I heard part of that interview with King. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Considering Powell’s endorsement of Obama during the campaign, the statements he made in this interview reached clearly into the realm of incredulity. If you knew about his campaign endorsement, you might be inclined to see these statements as either an admission of being duped or evidence of a strange disconnect in the man’s thought processes. If for some reason you were unaware of that endorsement, you might have concluded that Powell was truly one of Obama’s most serious intellectual critics. Very strange was this interview. And after Obama has only been in office for less than six months. Powell’s credibility suffered in this.

There must be two distinct personalities living in Colin Powell’s body: one that accepts reality and lives in the here and now, and one that spends its time concocting a dream world where Mr. Obama actually listens to his counsel and takes his advice. He helped to let the genie out of the bottle. He should just accept that and move on.

Prester: How about “cut taxes, cut spending, repeal the bailout and stimulus legislation AND get rid of Geithner, Rohmer, Summers, & Co.”

I hate to hijack this thread, but have any of you been following the dust raised by Joe Biden on ABC’s “This Week” during a Sunday interview? Biden all but flat out stated that the USG would not stand in the way if Israel ultimately decided to take out Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. According to Biden, Israel is a sovereign nation and can take whatever action it deems best for its own interests whether we agree with it or not. When given a chance to back off these comments, Biden did not do so.

This goes beyond anything heard thus far out of the Obama White House. Unless Biden has contracted foot-in-mouth disease again and gets scolded for his statements, we had better start keeping a close eye on the Israelis. There could be a dust-up coming somewhere down the road of immense proportions. The Iranians are already responding to the Biden comments with threats of dire consequences if the Israelis take action.

Didn’t Israel take out some atomic stuff in Iraq many years ago? Don’t believe the US did anything about that, did we?

Israel attacked and destroyed the nearly-completed Osirak nuclear reactor. Most of the West, the US included, denounced the attack, the UN General Assembly and Security Council passed resolutions, we delayed delivery of some a/c, etc.

I don’t think the question is “What we would do *to* Israel” if they attack, more what would we do *for* Israel in the afermath, when they face retaliation from Iran, its proxies, and the world at large.

The biggest question is whether the Russians have delivered / installed the SA-300 missile system. If they have, the game has changed – Israel couldn’t attack any of those facilities directly (except via Spec Ops) without US assistance – that is, using stealth to attack the SA 300 systems directly, or to evade them, and attack the nuclear sites.

Weighing into the calculus – would such an attack even be effective? Iran has certainly dispersed and hardened every part of their program.

And what of Iranian retaliation? Much is made of Hizbollah, but while they may make a hedgehog of Jordanian neighborhoods, their ability to invade Israel is minimal, though would certainly offer many opportunities for martydom for the Believers. But a Hizbollah guerrilla and a dirty bomb, or some other asymmetrical weapon could do a *lot* of damage to such a small country.

Between Iran’s belligerence and nearness to obtaining nuclear weapons, (not to mention, a desperate need to change the subject after their botched elections), combined with Obama’s back-of-the-hand treatment of Israel, I really can’t predict what Israel will do – they’re being backed into a corner, and that makes them unpredictable. I have a suspicion we aren’t going to like what’s to come.

We may be doing the same thing many have done for sixty years: underestimating the Israelis and overestimating the abilities of the potential target.

“several clicks above”

Feeling overly generous today G ?

Guess you must have had a good 4th…

I foretold that Hopey Changey would have to deal with the Israeli attack on Iran… if he lived long enough to have to. In appeasing Hillderbeast, he’s improved his chances. People who piss her off tend to drop dead with a regular frequency.

I see from his recent CNN interview in Russia that Obama has already started to back and fill on the Biden statements vis-a-vis Israel and Iran. The dangers of the swine flu…misreading the state of the economy… Israel and Iran? Looks to me like Obama should consider either banning Biden from talk show interviews or having somebody permanently attach a teleprompter to Biden’s chest. And they claim Palin wasn’t qualified to be Vice-President?

The Pope is calling for a “world political authority” to oversee the economy and work for the “common good.” Just great. Now we’ve got a pope who talks like a friggin’ Marxist. Doesn’t that old man realize that one of the first things to go down in a “world political authority” would be his own church?

Maybe so, Dans, but those gas-filled balloons have a nasty habit of getting away from you and floating off to places where you are not able to recover them.