Josh Barro, on Why I left the Republican Party to become a Democrat.
I want to focus on a fourth group: Republican politicians who understand exactly how dangerous Donald Trump is, but who have chosen to support him anyway for reasons of strategy, careerism, or cowardice.
I am talking, for example, about Sen. Marco Rubio, who in the primary called Trump an "erratic individual" who must not be trusted with nuclear weapons — and then endorsed him for president. [...]
Most of all, I'm talking about House Speaker Paul Ryan, a man whose pained, blue eyes suggest he desperately wants to cry for help. He's a man who runs around the country pathetically trying to pretend that Trump does not exist and that the key issue is his congressional caucus' "Better Way" agenda. And he's a man who, of his own free will, seeks to help Donald Trump become president. [...]
I can only conclude from the available evidence that they love their careers more than they love America. And they are why I quit the Republican Party this week.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—N.Korea has nukes. Where's the saber-rattling?
Hesiod nails this one on the head:
"In a startling revelation, North Korea has told the United States it has a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of an 1994 agreement with the United States, the White House said Wednesday night." [...]
This raises a whole BUNCH of issues. Like...
1) Why did this news "stun" the administration? Massive intelligence failure there.
2) This blows up the entire Rube Goldberg rationale for invading Iraq. If the North Koreans ADMIT they are developing nuclear weapons, and we don't immediately call for "regime change," this whole Iraq operation looks more and more like a grab for oil, than a "preventative war" of "self-defense."
Stalinist North Korea is the most closed society on the planet today, so I can almost forgive the intelligence failure. But his second point is valid. Of course, the last thing I want to see is a belligerent US threatening war against a nuclear-capable North Korea. However, if the US resorts to intense diplomacy to resolve the situation (as it should), it would beg the question why Iraq is facing a loaded gun instead.