Proxy campaigning is back

Yesterday we touched on the fact that Ron Paul is plenty nutty enough on his own accord that there should be no need to attack him through the utterances of those who speak either in favor of or near his campaign. But one can always tell that the campaign season is shifting into a higher gear when the proxy wars start heating up.

I've never been a fan of this although there are circumstances under which the attention it draws is valid.

One example. In 2008 candidate Obama was made to answer for remarks made by his campaign's foreign policy adviser Samantha Power in which Power referred to then rival candidate Hillary Clinton as "a monster". The episode was exceedingly silly because the comment, regardless of its accuracy, was rhetorically the sort of thing that our absurd "decorum" obsessed, fainting couch occupying establishment press considers so out of bounds as to demand the rolling of heads... or at least the symbolic rolling of those heads. Power was forced to resign her unpaid advisory position with the campaign and hang her (still attached) head in shame... for a few months anyway. Later she was hired by the Obama Administration to work in Hillary's monstrous State Department where she cheerfully contributed to such monstrous initiatives as the bombing and killing of people in Libya. But at least she didn't call anyone an ugly name.

Anyway the point is, in the case of Power, her comments about Hillary could have raised significant questions about just what kind of people were advising candidate Obama on key issues like the importance of bombing and killing people in the name of freedom. And it almost did that.. at least for those of us who were paying attention at the time although with minimal help from the decorum gatekeepers who manage our daily discourse.

But this is an unusual incident. Most of the time, attacking a candidate through proxy connections is a pointless parlor game for the bored and stupid campaign press. Examples of this abound from the obsession with Obama's pastor Rev. Wright in 2008 to this gay-hating preacher who endorsed Ron Paul. Paul is plenty homophobic on his own, thank you very much. No need to go looking for other loonies to throw in his face.

On the other hand, it's difficult to ignore Paul's latest monstrous endorsement... but we'll try. Oh how we'll try.

Sounds like a job for a ham sandwich

Oh dear, who do we kill?

The increasing murkiness of the battlefield, as the freewheeling rebels advance and retreat and as fighters from both sides mingle among civilians, has prompted NATO members to issue new “rules of engagement” spelling out when the coalition may attack units on the ground in the name of protecting civilians.

It was unclear how the rules are changing — especially on the critical questions surrounding NATO’s mandate and whether it extends to protecting rebels who are no longer simply defending civilian populated areas like Benghazi, but are instead are themselves on the offensive.

“This is a challenge,” said a senior alliance military officer. “The problem of discriminating between combatant and civilian is never easy, and it is compounded when you have Libyan regime forces fighting irregular forces, like the rebel militias, in urban areas populated by civilians.”

I thought we went over this yesterday. Any civilian you kill is easily reclassified as a combatant provided you remembered to bring your drop weapon with you.

Attack of the Death Panelistas

I have to say one side benefit of Obama being the one to plunge us into a murderous adventure in a faraway land this time, is that it gives us an opportunity to watch Republicans try and figure out how to be anti-war* which yields some deliciously crazy things.

*Not really anti-war. Just anti-what's assumed to be Obama's war. Neither party is actually anti-war. That really would be crazy.

Quote of the Day

Jonathan Schwarz:

It really feels like we're back in the nineties, trying to walk people step by step through the reality that bad actions are not transformed into good ones when the president carrying them out has a (D) after their names.

And that's just from the comment thread. Read the whole post.

Impeachment

I know a lot of people are going to laugh because the only congressman saying it is Kucinich but, as Obama himself has said, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

Keep in mind also this is a President who chose not to investigate or prosecute the previous administration's unconstitutional abuses of power, acts of torture, unauthorized warfare, etc. but instead told us it was time to "move forward" before going on to, in fact, endorse and expand those policies.

So Kucinich, "shrill" as you may find him, raises an important question. How do we ever get to a place where we're finally checking the growth of the ever-expanding security state, if we never hold its enablers accountable?