Charlie Rose

JerryKemp_Founder  01/14/2009 02:15 PM Report

From: www.tvnblog.org

The New Year

This New Year has busted in like the Grinch with a shotgun on Santa eager to steal the last bit of joy from our hopes and dreams. So, now we must awake to an empty stocking and a barren Charlie Brown tree devoid of even the smallest gift.

And, guess what? It's our own fault, because for years we consumed all of the assets that could have grown and purchased a nice Douglas fir, filled our stockings, bought the presents in our dreams, and installed a sweet security system to catch the Grinch before entry.

Now for the bad news...

This New Year our government will spend trillions upon trillions of freshly printed devalued dollars to buy bad mortgage instruments and restructure home loans attempting to liquefy our frozen national credit system and regain the confidence of the international financial community, to redesign our manufacturing base, to repair a crumbling infrastructure, to socialize healthcare, employee benefits, and the ownership of industries critical to the national interest, to create a green economy, and to bribe our citizens into serving more time in the military to die on foreign soil.

In the coming years, our great-grandchildren may pay for our folly with rampant inflation and a third-world standard of living burdened by the debt foreign investors and foreign governments will forgive in exchange for what's left of our national pride and meager assets.

So, America, gather your family around you, roll up your sleeves, get to work, forget vacations, cut out the excesses, save every penny, invest every dime.

As we prepare to inaugurate the "Yes We Can" President, perhaps we should realize that "Yes, We'd Better!"

ShalomFreedman  01/14/2009 07:57 AM Report

Charlie Rose should have put this conversation together with the conversation on the Bush legacy. For as I understand it the greatest Bush failure is not simply the 'strategic distraction' which Sanger says occurred because of the preoccupation with Iraq, but the allowing Iran to develop a nuclear capability. President Bush promised repeatedly that he would not allow this. And he did. Iran now according to Sanger has five to six- thousand centrifuges spinning enough to make two nuclear weapons a year. Iran is the most fanatic of the Terror states and has used surrogates in the numerous terrorist attacks. Sanger suggests that President Obama should use bigger sticks and bigger carrots in negotiating with Iran. He points out that Iran is in a weaker situation now because oil has gone from $147 a barrel to around 45. He also believes that the covert program President Bush told the Israelis about is another 'stick' With all due respect to David Sanger and appreciation to the knowledge and insight he provides in his writing his attitude is naive. Iran is not giving up on nuclear weapons. It is a national priority. It can lie about what it is doing, as it has all along. But it is going to have a nuclear capability, and it will be stopped only by military means. It may well be that the U.S. will resign itself to this reality, but it is doubtful that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or any of Iran's neigbhors will.

Sanger also speaks here about the Afghanistan- Pakistan situation and the dangers involved should Pakistan dissolve and its nuclear weapons fall into the wrong hands. This first part of a two part interview was tremendously interesting and informative.

Unfortunately the news is almost all bad.

tartufe  01/13/2009 09:30 PM Report

Well said hrc. Sanger, not sanguine, but sincere re Iran's inevitability as a nuclear state. If only Hillary and Obama catch up with him. But doubtful. Pandora's box was permanently opened with Los Alamos, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Since, proliferation has started apace - alas, right into (a self-fulfilling) Armageddon. A short list:

United States 4,075 / 5,535[12] 1945 ("Trinity")

Russia (former Soviet Union) 5,200 / 8,800[13] 1949 ("RDS-1")

United Kingdom >200[14] 1952 ("Hurricane")

France <350[15] 1960 ("Gerboise Bleue")

China 160-400[16][17] 1964 ("596")

Non-NPT nuclear powers

India 100-140 [18] 1974 ("Smiling Buddha")

Pakistan ~60[19] 1998 ("Chagai-I")

North Korea 0-10[20] 2006 ("Kim-Il Sung's Return")[21]

Undeclared nuclear weapons states

Israel 100-200[22][23][24][25] unknown or 1979 (See Vela Incident)

Vela was a satelite that detected a bomb blast.

hrc  01/13/2009 07:02 PM Report

The gist of which is what?, will have to tune into part II. Part one was quite good, showing the depth of Time's reporting skills. David Sanger' new book should prove quite telling. Iran continues to remain undefined, except for it's nuclear ambitions. Quite frankly there are any number of measures Iran can take other than tinker with enrichment. The focus should be on our cuckold bitch Israel, that is the problem. If we don't take remedial action, who will? That's the position of the current administration, the stalemate game. OPEC could turn off the taps until peace is restored, they could simply raise the price, but that's not addressing the real problem and will only create more tension. OPEC certainly has enough money to build a military force if they were so inclined. It comes down to what sort of world you want to live in and when. Perhaps the best thing in the long run to check power with power if that's the only thing people can understand. I see the eye of Palestine and it's quivering heart. Just exactly what good is to become of this skirmish and our support of it is beyond me. What a world this administration has left behind, good riddance.