RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2334/Petraeus-Poodles.aspx

No doubt in the spirit of the season, somebody bestowed an audio sweetmeat upon Bob Woodward — 13-plus minutes of an off-the-record conversation that took place in the spring of 2011 between Gen. David Petreaus, then ISAF commander in Afghanistan, and Fox News analyst KT McFarland, then visiting Petraeus’ Kabul HQ. The exchange under consideration comes at the end of an interview when McFarland announces she has a personal message for Petraeus from Fox News President Roger Ailes, part of which is: If Petraeus isn’t appointed joint chiefs chairman, he should resign from the Army in six months and run for president. Obviously, he Petraeus didn’t do. it And that’s the Washington Post headline — “Fox news chief failed attempt to enlist Petraeus as presidential candidate.” But there is more to the message than that.

The segment starts thus:

KT: I have something to to say to you, by the way, directly from Roger Ailes, OK? …

P: … I’m not running (laughs) …

KT: OK! … Roger Ailes, I told him I was coming.

P: I love Roger.

KT: I know and he loves you and everybody at Fox loves you. I’m supposed to say directly from him to you, through me, is, first of all: Is there anything Fox is doing right or wrong that you want to tell us to do differently?

This question is devastating to the Fox News brand. And it opens the door on the kid gloves and soft-lenses with which Fox has consistently handled demonstrably disastrous Petraeus counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. This remains true no matter how much both Ailes and McFarland now brush off the Ailes’ message to Petraeus as a gag McFarland took too seriously. “It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have,” Ailes told the Post. “I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate.” Ailes now considers McFarland to have been “way out of line.” But what about Ailes himself? Wasn’t he “way out of line” by putting her up to this — or are we to believe McFarland was making the whole thing up?

As if to amplify this notion, McFarland penned a half-defensive, half-confessional response yesterday that carries the headline, “My Petraeus interview firestorm silly, off-base.” In a piece recasting audio we can all of us listen to for ourselves, she respins Woodward’s piece and media reaction to it as so much baseless hyperbole — a credulity-straining exercise. She writes:

A conversation that began in jest and that led to a passing comment at the end of my interview with General David Petraeus has turned into a firestorm of speculation and an attempt to denigrate Fox.

In jest? Passing comment? Later, McFarland writes:

As we were finishing the interview I told General Petraeus my boss, Roger Ailes, was a great admirer. General Petraeus, who knows Roger, interrupted to say, basically, Roger is a brilliant guy. He knows I’m not running for anything.

In a nutshell (as if hoping no one actually listens to the audio). She continues:

My comment was prompted by a conversation I had had with Roger before leaving for Afghanistan. We discussed many topics, most involving national security. On my way out, I casually told him, I’ll give the general your regards, shall I? Roger smiled and replied something to the effect of, tell him if they don’t make him chairman of the joint chiefs, he ought to jump into the presidential race to stir things up. I know now that Roger was joking, but at the time, I wasn’t sure.

Hello, When my campaign team planned our final budget, we knew our Get Out the Vote push was going to be BIG. But it was far bigger than anyone ever expected. This extraordinary effort was wonderful and it’s how we won, but it created some planning challenges. For example, we knew we would have to […]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ecuadors-president-compares-jewish-center-bombing-to-nato-action/

PRESIDENT CORREA OF ECUADOR IS PART OF THE “BOLIVARIANS” THE NAME OF THE AXIS OF BOLIVIA’S PRESIDENT EVO MORALES, A LEFT WING COCAINE CHEWING MARTINET AND HUGO CHAVEZ THE BATRACHIAN TIN POT DICTATOR OF VENEZUELA WHO ARE ALL CASTRO WANNABES. IT IS A SHAME BECAUSE BOLIVIA AND VENEZUELA AND ECUADOR TOOK IN MANY JEWISH REFUGEES REJECTED BY THE WESTERN NATIONS IN THE PERIOD JUST BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST…..RSK

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, compared the bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center which killed 85 people to “NATO bombings of Libya.”

Correa made the remarks Tuesday during a television interview with Argentina’s C5N news channel. Correa, who was in the country to receive an award, made the comments before a scheduled meeting with Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Asked about the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Correa replied, “I am familiar with the case, which is a very painful part of Argentina’s history. But look at how many died in the NATO bombings of Libya. If we compare these two events, we can see where the true danger lies.”

At least 72 civilians died in the NATO bombings, according to reports.

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012120417518/editorial/rsn-pick-of-the-day/the-middle-east-two-state-solution-delusion.html On April 6, 2009, President Barack Obama in remarks to the Turkish Parliament stated: “In the Middle East, we share the goal of a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors. Let me be clear: The United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace […]

“Palestine – Hands Up Those Who Hate Jews,” by my e-pal David Singer, a prominent lawyer and international affairs analyst in Sydney, Australia. The Jew-hating genie has been spectacularly unleashed onto the world stage once again following the decision by 138 of the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly to accord non-member […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3481/britain-nhs-ramadan-tv Britain’s nationalized health service has been funding a television station whose presenters preach hatred against Jews, women and the West. There will always be groups out there trying to destroy us, but does that mean we should be financially supporting their work? Ramadan TV, a platform for Islamist hate-preachers, refers to NHS North East […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3484/egypt-morsi-train-wreck While Egypt was unable to supply medicine to the victims of the crash at Assiut, it has sent millions of dollars worth of medicine to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. How about making sure the hospitals in Egypt have enough medicine to treat Egyptians? Morsi is not governing the country for the benefit of its […]

U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ HandsBy JAMES RISEN, MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to […]

http://www4.thedailybell.com/28314/Anthony-Wile-David-Goldman-on-Wall-Street-the-Middle-East-and-the-Judeo-Christian-PerspectiveDavid Goldman on Wall Street, the Middle East and the ‘Judeo-Christian Perspective’

The Daily Bell is pleased to present this exclusive interview with David P. Goldman.

Introduction: David P. Goldman writes the “Spengler” column for Asia Times Online and the “Spengler” blog at PJ Media. He is also a columnist at Tablet, and contributes frequently to numerous other publications. Goldman was global head of debt research forBank of America (2002-05), global head of credit strategy for Credit Suisse (1998-2002) and also held senior positions at Bear Stearns and Cantor Fitzgerald. In 2001 he was elected to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Fixed Income Research Team. Goldman was a senior editor at First Things (2009-11) and Forbes magazine columnist (1994-2001). His books, How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) and It’s Not the End of the World – It’s Just the End of You were published by Regnery in September 2011. He is a regular guest on CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report” and has appeared on Fox News and other national news venues.

Daily Bell: Give us some background on yourself. Where did you grow up?

David P. Goldman: In and around New York City. When an infant, my bedroom looked out on Ebbets Field, the old home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. There began and ended my exposure to spectator sports. I spent the longest time in Great Neck, then the most liberal community in the United States, and graduated high school there. My family was left-wing and secular, and I looked to classical music for spiritual sustenance. It was my passion. I played and composed but was never very good at either.

Daily Bell: Where did you go to school and what career did you embark upon?

David P. Goldman: My B.A. is from Columbia, and from there I went directly to a doctoral program at the London School of Economics. I suppose my idea was to become an academic but two years of London wearied me. I was a radical and a hothead, and had no patience for academic economics. Instead, I stumbled into freelance journalism. My first piece was published by the London Spectator − on the plight of East African Asians – but I gravitated towards the fever-swamps of the political left.

In 1977 I became economics editor of a dreadful publication controlled by the odious Lyndon LaRouche. He fired me five years later. By that time I had gotten to know Dr. Norman A. Bailey, then head of plans at the Reagan National Security Council, who recruited me as a consultant. When he left NSC I worked for his consulting firm, and then for the supply-side firm Polyconomics, where I became chief economist, mainly because no one else would take the job. I was a bit like Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus.

In 1986 I tried to make a career change back to music and did all but the dissertation for a doctorate in music theory. I might be teaching music theory at some small college today except for the birth of my first child, who wanted to eat almost every day. That forced me into more remunerative work.

Daily Bell: You held senior jobs on Wall Street, including a gig as global head of bond research at Bank of America with 140 professionals reporting to you.

David P. Goldman: I didn’t take the usual route to Wall Street. When at Polyconomics I had ample opportunity to speak to Prof. Robert Mundell, who was then out of favor with time to waste on me. Mundell was the grandfather ofsupply-side economics; in 1999 he won a Nobel. He had deep insights into the nature of capital markets, and I learned enough from him to look for the cracks in markets before they showed. I learned a tiny fraction of what Mundell knew, but it gave me an advantage on Wall Street.

My partner at Polyconomics, the supply-sider Jude Wanniski, pushed me out in 1992, and Larry Kudlow opened a door for me at Bear Stearns. Bear gave me a chance to learn the business. I left Bear in 1996 to start a small hedge fund; just before the Long-Term Capital failure in 1998, I closed it and paid out my investors with a modest profit and took a job at Credit Suisse. Credit markets then were in turmoil, and I built quantitative models to value corporate bonds and bond portfolios that became quite popular. On the strength of that success, Bank of America hired me away in 2002 to create a new fixed income research division, and I had a big staff to supervise.

Daily Bell: Give us some background on Wall Street and what you think of it. Has your thinking changed?

David P. Goldman: In the 1990s and early 2000s I believed that the financial industry had a major contribution to make to economic efficiency. In fact, it had made such a contribution. Mortgage-backed securities helped to mobilize capital locked up in homes and made capital available to entrepreneurs. So did so-called junk bonds, which made credit available to emerging companies. Credit derivatives initially helped banks to diversify their risks.

Take Bear Stearns, where I started my Wall Street career 20 years ago. They were upstarts and outsiders. They didn’t have the country-club investment banking relationships to underwrite corporate debt. But the advent of mortgage-backed securities allowed them to become the top dealer in that market because they didn’t need the country-club connections to do so. Bear was a solidly Republican shop; Steve Forbes got a lot of support from the partners before the 1996 presidential election. The firm failed, in large part due to its own complacency, in 2008.

Can America Survive Four More Years of Obama? — on The Glazov Gang
by Jamie Glazov
Paul Crowshaw, Mike Finch and Dwight Schultz glimpse into the heart of darkness — and ponder how we’ll emerge from it.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/the-power-of-prager-on-the-glazov-gang/