Tom Toles: Edwards Finally Gets Some Spotlight

Mike Gravel: Senate Democrats Were Elected To End A War, Not Start A New One

Here's Mike Gravel on the Democratic front-runners, from Huffington Post via Dandelion Salad:

Hillary Clinton was either misinformed or economical with the truth in Wednesday night’s debate when she responded to my challenge to her by saying the Senate’s resolution earlier in the day on Iran was designed to permit economic sanctions against individual members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

She and her staff should know the United Nations Security Council on March 24 already slapped economic sanctions on individual Guard Members. Like the Red Army in China, Iran allows Guard commanders to own and run private companies. Security Council Resolution 1747, which the United States voted for, froze financial assets held outside Iran on the seven military commanders, including General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr and six other admirals and generals.

I know of no law dictating the State Department must first designate individuals or groups as terrorists before sanctions can be imposed on them. Dozens of countries have been under U.S. unilateral sanctions that are not designated as terrorist. The U.S. first imposed sanctions on Iran in 1979 over the hostages, not terrorism. The only possible purpose of the Senate resolution asking the State Department to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization is to set it up for military attack in George Bush’s war on terror.

As Virginia senator Jim Webb valiantly said in the Senate, the United States has never before designated the military services of a sovereign state a terrorist group. Indeed, though there is international dispute over the definition of terrorism, there is little disagreement on the legal point that terrorists are non-state actors who target civilians, i.e., never members of a government. Governments can be guilty of war crimes, but not terrorism. And the resolution talks about attacks on American troops, not civilians.

The hypocrisy of Hillary and the 75 other senators who called for more unilateral sanctions on Iran, was exposed Monday by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who said, according to Spiegel Magazine, that American companies are violating existing U.S. sanctions by surreptitiously doing business with Iran through front companies in Dubai.

Joe Lieberman wrote the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq that was passed with Democratic support on October 11, 2002. Lieberman’s new resolution setting up a Bush-Cheney invasion of Iran passed by 76 to 22 with Democratic backing on September 26, 2007. These are two dates that will live in infamy in the 21st century. Led by Senator Clinton, it was another sad day for the Senate and for Senate Democrats, who were elected to the majority in November in order to end a war, not start a new one.

I like Mike.

Edwards, Hillary Looking For 'A More Serious Debate' ... Without The Anti-War, Pro-Impeachment Gadflies

Steve Huntley in the Chicago Sun-Times:

[John] Edwards and [Hillary] Clinton [...] at Thursday's NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit [...] didn't know their post-debate conversation was being picked up by Fox News microphones.

Edwards walked up to Clinton at her podium and said, "We should think about at some point ... maybe some time in the fall, we'll try to have a more serious debate with a smaller group of people."

Clearly agreeing, Clinton said, "We've got to cut the numbers of these, because they are just being trivialized."

"And they're not serious," Edwards answered. "They're not serious."

The Fox video shows Edwards walking away and Clinton following and saying, "I think there was an effort by our campaign to do that, but it somehow got detoured. We've gotta get back to it."

Then in a moment of high comedy, one of the targets of their plot, Kucinich, walks by and Clinton shakes his hand. The Ohio congressman is still in the picture frame as Clinton tells Edwards, "Our guys should talk."

Beautiful! And even

after learning that the conversation had been caught on an open microphone, Edwards' office said he was not trying to limit who participates in the forums. Nonsense. That was exactly what he was trying to do ...

Incredible! Even after being caught on network television saying one thing, they come out with a new spin: He wasn't trying to do what he was obviously trying to do.

Steve Huntley thinks it's a brilliant idea:

Look, it was good to have all the contenders on stage in the first couple of debates. But now we've seen Gravel whack Clinton over her husband's support of free trade and we've heard a couple of GOP wannabes explain why the theory of evolution isn't real.

They've had their time in the spotlight, and these forums need to start focusing on the policies and views of the candidates who actually have a shot at winning.

LV has much more, including the video, at his blog.