Monday, April 14, 2008


Oh dear.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on ABC's "This Week"

Hopefully, in about nine months, we'll have a new crew in the White House. I hope they bring their own globe.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought we were bad people because we took unilateral, overt actions to promote our objectives overseas. Now when the administration is using a less confrontational tactic, they are also wrong.

This starts to sound more like a game where the only way the administration can appear to be making progress is to resign.

The Chi-Com government is very sensitive to world opinion. They react poorly to suggestions that they are defecient in some area.

Isn't it better to approach such people in a non-confrontational manner so that we have an opportunity to make the case for respecting the human rights of the Tibetans? He can always decline to attend the opening ceremonies if those quiet talks don't yield positive results.

I've been critical of the Chinese government over their treatment of Tibet for quite some time. The courage shown by the Tibetans recently should be humbling to most of the world.

I'd prefer that we pull out of this year's games altogether. But that would be seen as an unnecessary escalation as well as harmful to our Olympic atheletes.

If the objective is to give diplomacy a chance, then perhaps we ought to give diplomacy a chance.

Mike said...

Play the clip again, Dann, and listen carefully. There's a word in your response that he never uses. There's another word he uses eight times.

Part of diplomacy is ... well, you'll see, Dave ... ;-)

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm missing something.

......deleting......

......deleting......

Geez....sorry....and yes I did catch that the first time. Given the political season, I had decided to give folks a pass for that sort of flub as long as the larger policy picture was correct.

I hope to maintain that perspective regardless of who wins in the fall.

Sherwood Harrington said...

Once is a flub. That many times is just nepalling.

Anonymous said...

I've appeared on TV a few times as the mouthpiece of an organization. Most people are at least a little nervous about it. It isn't hard to imagine someone getting the names twisted and having the pressure of the moment temporarily "cement" the reversal in place.

Mike said...

And yet it's still a rich source of humor!

Anonymous said...

I didn't vote for Lauren Caitlin Upton, but she at least has an equal understanding the significance of geographical awareness.
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because uh some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for.

ronnie said...

Oh, Jed, I get a little tear in my eye whenever I hear that...

It's just such a beautiful sentiment.

I think.