Steve Benen:

I checked the byline a couple of times this morning, to make sure the column that was ostensibly written by David Broder wasn't, in fact, written by Charles Krauthammer. Regrettably, the so-called Dean of the D.C. Media Establishment actually wrote this.

The more President Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose -- and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right.

"Whether or not it is right." The Commander in Chief, in other words, should put expediency over merit. Speed is preferable to accuracy. It's only the longest military conflict in American history, with the future of U.S. foreign policy on the line -- the president should worry less about due diligence and thoughtful analysis, and worry more about picking a course, even if it's wrong. Other than the loss of American servicemen and women, untold billions of dollars, and undermining U.S. interests in a critical region, what's the worst that can happen?

This says so much to me. The "dean" of Beltway journalism and conventional thinking perfectly encapsulates the Republican zeitgeist:

1. Criticize anything that Obama does. If he acts decisively, complain that he's reckless. If he acts thoughtfully, complain that he's "dithering". If he points out that he's inherited a big fat clusterf&ck, complain that he's pointing fingers. If he tries to move forward in even a slightly progressive way, complain that he's not bipartisan enough and that he should listen to Republicans. In short, make sure that no matter what, Obama is wrong.
2. There are no consequences to telling Obama he's wrong. So what if 45,000 people die because they don't have healthcare? So what if sending more troops is basically sending them to their deaths? So what if there is no stable government in Afghanistan? So what if we're spending millions of dollars every month and deficit spending is the cause du jour for those suddenly fiscally responsible Republicans?

If Obama acts quickly, and it's the wrong choice, will the decision to act fall back on Broder and the Republicans for the pressure they've placed on Obama? 'Course not. But you can bet your sweet bippy they'll only be too glad to pounce on him if there are more American deaths.

Tell you what, Broder, if you're so eager to see some action in Afghanistan, let's see you do one of your patented "folksy" reports from a coffee shop in Kandahar or Kabul. Otherwise, STFU and let the people in charge actually make a reasoned and thoughtful decision, since it affects so much in American blood and treasure.

We've had eight years of quick rather than right decisions. It's time for the grownups to be in charge now.

Thomas Frank is, admittedly, the token liberal op-ed writer at The Wall Street Journal. And it's hard to say whether Murdoch's minions let this one slip through on purpose to lend credibility to the newspaper, or by accident:

To point out that this network [FOX News] is different, that it is intensely politicized, that it inhabits an alternate reality defined by an imaginary conflict between noble heartland patriots and devious liberals—to be aware of these things is not the act of a scheming dictatorial personality. It is the obvious conclusion drawn by anybody with eyes and ears.

The comment section had me splitting a gut laughing, especially this one:

Dr. Charles Krauthammer is a conservative respected on both the right and the left.

Far be it for me to speak for the right. But is there anyone on the Left who has "respect" for Charles Krauthammer? (Tweety doesn't count.)

Andy Cobb and Josh Funk have a bit of fun with the Washington Post and their America's Next Great Pundit contest.

Whiskey Fire: The WaPo is running a contest to find America's next great pundit! Like Charles Krauthammer? More here and here (h/t Batocchio)

The New Republic: The never-ending lunacy of Betsy McCaughey

Oliver Willis: Wild West gun policy doesn't work

They gave us a republic: Nightowl Newswrap

The Rude Pundit: Photos and quotes that only confirm that atheism equals sanity

alicublog: Film threat

Syndicate columnist Charles Krauthammer appeared on Fox News Sunday with sharp criticism of President Barack Obama speech to the UN General Assembly. "I think he indulged himself in his speech at the General Assembly, which started out as sort of adolescent utopianism and went downhill. He started out saying things like no nation can dominate another. He said no group of nations ought to be above others," said Krauthammer.

"What do our allies think when they hear that and when they hear -- as we saw in the clip -- Obama denigrating his own country and presenting himself as the man who will redeem America from its wickedness and he said those of you who doubt that the character of America should look at what we -- meaning I -- have done in the last eight months, including joining the human rights council act at the U.N. which is a body which we should take no pride in being on. I thought it was a sorry performance. It did not advance our interest in the least," concluded Krauthammer.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin is stepping down as Governor of Alaska. Details here.

Quick! Someone alert the Red State Army Strike Force! Republican backstabber on Aisle 26 of Fox News!

We mentioned the other day that, if nothing else, the recent Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin made clear that the Beltway Villagers' view of Sarah Palin is "road kill in the rear-view mirror".

Charles Krauthammer on Fox the other day drove that point home by completely dismissing her as a potential candidate:

Krauthammer: Now, as to Palin, I agree entirely with what Mara [Liasson] said -- she is, she has star power without any doubt, she has an extremely devoted following, but she is not a serious candidate for the presidency.

She had to go home and study and spend a lot of the time on issues with which she was not adept last year. And she hasn't.

She has to stop speaking in cliches and platitudes. It won't work. It could work for eight weeks if you're the No. 2 candidate, as she was last year. But even so, she got singed a lot in that campaign. You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you’re running for the presidency.

Interestingly, even Allahpundit at HotAir was inclined to agree.

Surely the RedState Strike Force, as the action wing of "Operation Leper", will be descending upon these hapless backstabbers in short order.

Hey, whatever happened to "Operation Leper" anyway?

Countdown's Worst Persons for June 22, 2009 with winner Cynthia Davis. Runners up Lancaster, PA and Charles Krauthammer and Bill Bennett.

{H/t Dave]

Well, at least Charles Krauthammer didn't call Sonia Sotmayor a racist on Fox News Sunday. He just argued that she's basically a Latina supremacist:

KRAUTHAMMER: It’s a big deal because it tells you it was not a slip. It is who she is and who she thinks she is.

And the reason it’s disturbing is because Obama -- the premise of Obama’s candidacy was always that he was the post-racial American. And here he is appointing as his first truly important appointment a person who can only be called pre-racial.

He gave a speech in which he emerged on the world stage and said, “We’re not black America, white America, we’re not Hispanic America, Asian America. We are the United States of America.” And she says as a wise Latina, she has physiological, cultural endowments which make her superior to a white judge.

The real issue here is she’s going to end up on the court, but we can’t have a national debate about this issue. The civil rights movement abolished the idea of a superior race or class or ethnicity in America.

Are we going to have a person like her who believes that some ethnicities are endowed with a superior endowment and superior judgment and superior entitlements as a result of race?

Juan Williams attempted to knock this down by explaining what she was in fact trying to say with these remarks. But even he failed to explain a very simple, fundamental fact about the comment: She made it strictly within the context of a discussion on race- and sex-discrimination cases.

As we noted awhile back:

In that context, what Sotomayor was saying was neither controversial nor even particularly noteworthy -- it is in fact a matter of simple common sense. Of course someone who has lived through the realities of race and sex discrimination will be better attuned to the consequences and realities of the laws that judges will rule upon than someone who has been shielded from those realities.

Eric Boehlert examined the problem in even greater detail recently at Media Matters, and pointed out that there's been a massive failure across the board within the media to explain this simple fact:

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I know most of America understands this, but let me say it anyway. President Obama's speech to the middle east was not meant for the neocon, warmongering fringe psychos like Charles Krauthammer. He was apoplectic on Brett Baier's show today on FOX because Obama's team didn't craft a speech that the AEI would approve of. It was meant to reach out to the Muslim population and try to repair some of the damage caused by war hungry neocon fanatics that got their wish under George Bush with disastrous consequences.

Kauthammer: The damage in policy was rather small. The damage to our position philosophically was large. On policy the speech was small because the speech was so abstract and vapid in self absorbed that it didn't touch on a lot of policy except on Iran. Here he was exceedingly weak, that was the weakest statement on Iran on Nukes in at least eight or nine years from anyone in the west....there was once again apologies over and over again. Apologies in moral equivalence....

Moral equivalency was his theme and he gets crazier as he goes on...What he obviously means is that George Bush and Cheney are no longer in power to incite violence around the world...

President Obama's message has a much greater chance to start influencing some hearts and minds in the middle east where we need to do exactly that. I hope they realize that we all don't want to invade their countries and turn them into Christians. On that major point he succeeded. To all the neocon pundits that unfortunately dominate our airwaves I think I speak for many liberals when I say: Go Cheney yourself.

I want to give some props to Ed Morrissey (who I disagree with on most issues, but met and like personally) for not taking the usual conservative line as he called the speech: Quite Good. The readers on Hot Air were not too please with Ed on this one. I doubt you can read many of their comments because you'll constantly read teabagger nonsense about Obama like this: 'The first Muslim president,' and so forth...
And Malkin's comment section is much different then ours because we don't pre-screen and then approve people like they do.

David Gregory channels him some Charles Krauthammer on Meet the Press to frame his question for his panel on how the President's attempts at international diplomacy are going. Of course David Gregory wouldn't say any of these things himself. Why should he when he can just quote a Fox News talking head instead? And Byron York doesn't think that President Obama should be acknowledging that the United States has been arrogant. Where would anyone have ever gotten that idea? I can't imagine. It seems a little honesty is just too much for Byron to handle.

GREGORY: The question is whether the new approach is really working, and conservative critics of the president said this was a feel-good tour of Europe. He went out there and said things Europeans want to hear, including being critical not only of his predecessor, President Bush, and his policies, but arrogance, derisiveness, dismissiveness on the part of the United States. Charles Krauthammer wrote this on Friday: "Our president came [to the G-20] bearing a basketful of mea culpas," he writes. "Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness, for derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world. And what did he get for this obsessive denigration of his own country? He wanted more NATO combat troops in Afghanistan to match the surge of 17,000 Americans. He was rudely rebuffed. He wanted more stimulus spending from Europe. He got nothing. From Russia, he got no help on Iran. From China, he got the blocking of any action on North Korea. And what did he get for Guantanamo? France, population 64 million, will take one prisoner." Byron.

YORK: You know, the, the apology part of the tour really grated on Republican ears really for a couple of reasons. One, it was one way. When the president said the United States has been arrogant, it's been dismissive and derisive, and then he followed that immediately and said that there had been a casual and insidiousness anti-Americanism in Europe. Well, there weren't any European leaders who said, "You know, that's right, we have been anti-American, and insidiously anti-American, and by golly we're going to change." So there was, there was that fact that it wasn't, that it was one way. And the second fact was it was unnecessary. He could've said--he's obviously sending the message that the United States has new leadership, and he could've said, "We look forward to a new foreign policy of engagement with you. We want to listen to you. We want a spirit of cooperation." Everybody would have gotten the message without him buying into the "United States is arrogant" routine.

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Tuesday was a very interesting day indeed. It was the day Barack Obama had dinner with some of his harshest critics.

The president-elect tonight is having dinner with some ideological adversaries: four of the most widely-read conservative columnists.

The right-wing punditocracy met at the house of uber-winger George Will. The men who tried to defeat him in the recent election. The men who tried to paint him as any number of things other than what he really is. One of those men was FOX's own Charles Krauthammer. On his mother station, Charles wouldn't reveal much about the affair other than to say:

Charles: What's interesting is the fact that he would want to do this. And you see that since his election he's kind of reached out to people who may not be his ideological allies. To Rick Warren, the pastor who will be at his inaugural. To John McCain, who he's treated with a lot of dignity and respect and to a bunch of right wing columnists last night. In part because I think he is a guy who's intellectually curious and he wants to exchange ideas. Also in part because he wants to co-opt the vast right wing conspiracy and I'm here to tell that speaking for myself---he succeeded. I'm brainwashed entirely. I'm in the tank and I'm a believer now in hope and change and above all audacity.

.

Ahhh, meeting with these men who often were exposed as cads and charlatans and whose ideas were almost always wrong, ideas that helped bring ruin to our great nation the last eight years. The political ideologues who so deeply resent him were validated as real men of thought by his actions; that which so stings the progressive movement after what we did for him day after day and month after month.

He has kept his campaign promise to the people by reaching out to the other side so far, but I don't think anyone expected him to break bread with these ultra-conservative windbags before he's even been sworn in.

And as exemplifies their perspective, he's being mocked by the very people he reached out to less than twenty four hours later. Could it have been any other way?

UPDATE: Think Progress:

Kristol Boasts: Liberals Got ‘Some Coffee In Styrofoam Cups, We Had A Pleasant Dinner At George’s House’»

I didn't get a chance to post this video from FOX's post debate wrap up, but I still think it's interesting. Krauthammer agreed with all of us and pretty much said that McCain looked like the old man who didn't get his morning newspaper during the last debate Wednesday night. He gave the decision of the third and final debate to Obama because he thought McCain had a weird way of delivering a blow and never following up with it while Obama was just too cool. And he made this candid observation about McCain's split screen performance. Even Brit Hume thought McCain looked "peculiar."

Hume: And as looking at the screen we were kind of struck here by the contrasts and the facial expressions of the two cont4estants as you will when they were not talking. Obama at times seemed to smile and amused while he was listening to some of Sen. McCain's charges. Sen. McCain in the meantime listened to what Sen Obama said he had a somewhat peculiar expression on his face, at least it struck me that way. He looked, I don't know, what did you think?

Krauthammer: I thought he looked stern, he once raised his eyebrows and lowered them rapidly which looked extremely odd (Hume laughs) and Obama as usual was remarkably unruffled. You could have had a grenade go off in the back of the room and Obama would have smoothly spoken right through it and that's his gift. He's a man of remarkable self containment and even on Palin, he was given an opening, did you see his discipline on Palin? He didn't say a single word attacking her knowing it could only alienate a lot of people and wouldn't have advanced his cause.

I'm continuing to sift through the post debate analysis from Friday night so we can get a glimpse at what some conservatives had to say about the Ole Miss Friday night not-pay per view -event. First Dick Morris thought Obama won and now Charles very clearly gave the advantage to Obama. It's interesting when a political opponent gives a non partisan explanation now and again.

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 Krauthammer: I thought he hammered a little bit , he kept repeating, 'my opponent isn't experienced, he doesn't have the judgment, he's not ready,' but he's gotta make the case. And except for the last moment, I think McCain had a poetic moment when he very quietly and softly ended by saying I know how to heal a nation after a war, I know who to deal with adversaries and with... I thought he was hammering a lot. Now, there styles are different. McCain is a guy who hits, he hammers, he jabs. Obama is smooth, he's very elegant and he was nimble and here's a subject in which you'd think he be alien, but he was never flustered, he was never at a loss. I think he was on the defensive on a couple of issues like Iran, but that's because of statements he made earlier in the campaign. I thought he came out only slightly behind on foreign affairs, thus overall in the absence of a sound byte, in the absence of an embarrassing moment on his part, I think he comes out of this neutral and thus ahead because we're now going to have debates on the economy which are going to be his strong areas and McCain will be on the defensive....It does end the drama of the McCain week.

Yes, no sound bytes to pounce on. CK uses some weird language to make his point, but what he said is round one goes to Obama and that was a very important round indeed.  I was against foreign policy being the lead topic of the three debates because it had the ability to side track the favorable polling news that has changed since the economic meltdown began for Obama, but it turned out pretty good so far...Lindsey Graham certainly was grumpy about it.

Download | play    Download | play   (h/t Heather)

The very exercise of FOX News Channel covering the Democratic National Convention in and of itself is laughable.  Like there is any way that they would actually employ any kind of intellectual honesty or ethics and analyze the coverage.  Pfffft. Everyone knows that they're bringing on their conservative and/or neocon roster of talking heads and find ways to tear about the Democrats, both individually and collectively.  And this little exchange between Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer is endemic of the whole of FOX's coverage. 

First of all, I'm not sure if Krauthammer is on sedatives or merely aspiring to be the television version of a sedative, but it was painfully hard to stay awake through the transcribing process.  I'm convinced that Krauthammer had a hard time keeping awake too, because his sentences didn't completely make sense.  When asked for his impressions of Wednesday's speeches, Krauthammer (who, like his National Review buddy Bill Kristol, has a long history of being completely and utterly wrong in his assertions), he couldn't obviously break the FOX code, but his criticisms were so vague and so oddly similar to those things that he praised in Bush in 2000 that it's almost comical to hear him struggle to find ways to slam Biden.

Biden is apparently too blue collar for Krauthammer (as opposed to the 'guy you wanted to have a beer with' Bush, whose appeal to the common man is undeniable).   And he didn't talk about Obama enough--though why he'd be expected to in his acceptance of the nomination speech is never really explained.  And the attacks on McCain will fail (with whom? Democratic delegates? Who's gonna buy that?) because everyone  knows that McCain is a maverick and obviously not Bush's twin. 

But this is the depths that Krauthammer and FOX had to sink to find something to criticize the day with:  They had to pull the Kim Jong Il card.  Why?  Because delegates were waving signs at the convention!  My God, those commies!

The other element of the attack is the other theme, which is McCain as the Bush heir and that's why you heard the refrain from uh the Biden saying not change, more of the same and you had the effect, that I find rather creepy, the audience holding up signs with slogans like you do in Pyongyang, which read "Not Change, More of the Same." 

So lame.  I'll bet next you're going to accuse them of being terrorist sympathizers next because their cheers sound suspiciously close to Muslim ulullating, you pathetic neocon hack.  And given your track record of being right, Krauthammer, I'm going to take your predictions of doom and gloom as assurance that the Democrats are doing something right.

Full snore inducing transcripts below the fold:

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