#Trump voters' enthusiasm has consistently swamped #Hillary's at Liberal #SoFL stronghold of #HollywoodFL during #EarlyVoting 2016

#Trump voters' enthusiasm consistently swamping #Hillary's at Liberal #SoFL stronghold of #HollywoodFL during #EarlyVoting 2016. #SoFL election snapshot

Whether they wanted to or not, the public met a gantlet of candidates and their supporters while waiting in line in Hollywood, FL. 
Above, a small part of the larger scene late Wednesday afternoon.

Since Early Voting started in Broward County two weekends ago, with the usual fanfare and the obligatory local Miami TV newscast LIVE stand-up shots of reporters talking over panning shots of candidates talking to and glad-handing lines of voters, I've been at the Broward County Early Voting site in Hollywood at the Hollywood Library -next to Hollywood City Hall- for several HOURS a day, for all but three days of the past 13.

I've talked to several hundred voters, dozens of candidates for local, county and state office -as well as their spouses, family members- and several former elected officials who were there to vote early themselves or to show support for friends who were running.
People whose names most of you recognize
Here's a quick election snapshot of two weeks of distilled observations an conversations at a site that's located in one of the most Liberal areas of a very liberal county in battleground Florida.

Some self-evident facts can be ascertained by anyone walking around with their eyes wide open, but some of this is what's below-the-radar, and seen thru the prism of someone who knows lots of the parties involved, as well as their reputation for being straight-shooters, not BS artists, of which South Florida is currently over-supplied with, thank you very much..

----

Fri. was another day where 1 of most Liberal U.S. cities didn't see 1 #Hillary sign all day @ its biggest #EarlyVoting site: #HollywoodFL. pic.twitter.com/t4XGLEeOSO

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 5, 2016

Point being missed by many of U: #Trump supporters CONSISTENTLY outnumbering #Hillary's @ Liberal #HollywoodFL voting site. #Broward #SoFL

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 5, 2016

Fact: Liberal Dem pols/ex-pols tell me they R "dismayed" @ reality that #Trump voter enthusiasm GREATER > #Hillary's in Lib #SoFL stronghold

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 5, 2016

Friday was just the latest day of the past two weeks where in one of most Liberal cities in the battleground state of Florida, people didn't see a single #Hillary sign all day at its biggest #EarlyVoting site: #HollywoodFL.

The point currently being missed by many of my friends and members of the South Florida media, as well as people who Follow me on Twitter, is this: #Trump supporters aren't just doing this once in awhile, but rather are CONSISTENTLY outnumbering #Hillary's visible and identified supporters in a Liberal redoubt in a very Liberal county, Broward County.

and they are doing it EVERY DAY.

Even though there is a Hillary Clinton-Tim Kaine campaign office less than three blocks away to the east on Hollywood Blvd.

That routine and apathy creates a visceral mood, and it's one that is quickly picked upon by people with some degree of experience in reading a room for a living: politicians.

But here's the fact that can't be rebutted: local Democratic Party politicians and ex-pols tell me that they are privately very dismayed at the optics of what voters and the public at large are seeing there: thus far, #Trump voter enthusiasm is GREATER than #Hillary's in a traditionally Liberal South Florida stronghold.

Why is Washington Post so reluctant to ask hard questions about Hillary Clinton that could well have been raised about her H.S. govt. aspirations -by even her friends- that are still dogging her now? Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1998 analysis of Hillary remains my go-to bible!

Why is Washington Post so reluctant to ask hard questions about Hillary Clinton that could well have been raised about her H.S. govt. aspirations -by even her friends- that are still dogging her now? Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1998 analysis of Hillary remains my go-to bible!

I wrote about Hillary the teenager. https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

The Washington Post

Always running, always prepared: Hillary Clinton as a high school politician 

By Dan Zak 

October 17 at 11:54 AM 

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — Hillary Rodham was 16 when she first ran for president.

It was February 1964, her junior year of high school in this town of steeples and lawns on the rail line to Chicago. She was vice president of her class, and one of five students running to lead the student council for the next academic year. Student rock bands played in support of candidates in the hallways and cafeteria of Maine East High School.

“Stop mudslinging before it starts,” the school newspaper opined. “Keep this election clean!”

No girl had ever held the job before. “The boys would run for president, and the most popular girl would run for secretary,” says classmate Tim Sheldon, who was one of Hillary’s rivals and is now a retired judge in Elgin, Ill. Years later, in her memoir, Hillary recalled a boy telling her she was “really stupid” if she thought a girl could win.

But it was 1964, and she wasn’t even the only girl in the race.

Read the rest of the article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hillary-clinton-high-school-years-always-running-always-prepared/2016/10/17/35dd9e4a-8c08-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html

These are probably my two favorite Hillary anecdotes from 1964. https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI pic.twitter.com/lYI9apCXGl

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Fave detail that didn't make the story: The theme of Hillary's prom, at the Sheraton O'Hare, was "Medieval Mist." https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Hillary wrote about being called "stupid" 4 running 4 h.s. prez. One of her rivals was female, tho, & I called her: https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Here is that mock interview with future Hillary in her high-school newspaper in 1965. Author unknown. Forensic sketch not bad! pic.twitter.com/5kIRKj0ODM

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Here's that very grown-up, narc-y quote from 17-yr-old Hillary, re: vandalism. Also, her co-chair was a Calif. delegate at the DNC in July! pic.twitter.com/r0pRahg1mC

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hillary-clinton-high-school-years-always-running-always-prepared/2016/10/17/35dd9e4a-8c08-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html

The logical counter-point to this kind of gauzy and whimsical reporting-by-yearbook or scrapbook that the washington post has specialized in its Style section the last few decades is how real and modern -and menacing!- the Tracey Flick character portrayed by Reese Witherspoon was in the film adaption of "Election." 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Flick

That character didn't just plot and scheme, she practically leaped out of the screen, oozing sanctimonious personal ambition and a sense of entitlement!

Even after all this time and all the self-evident examples both good and bad of who Hillary Clinton really is and what she believes in, the Washington Post, rather curiously in these types of breezy profile pieces that regular Post readers like me have come to expect at predictable times in an election news cycle, still seems reluctant to ask a hard-but-fair question about her and the premise of her current candidacy: 
Why are the logical questions that could have well been fairly raised about Hillary's candidacy in High School, by even her friends and supporters -her lack of charisma, authenticity and a consistent inability to make even people who plan to vote for her feel comfortable with her, and around her- still dogging her now?

Especially since it's been clear for so long that she intended to run?

Why, given her unique and unchallenged access to the sorts of resources and people that nobody else in the country can match, has she NOT done enough to actually change that dynamic, even a little bit, except for occasionally changing her political consultants? 

It's a mystery.

In the opinion of not only myself but many other people I know and respect who have a much-closer observation point, she actually seems to have regressed, and is doing retail politics even more poorly now than when she ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, in what was her second personal campaign.

That answer is surely not contained in any of her own books, nor in this article.

It might be time for me to again re-read the amazing 1998 book by Elizabeth Wurtzel,

Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, a book, below, which I believe has the single best analysis and dissection of Hillary Clinton and her persona that I've ever read.

Certainly light years ahead of the conveyor-belt of sycophantic utterings about Hillary from media pals and protectors that have circulated in the news stream for the past twenty years, leaving younger voters grasping for something that's real and meaningful.

I actually attended Elizabeth Wurtzel's book reading/discussion of Bitch on June 27, 1998 at the then-extant Olsson's Books at Metro Center, in Washington, D.C.

I arrived at the event early because I was very motivated and knew in advance: 

a.) It would be fascinating because Wurtzel was so damn interesting herself, and articulate and intelligent that very few Beltway media types ever actually area once you get to know them. (I speak from experience on that.) Wurtzel always seemed to be speaking in full and convincing phrases in interviews in ways that seemed intoxicating to me, almost like she was reading well-rehearsed lines filled with bite, but which comes natural to some people who are very sure of themselves and the facts.

b.) Even by DC's usual literary standards, I knew it was sure to be packed because of the large amount of buzz and controversy about her and the book that had preceded her, and no doubt as well by her publisher for choosing to use a fetching photo of her -the cover?- to promote the event in the DC CityPaper.

Trust me, I was not alone in thinking even before she ever walked into the room that Elizabeth Wurtzel had ample intelligence, good looks and breezy, knowing attitude to spare and to slay any dragons that dared appear at the bookstore. I was not wrong.

I can assure you, once she was introduced and began filling the air with clever and inventive analysis and some occasional zingers, she positively sizzled in every way.

There were many more men in that bookstore personally energized and turned-on by her and what she was saying than you can possibly imagine now in reading my words here.

For myself, I kept thinking that Wurtzel, someone who clearly was using to people projecting onto them all sorts of their own imagery (or baggage) was more like a contemporary version of a combination of Lauren Bacall in her first film, 1944's To Have and Have Not, below, plus Katharine Hepburn in the 1942 film, Woman of the Year. 

Pretty good company!

Lauren Bacall on cover of LIFE, October 16, 1944: "New Movie Find." Part of promo campaign 4 "To Have And Have Not' pic.twitter.com/Dcnnb9TUnG

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) August 13, 2014

Karen Lehrman's April 19, 1998 review of Bitch in the New York Times:

I Am Woman, Hear Me Whine 
Elizabeth Wurtzel celebrates women who are a pain in the neck.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/19/reviews/980419.19lehrmat.html

Twitter @LizzieWurtzel https://twitter.com/LizzieWurtzel

I'll re-read Elizabeth Wurtzel's chapter on Hillary Clinton and report back here soon!

But to give you a taste, watch Elizabeth Wurtzel discuss her book on C-SPAN on June 27, 1998 https://www.c-span.org/video/?105509-1/bitch-praise-difficult-women

A gentle reminder for you newcomers to the blog or any by-now-angry Hillary acolytes: I was a vocal supporter of Bill Clinton for President in 1991, long BEFORE he ever announced for the presidency. As my friends and family can tell you, I even planned on running as Clinton delegate to the 1992 DNC before the Virginia Democratic Party HQ down in Richmond even knew what it was doing, so could only tell me to "hold tight" until I heard back from them when I asked what the procedures were.

I was also a member of the DLC when I was living and working in Washington, even to the point of often hauling soda and various snacks around Capitol Hill for our occasional meetings from Oklahoma Congressman Dave McCurdy's office when he was in charge.

And did I mention that my best friend is from Hope, Arkansas, birthplace as well of... well, you know who.

Just saying...

Dave 

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

That troubling Trump supporter as "authoritarian" poll you're hearing about today - More proof that U.S. presidential polling is biased, unreliable and full of ideoological traps designed to prove... "something." But showing something once in a poll is not PROOF, just a one-time result. Reliable polling is getting the same/similar results over and over consistently thru objective means

The one weird trait that predicts whether you support Trump https://t.co/6LxPby3XGi via @POLITICOMag | AP Photo pic.twitter.com/8skUWDNIMG

— POLITICO (@politico) January 19, 2016

Always wished I had resources to put whole Myers-Briggs battery on my polls | Weird Trait Predicts Trump Support https://t.co/EwfQEWRFTA

— Patrick Murray (@PollsterPatrick) January 17, 2016

The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter 

And it’s not gender, age, income, race or religion.

By Matthew MacWilliams
1/17/2016
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533

It's not so surprising that such an ideological survey would first appear in Politico.
But it naturally leads to the questions not asked or mentioned, like...well...
Question: What's the one trait that predicts whether you're a Hillary supporter?
Answer: They are NOT interested in that answer.

(Though it once was, "And in the 2008 Democratic primary, the political scientist Marc Hetherington found that authoritarianism mattered more than income, ideology, gender, age and education in predicting whether voters preferred Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.")
 

Politico is no more interested in revealing that than they are in knowing and publicly disclosing whatever the supposed one magic trait about supporters of Bernie Sanders is.

Especially if that were to be something like, oh, people who despite saying very liberal and progressive things in front of strangers and the news media, when it comes down to it, do NOT want to live near people who are similar to them, which is the most plausible answer one can infer from facts like Sanders' support being strongest in almost entirely 100% White enclaves around the country, something Hillary is currently exploiting in South Carolina with its large Black population.

In case you did not know, the only state in the U.S. with a lower percentage population of minorities than the state Sanders represents, Vermont, is Maine.

I know because I checked it out via the latest census info a few months ago, and even found similar numbers on ye olde Wikipedia, though the latter says Montana instead of Maine, two states that could not otherwise be more dissimilar from one another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African-American_population

It doesn't bother me, per se, that people with particular biases have opinions and want to sound off on them, since everyone is free to believe whatever they want, however crazy or different from my own POV it might be. After all, it's a long campaign...
But what I hate seeing and find troublesome is the way this story is already being played up nationally as evidence of... well, "something."
But all it really is is a SINGLE snapshot in time.

It's like predicting the Miami Dolphins making the NFL playoffs every year based on them frequently beating the Patriots the past few years when they have been one of the best NFL teams. 
But in those years when they do beat the Patriots -almost always at home- they STILL fail to make the playoffs, don't they? (This year proved that all over again!)

 
Experienced football fans who have some real knowledge and historical perspective, like political junkies with the same qualities, know that one result is often an outlier. 

What you need to see is consistency (of effort) and results.  
Results plural.

Right now it's a theory that will not be PROVEN until it can be successfully replicated in multiple objective polls. And the article doesn't even have any links to check the poll numbers and questions yourself.  
WTF?

We seem to be at the point where someone who wants the public to believe something in particular about a candidate, and try to be seen as above reproach, and merely relying on cold hard numbers, can write something ascribing far-reaching significance...after just one poll.
Well, it doesn't seem like anything resembling polling Best Practices to me.

And now that you think about it, if this sort of designed poll is such a great thing, how come we never heard from the U.S. news media about the results of the same designed poll in 2008 and what it supposedly "said" about Hillary's supporters?

Why am I only hearing about it eight years later?

Here's more irony. T
oday, hours after seeing lots of tweets about the above, I saw this:

"As we see watching the presidential race, polling is very unreliable in many instances" https://t.co/0OVVjXN3G4

— POLITICO New York (@politicony) January 20, 2016

Just saying...

Dave 

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

Benghazi -What really happened? "The Truth About Benghazi" - Videos from CNN's better-late-than-never Benghazi special examining the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Consulate that killed four Americans; U.S. Mainstream Media's suck-up of White House narrative and hands-off attitude towards Hillary Clinton looks even worse in retrospect as more facts emerge and cover-up falls apart

CNN video: Benghazi timeline: "We are under attack"

John King: Why Benghazi matters
By John King, CNN Chief National Correspondent
updated 1:23 PM EDT, Wed August 7, 2013
Additional information and videos at:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/06/politics/king-benghazi/index.html


CNN video: Political fallout from Benghazi attack

"The Truth about #Benghazi": Why didn't the U.S. military respond in time in Benghazi? @JohnKingCNN reports. http://t.co/B1l4ZfdSvu @CNN
— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) August 7, 2013

CNN video: Why didn't the U.S. military respond in time in Benghazi


CNN video: Paying the political price for Benghazi

Recent Benghazi-related news

I'll take 'phony scandal' for a thousand, Alex: Jeopardy clue features Benghazi [photo] http://t.co/Jz0mXTP4Lk
— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) August 5, 2013

For the record, @BarackObama - when you're forced to close a record amount of embassies, your enemy isn't "on the run," you are.
— Brad Thor (@BradThor) August 5, 2013

@JaeCreitch @USATODAY I try to be respectful of others' opinions, but the sheer Liberal disregard of #Benghazi sickens me in a visceral way.
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 4, 2013

NEW COLUMN just went up. CNN Finds Benghazi Terrorist Suspect; FBI Doesn't Lv a comment. RT pls. http://t.co/nqHWOLfv9N
— Bernard Goldberg (@BernardGoldberg) August 5, 2013

The key to #BENGAZHI atrocity being solved may now lie with the press. Even running dogs like our Lib press may turn on Obama for Pulitzers.
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 3, 2013

Threat closes US embassies in Muslim world on Sunday: http://t.co/Kpbbiyuxuu -CC
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 2, 2013

Now includes video story: Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack

http://t.co/EFU5TDVYtA

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 1, 2013

Now includes video story: Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack http://t.co/EFU5TDVYtA
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 1, 2013

CIA is polygraphing operatives regularly, in an "unprecedented" attempt to keep Benghazi secrets, sources tell CNN, @DrewGriffinCNN reports
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 1, 2013

James Poulos adroitly connects-the-dots at Forbes.com re 2012 GOP's campaign's strategic/marketing mistakes, and suggests that while much of what Romney criticized (lamented) about Obama playing Identity Politics and patronizing Santa Claus to many niche voters is 100% true, GOP can't win by singing Blues re Obamanomics or chorus of "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Needy, Young & Dumb Single Women Voters?"; @jamespoulos

VOAvideo YouTube Channel: VOA's Jeffrey Young examines so-called "Identity Politics" in this segment of "How America Elects." Uploaded June 20, 2012.
http://youtu.be/a0Hui4sEBfI

James Poulos adroitly connects-the-dots at Forbes.com re 2012 GOP's campaign's strategic/marketing mistakes, and suggests that while much of what Romney criticized (lamented) about Obama playing Identity Politics and patronizing Santa Claus to many niche voters is 100% true, GOP can't win by singing Blues re Obamanomics or chorus of "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Needy, Young & Dumb Single Women Voters?"

This afternoon I read a Forbes.com column, below, that for all practical purposes is the book-end to that earlier Mark Hendrickson piece at Forbes.com that I mentioned this morning, regarding what I perceived to be the self-serving motives of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and many other GOP pols and consultants' jabs at Mitt Romney, and in particular, Jindal's unfortunate moth-like affinity for TV news cameras, as if lack of exposure was his real problem.

Bobby Jindal's Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/11/16/bobby-jindals-jab-at-mitt-romney-underscores-republicans-dilemma/

Bobby Jindal's looming Mainstream Media "Mirror Mirror" problems are closer at hand than I thought; Mark Hendrickson at Forbes.com on -what I see as Jindal's needless- "Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma"; Jindal is proving Rush Limbaugh's point about GOP self-regard

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/bobby-jindals-looming-mainstream-media.html

Forbes.com

Romney's 'Gifts' Gaffe Highlights GOP Confusion On Obamanomics

WASHINGTON  
11/15/2012 @ 11:43AM

By James Poulos

Having not particularly relished telling donors what they wanted to hear during the campaign, Romney has now taken his lumps in the thankless task of telling them what they want to hear afterward.

Read the rest of the column at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamespoulos/2012/11/15/romneys-gifts-gaffe-highlights-gop-confusion-on-obamanomics/

His honesty in this think piece about the Obama campaign's use of identity politics stands in stark contrast to many reporters, columnists and pundits who are twisting themselves into uncomfortable pretzels to deny that it was used, even though it was both obvious and successful.
I encourage you to start following him because unlike many better-known pundits, like those seen on MSNBC, Poulos doesn't ask you to deny what you know about human behavior or to deny what your own eyes can see -Obama & Co. used identity politics and it worked.

But will that formula actually work for non-African-American, non-presidential Democratic candidates for office?
In my opinion, no.
I believe it was unique to Obama and has no transferability, which is why much of the crowing I've seen and heard from many national Dems I usually respect, and in some cases actually know, who are drawing all sorts of conclusions and over-reaching on some of the implications of Election Day, reminds me of young kids patiently building sand castles at the beach with their plastic buckets and shovels.

Kids, there's a wave out there in the ocean that you can't even see now, and guess what?
It's got very big plans for your castle and all your carefully-laid plans.

------

http://blogs.forbes.com/jamespoulos/

@jamespoulos  https://twitter.com/jamespoulos

https://www.rebelmouse.com/poulos/

Vacillating Obama: Washington Post's Jackson Diehl zeroes-in on fundamental weakness of Obama's dithering Mid-East policy and multilateralism: Obama’s greatest failure - "His miscalculations on Syria have led to a wider war" that threatens to bring in more dangerous players and more unpredictability, NOT more stability and democracy; @JacksonDiehl, #syria

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I've been wanting to post this excellent analysis by The Washington Post's veteran foreign policy hand Jackson Diehl since reading it online early, early Sunday morning, while listening to some hard news online via the BBC.
Soon thereafter, I sent it out to a couple dozen well-informed friends and acquaintances across the country and around the world, who follow U.S. foreign policy as closely as I do, and who also like me, shake their head at what President Obama is doing. 

Though we all disagreed on lots of matters whenever we were together, we're all in agreement about this Diehl column -it's spot-on analysis from the get-go about Barack Obama's unwillingness to stop digging the foreign policy hole he has put the United States in.
He just keeps digging, utterly convinced that he's right and that everyone else is wrong.

I suspect that in about a dozen years or so, people who voted for Obama in 2008 will actually shake their head in wonder that they ever allowed themselves to willfully ignore his inexperience and weaknesses and elect someone as president who was foolish enough to convince himself -and them- that his carefully-constructed personal/media narrative would somehow allow him to solve longstanding problems.
It hasn't and it doesn't and it won't.

Despite all the accumulated evidence on U.S. foreign policy that shows he has made already bad situations worse, sometimes, much worse, Obama still remains utterly convinced that the sheer star power of his personality will lead to positive results.
It's the ultimate act of -and sign of- his amazing hubris.

The Washington Post

How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution

By Jackson Diehl

October 14, 2012

Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. mission in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.

Read the rest of the column at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-how-obama-bungled-the-syrian-revolution/2012/10/14/13c492d2-13b2-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html


Read previous Diehl columns at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html
I subscribe to his RSS feed and get his columns as sson as they go online.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/linksets/opinions/jackson-diehl

Also see his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

The National Journal
Obama’s Quagmire: Syria and the Islamist Arc, Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.
By Michael Hirsh
Updated: September 21, 2012  1:55 p.m., 
September 21, 2012  1:07 p.m.

U.S. and Western diplomats are concerned that the longer Bashar al-Assad hangs on to his failing regime in Damascus, the more likely it is that the aftermath of the Syrian rebellion will be dominated by Islamist elements, completing an arc of newly empowered radical groups along the southern half of the Mediterranean from Libya to Syria. 

Read the rest of the column at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/obama-s-quagmire-syria-and-the-islamist-arc-20120921?mrefid=site_search

As I've noted here several times over the past two years with videos of him speaking forthrightly about Syria, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been much more realistic than Hillary Clinton's dog-chasing-its-tail State Dept. on the reality of what has been going on the Middle East and what is likely to happen if President Obama's dithering foreign policy is given four more years to make things worse.

And seriously, how does U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice still even have a job? 
Is there no penalty for her abject failure, serial lying to the American public and Congress and her calculated and willful ignorance?
Rice's performance the past month has validated all the criticism of her as nothing more than a political hack with foreign policy pretensions, not a serious foreign policy professional, no matter what her actual experience is.
Susan Rice is the female version of Rahm Emanuel -a fixer.
And a Grade B fixer at that.

How can we reasonably expect representatives of other countries to trust her and take her seriously if average Americans have learned from watching her for themselves, after paying attention to her own words and actions, NOT to trust her?


SenatorMarcoRubio video: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Foreign Aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan and what America and American taxpayers have a right to expect from these countries in exchange for U.S. dollars. Uploaded September 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/SFOBW7xkz7g Reminder, this video is a month old.

Articles and columns on Syria in The Washington Post, in chron order:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html

By the way, if anyone reading this post knows anyone at Foreign Policy magazine, tell them that their YouTube Channel is the very picture of irrelevant.
One original video in the past nine months during a presidential election year?
That's embarrassing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignPolicyTV

More useful clarity on President Obama's Libyan Lies, Misrepresentations & Misadventures: Obscure film was NOT responsible for riot there, security was lax in Benghazi, U.S. Marines were NOT there during consulate attack, and FBI agents are still NOT there two weeks later, a fact that ABC News' Friday evening newscast continued to neglect to mention

senatorcorker video: Appearing on Fox News Channel, Tennessee Senator Bob  Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded-off on the lack of information and cooperation the Comm. is receiving re the Benghazi attacks on September 11th. Corker believes the Obama administration's response to Libya consulate attack is "Nothing Short... of Benghazigate." "Both Democrats and Republicans want answers to what happened." Uploaded September 27, 2012. http://youtu.be/wLk6o3N8cB8 

More useful clarity on President Obama's Libyan Lies, Misrepresentations & Misadventures: Obscure film was NOT responsible for riot there, security was lax in Benghazi, U.S. Marines were NOT there during consulate attack, and FBI agents are still NOT there two weeks later, a fact that ABC News' Friday evening newscast continued to neglect to mention

And on Friday, sixteen days after the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christoprher Stevens, ABC News national newscast devoted ZERO time to Obama's serial lies about what happened in Libya, not mentioning Libya even once.

No, instead, the lead story was on TSA agents pilfering airline passenger goods. Really?
Yes, nothing at all about no FBI agents being in the country more than two weeks later to investigate.


The Washington Post

In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say

By Ernesto Londoño and Abigail Hauslohner

September 29, 2012 at 2:12 PM

On the eve of his death, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was ebullient as he returned for the first time in his new role to Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that embraced him as a savior during last year’s civil war. He moved around the coastal town in an armored vehicle and held a marathon of meetings, his handful of bodyguards trailing discreetly behind.

But as Stevens met with Benghazi civic leaders, U.S. officials appear to have underestimated the threat facing both the ambassador and other Americans. They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas. Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic sites in high-threat regions.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-libya-security-was-lax-prior-to-deadly-attack/2012/09/29/a56ffca0-0992-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html


The Weekly Standard
Our Fearless Misleader
By Stephen F. Hayes
October 8, 2012, VOL. 18, NO. 04

After more than two weeks of obfuscation and misdirection from the Obama administration, the American public is coming to understand what the U.S. intelligence community learned in the 48 hours immediately following the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Among the important new details:

Read the rest of the post at
https://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/our-fearless-misleader_653228.html

New York Times

Security Fears Hobble Inquiry of Libya Attack

By David D. Kirkpatrick, Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt

Posted online September 27, 2012

BENGHAZI, Libya — Sixteen days after the death of four Americans in an attack on a United States diplomatic mission here, fears about the near-total lack of security have kept F.B.I. agents from visiting the scene of the killings and forced them to try to piece together the complicated crime from Tripoli, more than 400 miles away.

Investigators are so worried about the tenuous security, people involved in the investigation say, that they have been unwilling to risk taking some potential Libyan witnesses into the American Embassy in Tripoli. Instead, the investigators have resorted to the awkward solution of questioning some witnesses in cars outside the embassy, which is operating under emergency staffing and was evacuated of even more diplomats on Thursday because of a heightened security alert.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/world/africa/libya-attack-investigation-hobbled-by-security-fears.html