Major? Brown? Major only has a handful of O-levels.
Although admittedly that was a while ago and most of them seem to study PPE at Oxford these days…
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She’s also on record to be very hawkish on Russia, which is really not what we need at this point in time. There are reasons why Putin keeps “interfering”, and they will not go away with more angry-face diplomacy, more kow-towing to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and more secret wars.
What does this even mean? Does it mean she gripes when Putin invades other countries? Or does it mean she wants to go to war with Russia? The latter would need some good independent citation, since her actual track record is as an internationalist who thinks foreign policy should be agreed between fellow nations. I know the Russian media have been saying this throughout the election, and right-wing media and blogs in the US have repeated it, but it seems to be just propaganda.
Every time someone on the left repeats right-wing talking points, a kitten dies. this election cycle there are dead kittens all over the place.
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I’d say Major is the exception confirming the rule.
Brown went to Edinburgh, one of the best universities in the world; Wikipedia says there he had a fling with a Romanian aristocrat in exile, not exactly hoi-polloi. He then exploited his position in the Blair years as a political bridge between reformers and traditionalists in his party, and once PM didn’t last a single election. In a way, he was the best example of aggressively selective education as a vehicle for social mobility, which is funny if you consider that the staunchest supporters of such positions literally hate his guts. In any case, the Scottish Labour Party of the '80s was something very unique in the UK landscape, and doesn’t really exist anymore.
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5 seconds of google:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/13/politics/hillary-clinton-boris-johnson/
What do you do with Hitler? You fight a war.
(What is more unsubstantiated, but likely true, is that Putin did not like her very much. It’s also true that she has a good relationship with Boris Johnson, who is openly despised even by the Russian ambassador to the UK. Not a great start, but we’ll see – Obama started very well in the Middle East and ended very badly, so I hope Clinton can travel in the opposite direction. Still, part of the Obama trajectory was due to Clinton herself…)
Really? Maybe she’s more forgiving than I’d be.
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That’s BoJo for you, so two-faced on every. single. thing. in his life, that I’m starting to suspect he suffers from multiple-personality disorder. Just today: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/politics/boris-johnson-column-stay-in-the-eu/
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Yeah, I saw that. Not only two-faced, but also totally incompetent at it.
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So basically what you’ve got is strong words from Clinton in the aftermath of Putin’s invasion of Crimea, followed by a second hand report by Boris Johnson consisting mainly of his own self-serving spin on the meeting.
Sorry, this is nothing. Even if the reports of what she said are accurate - both articles are unconfirmed private reports - they don’t mean what you say they do. The first one in particular is comparing specific actions of Putin to specific actions of Hitler, something BTW people right here in BB have been doing w/r to Trump this election cycle; when you write
What do you do with Hitler? You fight a war.
are you suggesting that @jlw and @beschizza plan to invade Trump Tower?
Seriously, if you have to stretch this far it makes your case look rather ridiculous.
ETA: By the way, here is what Clinton actually said at that fundraiser reported by the WaPa, the one where you think she hints she plans to wage war against Putin:
If Ukraine and Russia are to reach any kind of compromise, negotiations may start in Crimea, Clinton said.
“I think that’s where the negotiations will start,” she said.
Clinton, a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, also noted that Secretary of State John Kerry is in Kiev while Russia has agreed to meet with NATO in Brussels.
“So everybody is hoping that there will be a negotiation but a negotiation that respects Ukraine and doesn’t ratify a reoccupation by Russia of Crimea,” she said. “So it’s a real nail-biter, right now, but nobody wants to up the rhetoric. Everybody wants to cool it in order to find a diplomatic solution and that’s what we should be trying to do.”
Yeah, “everybody wants to cool it in order to find a diplomatic solution” is real hawk-talk.
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What should I look for, a picture of her with a gun looking over the sea from Alaska? She’s an expert politician, and a previous Secretary of State - her words are chosen very carefully, as she reminded her corporate audience in other circumstances. So her words are important - they are signals of what her public position will be. On Russia, she’s repeatedly signalled that we need more stick, ever since Ukraine - or if you listen to Putin, since 2011 when she tried to get rid of him. She’s gone as far as proposing no-fly-zones over Syria, something that Putin wouldn’t accept in a million years and is basically offensive right now.
I don’t think she plans to “wage war”, I think if you brand someone a Nazi in public clearly you don’t care for them very much and you’re not going to talk to them very much. That report was two years ago and since then things have not improved on any front.
Dude, she was in charge when Syria started. On her watch, the US armed Syrian opposition and kickstarted the shitstorm, and Obama came very close to invading the country soon after. What does “being a hawk” entail, in your world, if instigating civil wars with a view to invade does not?
Excuse me for holding the words of a presidential candidate and previous Secretary of State to higher standards than what I expect from BB people. That’s a really flimsy argument, sorry.
Is Clinton better than Trump? Sure, no question. But, on foreign policy, it’s a bit like saying drinking piss for a month is better than eating shit for a year.
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Basically. She has been in public service for a long time, and has made thousands of public comments. Find something she actually did or said that says she is " very hawkish on Russia" or plans to " fight a war" (your words) with him. I specifically pointed out that Clinton’s hawkishness against Putin is a right-wing talking point, and what did you do to try to refute that? You went right to Boris Johnson.
I think if you brand someone a Nazi in public
She absolutely positively did not do that.
Dude, she was in charge when Syria started.
Syria (as we know it today) started in 1945. What does that have to do with “Clinton being hawkish on Putin”?
There are probably plenty of reasons to dislike Clinton, but there’s no need to make them up, and certainly no need to keep giving life to right-wing talking points.
Your last post was so over-the-top I was wondering if you were trying to invoke Poe’s Law and Godwin’s Law in the same post. I guess it was just the latter.
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James Callaghan also never attended university.
In the US, Harry Truman was the last president without a college education. Prior to him, the last president without a college education was Andrew Johnson.
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Alright, True Believer.
A no-fly-zone over Syria, in this context, is a war with Russia. Simple as. Which is why it will never happen, and continuing to support this option is literally “being hawkish on Russia”. If enacted, it would mean shooting down Russian planes as well as bombing Russian anti-aircraft positions they have deployed and/or sold to Syrians.
But this will not satisfy you, I know. Nothing short of HRC burning the Russian flag will do.
“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the '30s” is pretty explicit to me. Or was Hitler in the '30s not a Nazi? I mean, I didn’t drag Hitler in this conversation, she did.
Ah, so BoJo is now in on the “conspiracy to influence” too? Man, I just can’t keep track of all these conspiracies. It’s weird though: BoJo is pretty dead set against Putin, constantly calling for more stick; whereas his fellow conspirator Trump is a total Putin-lover, according to the Clinton campaign. Shit, even them right-wingers can’t keep their conspiracy straight. Good thing there are HRC True Believers out there, straightening things out for us: Putin is bad, literally a “not irrational” Hitler like HRC said, but HRC would never fight him, totally, except to impose a no-fly-zone she would have to.
Bullshit. Syria was a stable country, if not very democratic, until the US decided to actively support the internal opposition during the “Arab Spring”. And this policy was enacted while Clinton was Secretary of State under Barack Obama - it wasn’t done under GWB, it wasn’t done under Bill Clinton, it wasn’t done under GHB, it wasn’t done under Reagan… It’s really maddening how people go on and on about Libya because a few Americans died in a minor accident in a scenario that other entities actually escalated, but nobody gives a shit about how the Syrian civil war actually started by active US, Turkish and Saudi involvement, because no American was hurt there so it’s all good and everyone made the best decisions ever. Sarkozy fucked up Libya and HRC got shit for it, but HRC fucked up Syria and nobody will ever take any responsibility for it.
You know what “not being hawkish” would look like, today? Put your hands up and say “sorry, we fucked up - Syria should go back where it was before the war started. Assad can stay in power, with internationally-monitored elections or some other little thing to sell to the press. Anyone who fears repercussions, we’ll evacuate to the US - after all, we did jack shit for the millions of refugees we threw at Europe, it’s only right we take a few now. Al Nusra and friends can fuck right off to Ryad.” That is not being hawkish, in my book; anything where you deploy your own forces is.
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Wow. The Clinton campaign has released a tool, and the Trump campaign is headed by one.
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I get it. You have a story in your head about Clinton, don’t care where that story actually came from, and are desperately trying to keep that story alive though hyperbole. I guess that is better than clapping your hands and saying “I do believe, I do, I do.”
Unless of course you pay attention to what she has actually said on the subject, for example on 10/6/2015:
“We need to be putting together a coalition to support a no-fly zone,” Clinton said at a campaign event in Davenport. “I think it’s complicated and the Russians would have to be part of it, or it wouldn’t work.”
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It’s been pointed out over and over that the Russians have no interest in accepting a no-fly-zone, the sole mention of which actually escalated Russian involvement (see this for example). Now the only planes in the air (apart from ones from “our ally” Turkey, who clearly would never commit war crimes) are Russian. Insisting on a no-fly-zone has no sense except to rile up the Russians. Either Clinton does not understand this and is completely clueless (which, given her experience etc etc, surely you don’t think), or she’s just winding them up. I can translate this concept in a couple of other languages, if that will help your comprehension, but that’s just how it is.
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I am sorry to hear that those are the only two possibilities available to the Clinton in your head. Perhaps you can get the Boris Johnson in your head - who apparently is highly credible and not a conservative - to advise her.
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Or Reagan, or Bush Sr, or Bush Jr.
Probably worse than Bush Sr and nearing Bush Jr territory. Reagan is the worst of the lot.
This is like saying, “We can come up with a plan to increase safety of bank customers. But Dillinger and Barrow have to be part of it, or it won’t work.”
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