Redstate

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Those liberals who actually served in the Carter Administration, like Mondale and Hamilton Jordan, claimed that Carter really did negotiate the release of the hostages, but the actual release just got delayed till Reagan got inaugurated.

The Left always has had a problem staying on message.

...I always thought TP stood for something else.

--
"We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged." - Colonel Henry Knox

The far left is mixing up the two hostage crises. The Iran hostage affair was over a different set of hostages.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor

The Provocateur

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Directly misleading, right out of the liberal playbook.

"Yes, hostages were released on Reagan's inauguration day. Other hostages were released in 1986, due the the activities now infamously labelled "Iran-Contra." This is the release to which ThinkProgress refers."

But it's obviously not the release to which McCain referred. The TP "rebuttal" picked the wrong release on purpose, no doubt.

"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations

If he's referring to the 1981 release, then either 1) the October Surprise conspiracy is true, which would mean that Reagan did negotiate with Iran and McCain is wrong; or 2) he thinks that Iran was scared to death of Reagan's pure awesomeness, and immediately capitulated, which is ridiculous, since Iran continued to take hostages throughout Reagan's administration.

If he's referring to 1986 (the one that Reagan had anything to do with), then Reagan traded guns for hostages. This is the exact opposite of what McCain claims, since not only did Reagan negotiate with Iran, but it utterly and completely capitulated.

...would have done the trick, there. No need to drag in conspiracy theories, frankly.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

...thinks that, after twenty eight years of unsuccessful attempts to convince the American public of any alternative version of the Carter Iran hostage crisis, that they can somehow do it now... then bring it, kiddies.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Now? Not so much.

I'm sure the American people would see it differently.

Americans tend to oppose wars until they're inevitable. If Iran were to attack Israel, take American hostages, etc., however, the American people would be furious with any president who DIDN'T attack back. Until Iran gets more aggressive than simply talking, though, I don't see "attack Iran" as a winning message.

...that I was trying to make.

Moe

PS: This is not intended to be a snarky question, although it may come across as one: how old were you in 1979?

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

I was born in 1980, so all I know of Carter and most of Reagan is history books. I like to think I do my homework, though, and I'm happy to be shown where I'm wrong.

I'm sorry if I missed your point, would you mind elaborating?

The very short version is that Think Progress has - as usual - mistaken their own slant on history as being mainstream. You see, if you ask a random American who's above the age of about 35 or so what he thinks of when he hears the word "Iranian hostages" he's going to immediately remember the Carter-era disaster. Which it was, plus being one of the defining moments of the late Seventies, God help us all.

Now, you go [ask the same thing] to a TP-type person, and they'll start talking about Iran-Contra like the way that they did, because they'll never forget Iran-Contra. Iran-Contra, in fact, infuriates them: it was and is a narrative that seemingly confirms every dark, conspiratorial thought that they ever had about the US government... and the American people ended up not giving a damn. They still don't, in fact. Most of 'em couldn't begin to tell you what the whole thing was about, except that it involved Ollie North, a Bible, and a deer somehow.

So it's perfectly safe to assume that McCain meant the first, not the second: the first is a common cultural reference among people who actually vote in Presidential elections, and the second is the bitter political obsession of bitter political obsessives. And said bitter obsessives are going to be quite amusingly irate when the general voting public yawns... :)

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

In fact, my Dad, an arch-conservative, praised Reagan for both actions throughout my childhood. He bought the October Surprise conspiracy, but he thought it was the most awesome thing Reagan ever did. Likewise, he agreed that Iran-Contra was probably illegal, but Reagan had to do what he had to do.

In any case, my (probably entirely unfounded) theory is that the American public swings back and forth from being afraid of Carter to being afraid of Vietnam. I also hypothesize that this is why Republicans constantly try to paint every Democrat as Carter/McGovern and Democrats try to paint every (Republican initiated) war as Vietnam.

I currently think that the Democrats are pulling off their sell more effectively than the GOP, but we're only a single terrorist attack away from Carter-fear to trump 'Nam-fear.

that if the secret SR-71 trip really happened, it would have been awesome.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

when I get back home to see him twice a year or so, we stay up until 3 in the morning drinking brandy and arguing politics. It's my favorite time of year. In fact, sometimes I wonder if one of the major reasons for my staying liberal is just so that we have something to argue about when we drink.

No falling out or anything; it's just that it gets in the way of appreciating the grandson. :)

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

he's what, almost a year old now? I hope that you've been drilling him on the Laffer Curve and judicial overreach, you'd hate for him to turn out liberal...

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

On that note, I'm off to bed.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

I speak from experience, too. Elections, I hope, are forever. Family members are not.

They'd toss me out of the GOP Poster Child for Bitter Obsessives Club* for doing that. :)

Moe

*Where do people get this stuff? Even the most cursory reading of what we'll charitably call my "work" suggests that I typically serve up a certain carefree maniacal giggling schadenfreude with a side order of double geekery.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

My only complaint is that your comments tend to be so terse and obscure that I usually have to hit up Google to catch the reference. Your geekery puts me to shame (...although I discovered Chad Vader last week, and God did I laugh).

But the high quality blam's put Deion's endzone dances to shame.

That's pretty funny. I can't wait for yet another variation on the theme of "Democrats are worse".

Because that's working so well.

You mean I'M not the poster child for bitter obsessives? When did I lose that job?

Ah, crap. Guess I gotta work on that some more.

Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO

Note tense.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Moe, you SO rock, man!

Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

or whatever # you are on now:

Do you get off on continually signing up so you can insult people?

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Soviets, everyone knew he wouldn't bend to pressure.

The problem with talking to the Iranians is that the talks will end just like the North Korean talks---we will give away accommodations and get nothing for them.

The Iranians know that we can be divided and conquered in the realm of media and public discourse.

Only the strongest of Western politicians can interact with folks like that without hurting the West in the end.

Reagan did finally get fed up with the Iranians after having tried everything else.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

in April 1988. Crushed the buggers.

There's a fourth reason:

4) The Iranians came to the decision that it would fit their purposes to release the hostages. They decided as well that they could embarrass Jimmy Carter just a little bit more by waiting until Reagan was inaugurated. If this was the idea, they were too smart by half.

"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations

If that is the case, though, McCain is still wrong. In no way did Reagan's alleged refusal to speak to dictators result in positive developments in Iran. This is demonstrated by the fact that Reagan did indeed talk to Iran, or at least sold them weapons to get hostages and other things we wanted.

Look, it's obvious that nothing Reagan did could possibly be OK with you. Nor could McCain express true straight talk. You have your opinion about the situation. McCain has his, expressing a larger theme than just the details behind the incident. I doubt that he cares whether you agree or not.

There is a huge difference between having emissaries deal with international problems and speaking directly to terrorist regimes, head-of-state to head-of-state with no preconditions, which is definitely what Obama said that he'd do.

Methinks that Obama protests too much. He does seem to believe it's all about Obama, all the time. Does he disagree with what Bush said? Does he identify with the quoted Senator Borah? Bush said "some seem to believe." If Obama puts himself among those people, good enough.

"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations

I think he, like all presidents, made some good calls and some bad ones. I'm not even saying that his Iran policy was necessarily unjustified.

What I'm saying is that the picture that McCain paints is simply wrong. The only hostages Reagan freed from Iran came at the price of weapons. Pretending that Reagan's foreign policy was one of a stubborn refusal to talk to our enemies in order to paint all diplomacy as appeasement is a cheap political ploy that ignores the facts.

Reagan talked to our enemies, and it worked. Remember Geneva, 1985?

Geneva, 1985. Was that the one where Reagan walked out on Gorbie? And there is a difference between "enemies" and "sponsors of terrorism."

You're simply bringing up the trees to obscure the forest.

"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations

Wasn't that when Gorby's offer was total nuclear disarmament in exchange for a halt to SDI? In fewer words than mine, Reagan pretty much expressed "yes, we can spend a trillion dollars we don't have and beat you, too."

lesterblog.blogspot.com

when exactly was it that Reagan accomplished a diplomatic victory by refusing to meet or deal with our enemies. (See all the leeway I'm giving you, it doesn't have to be Iran, and it doesn't have to involve hostages.)

And I'm sorry, when those enemies are communists who prop up dictatorships at our front doors, I fail to see the fine distinction between them and state sponsors of terror as regards our national security.

Like it or not, the Nicaragua policy was a success. Even with Ortega back in power, he has to play by the rules.

And while Grenada may have looked like a farce, I doubt if Cuban regulars ever want to engage US forces again.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

but I bet that our funding the Contras in Nicaragua had a lot more to do with our success than Reagan's refusal to meet with Ortega. Likewise, Grenada was a military engagement, not a simple refusal to talk.

I don't deny that military actions are one way of getting things done. I'm just suspicious of the idea that a mere bold resolve not to talk will convince our enemies to capitulate.

We're recalling a series of events that established the leverage we needed to force the big picture without catastrophic loss of life and civilization. Of course he had to talk to the biggest player, the USSR, and he chose to give negotiation a chance with the Iranians before giving up on that track, but there were also enemies he knew he didn't have to waste his time talking to.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

I still disagree with the idea that meeting with Iran is a bad idea, but at least the Castro/Ortega analogy holds water.

If McCain had compared Reagan's resolve with regard to those two dictators with his and Bush's resolve toward Ahmadinejad, then the analogy would have at least been factually accurate with regard to Reagan's stance. The analogy he made, though, was historically inaccurate. Maybe he preferred to imply that Reagan treated Iran the same way he treated Cuba simply because Iran is the nation with whom we're currently having trouble.

(I had a reply in preview when my laptop locked up...I'll reconstruct:)

I think we've seen more evidence that Obama needs a little practice for his speeches and he isn't quite as quick on his feet as Bill Clinton. He could have said that he'd give Ahmadinejad a high-profile opportunity to make his case, just as the United Nations and Colombia University have done, making it Mahmoud's choice to either get serious or make a fool of himself all over again. Obama could further say that of course we'll have the leverage of our existing security arrangements in the Persian Gulf, which is something else a presidential candidate should understand and relate. (After all, a big reason why it's said that all 100 US senators think they should be president is because they are privileged with such high-level information.) All of this can be done while also offering the highest standards of ideals as a nation.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

With a few "errant" missiles in the French Embassy for good meaasure.

Ah, the good old days...

Oh what a laugh that was. Boy did we have to bust a lot of heads to undo the damage Carter did.

I can still see the salesmen at Rafal going Merde they weren't supposed to fight with those jets.

Rational "enemies" who accept the rules of engagement are, in these instances, orders of magnitude less threatening than enemy terrorists who believe that it's a good idea to create collateral damage in the form of innocent but dead civilians. As you may note, the former can be defeated or neutralized by conventional means, to the point that they may credibly become our allies. There's no sure way to know if the latter are ever defeated, and it may turn out in the end to be even more expensive to fight them than conventional enemies.

The forest is that Obama hasn't the experience, knowledge, ability, or temperament to conduct "negotiations" with either kind of enemy. He even demonstrated that by inserting himself into Bush's speech, when he could have simply ignored it or even agreed with it and looked like a genius rather than a fool.

I'm not sure McCain or Hillary are that good either, but of the three, McCain is the most likely to be able to deal with enemies successfully, however he chooses to do so. He certainly is better equipped in all those qualities than either of the other two.

Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.

They're the ones confusing what McCain was referring to.

Moe

PS: I don't like the tone that you take with regard to the other readers here. I need you to start being polite when you're posting here.

No, this is not subject to debate. Just do it. And any hypothetical lack of ability to figure out what I meant by that isn't actually my problem.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Other than the fact that McCain keeps trying to link himself to Reagan? If McCain is referring to the first hostage crisis, then Reagan was not president when the release was negotiated. It was not on his watch.

Don't expect me to defend Carter, because I won't. He was a schmuck. But Reagan did not have anything to do with the release of the hostages, nor do I buy the conspiracy crap that he negotiated with the Iranians in secret to hold the hostages. To believe that would be to believe that Reagan and his advisers were traitors. That's bunk.

But what are we to make of what McCain said? It doesn't make sense. TP said as much. If he's talking about the embassy hostages, his quote doesn't make sense. If he's talking about Iran-Contra, then his quote also doesn't make sense.

Supporting the Contras was the right thing to do. Selling arms to Iran was the wrong thing to do. Even presidents as great as Reagan make mistakes. It happens.

I believe that "deliberate" is correct.

As it was with Bill Clinton, it's a case of 'dazzle 'em with footwork while their pockets get picked.'

Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.