Barrel Strength

“It’s early days and he (Obama) hasn’t collected his thoughts on South Asia,” said Ambassador E. Ashley Wills, who served in India and Sri Lanka.  That pretty well sums up the Obama foreign policy foray into the South Asian swampland known as Kashmir where, according to several newspaper reports, he is considering appointing Bill Clinton as a special envoy to help negotiate a settlement between India and Pakistan over this region.  News of this has been greeted with delight by Pakistanis and separatist in Kashmir, which should be the first warning sign that he is getting off on the wrong foot.

Bush did an excellent job in restoring relations with India, after years of pro-Soviet tilt, by overruling single issue bureaucrats in the State Dept and by agreeing to the nuclear pact between the two countries.  Given the importance of a counterweight to Pakistan and China in that region, it is quite amazing that that Obama has chosen to meddle in a region that has resisted solution since 1947.

News reports today suggest that BHO is considering naming Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state.  Your correspondent is of the opinion that this is a leak by Bill Clinton, who wants to ensure that Hillary isn’t around much, so that he can test Dalwhinnie’s theories with a similar sample size.

Two Chicago newspapers, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times (h/t The Big Feed) today update us on the relationship between BHO and Bill Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist.  Can one assume that MSM in US is back at work?

BHO described Bill Ayers as follows in a debate before the Pennsylvania primary:

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense, George.

First point to note is that Weather Underground didn’t stop bombing till BHO was 24-years old.  That being said, Bill Ayers offers the following clarification on their relationship in a new afterword to his 2001 book.

We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign…

According to Chicago Tribune, Ayers wrote the new afterword on July 4, “in the heat of the summer presidential campaign, with all its attendant bells and whistles and spin, all the diversion and dissembling that happens every four years when the big election carnival rolls into town.”  Now that we are clear on all this, perhaps Ayers can take his rightful place, see below.