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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (77673)	5/21/2008 10:18:25 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Bama comes to Ahmadinejad's aid, stiffarms the diplomatic efforts of the UN, our European allies, and the Bush administration: "Obama's words on "preconditions" have helped ease domestic pressure on Ahmadinejad to comply with the United Nations and the IAEA. The Iranian president is telling his domestic critics to shut up until after the US election. Why, after all, should he make concessions that a putative President Obama has already dismissed as unnecessary?" OBAMA TO A'JAD: ATOMIC ASSIST STIFFS UN IN NUKE NEGOTIATIONS A'jad: Quotes 'Bam to refute critics at home. May 21, 2008 -- BUOYED by their modest electoral success last month, critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's provocative foreign policy were preparing to launch a series of attacks on him in the Islamic Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament. But then Ahmadinejad got an unexpected boost from Barack Obama. Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator and now a Majlis member, was arguing that the Islamic Republic would pay a heavy price for Ahmadinejad's rejection of three UN Security Council resolutions on nukes. Then the likely Democratic presidential nominee stepped in. Obama announced that, if elected, he wouldn't ask Iran to comply with UN resolutions as a precondition for direct talks with Ahmadinejad: "Preconditions, as it applies to a country like Iran, for example, was a term of art. Because this administration has been very clear that it will not have direct negotiations with Iran until Iran has met preconditions that are essentially what Iran views, and many other observers would view, as the subject of the negotiations; for example, their nuclear program." "Talking without preconditions" would require America to ignore three unanimous Security Council resolutions. Before starting his unconditional talks, would Obama present a new resolution at the Security Council to cancel the three that Ahmadinejad doesn't like? Or would the new US president act in defiance of the United Nations - further weakening the Security Council's authority? President Bush didn't set the preconditions that Obama promises to ignore. They were agreed upon after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran was in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Acting in accordance with its charter, the IAEA referred the issue to the Security Council. Dismissing the preconditions as irrelevant would mean snubbing America's European allies plus Russia and China, all of whom participated in drafting and approving the resolutions that Ahmadinejad doesn't like. Such a move would make a mockery of multilateral diplomacy - indeed, would ignore such diplomacy in exactly the way that critics claim the Bush administration has. Obama clearly hasn't asked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy what they think of the United States' suddenly changing course and granting Ahmadinejad's key demand in advance. Maybe Obama hasn't been properly briefed about the "preconditions" he gets so worked up about. He cites Iran's "nuclear program" as a precondition. Wrong: No one has asked, or could ask, Iran to stop its nuclear program - period. On the contrary, Iran's participation in in the Non-Proliferation Treaty gives it the right to seek help from other signatories, including the US, to access the latest technology in developing its nuclear industry - for peaceful purposes. The Security Council isn't asking the Islamic Republic to do something dishonorable, humiliating or illegal. All it's asking Ahmadinejad to do is to stop cheating - something the Islamic Republic itself has admitted it has done for 18 years. The Security Council has invited Iran to "suspend" - not even to scrap - a uranium-enrichment program clearly destined for making bombs, in violation of the NPT. Iran has not a single nuclear-power station and thus doesn't need enriched uranium - except for making bombs. Its sole nuclear plant is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2009. But that can't use the type of uranium that Iran is enriching; the station requires fuel of a different "formula," supplied by Russia, which is building the project, for the next 10 years. (And the Russians have offered to provide fuel for the plant's entire lifetime of 37 years.) Another precondition asks Tehran to explain why it is building a heavy-water plant at Arak - when it has absolutely no plans for plutonium-based nuclear-power stations. The Arak plant's only imaginable use is to produce material for nuclear warheads. Finally, the IAEA and the Security Council are asking Tehran to allow international inspectors access to all sites related to the nuclear project - access that Iran is obliged to provide under the NPT. In short, the minimum show of goodwill on Ahmadinejad's part would be to comply with the UN resolutions before he goes to the White House for talks with President Obama on other issues. Obama's words on "preconditions" have helped ease domestic pressure on Ahmadinejad to comply with the United Nations and the IAEA. The Iranian president is telling his domestic critics to shut up until after the US election. Why, after all, should he make concessions that a putative President Obama has already dismissed as unnecessary? nypost.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (77673)	5/21/2008 10:29:45 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

How Hillary's latest math hurts the party... _______________________________________________________________ By Jonathan Alter Newsweek Web Exclusive Updated: 3:31 PM ET May 21, 2008 URL: newsweek.com Give credit where it's due: Hillary Clinton has shown grit and determination in finishing out the race. She has proved herself a strong campaigner. And in the week since West Virginia, she has stopped the cheap shots that had marred her campaign this year. But Clinton has continued with one claim that could have a pernicious effect on the Democrats' chances in November. While she knows that the nomination is determined by delegates, Hillary insists on saying at every opportunity that she is winning the popular vote. And she has now taken to touting the new HBO movie "Recount," which chronicles the Florida fiasco of eight years ago. Everyone can agree that the primary calendar needs reform. But popular-vote pandering is poison for Democrats. For a party scarred by the experience of 2000, when Al Gore received 500,000 more popular votes than George W. Bush but lost the presidency, this argument is sure to make it harder to unite and put bitter feelings aside. Oh, and it's not true. Let me go through the numbers without making your head spin. After Kentucky and Oregon, Obama has an official popular vote lead of 449,486. This does not include Iowa (where Obama first broke from the pack), Nevada (where Hillary won the popular vote narrowly), Maine (where Obama won easily) or Washington state (another strong Obama state). Why? Because these caucus states don't officially report their popular votes. But if we're going to truly count all the votes, official and nonofficial, as Hillary advocates, you can't very well not include caucus states. Adding in the unofficial tally from caucus states, as estimated by realclearpolitics.com based on official caucus turnout and the number of local delegates selected at the precinct level, that gives Obama a lead of 559,708. Now we come to Florida and Michigan, whose popular votes Hillary says should be counted. The argument for counting them is no better than for counting the caucus states (and maybe worse, considering that these states violated party rules by moving their primaries up on the calendar, and no one campaigned there). But for the sake of argument let's count 'em. That gives Hillary a lead of 63,373. HILLARY WINS POPULAR VOTE! Not so fast. If the Democratic National Committee completes its expected settlement on May 31, Florida and Michigan will each get half of their votes counted. Translated to popular votes, that would subtract about 325,000 votes from Hillary, putting Obama back into the lead. Beyond not being official numbers, there's another problem with counting Michigan in these totals. Obama wasn't on the ballot there. You can say this was his own choice, but that doesn't change the fact that had he been on the Michigan ballot he would have received a lot of popular votes. How many? Try 238,168. That's the number of Michiganders who voted for "uncommitted." Were they possibly genuinely abstaining? Maybe a few hundred of them at most. The rest were clearly Obama supporters who launched a grass-roots campaign. Everyone in Michigan knew on January 15 that a vote for "uncommitted" was a vote for Obama. That means that by a generous definition of popular votes (and remember, Clinton wants to enfranchise as many people as possible in her count), Obama leads by about 166,000 votes. With a big win in Puerto Rico, Clinton could possibly erase that margin (plus several thousand more that Obama is expected to net in Montana and South Dakota). She could then proclaim that with the help of Puerto Rican voters who cannot vote in a general election, she is the popular vote winner. The shorthand many Clinton supporters are already taking into the summer is that she won the popular vote but had the nomination "taken away" (as Joy Behar said on "The View") by a man. What a helpful message for uniting the Democratic Party. If the Obama people have any sense, they will demand in their negotiations with the Clintonites that Hillary cease and desist in her specious claim to have won the most popular votes. Given that more than 35 million voters took part in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, the math games on both sides look awfully silly. Everyone should agree to call it a tie.

To: American Spirit who wrote (77673)	5/22/2008 7:54:44 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Here's a trailer for "Recount" -- the new HBO movie coming out this weekend... themovieblog.com Recount is a film to relive the turbulent moments in the closest election in US history being decided by one state’s demanded recount. The cast looks awesome. Directed by Jay Roach (Meet The Parents, Austin Powers), and starring Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, former Vice President Al Gore’s Chief of Staff, John Hurt as Warren Christopher, who supervised the contested Florida recount, Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, former Secretary of State for the State of Florida, Tom Wilkinson as James Baker and Denis Leary as Michael Whouley.