Is anybody else as sick of Arianna Huffington as I am? She was obnoxious as an ostensibly conservative Republican, predictably bizarre as a California cultist, and now that she’s the doyenne of the Hollywood trendy-wendy Left she’s even more galling than ever. Check out her most recent post on Barack Obama, whose candidacy she’s pushing, in the course of which she manages to indulge both her liberal myopia and her odd fixation on Tim Russert:

Picking up the rhetorical shank bone, and accepting Obama’s substance anorexia as a given, Russert asked, “Is there now a second phase of the coverage of Barack Obama where reporters and voters will start demanding from him real specifics on the real challenges confronting our country and world?”

It makes me wonder: don’t these guys own a computer? If they took the time to surf the websites of any of the candidates, they’d see that the presidential campaign is already awash in real specifics on all kinds of real challenges. Indeed, they should go to barackobama.com right now and click on ‘Issues.” They’ll see something called “Plan to End the War in Iraq,” which is… a plan to end the war in Iraq. But maybe the war isn’t a real enough challenge for Russert.

Really, dah-link, do click on that link promising a “plan to end the war in Iraq,” and what do you find? This:

The plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. If the Iraqis are successful in meeting the 13 benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration, this plan also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met.

So, according to Obama and his Hollywood friends, we have to “redeploy” — never withdraw — starting next year, but only if the Iraqis persist in failing to be “successful” in meeting 13 mysteriously unspecified “benchmarks.” The “redeployment” will end, however, if and when the Iraqis start acting like good colonial subjects and kiss our asses in 13 different positions. And, in any case, we aren’t really leaving, you silly goose — that’s what “redeployment” is all about, don’tcha know. We’ll always have a “limited number” of troops garrisoning the Green Zone, just enough for the Democrats to claim that they’re not “cutting and running.” More than enough, in short, to keep the Iraqi government on the American leash — and, perhaps, give the insurgents enough of a target to emulate Beirut, 1983.

With an “antiwar” candidate like Obama, what do we need John McCain for? This “plan” is a recipe for a semi-permanent occupation.

I say send we send Arianna, and a “limited number” of the Hollywood Left, to “train” the Iraqis to jump through hoops and leap over “benchmarks.” That way we’ll be spared having to listen to her cocktail-party smalltalk elevated to the level of serious political discourse.

P.S. Oh, yes, and don’t forget Obama’s refusal to rule out going to war with Iran (and Pakistan!) …

in Politics by Justin Raimondo