Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

McCain is right not to talk to Iran

By BJ



Well, at least in the sense that he's the wrong guy to do it, given he apparently doesn't even know who is actually in charge of the place.



The Iranian power structure is a byzantine beast at best, but the tthe guy at the top is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, rather than the eminently (mis)quotable Ahmadinejad. Given how "serious" a threat McCain and his supporters all tell us Iran is, you would think such a fact might be an important one to learn.



Of course, if all you're planning to do is bomb the place, why bother learning who the real leader is?



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2 comments:

  1. WWBMay 20, 2008 at 3:05 PM

    On the other hand, Obama has only mentioned Ahmadinejad, never Khamenei, as a leader he would talk with. Does Khamenei do any negotiations? Who visited the UN this past year?
    Besides, Joe Klein's crack research team may be on crack, since they missed the video of Obama standing with the NYC police union and talking about meeting with the president of Iran.

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  2. BJ BjornsonMay 20, 2008 at 5:03 PM

    Watching part of an interview tonight on CNN, Obama said that he wanted to talk to the people who actually had the power in Iran to do the things America wants them to do, and that that probably wouldn't be Ahmadinejad. He didn't mention Khamenei by name, but any negotiations would probably initially be through Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, which sets Iranian foreign policy, though it is still ultimately answerable to Khamenei.
    Khamenei also does meet with foreign leaders, though it's rare and mostly in the Muslim world. He received President Putin last October. Ultimately, if you want real change in Iran's behaviour, Khamenei is the one you have to convince.
    Obama's answer could have been better, but it's far better than McCain trying to fall back on the , "Well, if you ask the average American who the leader of Iran is" line, given said American has probably been listening to people like McCain keep telling them that Ahmadinejad is Iran's leader.

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