ou have written an occasional article critical of Obama from the left side true, I freely admit it, but its about a 20 to 1 versus gotcha pieces on Conservatives. I don't mind this, its who you are and what you feel, but when you go after a Conservative on an issue where you also so obviously oppose the administration policy and focus on the pundit and not the policy maker it really exposes you.

If you wish to look at it that way — you could use this argument to attack any criticism of any politician, media pundit, or public figure. Thiessen said what he said, and wrote what he wrote, and my analysis of it in the context I supplied is legitimate and reasonable. If you don't want right-wing public figures to be called out for hypocrisy and self-serving partisanship, you should be criticizing them for being hypocrites and self-serving partisans.

You are not interested in applying your perspective of the issue in a critical way to the Obama administration.

First of all, you know very well that I write critically of the Obama administration when I feel it's warranted and relevant. Second, your statement above is a red herring in this discussion, given that I already have made crystal clear — several times — that I oppose predator drone strikes in Afghanistan. I opposed them when Bush did them, and I oppose them now that Obama is continuing them. So there is no validity or relevance to this claim you make. You make it solely for the purpose of diverting attention from my legitimate criticisms of Marc Thiessen's blind partisanship. And that, of course, is the very thing you accuse me of doing. Better revisit that pot and kettle metaphor.

I am not interested in debating the policy in the context of this discussion.

Yes we know.

What you are interested in is trying to score a gocha point against a Conservative. You are not interested in applying your perspective of the issue in a critical way to the Obama administration. This is exactly the type of thing you attack Marc Thiessen on. Your pot his kettle, and very obvious.

New York Times (about one hour ago)

The Taliban's top military commander was captured several
days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by
Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to
American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan
described by American officials as the most significant
Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in
Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks
second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the
Taliban's founder, and was a close associate of Osama bin
Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several
days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both
taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

As to your second paragraph, I have no plans to write a post “about the error of Obama's drone strikes,” or about the identical error of Bush's drone strikes and non-drone strikes, for the reason that I already have given you in my previous comment: I am not interested in debating the policy in the context of this discussion, because it is irrelevant to the context of this discussion. My position on drone strikes, in this administration or the previous one, and Marc Thiessen's criticism of Barack Obama for something the right has always supported are unrelated. They have nothing to do with each other. If I told you every single reason why I oppose predator drone strikes, it would change nothing about Marc Thiessen's craven, transparent hypocrisy in saying we shouldn't be killing so many terrorists when he never objected to killing terrorists until Obama was president.

I hope that works for you.

As for Obama being a credible person, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Like I said to me he is Obamabush, about as credible as Dubya, with just as much snakeoil.

That last part of the final sentence does not mean I think Obama deserves credit for killing “terrorists” with drone strikes. It means that normally Republicans do think that credit automatically and instantly adheres to any president who kills “terrorists,” and here Marc Thiessen is going against his own ideological article of faith because he can't bear to agree with Obama about anything.

As long as you consistent I have no problem, you just might want to be more clear in the future as an inadvertant implication was that you thought Obama deserved credit for the drone strikes. I have no problem with your explanation, but I think you should have made that more clear in the original post as it came off as you possibly being an apologist for the Obama policy, which I now see that you clearly oppose, as does Marc Thiessen, but for different reasons.

So can we be graced by a Kattenburg post on the error of Obama's predator strikes or are you more concerned with a pundit not giving Obama credit for something according to your perception of right -wing ideals, than with the man who is President launching predator drone strikes against targets? Which is more important to you that it needs to be emphasized with postings?

I don't think anyone here, liberal or conservative, would deny that Obama is continuing many of Bush's worst policies, and this is one of them. That is to his discredit. I can't say it's to Marc Thiessen's discredit, because that would imply that overall he is a creditable person. Overall, Obama IS a creditable person; overall, Marc Thiessen is not. In fact, I have yet to see him take any position that IS creditable.

If one is a black-and-white thinker, living in an inner world where there are only two answers — yes and no, good and bad, etc. — to everything that happens, then yes, criticizing Marc Thiessen for writing that Obama is killing too many “terrorists” in drone strikes would have to mean that I believe Obama is NOT killing too many “terrorists” in drone strikes. However, I do not live in that inner world. I live in what, I humbly submit, is the real world. And in the real world, criticizing Marc Thiessen for criticizing Obama's drone strikes can have a third meaning (actually more than that, but three does come after two); namely, that I don't support drone strikes, for reasons that have nothing to do with thinking that Obama is killing too many “terrorists,” but at the same time I reject and laugh at Marc Thiessen's statement that Obama's drone strikes are killing too many “terrorists,” because it's so obvious that he is deliberately going against a sacred article of Republican faith (that the only good “terrorist” is a bad “terrorist,” and that if you are killed by a drone strike, you must be a “terrorist”) simply because he does not want to give Obama credit for anything.

That last part of the final sentence does not mean I think Obama deserves credit for killing “terrorists” with drone strikes. It means that normally Republicans do think that credit automatically and instantly adheres to any president who kills “terrorists,” and here Marc Thiessen is going against his own ideological article of faith because he can't bear to agree with Obama about anything.

You should be able to understand my meaning, even if you cannot fathom thinking in such an unclear, imprecise, gray-ish way.

Obama: troops just airraiding villages and killing civilians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrW4fOGIMVY&feat…

Seems like Obama is agreeing with Marc Thiessen, at least he was in 2007.

Anyhow, as long as your willing to condemn the use of predator strikes by the Obama administration and by the Bush administration you wont be guilty of the type of thing you accuse Marc Thiessen of.

And for that, killing people — especially killing senior al Qaeda leaders — is potentially counterproductive in that we can’t know or learn of future attacks. You can’t kill them all, and you don’t want to kill them all from an intelligence standpoint. We needed to know what they knew.”

I am sure Thiessen is infinitely more knowledgeable about warfare and intelligence gathering and analysis than I am, but he sure confuses me with this statement.

Killing senior AQ leaders “counterproductive”? I guess most military strategies and tactics of the past, that aimed to eliminate the military leaders, have been counterproductive (How many assassination attempts did the allies have against Hitler, his top generals, and other leaders)?

The second part: I just can't figure out why, if you kill all the AQ leaders, you'd need to know “what they knew,” except for historical purposes.

But then again, I am no an expert, and I am sure Mr. Thiessen was trying very hard to provide some constructive criticism to the Obama administration and to his generals conducting the war.

Feel free to put that in your next book.. But, as Biden might say “she is entitled to her opinion but not her own set of facts. Many rational people think any interrogation will yield actionable intelligence. The crotch bomber was singing like a canary and would have continued until they asked him if he preferred McDonalds or Burger King. Oh, and his family probably helped this schnook realize that he is just a pawn for AQ.
More hardened people do not squeal and need other forms of interrogation, including plain old talking and enough pressure (no waterboarding, I agree) so that they can feel they have resisted enough to allow them to spill the beans.

That is precisely the problem, though, DaMav. Empirically, there is absolutely not a shred of evidence that torturing suspected terrorists (although to the people who support the torture, they are terrorists, and that's significant, because you can mentally justify doing things to a terrorist that you couldn't if you thought there was a chance they were not terrorists) has prevented or reduced any attacks, major or minor, on the United States. (I regard the U.S. as my country, not “the homeland,” since the latter has unfortunate fascist-like implications that I would rather not be associated with).

What torturing prisoners HAS done is provide a great recruiting tool for real, actual terrorists and their organizations. There is tangible evidence, both direct and indirect, to support that.

By contrast, traditional interrogation methods are the only ones that have produced any actionable intelligence. The example of the interrogation of Abdulmutallab by the FBI is only the latest example. They've gotten tons of really important information from him. Why would anyone want to put him in military custody now and start torturing him when far more reliable methods of interrogation have already worked and are still working?

As Clinton would have said, sorry for the misunderstanding.

I find it disturbing that we seem to be backtracking on some of the policies that have empirically reduced major attacks on the homeland without offering a credible substitute. If Americans don't stand up and voice such concerns you can bet our political class will opt for the easy way out and call out popular tunes for the band instead of watching for icebergs. I don't believe that the nation is going 'down in flames'; if I didn't believe errors could be corrected I wouldn't point them out. And I'd be less of a pita at tmv

I applaud the killing of terrorists, as does Thiessen. His concern, and it is a legitimate one, is that we also need to look at gaining actionable intelligence information from them as well. It's not clear that this Administration is sufficiently sensitive to that approach, and I see nothing wrong with him pointing it out.

Hey, if you think he's 'doing a pretty good job' on terrorism, more power to you. Most people here will agree with you. Renaming a terror attack a “man made disaster” — brilliant! Wanting to bring terrorists into the United States — Awesome! Dismantling the interrogation unit for a year without replacing it — Hey hey hey! Who but an 'Obama Hater' would think the system isn't working, right?