Friday Stuff

I thought this was a nice feature by Chris Hayes, timed for the one-year anniversary of the roll out of the Affordable Care Law...



...and yes, I know it's truly shocking to hear about this (removing my tongue from my cheek), which puts this “Young Turks” video with Cenk and Ana from a few years ago in the proper context (and once again, the captions are unintentionally hilarious – and to send PA's “Space Cadet” governor back to private life once and for all - he who apparently was asleep for this also - click here)...



…and I get it that Leon Panetta is basically a Dem, though he does seem to sway with the prevailing wind, as it were, but I think he’s wrong to say that ISIS is Obama’s fault here, seeing as how he went along with the Status of Forces Agreement as well, which I think was the right thing to do.

As Igor Volsky of Think Progress tells us...

...while Panetta’s book reinforces longstanding criticism of Obama’s Iraq policy, his assessment clashes mightily with his public statements about the administration’s efforts to secure a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with Iraq.

For instance, during an Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq in November of 2011, Panetta specifically dismissed McCain’s claims that the Obama administration was committed (to) complete withdrawal and did not want to leave residual troops in Iraq, reminding the Arizona senator that Iraqi leaders must agree to American presence in the country and provide American soldiers with immunity from prosecution.

“Senator McCain, that’s just simply not true,” Panetta began. “I guess you can believe that and I respect your beliefs…but that’s not how it happened. This is about negotiating with a sovereign country. An independent country, this was about their needs. This is not about us telling them what we’re going to do for them or what they’re going to have to do. … This is about their country making a decision as to what is necessary here.”

He stressed that for American troops to remain in the country, “you absolutely have to have immunities and those immunities have to be granted by a SOFA agreement. I was not about to have our troops go there in place without those immunities.”

Iraq told us to get out, which was their right, and Syria let the terrorist insurgents fester…not sure which president was supposed to be able to look into a crystal ball and figure that out…made me recall this Panetta-related clip (CYA 101 here as far as I’m concerned)…



…and I suppose I’m putting a twist on this by including this tune; always a cautionary lesson for yours truly.