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, July 7, 2009

Captured en passant

by anderson


One moment I was reading that, according to Henry Kissinger, "Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess."  

The next moment, I read this:

In a slip of the tongue, U.S. President Barack Obama described Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday as president, echoing the widely held view that he remains Russia's most powerful man.


...
"I suspect when I speak to President..eh.. Prime Minister Putin tomorrow, he will say the same thing."

It seems like an innocent enough slip -- who can keep all those PMs and presidents straight forcrissakes? and they're switching them around all the time -- but it is pregnant with implication:

oh, ho, there, no not "president" like he was when Bush was in charge.  He's the PM now, and Bush is not in charge.  I am.  I mean, I know it has been a bit hard -- on paper -- to notice much difference between Bush and me.  But no, no, it's me!  The change guy.  Note the eloquence by which I inform you of my plans for indefinite detention, continued and expanded application of state secrecy, warrantless wiretapping, military tribunals, the lawless Bagram hell hole, ... Further note the absence of eloquence as I fail to inform you of continued NATO/US military encirclement of Russia, a continued long term military presence in Iraq, and even longer in Afghanistan, the "black budget" onslaught of the military-security-industrial complex, ...  Never mind.  I'm not Bush, and he's not Putin.  So there.  Everything is different now. 

Some reporter blurted out a question about who was running [Russia].  He might have asked the same question of Obama.

Also, Barack, I imagine you could speak to a lot of Russians who will say the same thing.


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2 comments:

  1. Enlightened LaypersonJuly 7, 2009 at 12:41 PM

    Look, there is at least one difference between Bush and Obama. Obama is not opposed to all diplomacy as a matter of principle. I don't pretend it is sufficient -- I expected a whole lot more when I went out and canvassed for him. But in the context of an international summit, we should acknowledge this one difference at least.

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  2. andersonJuly 7, 2009 at 1:08 PM

    Oh yes, I agree. But the underlying policies are still there. It is just that Obama has the velvet glove approach, marking that the realists are back in charge to some degree. Look at all the realists who praise him for acting on their advice. They may not have sway over Ak-Pak, but outside hot zones, Brzezinski, Kissinger, et al, are tuned in.

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