I Have a Crush on Alex Trebek

What is so disheartning

is that people have him failing before he even starts.  He said it himself... he's going to falter.  And he's going to stumble.  And things are NOT going to go right all the time.  Oh well, the first challange was getting him elected.  He'll be fighting an uphill battle all the way.  But I remain optimistic!

Some Clinton People

are coming in, as a matter of fact. Will that make it Bubba's 3rd term, only time will tell. I honestly doubt it. It was actually another poster who first mentioned "Big Zbig". The first comment by "???", if memory serves.

Unlike those who said that McCain was going to be another GWB, I'm not going to make such a ridiculous assumption about Barack Obama, just because some of the players from 1992-2000 might be getting their old e-mail addresses and parking spaces back. The worst enemy of the Clinton administration was Clinton himself.

I actually feel bad for Barack Obama. I wonder that if for even the briefest moment after Tuesday night, he might have smacked his own head like he could have had a V8 and thought to himself, "What did I get myself into?"

The man has won what's probably the most thankless job in the world. So many people are looking at him as some sort of messiah who is going to magically change the country, and as the U.S. changes, so does the rest of the world. It's a task that no one person can reasonably fulfill.

This idealistic (and idol-istic) perception of him is only going to result in disappointment.

so... if some Clinton administrators come in,

It's going to be a Clinton sequel?   That's my point Kaveh.  You make what appears to be a statement of fact when, as you have said, he's not even been approached.  But it will be OK if some Clinton aides come in?  You're just making these connections that are baseless.

Don't get so exaggerated about Carter.  I said... and I will repeat exactly what I said.  Iran does not define Carter's presidency.  In my mind, his human rights efforts far outweight the cluster that Iran became.  You're looking at this with blinders on.  I've made no attempt to revise history.  I"m looking at the whole picture, not just the part that supports my attempts to denigrate Obama before he even takes office.

I'm way past it!!

The only thing that stinks around here is the way some people are going "nana nana boo boo" over Obama winning the election. Yes it was 30 years ago, and people have been paying dearly for it ever since. Not just Iran, but other places as well.

Brzezinski hasn't even been approached regarding a role in Obama's administration, by the way. It was a "what if" scenario. It looks like Obama will be turning to some Clinton administration veterans to fill key posts, which is probably the better way to go. Many people from Carter's administration have been too far removed from active roles in government.

As far as what you believe defined Carter's presidency, are you suggesting that the historians and experts are all wrong and you're right?

Yeah, Carter's Iran policy had nothing to do with Ronald Reagan winning 489 electoral votes in 1980 compared to his 49.

Get past it already!

I'm hardly getting defensive Kaveh.  You bring up an old onion and then wonder why your argument stinks.  Forget about Carter.  That was 30 years ago.  Obama brings in a member of Carter's administration and all of a sudden it's "Carter the Sequel".  I remind you again that Carter's relationship with Iran does not define his Presidency.  It might be all YOU care about but not the rest of America.

AW

If the incoming administration is NOT going to be the 2nd term of Jimmy Carter, then why are you getting all agitated and defensive instead of letting events unfold and play out in their own?

Zbigniew Brzezinski was a major player in Carter's administration. Let's face it; National Security Advisor gets you a reserved parking space in the White House garage very close to the elevator.

Who knows if Brzezinski would walk away from what's by all accounts a lucrative professorship at Johns Hopkins unless he were to have at least the same level of influence if not greater in a new administration. It's still very speculative.

And as far as U.S. culpability versus Iranian, that wasn't a horse-toothed Iranian peanut farmer who tried to bully the Shah into selling crude to the U.S. for $8/bbl for 50 years. It wasn't an Iranian government official who tried to coerce the Shah into awarding contracts to personal friends of Jimmy Carter and to give him a kickback in the process.

They didn't shove that Indian down Iran's throat. They just kicked their meal ticket, their goose that laid their golden egg, their ATM machine, their olive-skinned bitch to the curb when they didn't get what they wanted anymore.

both republicans and democrats have contributed to

installing the mullahs. I'm hopin Obama et al do the exact same thing to the IRI as they did to the Shah in manufacturing the velvet revolution.

U.S. policies may have contributed to Iran revolution, study says

//www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...

Manufactured coup of 1979: " A Centure of War" by William Engdhall

//www.amazon.com/Century-War-Anglo-American-P...

What really happened to the Shah of Iran:
Excerpts from the book:

//www.payvand.com/news/06/mar/1090.html

Report: U.S. Missteps Led To Shah's Overthrow NPR

//www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story...

The installation of Ayatollah by the West:

//www.williambowles.info/guests/2005/iran_cla...

Carter's Habitat of inhumanity:

//www.investors.com/editorial/editorialconten...

Complicity of France in Manufacturing the Iranian Revolution and Jimmy Carter's betrayal of the Iranian People

//www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1857

Thanks for the article Azarin jan

US foreign policies are always about the oil, aren't they?   

Not only the republicans had a major role in Shah's fall shown in the article you posted (oil and OPEC), they also contributed to the stability of IRI in Reagan years (Iran/Iraq war) and then in GWB era of error (see Robert Baer book: the devil we know) 

Some Iranians keep forgetting the facts and portra the democrats as the supporters of the fundamentalists in Iran which doesn't make any sense and they have nothing to show for as proof, just their own 30 yr old grudges... 

IRANdokht

Republicans Scheming with Arabs? Is the sky blue?

Thanks Azarin. That article is a good, recent reference for information that further proves that the shah was an egomaniac and that governments with a single leadership like Irans are more weak than strong, no matter how dictatorial. 

Have you seen this article?

//www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-shah17-2008oct17,0,7636765.story

It seems that Jimmy Carter had nothing to do with Iran's revolution, but the article gives details on how Republicans contributed the most to Shah's fall.

Azarin

satisfaction guaranteed

I knew it... I just knew it!  I just wanted to hear it one more time. 

Your comment included a reference to Zbig as some indication or proof that Obama was Carter's sequel.  What does he have to do with health care?  Or the IRI?  Or perhaps Khomeini? If nothing, then your examples don't make any sense. And let me remind you again... no one... not the US or the UN or the BO or IRA... no one shoved Khomeini down your throat.  Participated... obviously.  Facilitated... it appears so.  But as I said before as well, we might have watered your little mess, but it's growing in your garden.  Take some responsibility for something for God's sake, instead of immediately trying to attach what Carter did to someone else almost 30 years later.  And if you think that Carter was a fool of the highest order, what does that say for the Iranian people, who supposedly KNEW Khomeini.   

Now that the election is over...

AW

Carter very naievely thought Khomeini to be "a man of God" and was ultimately proven to be a fool of the highest order.

Obama is of the mindset that the U.S. and the IRI should be engaged in direct dialogue. This can only result in failure.

Carter wanted to push national health care, Obama wants to push one as well.

Those are just two examples that I'm aware of off the top of my head.

I honestly don't know what Obama will do. It's really premature for anyone to speculate on that. As I said earlier, he's somewhat of an enigma. I do believe that the IRI will end up feeling further empowered, feeling they can act as they wish with impunity. They're a lot more predictable.

Marge...

girlfriend... you should know by now.  You're not going to satisfy the fixated.  But I like that you keep trying! 

It's interesting that a republican can differentiate between a "brief fleeting affinity" as being inadequate to provide a US/Iran bond, but a briefly shared committee relationship constitutes "palling around with terrorists".  Oh well.

Kaveh... you know from previous postings how I feel about Carter. Explain this "sequel" to me.  I need to understand what Obama is going to do or how Obama is going to be used as the latest excuse for Iranians in allowing this regime to exist.

You're right. I think MRX and sam sam should be in the cabinet

Screw the scholars! Screw knowledge! Yay for dogma! The less you know the better!!! Yay for BS. Yay for iranian.com howlers!

Trita and Vali Nasr are both very esteemed scholars, with realistic outlooks about Iran and the Middle East. Obviously those of you who label these guys haven't read anything they write. Get a life.

We shall see

I can't say that I have a heck of a lot of confidence about this administration. Barack Obama, as popular as he is right now, is still very much an enigma. But in all fairness, the electoral college hasn't even met yet.

I also don't believe that Valerie Jarrett being born in Shiraz will have any bearing on U.S./Iran relations. I haven't seen anything to convince me she has anything beyond a fleeting, superficial affinity for Iran.

If Zbig were to have any role, then it will validate the point of view that the incoming administration is Jimmy Carter, The Sequel.

To Marge

Marge joon I knew you would want that! how about Mohsen Rezai's son or even better, Faezeh Rafsanjani?

PS. Vali Nasr was already one of those "ass hats" advisors to the Committe on Foreign Relations chaired by Biden.

Early years Jarrett was born

Early years

Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran, where her father, Dr. James Bowman, ran a hospital for poor children as part of a program that sent American doctors and agricultural experts to developing countries to help jump-start their health and farming efforts. At age 5, the family moved to London for one year, then returned to Chicago in 1963.

Her father, who is of African American descent is a pathologist and geneticist. He is currently Professor Emeritus in Pathology and Medicine, University of Chicago.[2][3] Her great-grandfather was the first African-American to graduate from M.I.T., her grandfather was Robert Taylor the first black man to head the Chicago Housing Authority, and her father Dr. James Bowman was the first black resident at St. Luke’s Hospital. Though Ms. Jarrett has never worked in Washington, her great-uncle is Democratic powerbroker Vernon Jordan. [4] Her mother, Barbara Bowman, is an early childhood education expert and co-founder of the Erikson Institute for child development.[4][5]

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Jarrett

That is very interesting

That is very interesting info. thanks for sharing.

Vali, Trita are IRI sympathizers and should not be involved in Obama's adminstration.

I hope those guys get something because they're very smart

And I'd rather someone like that talk to an advisor or the president than the ass hats that bush was talking to all these years.

What about Zbig? what about Trita? What about Vali Nasr?

Aren't they going to have a post?