Huckabee and Obama Triumph in Iowa

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Hillary Clinton yesterday:

Clinton heightens terrorism rhetoric

Posted by Marcella Bombardieri, political reporter - January 7, 2008 02:11 PM

DOVER, N.H. – Facing the prospect of defeat in tomorrow’s primary, Hillary Clinton just made her strongest suggestion yet that the next president may face a terrorist attack – and that she would be the best person to handle it.

She pointed out that the day after Gordon Brown took office as the British prime minister, there was a failed attempt at a double bombing in London and Glasgow.

“I don’t think it was by accident that Al Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister,” she said. “They watch our elections as closely as we do, maybe more closely than some of our fellows citizens do…. Let’s not forget you’re hiring a president not just to do what a candidate says during the election, you want a president to be there when the chips are down.”

[Aliantha]

Something that may interest you is that the only candidates getting any media time in Australia are Clinton and Obama. The rest might as well not exist. The media is fairly critical of Clinton but Obama can do no wrong.

I will be very surprised if Obama is not your next Pres. It is always the same. In the mainstream media, the only one we really hear much about is the one that wins.

[Undertoad]

This blogger agrees with you:

Why It’s Suddenly Okay For the World To Feel Good About the U.S. Again

I covered eight presidential campaigns as a reporter and editor and am now involved in yet another as a blogger, but I have never seen a global explosion of enthusiasm for a candidate like that for Barack Obama since his Iowa caucus victory. That groundswell continues to grow as polls show that he may hand Hillary Clinton a second defeat today in New Hampshire.

A blizzard of stories in the foreign press, including fawning accounts from correspondents usually known for their reserve, have a common denominator:

They draw on an abiding hatred of George Bush and his politics of division that have driven America’s world standing to an historic low. Now, this chorus of voices in the foreign press is saying, there is an opportunity for that nightmare to end because of Obama and his politics of change.

Shorter version: It’s suddenly okay to feel good about America again.

Amazingly:

...commenters on my article at the Australian website and my own Aussie friends are pretty much of a like mind: Obama is like a soothing rain in the parched Outback compared Bush’s scorched earth leadership.

Australians are fiercely proud, well understand their nation’s place on the Pacific Rim and in the greater world and know American politics better than many Yanks. This helps explain why they turned out Prime Minister John Howard, Bush’s biggest cheerleader after British PM Tony Blair, late last year despite an unprecedented 12-year economic boom.

Aussies were deeply insulted when Bush, who moments earlier had confused APEC with OPEC at an APEC conference in September at the Sydney Opera House, declared that he was “happy to be in Austria” while Howard’s successor, Kevin Rudd, by contrast was having a conversation in fluent Mandarin with a Chinese statesman.

Bush, of course, cannot even conduct a conversation in fluent English, but that is not the point.

Metaphorically speaking, the world is brown eyed and the U.S. is blue eyed. America always has been a convenient punching bag for what ails the world, but people are sick and tired of the blue-eyed American imperialist president running roughshod. In terms of change, Obama is viewed as being brown eyed — that is to say one of them — by many people abroad but Clinton and the rest of the presidential wannabes are blue eyed.

[Aliantha]

yep, that about sums it up.

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There's one aspect of your #30, Kit, that sticks at me a little still, and I need to keep at it.

The correct position, at this time in history, would be to have been anti-Iraq-war. So credit those who were - for whatever reason.

But once you vote for it, you can criticize how it's being done, you can admit that it's a mistake... certainly. But to then try to end it prematurely? When it's the probably worst thing to do at that moment in time? When "the US broke it" is already how it plays in every nation in the world? When the man who wrote the book on anti-insurgency has just come in and changed the rules of engagement, and started what is surely the last gasp strategy politically speaking?

In terms of policy, clearly at this moment in history, the best position for any true leader would be ANTI-war, PRO-surge. That leader would have their crystal ball shined to a mirror glaze, to be able to interpret the signals of the crumbling CIA, to know who's lying, who's overstating, who is playing politics and who's not; and yet would see that, the damage having been done, there was still a way out of it...

And one must note, my crystal ball has been covered in a deep haze for a long time now, and I don't call on it any longer; the whole thing could turn back to shit tomorrow. But you don't need a crystal ball to look at where we are right now.

Anti-war, pro-surge. Is there any politician who fits this bill? I thought it was O at one point, but he has renounced surge support since then.

But pro-war, anti-surge... that seems to me to be the opposite. You'd expect the more politically-driven to fit that bill; change with the times, change with the polls. The ideologically-driven would be pro-pro, or anti-anti. History demanded anti-pro.