What the Hellvin Melvin?: Is Matthews Losing His Tingle?

Watch this clip with Chris Matthews. A rare bit of honest analysis. I have no idea what to make of this. Chris Matthews questioning earmarks and pork in the Stimulus Bill.

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I looked outside. Hell hasn't frozen over.

JOHN BOLTON RIPS OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY

Let's just say they don't see eye to eye:

Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions" is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign.

Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War's most dangerous crises.

Such realities should cause Obama to become more circumspect, minimizing his off-the-cuff observations about history, grand strategy and diplomacy. In fact, he has done exactly the opposite, exhibiting so many gaps in his knowledge and understanding of world affairs that they have not yet received the attention they deserve. He consistently reveals failings in foreign policy that are far more serious than even his critics had previously imagined.

Consider the following statement, which was lost in the controversy over his comments about negotiations: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. ... Iran, they spend 1/100th of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance."

Let's dissect this comment. Obama is correct that the rogue states he names do not present the same magnitude of threat as that posed by the Soviet Union through the possibility of nuclear war. Fortunately for us all, general nuclear war never took place. Nonetheless, serious surrogate struggles between the superpowers abounded because the Soviet Union's threat to the West was broader and more complex than simply the risk of nuclear war. Subversion, guerrilla warfare, sabotage and propaganda were several of the means by which this struggle was waged, and the stakes were high, even, or perhaps especially, in "tiny" countries.

What is implicit in Obama's reference to "tiny" threats is that they are sufficiently insignificant that negotiations alone can resolve them. Indeed, he has gone even further, arguing that the lack of negotiations with Iran caused the threats: "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah."

This is perhaps the most breathtakingly naive statement of all, implying as it does that it is actually U.S. policy that motivates Iran rather than Iran's own perceived ambitions and interests. That would be news to the mullahs in Tehran, not to mention the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.

This guy knows so much more about global affairs than Obama it's scary. Obama couldn't even quell the violence in his own congressional district. Yet we are to believe he is going to bring abut world peace? Blogger please.

UK FREAKS OUT OVER OBAMA'S IRAN POLICY, WHICH, BY THE WAY, BREAKS THREE UN RESOLUTIONS

It seems the rest of the world sees this man's significant flaws much better than many Americans.

David Miliband has raised questions over Barack Obama’s policy on Iran, which officials in Washington and Europe fear threatens to undermine the tough stance adopted by the West towards Tehran over recent years.

The Foreign Secretary, on his visit to the US this week, has held talks with all three presidential campaigns, including those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

But when he met Mr Obama’s team of foreign policy advisers on Wednesday, Mr Miliband is understood to have queried the presumptive Democratic nominee’s declared willingness to meet leaders from rogue states such as Iran.

British intelligence chiefs are understood to have identified Iranian nuclear proliferation as the second greatest security threat, behind Islamic terrorism but ahead of renewed aggression from Russia.

Exact accounts of the conversation with Mr Obama differ and there is certainly acute anxiety on the part of the British not to be seen as stoking political controversy in America’s presidential elections. In the past week Mr McCain has repeatedly hammered Mr Obama for what he claims is a “naive” commitment to hold direct talks with foreign dictators.

In a televised debate last summer, Mr Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet the leaders of countries such as Iran and Cuba without preconditions during his first year in office. He replied: “I would.” But this week he appeared to pull back, saying he would still be willing to meet Iranian leaders but not before what he described as “preparations” — and not necessarily with President Ahmadinejad.

Nevertheless, Mr Obama says that “tough but engaged diplomacy” — of the type carried out by President Kennedy or President Reagan with the Soviet Union — would represent “a different approach, a different philosophy” to the “failed Iran policy” of the current administration.

And oh, by the way...

Before starting his unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad, would Obama present a new resolution at the Security Council to cancel the three that he Islamic Republic president does not like? Or, would Obama act in defiance of the UN, thus further weakening the authority of the Security Council?

The preconditions that Ahmadinejad does not like and Obama promises to ignore were not set by President George W Bush.

They were decided after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported the Islamic Republic to be in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and, acting in accordance with its charter, referred the issue to the Security Council.

Dismissing the preconditions as irrelevant would mean snubbing America's European allies plus Russia and China, all of whom participated in drafting and approving the resolutions that Ahmadinejad does not like.

Obama responded to the above criticism by stating "Hope...Change...yada yada yada".