does charlie get paid for cranking out this swill?

Probably Charlie Krauthammer is gonna have a bird of paradise fly out his ass any minute. The guy's a shrink fer christ sakes, how come he caint even diagnose his own ressentiment?

It's the koolade! Once you drink the neocon koolade, you are able to read minds. If you drink enough of the koolade, you can even read minds from 1000's of miles away. If you drink even more of the koolade, you can read minds without even having to read minds.

If you get drunk on the kookade, you can even get your own 'opinion piece' in the Washington Post or NYT.

I really wish I knew why feelings were more important than evidence for these guys. They feel Obama is illegitimate, despite the lack of evidence. They felt Hussein had WMD, despite the lack of evidence. Real people have and will die because of their feelings, but that doesn't seem to shake their certainty.

It's like they invent their own strawmen, then run shrieking off away from them. Do all these guys sleep with a nightlight?

Anything involving Krauthammer, whether written or spoken, is immediately QUID PRO QUACK.

Krauthammer has to believe this because conservatives hate diplomacy. And they hate diplomacy because it gets in the way of war. And so they must believe that it's IMPOSSIBLE for diplomacy to EVER succeed on its own, not because it's true, but because they hate it so much.

As for myself, I don't see what's so difficult about this. It was easier for North Korea to release the journalists than to hold them or even execute them. The pardon cost them nothing and gave them a nice PR boost, which also cost us nothing, beyond the cost of the trip for Clinton and his peeps. This was a win-win for everyone but the war mongers.

Ah, yes, Iran-Contra. Isn't that the one where Reagan gave aid, comfort and missiles to the very people who had just killed 200+ Marines in Lebanon? That Iran-Contra?

What quid pro quo? I heard that Kim-Just-Illing said "Bill, ya-breakin' my balls here, Bill, ya breakin' my balls!" And Bill said "okay, I'll just mosey on to my room and eat my bar-b-q." Upon hearing that response, Kim promised to release the women if Clinton invited him to lunch.

So that that's what cripple Charlie is complaining about?

>"Iran-Contra Affair must make the Reagan administration look especially outrageous..."

Don't forget the arms and training for Islamic Jihadists and Osama Bin Laden. (oops, I meant 'Our Freedom Fighters')

Standard RWA personality answer: "Oh, that's Different"

I hate hypocrites.

L'il Kim just wants to be noticed.

I'm think we "probably" offered to trade Charles Krauthammer for the hostages, and the North Koreans said, "How about we just give you the women, you keep Krauthammer, and we'll call it square."

In which case, I think they did get the better end of the deal. We should have forced them to take Krauthammer.

Authoritarian personailities, like CK, only believe in "my way or the highway". Iran Contra was OK because it was getting them their way at any costs. Key word is "MY" way.

Obama has no part in "my". He is a "them" to CK and his cronies and that will never change.

And they love emotion, not because they are not rational men, but because rational men can control others by appealing to their limbic brains. Tribalism is a powerful limbic/survival response. So is American Exceptionalism. Jingoism is just another form of how great "I" am and therefore deserve to have things "My way". Control. It's all about control and how it gets "MY way" accomplished.

Please, how is it a propaganda coup? Two young people strayed close or over the cranky neighbors yard. The Dad goes over, makes small talk, apologizes for kid will be kids. What does that coup enable? Yard signs that say, "Yeah, I really did mean get off my lawn. See! Really."

I mean what is the shelf life of this event? and what in real terms did it buy, sway, convince, modify opinion, remove condescension, elevate status? I mean what?

I've half joked before, and I'll half joke again.

Wheelchair be damned. Krauthammer would today be a better person if someone had kicked his bitter, arrogant ass inside-out when he was young enough to have taken the lesson to heart.

Food and oil - what, no 3rd world right wing death squad to arm?

RE: hostages, don't forget the manipulation that Reagan's Repugnicans did to make sure the hostages were released AFTER Carter left office and Reagan was sworn in. That way, Ronnie Raygun could claim credit for the release.

Condemning the actions that got these journalists freed would take on a whole new meaning if it were Krauthammer being held captive.

There is just no appeasing these people, even when successful. If Kraut. can't find facts and substance to support his condemnations then he can always just 'assume' them, so he can continue his criticisms unimpeded.

It must be the case then that CK just had nothing but harsh words for Reagan's conduct of the Iran-Contra affair. Does anyone know what he said at the time?

I'm with James.

If this is a "propaganda coup," it comes up a little short. (And no, that wasn't a cut on Kim's height.)

Crazy dictator throws a couple of reporters in jail. Won't let 'em go unless somebody really, really important comes to bail 'em out. Then hands 'em over in exchange for, as far as anyone knows, nothing.

Maybe I just don't get the whole international diplomacy game, but doesn't Kim come out looking like a self-worshiping loon here?

Freddy Hiatt allows George Will to twist and manipulate facts and to completely make things up about climate change, and the news division regualrly has to clarify, or correct Will's clear lie. Why should Hiatt hold Krauthammer to a higher standard?

The fact is that the WaPo editorial page is a complete right-wing joke, kinda like The Weekly Standard, thought without the Paula-Abdul-level of crazy that makes TWS interesting to read from time-to-time.

The truth is that we have given North Korea lots of "stuff" in recent years.

We gave the North Koreans *hundreds of thousands of dollars* in return for cooperation in finding our soldiers' remains from the Korean War.

We gave the North Koreans several thousand dollars for releasing a young American man who snuck across the border.

And we give the North Koreans lots of food aid.

Krauthammer et al. can try to make an argument against these gifts and bribes on moral grounds, but then they also have to defend the results of such a policy. Is it really better to refuse to deal?

These girls were not hostages at all. They broke North Korean law and were sentenced to prison camp under their law. It was perfectly legal for North Korea to do this. They were granted pardons by us showing them some respect that they crave. I am extremely pleased with the outcome and very proud of President Clinton. Both sides did the right thing. Republican assholes obviously have no soul. All they care about is wanting the US to flex its muscles and have everyone cow down to us. That is stupid. It never works, but they keep demanding it. It is so sweet that Bill Clinton and the Obama admin pulled this off so flawlessly. The republicans are just mad that we didn't shoot anybody. Another example of chickenhawks. They will never learn.

Watching these guys explain why freeing American hostages is so terrible is either hysterically funny or pitiful.

If I was Obama, I would start taking public stands on uncontroversial things just to watch Douchehammer and John Bolton fall over themselves to be against them.

Obama: "I uh, you know, I really like a good apple pie'
John Bolton: "It shows incredible weakness and naivete to broadcast your love of apple pie. American policy should always refuse pies of any sort"
Krauthammer: "This is a blow to our standing in the world and stuff. Probably no one likes apple pie."

"... the right's cherished embodiment of American machismo, Ronald Reagan ..." heh heh heh

If a student in one of my classes says something that is just patently ridiculous because indefensible ("...do you think Othello killed Desdemona because he was secretly a Turk?") I would firmly point out the absurdity and move us back to a relevant discussion, and if the student persisted I would ask for details and evidence. If this were not forthcoming it wouldn't last two minutes.

And yet an entire network and big chunks of time on other networks are devoted to people doing just this (Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, Lou Dobbs, et al.). Are news orgs simply unable to get to any decent level of discourse or are they just spaces for people with suits to say whatever they'd like? Newspapers are dying because of this low quality and I hope 24-hour news is next.

Where's Richard Widmark when we need him?

I wonder whether Krauthammer -- were he in a position to free those women himself -- would simply let them rot -- Michael Crowley, via Steve Benen

Probably. Apparently (according to Think Progress), the emerging meme is that it was the women's own unprofessional fault that they got nailed. Theirs, and Gore's for sending them. So it's only fair that they should have suffered 12yrs hard labour in a Korean prison.

The only way their release would have been acceptable to the fRightwing is if it had been Cheney, not Clinton, who went, thrown the fear of God into Ding-dong (or whatever the loon's name is) and brought them back on return plane. Like McCain did with those hostages in Colombia.

the kraut would rather that obama bombed various innocent civilian targets in korea until the people rose up and demanded the release of the hostages.... think i'm kidding?...he wrote the same thing about israel bombing gaza in the wapo a few months back

Seriously, who gives two shits about a propaganda coupe. Who was being propagandized? The world looks and sees Bill Clinton, one American that they really like, going in and getting these women out of there any way he can. They don't give a hoot if Kim and Bill had their picture taken together. So tell me, who is the alleged propaganda targeting? And what exactly is this propaganda? I really don't see it.

Ooops, it wasn't a Chevy. Coup.

I dunno, Hank. Krauthammer seems to think Kim got pretty good mileage out of this. Maybe "coupe" is the right word after all.

Let me just join all those who say that Iran Contra is the appropriate repost to Krauthammer's predictable screed against Clinton et al. Clinton may have given N. Korea the acknowledgement -- the "face" -- its leaders craved but they never gave stinger missiles to the Axis of Evil the way that Ronald Reagan did.

I wonder whether Krauthammer -- were he in a position to free those women himself -- would simply let them rot.

Yeah, probably. We can't be molly-coddling them dictators, ya know. This is war against the Axis of Evil�, after all. Collateral damage, right? Sacrifices must be made...

I'd just like to hear Krauthammer make that speech in front of the families of those women. Oh, and the familes get to carry baseball bats.

Yeah, and back in the 80s wasn't it Krauthammer who believed there's "no question" that a window of opportunity was closing to start a star wars missile "defense" system and stop the big, bad Soviets before they had the upper hand?

And it turned out that they were strategically weak and financially shaky and soon collapsed?

Screw Krauthammer.

It's common knowledge that Kim has an inferiority complex and craves approval. So we send the big Dog over, who is not even part of the government and not in a position to make official commitments, and Kim feels good about it and lets Lee and Ling go. So where's the problem? Conservatives are obsessed with turning every conflict with a skunk into a pissing contest.

Not just Iran-Contra. Don't forget about W, China, and the "three sorries" in 2001

These girls were not hostages at all. They broke North Korean law and were sentenced to prison camp under their law. It was perfectly legal for North Korea to do this.

Do you know this?

First, North Korean "law" is a sick joke — it's both omnipresent and non-existent and expressly issued by authority with nothing resembling justice or rule of law.

It's a sham and its dispiriting to have to read idiotic justifications from people who know exactly nothing about what happened claim that somehow "North Korean Law" should have some sense of legitimacy, regardless of the circumstances. It's like saying "Oh, that Taliban! I mean sure, they'll kill the rape victim and not the rapist -- but it's their law so it's just."

Second, North Korea has a long history of kidnapping people and bringing them into the country against their will. The Kim regimes have kidnapped hundreds, if not thousands, of South Koreans and Japanese over the years -- from S. Korea and Japan. I'm not saying that happened here, I don't know, but ransom has given them currency in the past. Maybe they thought these two were South Korean, and would be able to shakedown some family in Seoul -- and then when they found out they were American they looked for a way to save face.

Krauthammer has to assume that ransom was paid because if it wasn't, then he must acknowledge that Obama and Clinton are superior to Reagan, who did pay ransom to kidnappers.

So, it is not an issue of what Krauthammer thinks of Reagan's actions. That is obvious from his words on this subject. The issue is his desperate need to say "The Democrats did it too!"

Conservatives really have just devolved into children.

There was no quid pro quo here, but if you want to talk quid pro quo, what do you call paying off the Sunni insurgents who were part of the "Sunni Awakening," paying off the fighters who have the blood of American soldiers on their hands? These chickenhawks talk about principles when it's an issue they don't care about (note there wasn't even a token statement saying "well, I'm glad they're back, but.."), but when it comes to their own agenda, they have no problem with Machiavellian methods with it comes to pursuing their own goals.

And again, like Bolton, I'm sure if it was his children or family members who were taken hostage, he'd be the first to advocate quid pro quo as a legitimate tool to save American citizens.

It sure looks like the guy on the far left is engaged in some sort of hand gesture. It's the inverted Obama "sign of progress"

fools-this was a gore set up to allow contact with north Korea.

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