pure poetry!

The Carlow Nationalist: The imminent arrival of US president Barack Obama has prompted 96-year-old PJ Furey to let his creative juices flow ….he has written a poem in tribute to the US president, honouring his historic visit to Ireland…

Arise you friendly Irish folk, And give a rousing cheer,
For the President of America, And his wife are coming here.

They arrive in Dublin City, On the twenty-third of May,
And thousands will be greeting them, On this historic day.

Then Barack gives a timely speech, And clearly lets us see,
He is the man for creed and clan, For peace and liberty.

And so to Offaly they go, To give a special call,
To visit their ancestor’s place, In dear old Moneygall.

And the people of the village, So faithful and so true,
Will proudly greet them when they call, With a Céad Míle Fáilte too.

They will thank the noble couple, And their good friends one and all,
And wish everyone fond memories, Of their time in Moneygall.

Now young and old in Erin’s isle, Wish Barack and Michelle,
Success in all they undertake, And a very long life as well!

😉

ah, some balance

Sorry for bringing Dana Milbank here, but it’s so hard to find balanced articles on Bradley Manning – he’s either a martyr or a traitor – it was a relief to find this. I’ve cut out the silly, glib ‘underwear’ stuff by Milbank, but you can read the full article here

Dana Milbank: ….On the left, Bradley Manning is being hailed as a hero and a whistleblower for stealing and then making public thousands of classified government documents. The Pentagon, meanwhile, sees Pfc. Manning as a traitor, and so is holding him in maximum-security confinement. The naked truth is that Manning was neither a hero nor a traitor but a misguided kid flying by the seat of his underpants.

…PJ Crowley … had it exactly right last week …. after his claim that the treatment of Manning was stupid, he added: “Nonetheless, Bradley Manning is in the right place” at Quantico, because “there is sometimes a need for secrets.”

Liberal supporters of WikiLeaks and Manning have a rather elastic interpretation of Crowley’s remarks, embracing the suggestion that Manning had been mistreated but ignoring the contention that he belongs in the brig.

…(they are) trying to lionize Manning as a champion of open and transparent government. The trouble, of course, is that if Manning did what he is accused of doing, he has almost certainly done more harm than good to the cause of government openness.

“I don’t think these qualify as whistleblowing,” said Steven Aftergood, a longtime transparency advocate who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Government Secrecy Project. Yes, there were important disclosures from WikiLeaks, such as the documentation of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. But the indiscriminate leaks also may have put at risk many lives, including those of hundreds of Afghans who cooperated with the U.S. military.

“The approach of grabbing hundreds of thousands of documents and shoveling them into the public domain,” said Aftergood, “was needlessly provocative.” He added: “It was not exposing misconduct. It was sticking a thumb in the government’s eye.”

The Pentagon, for its part, seems to be acknowledging, implicitly, that it mishandled Manning … Now it’s time for Manning’s fans to accept that he’s not necessarily the champion of freedom they have made him out to be….

a little background on that resignation…

NYT: The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, resigned on Sunday, three days after publicly criticizing the Pentagon as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid” in its treatment of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning…

Mr. Crowley’s comments … stirred a political tempest in Washington and were rejected by President Obama at a news conference on Friday….

White House officials were infuriated by the episode … which one described as “the last straw” in a series of incautious remarks by Mr. Crowley. …he had a rocky tenure at the State Department, failing to establish close ties to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

…Mr. Crowley had been in a tenuous position for some time … and was discussing another assignment with Mrs. Clinton and her chief of staff even before his Manning remarks. He did not travel on Mrs. Clinton’s plane, which is highly unusual for a spokesman and added to the perception that he did not have access to her inner circle.

Public statements from Mr. Crowley raised hackles in the Pentagon and the White House several times. On Friday, in the wake of the earthquake in Japan, he sent out a message on ’Twitter that said: “We’ve been watching a hopeful tsunami sweep across the Middle East. Now we’re seeing a tsunami of a different kind sweep across Japan.” Other officials said the message was insensitive, and Mr. Crowley pulled it from Twitter.

He also came under fire in a State Department audit while managing the public affairs bureau … Last month, Michael Hammer, a former spokesman for the National Security Council, became Mr. Crowley’s deputy — a move that was widely perceived as setting the stage for Mr. Crowley’s departure.

Full article here

so, how are the tea party candidates doing?

Well…….

Anchorage Daily News: Miller vows silence on background until election

Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller said this afternoon he will not be answering any more questions about his personal background for the remainder of the campaign…..

….The statement came as new questions were raised about Miller’s time as an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The Alaska Dispatch, quoting an anonymous source, reported Sunday night that Miller used borough equipment in the unsuccessful 2008 attempt to oust state Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.

Miller, who is a backed by the Tea Party Express, has faced scrutiny in recent weeks on a number of fronts involving his personal background, including that his family received low-income medical benefits, low-income hunting and fishing licenses and that his wife drew unemployment benefits. Miller has been critical of such programs at the federal level….

 

And then there’s Ohio GOP Congressional Candidate Richard Iott – that’s him, second from right:

Oh dear.