God told Moses to send twelve men to spy out, or look secretly at, the land of Canaan so that they would know what kind of people lived there, what kind of houses the people lived in, and whether the land was good for growing things. One of the spies was named Joshua; he was a special helper to Moses. Another man’s name was Caleb.
The twelve spies left the camp and went into Canaan. They climbed the mountains and looked down at the cities and the fields. They saw some the people of Canaan. They cut down a very big bunch of grapes and put it on a pole to carry back to the camp to show the people what good food could be grown in the land God had promised them. Joshua, Caleb, and the other spies were gone 40 days.
When they come back to the camp, though, all the spies except Joshua and Caleb said to Moses and the people, “This is a very rich land with much grass and water and food, but the people there are very big and strong. Their cities have great high walls. Some of the men are like giants and make us feel like grasshoppers beside them. We cannot fight them and win the land.”
But Joshua and Caleb said, “The men are strong; that is true. But God has promised us this good land and we can win it, for God is with us and will help us.” Numbers 13:1-30
Thanks to Julian Assange and Wikileaks there are a lot of people with their panties in a wad.
From Time:
Hillary Clinton, Julian Assange said, “should resign.” Speaking over Skype from an undisclosed location on Tuesday, the WikiLeaks founder was replying to a question by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel over the diplomatic-cable dump that Assange’s organization loosed on the world this past weekend. Stengel had said the U.S. Secretary of State was looking like “the fall guy” in the ensuing controversy, and had asked whether her firing or resignation was an outcome that Assange wanted. “I don’t think it would make much of a difference either way,” Assange said. “But she should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that.”
Do we spy on other countries? Hell yes.
Friends and allies too? Damn straight!
We spy on them, and they spy on us. Literally, “everybody does it.” Everybody also denies doing it too.
Spying is the old fashioned term for what is now called “intelligence gathering.” It is in our nation’s best interest that our leaders know what the rest of the world is up to. We need to know what their capabilities are as well as their intentions. We also need to verify if what they tell us is the truth.
So we spy on them.
Of course everybody tries to keep secrets. They also try to spread misinformation to confuse everyone else. It’s kinda like poker – you keep your cards close to your chest and occasionally run a bluff.
Well now we got caught sneaking a peek at everybody else’s cards. Big deal. Ignore the fauxrage cuz nobody really cares. The only thing that is gonna change is we’ll be more careful in the future.
As for Hillary Clinton I don’t think she should resign. I think Barack Obama should fire her.
Seriously.
If he fires her then she can pack her suitcase and head for Iowa.
The Confluence 
Via Uppity:
That’s very nice. Mmm…crowded food courts in the wintertime. Christmas in CA here I come.
I believe that was from a mall in New Yawk.
No, really. I still need to get my tickets to see my Berkeley and OC based fambly for xmas.
I love these creative flash mobs. Wakes everybody up. Did you see the face of the dumbfounded little boy?
That was very nice.
Better late than never:
The poke your eyes out snark is a little too close to the truth to be very funny. OT but I am getting more and more questions from former Democratic donors about being possible early funders for primary challengers for Obama. Yes challengers as in plural. It seems more than one Democrat is sending out feelers to see if they can raise money now to mount a challenge and it is not Hillary. This is in the legal services community. Anyone else getting these questions from disengaged Democrats?
Nope
I haven’t heard a single person suggest a name.
I have seen a lot of handwringing and wishing though as well as been watching the folks who are suggesting they’ll go down with the proverbial ship and vote for him even though they disagree with him on practically everything.
That is what this may be also. But calls are being made to scrounge up big bucks. His polling is supposedly worse than reported in the press and he is making more enemies than friends and very quickly. They also know his shtick and are not particularly afraid of him. He is seen as an election loser and these are people who hate to lose at anything.
Nothing like that, but I’m getting to be pretty damn certain Dean is running.
Cool. Dean will get Obama to make many more promises to progressives.
With everybody heading to the fainting couches you’d figure they have amnesia. At least twice this year two other nations were caught spying….one of them on us.
It’s the equivalent of doing your research before heading into a job interview/ a negotiation. Going in blind to negotiate is the stupidest strategy ever.
As far as being outraged over it I don’t get it. What I find questionable are things like the Yemeni operation where we blatantly lie about our part. I’m not sure that it’s right for a government for the people by the people to omit or lie about it’s intentions towards other countries. The spying stuff is a yawn though.
Spying and covert ops are two different things.
Agree…
It’s the latest media high DRAMA. It’s like a gaping maw that can never be satisfied, hungry for every shred of hysteria they can squeeze out of the latest event. I read a post last night about the workings of State, and cables that are released from State from many departments and people say CLINTON on them. So OF COURSE, she must be guilty of something! The CDS maw (overlapping with the media maw) is thrilled to gnash on this latest scrap of evidence to condemn a Clinton. I saw a comment that actually mentioned Vince Foster again…
HILLARY 2012!
I need coffee, still asleep ….
Hillary should have resigned long ago, loudly and on principle, like the Brits do when there are policies they don’t agree with, and gawd knows The Big O has got plenty of those.
Then she could have gone home, and sat on her front porch until the draft announcement.
The DRAFT announcement is coming when our Nobel Peace Prize President engages us in our THIRD WAR, everyone knows that BUSH II has had the BACKDOOR DRAFT going via the reserves who are now doing 3 and 4 tours of duty.
I think that may be a luxury of male pols. It seems like women who resign for any reason get painted as weak, uncommitted quitters, and women who stay get painted as complacent co-conspirators.
Bingo!
This strikes me as being completely equivalent to the OFB talking point “He had to say it.”
Personally, I have more respect for Hillary than that. I’m with Carville, who said “If she gave Obama one of her balls, she’d still have two.”
Anything that’s grounded in policy has stopping points and limits, based on the nature of the policy itself. We’ve seen that, with Obama, there are no stopping points — as OFA appeals to its members to cut the Federal workforce, for example (some hope and change!)
So where’s the stopping point here? Not Afghanistan, obviously. Not drone strikes, obviously. Not torture, obviously. And not the empire, obvioulsy. So, where?
When, exactly, will the claim NOT get made that “she has to do that because she’s a woman”? If surviving the fires of hell in the 2008 primaries doesn’t show she’s strong enough, what will?
Hillary’s supporters do her no service by defending her on the grounds that she does what she does because otherwise she might appear weak. They should hold her accountable for not doing what her strengths obviously empower her to do.
NOTE As a prophylactic, I’m not saying that women, in general, don’t face such obstacles; of course they do. So, which course of action, by an elite policy maker like Hillary, strengthens all women more? Acting on principle? Or acting “because she had to do that”?
Acting on what principle exactly. That torture is bad? I think Hillary has been clear about that, and I don’t think she lets it take place. That war is bad? I don’t think it’s the decision of an SoS to end wars. That’s what Potus and Congress do. That Israel is bad? I don’t think that Israel is bad. That sexism is bad? I think pretty much everyone agrees about this, but we are still living in the Age of the New Sexism, brought to you by the proud sponsors of the Barack Obama Show from the progressive left. In political life, Hillary is a strong and capable leader who happens to be a woman, not a woman who happens to be a strong leader. The prog boys in particular always miss that point.
A little moderation help please.
A) You can resign on principle or you can keep your job on the principle that it is better to help people where you can and work for change from the inside, which has always been Hillary’s perspective. It certainly seems to accomplish more than leaving in a dignified huff.
B) The claim that “she has to do that because she’s a woman” will stop being made when it stops being TRUE. Women don’t recover from things that would be minor stumbling blocks to male pols. Staying in the game is how you get shit done. See point A above.
I go back to the ‘Conspiracy Theory’ thread about Wiki here…
This is about trying to damage Hillary… This administration knew for MONTHS that this stuff was coming, and they couldn’t draft an indictment sooner? – or hack the servers BEFORE the dump?…
They knew nothing of any real consequence was coming, but that it would tar Hillary even though most of the stuff is not from her or her term.
So far there are a lot of no name repubs and Palin to have to run against – BO’s only REAL threat (at this time) looks to be Hillary – even though I think she wants nothing to do with primary-ing him… I suspect whether they are worried about being Primaried or just plain ol’ jealousy that she is SOOOO popular and is proving her value tenfold, they were fine letting this leak out to knock her down a few pegs – then enter the calls for her to resign.
Talk about transparency…
exactly–if we can be part of a group (as the thinking goes) to develop stuxnet, then surely we can plant a worm in wiki. And from his own site no less.
Possibly, though if there’s anything on that other than speculation, I’m missing it. Links?
To me, the real test is the upcoming leak on the banks. That’s because I know the material on the banks well enough to assess it, and I don’t know the foreign policy material in detail. If the material damages the banks, that’s an excellent litmus test for Assange’s operation.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate
Speculation is in the eyes of the beholder, as lambert knows well. 🙂
What litmus test exactly? A test of how high quality and reliable their material is? Maybe. A test of the purity of their motivations? Unlikely.
Myiq: “As for Hillary Clinton I don’t think she should resign. I think Barack Obama should fire her. Seriously. If he fires her then she can pack her suitcase and head for Iowa.”
Hillary 2012 indeed!! This statement made my day a happy day!! Seriously. It’s called “HOPE.”
Sure. If I were still a D, I’d support her. (I don’t think the legacy parties can be salvaged, so the 2012 primaries are not of great concern to me.)
If I were, though, I’d want to make sure that we didn’t make exactly the same mistake that Obama’s “progressive” supporters made: They didn’t hold his feet to the fire, and ended up with no power and no progressive policy outcomes worthy of the name.
Little problem of that. CDS is alive & well in the msm & the village.
Lambert, I have an enormous amount of respect for you, but I want you to know that your second para here feels a little concern trollish to me. Maybe I’m misreading, but that’s what I’m getting from it.
I like the fact that this video points out that these policies were left in place by BUSH II, which is a missed point in the US media coverage.
What’s with this “we” spy on them they spy on us crap. The two legacy parties represent the top 5% of the richest people in the country. Any spying being done is for their benefit, the rest of us just live here. As for Hillary if she quits or gets canned so what? Until her and her ilk are out of the Democratic party they can keep losing elections, AFAIC because they are no different than the ‘dreaded’ Republicans.
I guess a lot of us are upset because it was BUSH II & CONDI RICE that put all that crapola in place with Darth Cheney and no one is reporting that.
Thus Julian Assange has engaged Hillary’s Army and posts are going up, with the nick name of Orange Assange. I should tweet ’em to let them know, that was a bad move, ticking off the Hillary’sTeam Ladies.