“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Jim Cramer on Mitt Romney
I love it when motor mouth, spitball wizard, Chris Matthews gets out-flanked. Cramer cold-cocked Matthews who is in the tank for Obama.
The concern for those "dying" parts of the country reflect a misplaced liberal sentimentality which kept many people locked into the welfare system for too long. Welfare for the dying cities is not the answer. These rust belt areas are similar to socialist Europe. They were not "business friendly" so business relocated to where they were welcome. From the left, you don't hear much about the growth and dynamism of the sunbelt.
I'm getting worried that my wife might run off and 'volunteer' for the Romney campaign. She's been talking about 'having a little fun in life', 'kicking up my heels while there is still time', and stuff like that. I'm looking into the ocean cruise ads; this might be the year to take us on that ocean cruise to Alaska. This is beginning to get out of hand.
While it is true that no historical event exactly replicates another, it is certainly the case that what happened in Vietnam in 1972-1975 bears very closely on the current situation in Iraq.
To truncate the story drastically, what happened back then was the result of the correlation of four strategic factors:
(1) Hanoi's resolution to conquer the south. The North Vietnamese were held back by the failure of their spring offensive in 1972. That offensive was weakened by U.S. mining of the harbors and by the reluctance of China, in the swoon of the Nixon visit to Mao, to give full-bodied support to an invasion. But Hanoi simply bided its time.
(2) The withdrawal by the United States, ending in March 1973, of a combative military presence. Only a few hundred U.S. advisers were left in South Vietnam.
(3) The growing stability of the South Vietnamese government, which was assumed competent to carry out the terms of the Paris agreements of 1973. These agreements had been negotiated in dozens and dozens of meetings between Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger. The agreements called for the removal of U.S. forces, the cessation of North Vietnamese offensives, and recognition of the Saigon government as the ruling political entity in the south.
And (4) the progressive disunity of the United States government. Here we had the anti-war movement as a continuing force. But that movement attained dominance pari passu with the weakening of President Nixon. As Watergate metastasized from a "second-rate burglary" into grounds for the removal of a president, U.S. support for success in Vietnam wilted.
The parallels in the current situation are plain, beginning with the nature of the United States' participation. What we have right now is a progressively immobilized executive and a dissenting legislature, leading -- inevitably -- to an impotent military.
The question immediately posed is: Do we feel responsibility for what happens in the period ahead? The Iraqi government resembles the government of South Vietnam in 1973-'74 in that Baghdad is fighting, as Saigon fought, for a political system free of overweening foreign elements. But Saigon could not hold out in the long run without U.S. military support, and neither can Baghdad.
If the parallels hold, i.e., if the result of failure in the Middle East is equivalent to the result of failure in Indochina, then we would expect to see the collapse of the Maliki government in Baghdad, some kind of bloody vengeance against Iraqis who had supported that government, and a people subjugated by a regime that sits on 1 percent the world's supply of oil and is unlikely to proceed indifferent to the march, by Iraq's eastern neighbor, to becoming a nuclear power.
In the currency of human deaths, it is unlikely that we would match in Iraq what we stood by for in Vietnam. The statistics aren't even there to count accurately the casualties of defeat in that theater. But the most graphic symbol is the picture of Vietnamese, young and old, clinging to a U.S. helicopter in the desperate, final hope to be taken away from those waiting to torture and kill them. As stated, the statistics are not final, but somewhere between a quarter-million and 2 million or even 3 million Vietnamese suffered from our flight from the burden we first had undertaken, and then abandoned.
Henry Kissinger has said that the use of the American fleet to contain the invasion of 1975 could have saved the day. What could save the day in Iraq?Nothing short of public revulsion toward those Democrats who are measuring these days the political value of honor. In the election ahead, all the world will be looking over our shoulders, including the ghosts of Vietnam.
NEW YORK -- According to NewsChannel4's Jonathan Dienst, sources said federal investigators have made arrests in an alleged terror plot on Kennedy Airport. Four people have been charged. One is in custody in New York. Three suspects are thought to be overseas. Sources said one suspect is thought to be a former parliament or government official in Guyana.
The Mormon Church has a hell of a lot of money. They are rich, I can tell you that. They are frugal, and saving people. How this chest of gold that they have translates into money for the Romney campaign I am not sure, but I imagine there is quite a lot of 'leakage' there, if you looked close.
At one point in his young career, as a company commander, at the appointed time he lead his men out of the trenches,over the top, and went into the face of the enemies fire carrying only a riding crop. He was at the point.
He said that Romney had lived in that world, and was not, in HH's opinion effected by it. In fact had beat that system at it's own game.
A consumate east coaster, that had bested the system. That was HH's opinion, I don't need to read it again, to relearn that perspective.
Mr Romney's tenure as Governor of Mass. makes the consumate east coast case.
One has to take HH's opinion that Mr Romney has risen above the east coast elite, it is not borne by any verifialbe facts, that I am aware of. Lots of rhetoric, but little else concrete. Mass. was not transformed during his tenure.
If NYC and Mass. are at all comparable as governmental challenges, Rudy earns higher marks, as a manager.
He's got Bob's wife, and he's got Cramer.
ReplyDeleteIt's a "Tsunami!"
I guy sleeps i til 11:00 EDST ad he he misses two threads...
ReplyDeleteGotz us a small tropical low dat dump'in sum watur. I can sees now gonna need extra moouse fo my beauty har.
ReplyDeleteDR...
ReplyDeleteI betcha a dall'r to a donut hole dat dim E-6 an above dat didn't wanna go at least went in theater to get da ribbons...gotta hab dim whoa ribbons
The concern for those "dying" parts of the country reflect a misplaced liberal sentimentality which kept many people locked into the welfare system for too long. Welfare for the dying cities is not the answer. These rust belt areas are similar to socialist Europe. They were not "business friendly" so business relocated to where they were welcome. From the left, you don't hear much about the growth and dynamism of the sunbelt.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting worried that my wife might run off and 'volunteer' for the Romney campaign. She's been talking about 'having a little fun in life', 'kicking up my heels while there is still time', and stuff like that. I'm looking into the ocean cruise ads; this might be the year to take us on that ocean cruise to Alaska. This is beginning to get out of hand.
ReplyDeleteDuty,Honor,Country
ReplyDeleteW.F. Buckley nails it...again
While it is true that no historical event exactly replicates another, it is certainly the case that what happened in Vietnam in 1972-1975 bears very closely on the current situation in Iraq.
To truncate the story drastically, what happened back then was the result of the correlation of four strategic factors:
(1) Hanoi's resolution to conquer the south. The North Vietnamese were held back by the failure of their spring offensive in 1972. That offensive was weakened by U.S. mining of the harbors and by the reluctance of China, in the swoon of the Nixon visit to Mao, to give full-bodied support to an invasion. But Hanoi simply bided its time.
(2) The withdrawal by the United States, ending in March 1973, of a combative military presence. Only a few hundred U.S. advisers were left in South Vietnam.
(3) The growing stability of the South Vietnamese government, which was assumed competent to carry out the terms of the Paris agreements of 1973. These agreements had been negotiated in dozens and dozens of meetings between Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger. The agreements called for the removal of U.S. forces, the cessation of North Vietnamese offensives, and recognition of the Saigon government as the ruling political entity in the south.
And (4) the progressive disunity of the United States government. Here we had the anti-war movement as a continuing force. But that movement attained dominance pari passu with the weakening of President Nixon. As Watergate metastasized from a "second-rate burglary" into grounds for the removal of a president, U.S. support for success in Vietnam wilted.
The parallels in the current situation are plain, beginning with the nature of the United States' participation. What we have right now is a progressively immobilized executive and a dissenting legislature, leading -- inevitably -- to an impotent military.
The question immediately posed is: Do we feel responsibility for what happens in the period ahead? The Iraqi government resembles the government of South Vietnam in 1973-'74 in that Baghdad is fighting, as Saigon fought, for a political system free of overweening foreign elements. But Saigon could not hold out in the long run without U.S. military support, and neither can Baghdad.
If the parallels hold, i.e., if the result of failure in the Middle East is equivalent to the result of failure in Indochina, then we would expect to see the collapse of the Maliki government in Baghdad, some kind of bloody vengeance against Iraqis who had supported that government, and a people subjugated by a regime that sits on 1 percent the world's supply of oil and is unlikely to proceed indifferent to the march, by Iraq's eastern neighbor, to becoming a nuclear power.
In the currency of human deaths, it is unlikely that we would match in Iraq what we stood by for in Vietnam. The statistics aren't even there to count accurately the casualties of defeat in that theater. But the most graphic symbol is the picture of Vietnamese, young and old, clinging to a U.S. helicopter in the desperate, final hope to be taken away from those waiting to torture and kill them. As stated, the statistics are not final, but somewhere between a quarter-million and 2 million or even 3 million Vietnamese suffered from our flight from the burden we first had undertaken, and then abandoned.
Henry Kissinger has said that the use of the American fleet to contain the invasion of 1975 could have saved the day. What could save the day in Iraq?Nothing short of public revulsion toward those Democrats who are measuring these days the political value of honor. In the election ahead, all the world will be looking over our shoulders, including the ghosts of Vietnam.
Dammit, what has happened to our Freedom of the Press?
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK -- According to NewsChannel4's Jonathan Dienst, sources said federal investigators have made arrests in an alleged terror plot on Kennedy Airport.
ReplyDeleteFour people have been charged. One is in custody in New York. Three suspects are thought to be overseas.
Sources said one suspect is thought to be a former parliament or government official in Guyana.
Our side is involved in a little Gunboat Diplomacy this morning in Somalia.
ReplyDeleteThe Mormon Church has a hell of a lot of money. They are rich, I can tell you that. They are frugal, and saving people. How this chest of gold that they have translates into money for the Romney campaign I am not sure, but I imagine there is quite a lot of 'leakage' there, if you looked close.
ReplyDeleteIs the Liberal Press "Homing" in on Romney? Hugh Hewitt Thinks so.
ReplyDeleteSo do I.
THAT is "My Kind" of Diplomacy!
ReplyDeleteDouglas MacAthurs last speech at West Point..it is worth the time to listen to. It resonates throughout the hearts of all military and freeman.
ReplyDeleteMacArthur At West Point
Duty,Honor,Country.....
At one point in his young career, as a company commander, at the appointed time he lead his men out of the trenches,over the top, and went into the face of the enemies fire carrying only a riding crop. He was at the point.
Mr Romney does show well, my wife likes the cut of his jib.
ReplyDeleteThat says a lot.
He is another east coast Republican elitest. So says HH.
We'll see what we will see.
Rudy's team won a big prize in NJ, according to this report
Rudy's Jersey Coup
By Robert Novak
He also reports some Bush Party regulars signing up with Fred Thompson.
Rat, you need to re-read that HH article. He's equating McCain and Giuliani to the NE Republican vision, not Romney.
ReplyDeleteRomney seems to go over really well with the fifty-something girls, that seems sure.
ReplyDeleteHe said that Romney had lived in that world, and was not, in HH's opinion effected by it. In fact had beat that system at it's own game.
ReplyDeleteA consumate east coaster, that had bested the system. That was HH's opinion, I don't need to read it again, to relearn that perspective.
Mr Romney's tenure as Governor of Mass. makes the consumate east coast case.
One has to take HH's opinion that Mr Romney has risen above the east coast elite, it is not borne by any verifialbe facts, that I am aware of.
Lots of rhetoric, but little else concrete. Mass. was not transformed during his tenure.
If NYC and Mass. are at all comparable as governmental challenges, Rudy earns higher marks, as a manager.
Mr Romney's "growth" on the abortion issue, as Big John stated so eloquently, coincides with election cycles.
ReplyDeleteAn east coast skull & boner trait if ever there was one.
Mr Mitt fits right in to the skull & boner mold. Just a different sheen to the finish.