep 25, 2009 - 1:46 pm 5. hermie:

glenn: It’d probably be a good thing for Europe if a couple of countries had a missile defense system…oops!

Sep 25, 2009 - 1:54 pm 6. eli schneider:

many years back, when Iraq had finished a nucelar plant PM Begin had the Isralie Air force bomb it into dust. The same with Syria. think of what may have happened if they did not take the future into their own hands. Condemnation followed, but was it ever the right move? Big yes.
Stop with the sanctions, they have accompolished nothing. Give Israel the GREEN LIGHT, back them up and all will be well with the world.

Sep 25, 2009 - 3:10 pm 7. Terrye:

This means that Obama knew this during the campaign, even when he was accusing Bush of exaggerating the threat.

So, I suppose the Obama administration caved into Russian in the hopes that they would help with Iran? Sure, they will. Sure.

Sep 25, 2009 - 4:14 pm 8. Terrye:

I think Glenn Beck is off his rocker if he thinks we are better off with Obama, for whatever reason. There are really dangerous people in the world and this is no time for games.

Sep 25, 2009 - 4:16 pm 9. Barry Dauphin:

The administration was completely aware that Iran was lying and yet offered negotiations without preconditions. The administration was aware of this before taking missile defense system away from Eastern Europe. What must the Poles and Czechs think of us now? What else don’t we know about? One thing we know is that they are almost starting to make Warren Christopher look like a pillar of strength.

Sep 25, 2009 - 4:24 pm 10. Topnife:

Glenn Beck is demonstrative, entertaining, and analytically astute, although he does not speak in the calm and measured tones of the “intelligentsia”.

Had you taken the time to listen to Glenn Beck, instead of reading the second-hand MSM and blogger interpretations, you would know that his reasoning was that McCain, with his soft progressive tendencies (honorirng Teddy Roosevelt as his presidential idol) would not have served as an effective opponent to an overwhelimingly Democrat congress, leaving the opposition disarmed. Obama, due to his star power, has actually called attention to the progressive agenda and has provided a much larger and more definable target for the opposition. McCain would not have surrounded himeself with strange czars, moounted the overwhelming rhetorical barrage of self-contradiction, or conveyed the appearance of a unified progressive movement toward rampant Statism. In other words, had McCain been elected president, we might already have Cap & Trade and Government Healthcare passsd, with hardly a murmur of dissent

Admittedly its an intricate argument,but it is not at all oddball. And without Glenn Beck’s leadership of the populist reaction against the Obama target, we would not have slowed the progressivist stampede either.

Sep 25, 2009 - 6:09 pm 11. Roger L Simon:

Thanks for your comments, Topnife. But I was quite aware of Becks’s reasoning. It makes some sense in domestic policy. Unfortunately in the area of foreign affairs, which is to me more important since often irreversible, the President is commander-in-chief. Beck’s approach doesn’t wash.

Sep 25, 2009 - 6:22 pm 12. Dred Scott:

If Bibi doesn’t act now, “it will be the destruction of the Third Temple.”

Sep 25, 2009 - 6:41 pm 13. Webutante:

Thought diplomacy was supposed to take care of all this. And it hasn’t? Rats! Why else would we have reduced our missile shield in Europe, offered to negotiate without conditions, reduced military spending and admitted our country was guilty of torture? Why even Castro is saying Obama is a good guy.

Darn, and I was so hopeful.

Sep 25, 2009 - 7:43 pm 14. Topnife:

Further re Beck: He specifically mentioned the foreign relations exception, in which he felt that McCain would have been decidedly better, especially in the management of Afghanistan and military response.

I do agree that Beck’s statement was tactically unsound, since few who heard of it will understand the rationale.

And thanks for the discussion.

Sep 25, 2009 - 7:59 pm 15. Roger L Simon:

The pleasure’s mine, Topnife. That’s what we’re here for.

And let me be clear: I watch Beck’s show and find it interesting sometimes, sometimes over the top. My real concern at the moment – and I’m sure I’m not unique in this – is Iran. Nuclear Mullahs must be stopped.

Sep 25, 2009 - 8:58 pm 16. Gary Rosen:

“even Castro is saying Obama is a good guy.”

I guess somebody got the “change” they “hoped” for. The rest of us are screwed.

Sep 25, 2009 - 11:56 pm 17. gordo:

This reminds me of our little dustup with Saddam in so many ways. We always telegraph our punches so much, the other guy has months, if not years, to prepare for whatever we should have done right off the bat. Just for once, wouldn’t it be nice if the first tipoff that we were serious be simultanous explosions in Natanz and all their other “peaceful” nuclear sites?

Sep 26, 2009 - 3:45 am 18. pelaut:

The new nuke plant came out at this time for two reasons:

(1) to stick another round of dip-loonacy in the gears which will preempt Israel from bombing the plant.

(2) to give =:obama positive fallout of something newsworthy from the G20 meeting — on a Friday to hide the fact that the G20 hadn’t any unity of ideas, and the economy is headed back to the toilet.

All else is journalistic hum-a-hum.

Sep 26, 2009 - 6:15 am 19. jvermeer51:

Re:irreversible actions. Nationalized health care would be an irreversible action. Cap and trade might be. Card check might be. Foreign policy much less so. Reagan reversed rather dramatically the Carter foreign policy. However, the past can not be undone and what the messiah allows to happen during his term would be hard to undue.

Sep 26, 2009 - 7:10 am 20. Michael Smith:

What makes anyone think John McCain would be willing to do anything to stop the Iranians? “War monger”, “unilateralist”, “cowboy”, “shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later” George W. Bush didn’t do a damn thing to stop them.

By the way, what do YOU advocate doing Roger?

Sep 26, 2009 - 8:16 am 21. Roger L Simon:

jvermeer51: A nuclear bomb is an irreversible action – far more than national health care, I’m afraid. That, of course, is was what I was referring to. (Love your sceen name, btw)

Michael Smith: To answer your fair question, I would have put in severe sanctions long ago. What’s interesting in the reports of the second Iranian enrichment installation is that Obama knew about it even before taking office…. Sheesh.

Oh… and of course complete support for the democracy demonstrators and regime change. Obama was execrable on that, even when demonstrators were shot. Bush too had abandoned support for regime change. Too bad.

Sep 26, 2009 - 8:44 am 22. Terrye:

topknife:

I have watched and listened to Beck. I understand what his reasoning was, and he still wrong. The truth is he can not make up his mind if he is a Paulbot, a conservative, a populist or a libertarian. He has managed to call Teddy Roosevelt a thug and he said Bush should be impeached either for the Patriot Act or the borders, depending on whatever particular rant he is on in any given day.

I think he is an entertainer who is out to make money and make a name for himself.

Sep 26, 2009 - 10:55 am 23. Terrye:

And it is completely ridiculous to come back later and say we might actually be better off with McCain on foreign policy, if Beck is just going to go off on some isolationist rant and then take that back later too. He is like a kid with ADD. He is all over the place.

Sep 26, 2009 - 10:57 am 24. Terrye:

Would we be better of domestically with Obama if his incompetence leads to a conservative win? Well, I don’t know, but that kind of sounds selfish to me. The truth is that it might take decades in terms of the deficit and debt just to get back to where we were when the Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006. A lot of the damage done by Obama might well irreversible. The jobs lost will be a real hardship on people. There is something perverse in saying you are glad the wrong man won because his stupidity will work for you in the long run. Especially when the country will have to pick up the tab for it.

Sep 26, 2009 - 11:05 am 25. AlanC:

Obama is giving the Euros a chance to really take the lead with Iran

The Euros were given years of chances by GWB and they accomplished NOTHING. That’s exactly what they will accomplish now. For the next 4 years the only state with real skin in the game is Israel. If they don’t do it then no one will.

Sep 26, 2009 - 11:52 am 26. California Dreamer:

“Stop with the sanctions, they have accompolished nothing. Give Israel the GREEN LIGHT, back them up and all will be well with the world.”

Let’s just run with “all will be somewhat better with the world” since there are serious threats outside of Iran also. Probability that Israel takes action in the next 6 months is 70%. Why? Because there is no point in waiting.

Recommendation: Go to cash and defense stocks.

Sep 26, 2009 - 10:00 pm 27. Michael Smith:

Terrye asked:

Would we be better of domestically with Obama if his incompetence leads to a conservative win?

The point is that John McCain was in favor of almost everything Obama is doing. McCain would have also pushed for cap and trade and was also talking about healthcare “reform”. The problem is that a Republican president neutralizes any effective resistance to this stuff.

Obama has, in fact, done the country a great favor: he’s offered us clarity — he’s made it clear that the alternative Americans face is that either: 1) We continue the march into undiluted socialism/fascism with the concurrent loss of all our freedoms and indvidual rights and the probable economic collapse of our society — OR — 2) We reject socialism/fascism, return to capitalism, and begin the process of figuring out how to dismantle he welfare state.

Obama’s presidency has made this alternative clear for the first time in years. Republicans like Bush — who claim to be supporters of capitalism and limited government, but who always expand the welfare-state and increase the size of government — serve only to confuse the people by making it seem that the welfare state and capitalism are compatible. The are not, and the only hope for American is for Americans to finally grasp this point.

It’s either/or — either the welfare state goes or America as we have known it will be dead and gone. That’s our choice — and fortunately, I don’t think Americans are ready to surrender their freedoms and prosperity.

Sep 27, 2009 - 8:00 am 28. PDG9:

So far during Obama’s presidency, McCain has:

- Voted against the stimulus package.
- Voted against Geithner’s confirmation.
- Voted against Sotomayor’s confirmation.
- Publicly opposed Obama’s healthcare plan.

That’s just what I can think of on the spot. I can’t agree that he’s in favor of almost everything Obama is doing. Yes, he wants healthcare reform, but it’s a conservative package that includes encouraging competition and tort reform – it has the support of the Heritage Foundation, for one.

Now I do agree with the clarity issue, that you could have a more conservative Republican in the White House to truly make the case against the welfare state and central government. But it is a risk right now to have Obama and his Dem congress greatly increase the size of the state, particularly in health care, when there’s no history of the state ever shrinking, the one exception being welfare reform (there’s that word again), which required a Democratic president to get it passed.

On foreign policy, McCain differs from Obama in almost way. This is where the differences are going to play out the most historically, whatever one’s thoughts on those differences.

Sep 27, 2009 - 9:54 am 29. Lauren Hunter:

Roger, why is Glenn Beck over the top? What Obama is doing is OVER THE TOP. Do you really think the soft spoken elists can really get the message out and in time to
save us

Sep 27, 2009 - 3:32 pm 30. lauren hunter:

PDG9. Yes it was a Democratic President that got welfare reform, only because the
Republicans in congress made him. Dam you are short sighted and thats why we have
obama

Sep 27, 2009 - 3:37 pm 31. PDG9:

Lauren,

Sometimes only the opposition party can get something passed – no way welfare reform passes under a Republican president. Clinton already had welfare reform when he was governor of Arkansas. Got a reception at the White House with Reagan because of it.

I have no idea what your “short sighted” comment means. I’m pretty sure I’m not the reason we have Obama.

Sep 27, 2009 - 7:25 pm

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