HILLARY CLINTON: WE MUST "EMPATHIZE" WITH OUR ENEMY

LexusLover's Avatar
It always makes me feel special when I see my own Congresswoman's picture.

After all, we who reside in her district are the only ones who can lay claim to being represented by the biggest Moron in The House of Representatives.

We're #1!!! Originally Posted by Jackie S
You're welcome. She is good enough reason to never vote a straight Democratic ticket.

I think she still is proud of the astronauts planting the U.S. flag on Mars.
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
For the record, I have NEVER voted a straight ticket. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
Makes sense. You vote for your own kind. They aren't straight.
lustylad's Avatar
Hillary Clinton’s Empathy Deficit

‘Smart power’ shouldn’t include shrill lectures for our friends.


By Bret Stephens

Dec. 8, 2014 7:09 p.m. ET

Hillary Clinton is being pilloried by pundits on the right for saying, at a recent speech at Georgetown, that America’s leaders should “empathize” with America’s enemies. But what’s so wrong about that?

“This is what we call smart power,” she said, using the phrase that was supposed to define her tenure as secretary of state. “Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one side on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, [and] empathize with their perspective and point of view.”

As a matter of politics, “empathize” was a lousy word choice, a reminder that Mrs. Clinton is as tin-eared as she is ambitious: Expect a GOP political attack ad if and when she runs for president.

But empathy isn’t sympathy. Understanding an enemy’s point of view does not mean taking their side. Respect is not solidarity. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,” Sun Tzu teaches in “The Art of War.” “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

It’s good advice. Mrs. Clinton isn’t wrong to adopt it. Her problem is that she appears to be a singularly lousy empathizer.

In April 2005 Vladimir Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” In 2006 a Russian dissident in London was poisoned by polonium—a nuclear attack in miniature—leading to a breakdown in relations between London and Moscow. In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia. That same year, educational manuals for Russian social-studies teachers took the view that Joseph Stalin was “the most successful Soviet leader ever.”

What about the Great Terror of the 1930s, in which millions of Soviet citizens were killed by Stalin’s henchmen? That, according to the manual, happened because Stalin “did not know who would deal the next blow, and for that reason he attacked every known group and movement.” Commenting on the Terror, Mr. Putin allowed that the killing was terrible “but in other countries worse things happened.”

Such was the man Mrs. Clinton had every reason to “understand” when she arrived at the State Department in 2009. What conclusions was she supposed to draw about someone whose core ambition was to restore the reputation, and the former borders, of the old Soviet Union? That the time had come to clink glasses and announce a reset?

Or take Iran. In her most recent memoir, Mrs. Clinton asks: “If Iran had a nuclear weapon tomorrow, would that create even one more job for a country where millions of young people are out of work? Would it send one more Iranian to college or rebuild the roads and ports still crumbling from the war with Iraq a generation ago? When Iranians look abroad, would they rather end up like North Korea or South Korea?”

These are the kinds of questions that often confound Americans who too easily assume that the things democratic politicians want for their people are the same things dictators want for themselves. South or North Korea? That’s easy: Tehran’s ties to Pyongyang run deep because both capitals see themselves resisting American imperialism. Nuclear weapons or a better economy? That’s easy, too, since the former allow you to bully your neighbors and dominate the region, while the latter merely create a growing middle class demanding greater civic and political freedoms.

If Mrs. Clinton made a serious effort to see things from the ayatollahs’ point of view, maybe she’d get this. If she had real respect for them, she wouldn’t suppose that they are merely too stupid, or blinded by prejudice, or stuck in the past, to understand their own values and self-interest. Why do liberals who celebrate diversity seem to think that, deep down, all people want the same things?

Here’s another question: If Mrs. Clinton is at least prepared to attempt a show of empathy for the Putins and Khameneis of the world, why so little empathy for American allies? In March 2010 a minor Israeli official announced the approval of some additional construction in a Jerusalem neighborhood, mischaracterized as a “settlement,” when Vice President Joe Biden was in the country. It was an ordinary bureaucratic bungle by the Israeli government.

So what did Mrs. Clinton do? She called Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to yell at him. “I told the Prime Minister that President Obama had viewed the news about East Jerusalem as ‘a personal insult to him, the Vice President, and the United States,’ ” as she recounts in her memoir.

Such has been the pattern of the Obama administration, whose foreign policy record Mrs. Clinton cannot escape or finesse: misplaced understanding toward our adversaries, shrill lectures for our friends. The next president needs to make it the other way around.
rioseco's Avatar
Empathize: To have the same feelings as another person.




Gawd help us if this moron is our next president.

Originally Posted by Whirlaway
This commie bull dyke is playing "Long Pecker Poker" with Obama. She's measuring hers against his to see who has the most stick. The dyke is trying to adopt and out do his lame ass apology strategy.
Same sick shit,different mongoloid !
JD Barleycorn's Avatar
I'm sorry Mrs. Clinton, I don't want to empathize with a group who cuts the heads of children off because they won't convert to the Islam cult.
Yssup Rider's Avatar
Fucking morons
LexusLover's Avatar
Fucking morons Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
"You man" used to call them "junior varsity" ..

.................. is "fucking morons" the new label?

In the footsteps of the "Report on Torture" the ISIS (aka JV) "Rules of Engagement in the Treatment of Christian Women and Children" is being released for general consumption .. with emphasis on the Section focused on:

"Treatment of Christian Female Sex Slaves"
1.01. When you can beat them.
1.02. When you can rape them (Days of the Week and Ages).
1.03. When you can dispose of them.

BTW: ISIS ... "waterboards" and uses other "enhanced" techniques .. like ..

............. sawing people's heads off.... including children.
Yssup Rider's Avatar
Actually, I was referring to you, LLIdiot
Yssup Rider's Avatar
So does that mean the report should not have been compiled or that you just are in favor of torture? Or should the "detainees" have been given due process? Seems like you've been all over the board on this one. Pick one.
Seems like you are all over the board Assup with your fake interpretations and projected choices...Your meltdown continues.

Hillary empathizes so much she took a job with her top political enemy. Talk about Stockholm syndrome!
LexusLover's Avatar
Actually, I was referring to you, LLIdiot Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
Actually, ... you're not relevant ...

.....other than as the ACA poster-child for failure.
LexusLover's Avatar
So does that mean the report should not have been compiled ...... Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
The man who has been "charged" as the "architect of enhanced techniques" in the report is being interviewed and allowed to discuss his role and what actually happened .... in the interest of knowledge have you been watching/listening?
Sony cancels North Korea movie in apparent win for Pyongyang hackers

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0JV2MA20141218