Controversy of the day: The Rick Santorum/Ron Paul post-debate handshake

posted at 9:25 pm on February 23, 2012 by Allahpundit

Yes, it’s this slow of a news day.

BuzzFeed has a round-up of tweets from angry Paul fans but even The Blaze seems surprised at the vigor with which Santorum shook a 76-year-old man’s hand. I’m surprised too. Not because Sweater Vest is trying to tear his arm off or whatever the going theory is but because it seems plain as day to me that it’s a playful joke, a comically exaggerated handshake to underscore the fact that Paul was very, very tough on him at the debate. I thought there’d be more bad blood between them but Santorum pats him on the back too as Paul is standing up. In fact, watch this video of the two of them and Rick Perry joking around backstage before the CBS debate in November. As much as we’d like to believe these passionate ideological differences translate into personal tension — and they do, I’m sure, to some small extent — after 20 debates these guys must have a certain rapport with each other. I remember someone tweeting just last night that as CNN came back from commercial, Gingrich could be seen sharing a hearty laugh with … Romney, the guy he’s been ripping on for months for having sunk him in Iowa with endless negative ads. I’d bet that among most prominent pols there’s actually an ethic that compels civility when dealing with an opponent face to face, if only to prove that you’re professional enough, and your skin is thick enough, that you can take the daily insults and still keep your cool. Nothing untoward here, I think, although I’d be curious to know Paul’s reaction.

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“Russian authorities contacted the US government with concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev not once but “multiple’’ times”… The fact that the Russian warning wasn’t just a “vague inquiry” but multiple alerts…

What did those concerns and alerts consist of, exactly? Without knowing that, it’s hard for me to get all outraged at the US govt. at this point.

It’s rather easy in retrospect to blame the FBI, but all they can do is interview the guy or keep surveillance on him, and they did interview him.

How does one predict that a guy will in fact blow up Americans at some time in the future?

If they knew back in 2011 or whenever that the guy was looking at radical Islamic web sites, what then? I’m sure there are other nuts in the U.S. today who are fans of those sites too, but are all of them going to blow up Americans, and how do you determine that, or which ones will do so, and when?

The part I find strange is that immediately following the attack on the marathon, one would think the FBI and other authorities would immediately go to a “Prior List ‘O’ Terror Suspects in the Vicinity of Boston” and skim down the page for names and start investigating those people, but it looks as though they did not do this.

TigerPaw on April 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM

deadite on April 24, 2013 at 10:58 AM

Tamerlan is being viewed only now as a suspect in light of the marathon bombings – prior to that, nobody suspected it. Last I heard, it’s still not been confirmed he is in fact responsible for the murders of the 3 guys in Boston.

Even if police figured “this looks like an Islamic style murder,” and even suspect that Tamerlan guy, how were they to know he would later blow people up?

A lot of men beat their girlfriends; those same guys don’t usually go on to make pressure cooker bombs and blow up spectators at sporting events.

TigerPaw on April 24, 2013 at 4:06 PM

Paul-Cincy on April 24, 2013 at 11:23 AM

I’ve read that some Hindus in other parts of the world kill Christians.

Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians

Hundreds of Christians in the Indian state of Orissa have been forced to renounce their religion and become Hindus after lynch mobs issued them with a stark ultimatum: convert or die.

TigerPaw on April 24, 2013 at 4:20 PM

What we do know is that Bush did more to promuglate the fallacious notion that Islam is a “religion of peace hijacked by a few radicals” than maybe any other infidel in history.

The idea that we can have a war against a tactic is absurd.

His legacy on this is shameful.

happytobehere on April 24, 2013 at 11:38 AM

Maybe George W Bush only spouted the rhetoric about Islam being about peace so as to calm down the Islamic community worldwide?

Around that time, I remember a lot of people on the left were throwing a fit about not “profiling Muslim” (or Muslim looking people), how it was wrong for America to single out that one religion, etc., and some of the imams IIRC were already saying in the media in their nations that the USA was going to war against all Muslims, not just the Islamic kooks behind 9/11.

We’re talking about people (radical Muslims) who cause riots, burn property, and kill and rape people, over the least little thing, such as cartoon drawings of their prophet.

TigerPaw on April 24, 2013 at 4:31 PM

The future does not belong to those who would slander Islam, right, Mr. President?

Washington Nearsider on April 24, 2013 at 10:57 AM

Actually his words were “… slander the prophet of Islam”.

Moreover you can only slander a person by speaking untruths, so it is perfectly OK to speak of Mohammed’s violent, cowardly, deceitful character, and his ignorance because that is the truth.

In order to slander the barbarian of Arabia you’d have to falsely accuse him of … well, that’s tricky … parking his camel behind a sand-dune reserved for use by disabled barbarians, perhaps.

YiZhangZhe on April 24, 2013 at 5:59 PM

CLICK!! and the light goes on over Ed’s head.

Look, there isn’t a cop or an agent or a fed out there that had any experience with the system who didn’t see this coming.

My buddy and ex-partner worked with them years ago during the Bush admin. He predicted every action that has been taken by the bureaucracy since the bombing. He told me Tuesday the day after, “They already know who it is, they had a file. The problem for them is explaining it. The efforts now will be all about CYA.”

He then went down a list over the next days pointing out what will happen.

1. The feds knew. They realized almost immediately who the bombers were. They didn’t know who else was involved (thus the false release of other photos). The first thing any cops does is pull possible suspects. How long do you think it took to find one Russia warned us about who lived two miles away, fit the description and had a young brother who looked like the second bomber? Hours? Maybe. Then there is the agent who created the file and his JTTF partner. They knew just by looking at the pics.

2. They were ALL ABOUT CYA up and down the line. The Obama administration’s ideology failed in Benghazi and now in Boston. The FBI is hogtied by new definitions and rules. The organizations, after all the power we’ve given them, still don’t talk to each other.

3. They will attempt to control the narrative. If you’ll note, every time there is a FBI investigation they always find a “cell” of more than one. However, if a bad guy gets by them it is always a lone wolf. Already the pliant MSM is being fed “they acted alone”, “they had no help”, blah blah while inside the investigation they are scrambling to find out just how big this is. We know it reaches into Dagestan and Russia. We know the mosque is involved. We know there is now at least one more person involved here. Yet, we get “move along nothing to see here.”

4. The Saudi was probably some rich spoiled kid secreted into the US on a speedpass by Obama’s people. That violates the law, which never slowed that Chicago crowd down. Now it’s cover up time. And as time passes, they’ll hope it goes the way of F&F and not Watergate.

5. The investigation will take two tracks. The real cops will be trying to solve it and stop the rest of the cell from acting. The bosses will be picking out Brook Brothers suits for their day in Congress and practicing a shocked dumfounded look in front of the mirror like the one Janet had the other day. “I’m Shocked, SHOCKED to find the system has failed again! We need to fix it. Yes, that is the course forward. Not fire anyone, not jail anyone for lying, but this time fix it!”

6. You have to understand just how serious this threat was to the Russians. To have them struggle through their bureaucracy to warn ours, repeatedly, even though we acted like idiots means they were scared for us.

That’s right. The Russians were more worried about our citizens than Obama.

Think about that.

http://truthandcommonsense.com/2013/04/24/conspiracy-no-taking-advantage-of-a-crisis-sadly-yes/

http://truthandcommonsense.com/2013/04/21/now-that-the-fbi-is-sweeping-up-the-cell-it-is-time-to-ask-how-they-missed-it/

archer52 on April 25, 2013 at 7:04 AM

Obama won’t even allow the FBI or DHS to acknowledge there is such a thing as an Islamic terrorist.

So how could we ever expect the FBI or DHS to stop any terrorist act under this administration?

Axion on April 25, 2013 at 4:47 PM

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