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Vertaal:
              ALEXANDER COCKBURN: Honeymoon kijkt een Bleek Beetje
Woensdag, 26 November, 2008
Door ALEXANDER COCKBURN? | Twee jaar zonder een één enkele lek en plotseling, vorige week, Obama? s verrichting was als een zeef. Dat? s wat gebeurt wanneer u de telefoon opneemt en één van Clintons draait. Of, om het een andere manier, dat te zetten? s wat gebeurt wanneer iemand u eist, de nieuwgekozen president, nam de telefoon op en riep Mevr. Clinton om te vragen of zij? D houdt van Staatssecretaris te zijn. Gaat het venster de betekenis van vastberaden passen naar een gerenoveerd Beleid uit. Komt in een vreselijk gevoel dat op de een of andere manier wij? ve gleed een afmeting in het plaats-tijdcontinuum uit en leidt terug in de era Clinton. Een paar meer weken en Republikeinen zullen een speciale eiser verzoeken. I? ve had mensen proberen om aan me de politieke logica te verklaren die van Obama zijn vroegere Democratisch aanbiedt? wedijver een hoogste positie in zijn kabinet. Om haar beter te hebben binnen de tent. Verzend? haar weg op periodes van futiele pendeldiplomatie, zoals Condoleezza Rice. Het nog doesn? t klopt. Waarom maart terug levendig in Clintontime?? Bovendien, zij? D maakt een lousy Staatssecretaris. Mevr. Clinton heeft nooit om het even welk talent voor onderhandeling getoond, noch komt zelfs om het even welke opvallende eetlust op de proppen om wat in de te weten te komen wereld gebeurt, laat staan met een nieuwe visie van Amerika? s rol in de 21ste eeuw. Zij? s een interventionist door instinct, haar vinger die over de hefboom van de Versie van de Bom trilt. Zij stemde ja over de oorlog van Irak. Zij was een vurige verdediger van NAVO? s aanval op Joegoslavië. Als wij Hillary bij Staat krijgen kunnen wij Madeleine Albright als één van haar sidekicks krijgen? de vrouw wie in de recente jaren '90 zei dat het verhongeren van een half miljoen Iraakse kinderen was? waard het? , waarschijnlijk de lijn die de 9/11 al Qaeda kapers? was het mompelen aan zich toen zij op hun opdracht van wraak verzonden? naar de TweelingTorens.? Dit is verandering? The answer of course is that there has to be a good deal of similarity between the Clinton and Obama administrations, because Obama is a neoliberal interventionist like Bill, and because the 45 and 50-year old veterans of the two Clinton administrations who have been cooling their heels in law firms and think tanks for eight years make up a high percentage of those in the hiring line, particularly those who placed an early bet on Obama. To round off the symmetry the new White House counsel will be Greg Craig, who defended Clinton during his impeachment. And the cabinet members Obama has announced or who are being bandied about are not inspiring. They?re dull like former Democratic senator Tom Daschle getting Health and Human Services. Howard Dean, who was a doctor and who had hands-on time grappling with health insirance when he was governor of Vermont, would have been a much better choice. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona governor slated to be head of Homeland Security, horrified labor organizers at one meeting earlier this year listening to her boasting about kicking migrant workers back into Mexico.? One nominee headed towards a Republican roasting in his hearings is? Eric Holder, named to be Attorney General. As number 2 in Clinton?s Justice Department, Holder played a grimy role in one of the most scandalous affairs of Clinton-time, the last minute pardon by Clinton of billionaire trader and denizen of the FBI?s most wanted list, Marc Rich. (See Jeffrey St. Clair’s account of the pardons for Holder’s central role in the affair.) Early in 2002 Holder gave CNN his views on the treatment of captured terrorists: ?One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention . . . you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people. It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war.? Other possible appointments are not demonstrative of a resolute change of pace. The talk is of keeping Robert Gates on as Defense Secretary, although Gates has made no significant mark on the vast pork barrel beside the Potomac. The conversion of this mucky schemer of yesteryear into revered emblem of sound governance is one of the many marvels of our age. Somewhere don the road we?ll probably end up with another slimy fellow, former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, who counts among his regular roosts CSIS and the Center for A New American Security, also decorated by the odious Robert Kaplan and Dr John Nagl. The most significant appointment will be Treasury Secretary. On current form Obama will play it safe with the top nominees to run this Department, starting with Geithner of the New York Fed, with Larry Summers somewhere in the mix. The trouble here is that there is no safe option and the usual suspects will have the usual limited perspective. In sum, this looks like a standard issue, business-as-usual cabinet in the making, about as exciting as looking at one of the regular network panel shows on a Sunday morning. Can?t they find anyone under 40 who looks like? they might want to do things different and shake things up? The Golden Age of Eating was?. But first a quotation.
That?s Paul Craig Roberts, on this website Thursday. In the latest edition of our subscriber only newsletter Roberts lays out the big economic picture? with bleak and compelling vigor. It?s must reading if you want to know the shape America is really in.?? Subscribe to read his powerful essay. Subscribe too, and read Judy Gumbo Albert?s risposte to Sarah Palin. Judy writes a great memoir of the late Sixties, from the Yipster perspective of one who famously said, when the Weathmen blew up a lavatory in the Capitol, ?We didn?t do it, but we dug it.? You also get co-editor Cockburn writing about food in the modern age, so different from those exalted moments? in the history of balanced diet which I describe in the newsletter, ?with Australopithecus healthily subsisting on ?fruits, leaves, larvae and bugs,??along with modest gobbets of carrion. ?His large teeth, powerful jaws and oversize gut were all adapted to coarse, fibrous plant matter ? Even his small size ? he stood barely four feet tall and weighed forty pounds ? was ideal for harvesting fruit among the branches.? Three million years later, we arrive at the far end of an inexorably descending arc, with 400-pound, low-income specimens of Homo sapiens swollen by excessive intake of calories, their guts compromised by lack of fiber, many of them diabetic, draped over their scooters, harvesting the aisles of Albertsons or Safeway for sugar, salt and fat-saturated snacks that will hike their blood pressure, clog their arteries, and propel them to an early grave.? Have Your Say: ALEXANDER COCKBURN: The Honeymoon is Looking a Bit Wan Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
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