Category Archives: Barack Obama

No, Joe — it was for inappropriate BEHAVIOR, not any point you were trying to make

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Wesley Donehue would be disappointed in me if I let one of his Joe Wilson releases go by without commentary. An excerpt from today’s:

Nearly two years ago I made national news when I voiced your outrage at the misrepresentations being perpetuated by the Obama administration. The media and Obama’s liberal allies attacked me for only pointing out the truth that ObamaCare would cover illegal immigrants.

Yesterday, my point was vindicated when the Department of Health and Human Services announced its newest ObamaCare grant. CNS News reported:

“Because the health care centers receiving $8.5 million in ObamaCare money ‘to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers’ will not check the immigration status of the migrant workers who seek their services it is inevitable that they will serve illegal aliens.”

The president specifically promised the American people that ObamaCare would not cover those who are here illegally. He misled all of us.

Let’s go back to your initial assertion. No, Joe. You weren’t “attacked” for “only pointing out the truth.” You weren’t attacked, or criticized, for any sort of point you may have been trying to make.

No, you were criticized for the gross indecorum of shouting “You lie!” in the House chamber, at the President of the United States, while he was speaking to you. You “made national news” not for making some pithy, pertinent point, but for startlingly rude behavior.

You know that. You know it was wrong. You apologized. You’re not normally the kind of guy who does stuff like that, and you knew better.

Everybody slips up. But please, please stop going about with this martyrdom act pretending you were somehow a victim in this.

It is NOT a defense, it does not excuse the inappropriateness of the act, for you to say now, “But he WAS lying.” For the purpose of judging whether YOUR behavior was right or not, that doesn’t matter.

Let’s say you were sitting there listening to a speech by a president whose parents were not married when he was born. It would STILL be inappropriate for you to interrupt him by yelling, “You’re a bastard!” And it would be even less seemly, a year or two later, for you to send out a press release showing documentation of his illegitimacy in order to moan about how unfairly YOU have been treated.

OK?

Thanks, SC5 and the rest of you; our country has for the first time lost its AAA credit rating

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Well, it became official last night, about three hours after I had wrapped up my first Virtual Front Page in awhile:

S&P Strips U.S. of Top Credit Rating

A cornerstone of the global financial system was shaken Friday when officials at ratings firm Standard & Poor’s said U.S. Treasury debt no longer deserved to be considered among the safest investments in the world.

S&P removed for the first time the triple-A rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, saying the budget deal recently brokered in Washington didn’t do enough to address the gloomy outlook for America’s finances. It downgraded long-term U.S. debt to AA+, a score that ranks below more than a dozen countries, including Liechtenstein, and on par with Belgium and New Zealand. S&P also put the new grade on “negative outlook,” meaning the U.S. has little chance of regaining the top rating in the near term…

S&P said the downgrade “reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” It also blamed the weakened “effectiveness, stability, and predictability” of U.S. policy making and political institutions at a time when challenges are mounting…

The WSJ report (and here are others from the NYT, NPR, BBC and the WashPost) goes on to say that it might not be too bad, since the other ratings agencies have kept the U.S. at the triple-A rating, then says…

But the move by S&P still could serve as a psychological haymaker for an American economic recovery that can’t find much traction, and could do more damage to investors’ increasing lack of faith in a political system that is struggling to reach consensus even on everyday policy matters. It could lead to the prompt debt downgrades of numerous companies and states, driving up their costs of borrowing. Policy makers are also anxious about any hidden icebergs the move could suddenly reveal.

Just what we needed, right?

As you see, the reason is that we failed to reach a comprehensive, rational, credible agreement on reducing U.S. debt. That was always the greater danger than the debt ceiling not being raised. And our elected representatives descended to the challenge of eroding the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

Of course, all involved in the government will vehemently defend their agreement against such condemnation as Standard & Poor’s. The Obama administration scoffed at S&P for making “a $2 trillion error” in its calculations. And indeed, well they might lash out, because all will share the blame.

But here’s the thing: Obama was willing to do a real deal. I’m not saying it would have fixed everything, but at least he was pushing the essential elements — both spending cuts and tax increases (or “reform” or “enhancements” or “revocation of cuts” or whatever you want to call it). That was and is essential to real deficit reduction for the simple fact that no one wants to go far enough in cuts.

Oh, four of the SC5 would go far enough. They have a nihilistic desire to cut, slash and burn; they are ideologues, and are not affected by pragmatic considerations. But Joe Wilson wouldn’t be with them; he wants to be re-elected. And if the cuts were deep enough to essentially eliminate the deficit without any revenue increases, they would be replaced in the next election by people who do give a damn about the essential functions of government (or what most voters regard as the essential functions of government, which in political terms amounts to the same thing). It would probably also split our two senators: DeMint cares little for the consequences of cutting, but Graham would balk at emasculating the U.S. military.

Gentlemen, if I may go so far as to call you “gentlemen,” you and those like you have brought us to this. I will watch, not without some trepidation, to see what you do next.

Again, maybe Obama DOES deserve major credit for getting bin Laden

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As you may recall, back when we first heard about the raid, I said something dismissive about our current president just being the lucky guy to have killing bin Laden happen on his watch. A few days later, I amended that to say that maybe we wouldn’t have gotten Public Enemy No. 1 if not for leadership exhibited by Barack Obama.

Today, I ran across further evidence that the specific actions taken by the president — which easily might have have been taken — helped lead to that SEAL coup de main.

It was in a piece in The New Yorker that gives a blow-by-blow account of the raid itself. I haven’t even finished reading the piece myself. I’ve looked at it in short glances ever since Nu Wexler brought it to my attention this morning (hope to finish it tonight), but I did get this far:

One month before the 2008 Presidential election, Obama, then a senator from Illinois, squared off in a debate against John McCain in an arena at Belmont University, in Nashville. A woman in the audience asked Obama if he would be willing to pursue Al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan, even if that meant invading an ally nation. He replied, “If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable, or unwilling, to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national-security priority.” McCain, who often criticized Obama for his naïveté on foreign-policy matters, characterized the promise as foolish, saying, “I’m not going to telegraph my punches.”

Four months after Obama entered the White House, Leon Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., briefed the President on the agency’s latest programs and initiatives for tracking bin Laden. Obama was unimpressed. In June, 2009, he drafted a memo instructing Panetta to create a “detailed operation plan” for finding the Al Qaeda leader and to “ensure that we have expended every effort.” Most notably, the President intensified the C.I.A.’s classified drone program; there were more missile strikes inside Pakistan during Obama’s first year in office than in George W. Bush’s eight. The terrorists swiftly registered the impact: that July, CBS reported that a recent Al Qaeda communiqué had referred to “brave commanders” who had been “snatched away” and to “so many hidden homes [which] have been levelled.” The document blamed the “very grave” situation on spies who had “spread throughout the land like locusts.” Nevertheless, bin Laden’s trail remained cold…

That additional pressure on al Qaeda — from pressing the CIA to try harder, to a direct escalation of military action in Pakistan — seems to draw a line that eventually led to what happened in Abbottabad. Yes, we’ve known since 2007 that Obama intended to be very aggressive about pursuing bin Laden into Pakistan. But this passage served as a clarifying reminder that Obama is more like Michael than like Sonny.

Actually, the rest of the piece seems to be more exciting than that tidbit I just shared. But I had a point to make about that part…

Congressman Joe Wilson, antiwar activist

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Here’s another chapter in what I wrote about back here, in the post headlined “Are we starting to see a geologic shift between left and right on national security?”…

I’ll give you the two items backwards. Friday afternoon, I received this release from Joe Wilson:

(Washington, DC) – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) released the following statement after the House of Representatives voted against authorizing the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya:

“The President’s decision to ignore the Constitution along with the War Powers Resolution has led us to this point. Choosing not to consult with Congress on this conflict was complicated even further by this Administration’s failure to explain and outline a plan of action to the American public.

“NATO is one of America’s closest allies. I do not want to jeopardize the progress it has made in removing Muammar Gaddafi from power. However, the President’s failure to actively engage Congress forces me to vote against committing our Armed Forces on the ground in Libya.”

I hope y’all didn’t get whiplash in that last paragraph. Let’s see, would not want in any way to jeopardize NATO’s mission in Libya (which, last time I checked, was not officially removing Gaddafi, but we can wink and nod at that one), on account of NATO being our great friends and all. BUT… he wants to tie Obama’s hands in supporting that mission, on account of, you know. Obama being Obama.

There are just so many bizarre things going on here. Republicans (especially Republicans of the strong national defense wing, like Joe Wilson) caring about the flippin’ War Powers Resolution. I mean, normally you hear folks in that camp saying the War Powers Resolution is what violates the Constitution. Then… well, I’ll let y’all figure out all the bizarre things about it. Here’s a news story on what Joe’s talking about, by the way.

I wanted to share something else with you. That morning, before the vote, this piece by Kimberley A. Strassel (normal world view: Obama bad, Republicans good) appeared in The Wall Street Journal. It was headlined, “The GOP’s War Powers Opportunism: Republicans abandon principle in a rush to score political points on the president.” I’m going to take a chance here of getting into trouble with the Journal by quoting large chunks of the piece, because it just makes so many good points. Here goes:

But what fun is there in criticizing Democrats on national security when the GOP is offering up a much more embarrassing spectacle? In their rush to score points on the president, what congressional Republicans have actually managed to do is hurt themselves. They’ve highlighted their own divisions and given voters reason to question whether the party is throwing over principle in favor of political opportunism or, more worrisome, a new form of GOP isolationism.

In the space of a few months, Republicans have gone from coherently criticizing Mr. Obama’s timid approach to the Arab awakening, to a few weeks ago incoherently losing 87 members to antiwar Democrat Dennis Kucinich’s resolution to end military engagement in Libya. This caused an open rift in the party, compelling Sen. John McCain to stand up for U.S. victory and sponsor a resolution giving Mr. Obama freedom of action for another year.

House Republicans have very publicly let it be known that they intend to hold a vote on Mr. McCain’s resolution—solely so that they can very publicly vote him down. Not satisfied that this is an ample enough rebuke to those who would win a war, the GOP is now working to pass legislation to defund the president’s Libya mission. That’s right, House Republicans (not House Democrats) intend to kneecap a commander in chief….

… House leaders are of the view that failing to take action against the president is the equivalent of letting him “get away” with his snubs and bad policy and to “win” on this issue. The only real winner of a Libya withdrawal is, of course, a terrorist named Moammar Gadhafi. But try telling that to a GOP that has come full circle to congressional Democrats, circa 2006, who masked their ambitions to undermine President Bush behind lofty arguments of Iraq “oversight.”

Speaking of 2006, some of this is also the consequence of a party with no obvious leader. Mr. Bush kept his caucus (barely) on Iraq only by constantly reminding members of the stakes. Those GOP candidates who would follow Mr. Bush have been mostly craven on Libya and Afghanistan, with Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann more worried about winning the next public-opinion poll than winning a war. House Speaker John Boehner remains reluctant to openly engage his excitable freshmen. Rather than lead on Libya, his default has been to try to make the best of a fractious GOP—for instance, by offering up a less-bad version of the Kucinich resolution.

To the extent there is political pressure, it comes from the tea party, which has no interest in foreign policy but is instead focused on spending and federal powers. This has helped to drive the growing group of self-described constitutionalists and war-deficit-hawks who are giving rise to a new brand of Republican isolationism.

The prevailing antigovernment feeling has allowed folks like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to spin the Libya mission as some sort of affront to the Constitution, since Mr. Obama failed to beg Congress’s approval for Libya, as required by the 1973 War Powers Act. Never mind that conservative scholars will point out that it is the War Powers Act itself that is unconstitutional. That used to be the general GOP view, but with “Obama violated the Constitution” making for such a delicious sound bite among base voters, Republicans are willing to forget the past.

Really, I wanted to quote the whole thing, but restrained myself slightly, giving you only the parts that best address what Joe Wilson and the majority did yesterday.

I urge you to go read it all — and browse the site, and give your custom to the Journal’s advertisers, so they will forgive me for quoting so extensively. It will be worth your while.

By the way, other “conservative” pundits are not getting on the House’s case here. George Will is attacking John McCain for, as Ms. Strassel wrote, daring “to stand up for U.S. victory and sponsor a resolution giving Mr. Obama freedom of action for another year.” Mr. Will’s column is headlined “John McCain’s never-ending war.” Mr. Will seems angry with Sen. McCain for daring to call the latest trend among Republicans “isolationism.” But that (coupled with Obama Derangement Syndrome) is precisely the right word. And it’s not entirely a new thing. We’ve been here before.

A candidate to be taken seriously

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I don’t know a whole lot about Jon Huntsman. I mean, I know a few things, but not enough to reach critical mass for a judgment in my own mind.

But I know I’ll be watching him closely, now that he’s announced:

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Jon M. Huntsman Jr. officially launched his White House bid here Tuesday morning, setting up a campaign for the GOP nomination that, if successful, would lead to a matchup against his former boss.

“I’ve been a governor … I’ve been a businessman and a I’ve been a diplomat. I’m the husband of the love of my life … and the father of seven terrific kids,” Huntsman told a crowd of supporters at Liberty State Park, the Statue of Liberty rising just behind him. “I’m from the American West, where the view of America is limitless with lots of blue sky.”…

I look at it this way: Jon Huntsman has a reference that is almost as good as having the UnParty seal of approval — Barack Obama. The president hired him for a job of considerable responsibility, ambassador to China. You know, that big place across the water that owns all that U.S. debt. The place where all that stuff at Walmart comes from.

So if Obama thought enough of him to hire him, and now he’s turned in his notice in order to run against Obama — well, that’s a guy who might have something to say worth listening to. He might be a credible, informed critic.

So I’m going to listen.

Speaking of listening, I listened in to a conference call Dick Harpootlian had today with media types to talk about Huntsman, after which he put out this release:

Harpootlian welcomes “ambassador, governor, Democrat, Republican Jon Huntsman to South Carolina”

Columbia, S.C. –  South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Dick Harpootilan held a conference call today to welcome Jon Huntsman to South Carolina.

While Huntsman travels to our state to kick off his Presidential campaign Harpootlian welcomes him by saying, “we always welcome Obama administration officials in South Carolina.”  Harpootlian called Huntsman a political “schizophrenic” who’s “very similar to Mitt Romney” in his flip-flopping on key issues such as the Recovery Act.

“Between Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, we have, actually, four candidates rather than two,” said Harpootlian.

That’s pretty much what he said to us on the phone. Afterwards, I asked him whether he was more worried about Huntsman than he was the other Republicans. He said he wasn’t. But I think he should be.

Yeah, Huntsman has a challenge before him getting the nomination with his party momentarily in the thrall of the Tea Party. But from what little I’ve seen so far, he seems like he could have a better chance in the general if he could get that far.

But as I say, that’s how it looks so far. I’ll keep watching.

Are we starting to see a geologic shift between left and right on national security?

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This is something I’ve been thinking about the last few days, and I haven’t written about it because it’s complicated and I haven’t had time to do something pulling all the threads together. But when I saw this development, I decided I’d better go ahead and throw out the general idea and get the discussion started:

Obama Says War Powers Act Doesn’t Apply to Libya Mission

White House maintains that the president doesn’t need lawmakers’ permission for U.S. role in NATO-led effort.

The White House on Wednesday told skeptical lawmakers that President Obama doesn’t need their permission to continue the nation’s involvement in the NATO-led mission in Libya because U.S. forces are playing only a supporting role there.

Administration lawyers made their case as part of a larger report sent to Congress responding to complaints that the president had yet to provide a sufficient rationale for continuing the Libya campaign, the New York Times reports.

“We are not saying the president can take the country into war on his own,” State Department lawyer Harold Koh told the paper. “We are not saying the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional or should be scrapped, or that we can refuse to consult Congress. We are saying the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of ‘hostilities’ envisioned by the War Powers Resolution.”…

OK, digest that. Here’s the NYT version, and here’s the WashPost. And then consider some of the other things I’ve been noticing lately:

  • The fact that, in the GOP debate the other night, we heard some Republicans moving more toward the “get out of Afghanistan ASAP” line. Ron Paul, treated as an outcast for saying such things four years ago, got cheered by the Fox News crowd.
  • The bold way Obama decided to go in and GET bin Laden, without any of that multilateral consult-the-allies (as in, tell the Pakistanis we’re attacking in the heart of their country) touchy-feely stuff. No fooling around.
  • The way the administration is playing on having stunned the world with the bin Laden thing to get its way elsewhere. That prompted me to write that the difference between Bush and Obama is that Bush was Sonny, while Obama is the far-deadlier (that is, more effective) Michael.
  • The way Obama is taking advantage of chaos in Yemen to just GO AFTER terrorists there, without asking Congress or the UN, or presenting arguments about the War Powers Act, or anything like that. Read this, and this.

This has been building ever since the election, with a lot of Obama’s antiwar base feeling pretty disoriented (wait — is this who we elected?), and people like me being reassured by his steady pragmatism.

But lately, the process has seemed to be accelerating. Obama still talks a good war-as-last-resort, multilateral, we-don’t-want-to-be-a-bully line for the base… but watch what happens. (And how about the way he threw everybody off-balance on Libya, letting the FRENCH of all people take the lead, while still managing to get in there and go after the bad guys? That enabled him to have it both ways. The allies couldn’t do it without us, but it came across looking like we were a reluctant junior partner, which bought Obama some support for the move among liberals.)

And I find myself wondering, is anyone else noticing? I mean, while the Republicans get more timid about the U.S. role abroad (in some ways) and obsess more and more about domestic issues (because that’s what the Tea Party cares about), Obama is out there going all JFK and LBJ. He’s going Old School. He’s defining Democratic presidential leadership back to where it was before Vietnam.

Are the parties moving toward switching places?

This is a fascinating development. I think it has the potential to completely realign the country politically, and on more than national security.

Anybody else noticing this?

Drat! Foiled again! Curse you, Snidely Obama!

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I was WAY busy last night with real-life stuff until about 1:30 a.m. (just wait until YOU have five kids and four grandchildren and everybody’s coming and going and having to be picked up at the airport in the middle of the night), and barely found time to watch some of that presidential debate. I didn’t even have time to think about Nikki Haley’s national TV appearance. Good thing, too.

I did glance at the coverage of it on CBS, and even managed to read on a bit after the horrible shock of the opening words:

Four of the biggest names in the Republican Party – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Rep. Allen West of Florida, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahom…a

Really. “Biggest names.” Take THAT, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush… I could go on, but what does it matter? They’re nobodies! The peanut gallery is taking over!

It is just absolutely stunning how little one has to accomplish to be one of the “biggest” these days. In fact, in the GOP, accomplishing anything actually counts against you. Look at Romney and health care.

Of course, Nikki Haley is about as accomplishment-free as anyone can get, and by the new standards, that makes her golden. Of course, she likes us to think that she wants to accomplish stuff, but that uncontrollable forces prevent her.

What, you ask, has kept our gov free of the blemish of achievement? Could it be that she lacks good ideas? Could it be that she is clueless when it comes to working with other people who would have to be involved in making these things happen, such as the Republican leadership of the General Assembly? Could it be because of her inept, ham-handed approach to everything from USC trustee appointments to her own tax returns?

No, it’s none of that. There’s another villain, one that no rational person would have suspected in a million years:

Haley went on to say that “everything I’ve tried to do to govern in South Carolina has been stopped by President Obama,”…

Yep, it’s her favorite Snidely Whiplash, the guy she ran so hard against in her election last year (Vincent Sheheen? Who’s he?). He is still foiling her beautiful plans! Curses!

It’s OK, Mr. President; you don’t have to have a position on this — in fact, please don’t

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Just got this little email update from the WashPost:

—————————————-
Politics News Alert: White House calls Rep. Weiner’s actions a ‘distraction’
June 13, 2011 11:32:22 AM
—————————————-

The White House says President Obama believes Rep. Anthony Weiner’s actions have been “inappropriate” and a “distraction.”

But spokesman Jay Carney wouldn’t say whether the president thinks the New York Democrat should resign — something other Democratic leaders have called for.

Wow…

I’ve been bemoaning for years the degradation of the presidency to the point where we expect the president to take a position on EVERYTHING that happens, whether it bears on his job responsibilities or not. I think the moment where it first hit me how bad it got was when I was watching a guy on a cable news station standing outside the White House with a microphone on the night of the Columbine shootings. This guy kept coming back on to assure us that the president would soon have a statement. And I’m like WTF? In what sense is a shooting at a high school in Colorado the responsibility of the president of the United States? Why on Earth would I expect him to say anything about it, or care what he said? I wrote a column about this at the time.

By comparison, though, Bill Clinton making sure to vibrate to the correct emotions over Columbine was the height of relevant leadership, compared to the White House being expected to have a position on some wanker who sends dirty pictures to women. We’ve really sunk low now.

If you have trouble seeing this, try for just a moment to look at the world the way I do, instead of the way the Beltway media does. To me, being the “leader of his party” is NOT a role I expect or want my president to play. To me, playing that role is actually inimical to the one that he is paid to perform.

So please, Mr. President: Don’t have an opinion on this. Ignore it. It’s beneath you personally, and certainly beneath the dignity of your office. Stick with the “inappropriate” and “distraction” thing, if you must say anything. Those characterizations are at least accurate.

And then afterwards, a beer. Or two…

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Cleaning out the old IN box, I ran across this Tweet I had sent myself meaning to blog about it last week:

Taegan Goddard @pwire

Taegan Goddard

New poll: Which presidential candidate would you want to have lunch with?http://pwire.at/mJNvAf

Turns out that far more Americans polled — 53 percent — would rather have lunch with Barack Obama than any of the GOP candidates. Sarah Palin came in at a “distant second” with 16 percent.

Last election cycle, all the talk was about who you wanted to have a beer with. Asking the question this way is going to foul up our stats, for comparison purposes.

But it may be a better, more rigorous question. Most of us are probably less picky who we have a beer with. Although it depends on who’s buying.

What else do you expect an Irishman to say?

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This was brought to my attention by Slate:

President Barack Obama visited Ireland on Monday, where he had a Guinness at a pub in Moneygall (the tiny town where his great-great-great-grandfather was born). He remarked that the last time he’d ordered a Guinness in Ireland, during a stopover at Shannon Airport en route to Afghanistan, it was much tastier than any he’d had in the United States. “What I realized is you guys are keeping all the best stuff here,” he concluded. Was the president blarneying his hosts — or is Guinness really better in Ireland?

See, I knew it! And now we all know… that Barack Obama actually is… um… Irish. He probably subscribes to their bizarre beliefs and everything.

By the way, that item bore this headline: “Does Guinness Taste Better in Ireland?Yes, and not just because you’re more likely to be drunk there.”

Anyone deeply offended? Anyway, to answer the key question, as framed in the last sentence of the quote above:

It is. After the Institute of Food Technologists asked tasters to sample the so-called “black stuff” in 71 bars, 33 cities, and 14 countries over the course of a year, they gave it an average rating of 74 points out of 100 on the Emerald Isle, about 20 points higher than it got anywhere else. “This difference remained statistically significant after adjusting for researcher, pub ambience, [and] Guinness appearance,” the researchers noted.

Freshness is the key factor…

This, of course, raises another question: How does one get to be a taster with the Institute of Food Technologists? They fly you around the world and have you taste beer? Really?…

Sorry, hon, I’m only on my 8th country and 51st pub. I’ll be home when I can. I’ve got a job to do. I’m on a mission from IFT… And OH, am I jet-lagged…

Bush was Sonny; Obama is more like Michael

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I said this as a comment back on a previous post, and liked it enough to say more prominently…

After reading that quote I cited in the WSJ about how the Obama administration is, ever so quietly, without saying anything overt, taking advantage of its stunning effectiveness in taking out bin Laden:

This month’s military strike deep inside Pakistan is already being used by U.S. officials as a negotiating tool — akin to, don’t make us do that again — with countries including Pakistan thought to harbor other terrorists. Yemen and Somalia are also potential venues, officials said, if local-government cooperation were found to be lacking…

… I got to thinking how this was similar to the effect that Bush’s invasion of Iraq had on thugs like Moamar Qaddafi — for a very brief time, before everybody around the world figured out that (given our internal dispute over that invasion) W. wasn’t likely to get the chance to do that ever again…

And then it hit me: In terms of the politics of projecting a credible threat that gets others to do what you want (an idea that I realize makes a lot of us squirm), George W. Bush was like Sonny Corleone. The blusterer, the guy you just know is going to jump in the car and come after you in a mad, blind rage if you touch his sister. The guy who doesn’t want to negotiate; he just wants Sollozzo dead. And ultimately, the guy who has trouble achieving all his goals.

Barack Obama, by contrast, is more like Michael. The clean-cut college kid who was never involved in the muscle end of the business, who held himself aloof from that, even expressed distaste for it. The guy who was supposed to be “Senator Corleone, President Corleone,” and not a wartime don. The guy who speaks softly and reasonably, and never utters a threat. The guy who takes out the heads of the other four New York families in one stunning stroke, right when you’ve forgotten about the bad blood. The guy who keeps on speaking reasonably after that, but nevertheless everybody respects him now, in the uomo di rispetto sense…

Not that, you know, I’m saying either president is a criminal. Far from it. I’m just using very familiar fictional characters in order to draw a comparison…

Longing for the virtues of a democratic republic

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You hear people of various political stripes saying apocalyptic things about how the country is going down the tubes, or WILL go down the tubes, if this or that faction is or is not elected, and so forth.

I started my adult life with a sort of fatalistic attitude that caused such warning to sound far, far too late. In college, I took so many history electives that shortly before I graduated I realized to my surprise that I was within reach of a double major (the other major being journalism). There was no plan; I had just had a lot of room in my schedule because I had tested out of a number of courses others were required to take — foreign language, and math — and took things that interested me. And that tended to included history courses concentrating on the early decades of the United States. (I also took a few courses in Spanish and Latin American history and political science, but that has little bearing on my point today — aside from instilling in me a deep appreciation that for all our country’s flaws today, it was built on a far better foundation that those others.)

I was particularly impressed by the wisdom of those who chose to establish a republic, and resisted the fatal temptation to fall into the madness of pure democracy. And then, as I read on, I watched it seem to fall apart. There was the election of Andrew Jackson for starters, and then… well, we have simply come to accept, even demand, “leaders” who govern with all ten fingers in the wind, like the master of an old sailing vessel seeking to squeeze maximum advantage of whatever winds prevailed.

To question pure democracy today is to seem unAmerican. When, in truth, this experiment started in a different place altogether. (Oh, and before some of you start in about how it started with blacks and women and the propertyless having no say, you know that’s not what I’m talking about. We’re talking about parallel phenomena, not factors that are dependent on one another. It’s not about upper-class white male leaders with their hair tied into queues. It’s about thoughtful, restrained leadership of vision, regardless of the demographics of those providing it. Frankly, I think Barack Obama has it in him to provide the kind of leadership that the Founders envisioned, unlike anyone who has thus far gotten much press on the GOP side. He has the ability to rise above the popular passions of the moment and see beyond them — which is one reason why so many of the most passionate today despise him so.)

Anyway, that introduction was longer than I intended. I just wanted to call your attention to a David Brooks column from a couple of weeks back — one which I missed, but which was called to my attention today by Kelly Payne via Facebook (she brought it up in a context I didn’t quite follow, but I was glad to see it nonetheless). An excerpt:

… As Kristol points out in the essay, the meaning of the phrase “public spiritedness” has flipped since the 18th century. Now we think a public-spirited person is somebody with passionate opinions about public matters, one who signs petitions and becomes an activist for a cause.

In its original sense, it meant the opposite. As Kristol wrote, it meant “curbing one’s passions and moderating one’s opinions in order to achieve a large consensus that will ensure domestic tranquility.” Instead of self-expression, it meant self-restraint. It was best exemplified in the person of George Washington.

Over the years, the democratic values have swamped the republican ones. We’re now impatient with any institution that stands in the way of the popular will, regarding it as undemocratic and illegitimate. Politicians see it as their duty to serve voters in the way a business serves its customers. The customer is always right.

A few things have been lost in this transition. Because we take it as a matter of faith that the people are good, we are no longer alert to arrangements that may corrode the character of the nation. For example, many generations had a moral aversion to debt. They believed that to go into debt was to indulge your basest urges and to surrender your future independence. That aversion has clearly been overcome.

We no longer have a leadership class — of the sort that existed as late as the Truman and Eisenhower administrations — that believes that governing means finding an equilibrium between different economic interests and a balance between political factions. Instead, we have the politics of solipsism. The political culture encourages politicians and activists to imagine that the country’s problems would be solved if other people’s interests and values magically disappeared…

Brooks is concerning himself with rather prosaic, although nevertheless important, issues such as spending (“The democratic triumph has created a nation that runs up huge debt and is increasingly incapable of finding a balance between competing interests”). And doing so rather from the position that we do too much of it. But there are broader themes in what he’s saying, and those are what appealed to me.

Some thoughts on the president’s Mideast speech

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Coverage of President Obama’s speech today is concentrating on one big item related to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians: “Obama Sees ’67 Borders as Starting Point for Peace Deal.” Plenty is being said about that.

Setting that aside, here are my favorite parts of his speech today:

He didn’t sugarcoat the way people have been manipulated in the region for too long: “In the face of these challenges, too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people’s grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills, a half century after the end of colonialism. Antagonism toward Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression. Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else.”

He made sure no one could doubt where we stand on the change sweeping the region (while specific responses to specific situations may, and should, vary): “Not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short term interests do not align perfectly with our long term vision of the region. But we can – and will – speak out for a set of core principles – principles that have guided our response to the events over the past six months:

“The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region.
“We support a set of universal rights. Those rights include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion; equality for men and women under the rule of law; and the right to choose your own leaders – whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus; Sanaa or Tehran.
“And finally, we support political and economic reform in the Middle East and North Africa that can meet the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people throughout the region.”
When he WAS specific, he was generally right: “The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way. The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests; release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests; allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara’a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition. Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and isolated abroad.”
Finally, he committed us to the most empowering thing we can do for people in the region, and for ourselves — help them bring something other than oil to the world economy: “Fourth, the United States will launch a comprehensive Trade and Investment Partnership Initiative in the Middle East and North Africa. If you take out oil exports, this region of over 400 million people exports roughly the same amount as Switzerland. So we will work with the EU to facilitate more trade within the region, build on existing agreements to promote integration with U.S. and European markets, and open the door for those countries who adopt high standards of reform and trade liberalization to construct a regional trade arrangement. Just as EU membership served as an incentive for reform in Europe, so should the vision of a modern and prosperous economy create a powerful force for reform in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Were there weaknesses? Yes, from my perspective. I could have done without another ritualistic slap at our decision to go into Iraq, which took this form: “…we have learned from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to impose regime change by force – no matter how well-intended it may be.”
But I don’t think he meant it quite as negatively as that sounded at first, as I determined upon rereading it. I realized that after I heard this strong endorsement of what has been achieved there: “In Iraq, we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy. There, the Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence for a democratic process, even as they have taken full responsibility for their own security. Like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. As they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.” None of which would have happened, of course, with Saddam Hussein still in power.
On the whole, a speech that hit the right notes, and was a coherent and appropriate American response to a complex web of events and issues of critical importance to the world.
Good job.

A realistic view from another smart Republican

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To elaborate on my theme that smart Republicans know that unseating Barack Obama will be a tall order (something that the fringe people, such as those who think the Tea Party is the “voice of the people,” completely miss), I point you to this piece by Daniel Henninger.

He blames, interesting enough, new media. He says GOP candidates who start this early will be cut down to nothing by the time the campaign is over by the constant drip of criticism on Twitter. It’s related to what we spoke of four years ago as Romney’s YouTube problem.

Strangely, he doesn’t see this as a problem for Obama, and his explanation of that is odd:

Meanwhile, it’s good to be president. With his opponents determined to spend a year and a half telling each other why “no one” is worth supporting, turning off contributors and independent voters, Barack Obama floats below the radar vacuuming up campaign cash at fund raisers.

He does make a legitimate point in the next sentence, however:

Every GOP candidate’s utterance is wholly political, but the Obama fundraisers and “policy speeches” are submerged in the presidency.

But he got the metaphor wrong. A president doesn’t fly BELOW the radar, but in a way above it. He’s fully visible, but can cloak his political statements in doing the job. Yep, that’s an advantage of incumbency. And always has been.

What Henninger ignores is that Obama has been thoroughly tested by new media, and not found wanting. There is nothing that can be thrown at a candidate via Tweets that hasn’t been hurled at him millions of times. And he sort of dropped the Big One on those flak sites a couple of weeks ago with the long form of his birth certificate, and his well-tempered scorn at his most imaginative critics. And, you know, by killing bin Laden. And, more substantially, by not being the extremist that his most extreme critics would paint him as.

If the GOP wants to prevail, it needs to come up with a candidate who can likewise endure the thousand slings and arrows. But the ones with that kind of substance are increasingly reluctant to get in.

In the end, Henninger rightly assesses the situation thusly, given the field as it stands:

A Republican candidate committed to running this gauntlet has to believe that come November 2012, the party will have nowhere else to go but to the polls to pull the lever for the last one standing. This assumes that the messaging power of electronic networks will magnify them. I believe the opposite: Given this much time, the medium eventually will melt them. The president, head ever up, will hold his ground.

The message in this for Republicans is that they need to come up with a candidate who, after being whittled at for 18 months, still has some substance left.

Oh, and by the way. I don’t know how Henninger votes. But if he isn’t a Republican, he missed a good chance.

Like Tessio, Huckabee was always smarter

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It’s the smart move. Tessio was always smarter.

— Michael Corleone

There was little surprise in Mike Huckabee’s decision to stay out of the 2012 presidential contest. He was one of the first to come out and speak of how hard it would be to beat Barack Obama, back in the fall. He said it again during the winter. And probably plenty of other times when I didn’t notice it.

And as hard as it might be for some Republicans to believe, he was not immediately struck dead by a lightning bolt on any of these occasions.

Yes, anything can happen between now and next year, but serious candidates have to get rolling NOW, and right now, things don’t look good for anyone seeking to go up against the incumbent.

The other day I exchanged email with a prominent South Carolina Republican who — when I brought up the subject of Jon Huntsman — said he doubted he had the traction to win the nomination. I responded,

Traction is the issue. Because unfortunately, these things tend to boil down to whom the party faithful want — which isn’t what wins elections.

Personally, I’m convinced that, given most scenarios, Obama wins this one. The GOP’s best chance is to come up with someone who appeals to people who might otherwise go for the incumbent. Who better to win over independents than someone who actually served in the Obama administration, then decided to oppose the president? THAT’S a story that works with independents, whereas the “Obama is and always has been the devil” people don’t get anywhere with swing voters.

The amazing thing was that in 2008, both parties went with the candidate most likely to appeal to swing voters. It doesn’t seem likely that the GOP will do that this time, on account of the Tea Party and such. Which means I wouldn’t give much for Republican chances this time (at this point, of course, which must always be our caveat).

To which my unnamed (for his own good) Republican said, “Unfortunately, I tend to agree with your analysis…”

I think a lot of smart Republicans are thinking along the same lines, if not saying it. Which is why these days we hear mostly from the yahoos who don’t get what’s going on…  (Or the sad cases like poor Mitt Romney, a guy with an actual accomplishment under his belt who has to run AWAY from said accomplishment.) The smart ones are quieter, understanding the situation better.

So, how does Donald Trump’s announcement today fit with my “smart guy” theory… well, um, not so well… I know! He is the exception who proves the rule! I mean, if Huckabee is Tessio under my theory, then… well, there was nobody in “The Godfather” like Trump, unless it was Moe Green. Trump is like… Crazy Joey Gallo.

Seriously, I don’t care why he dropped out, since I never thought he was worth speaking of seriously. I guess he found another shiny toy to play with.

NLRB gives GOP chance to clearly be the good guys

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Yes, I know that was a split infinitive, but I like it that way.

I was glancing over this story on the front page this morning:

WASHINGTON — Business leaders and Republican politicians Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of punishing GOP states by trying to block Boeing from opening an aircraft plant in South Carolina.

… and it struck me what a gift the NLRB had given the Republican Party in South Carolina.

By doing something SO outrageous, so without justification, and so profoundly harmful to South Carolina (if successful), the NLRB has given our state’s Republicans an issue to rally around and present themselves clearly as champions of the state’s best interests.

This doesn’t happen often. Usually, the GOP has to manufacture nonsense to fulminate about, such as “the looming specter of Obamacare” or something equally ridiculous. But this is real, it has substance, and it is clearly an attack upon the economic well-being of South Carolinians.

No wonder Republicans are rallying together, forgetting their pettier differences, to make as much noise about it as possible.

Of course, there is some overreaching, with Jim DeMint accusing the president of the United States of “thuggery.” Because, you know, wishing for his “Waterloo” isn’t malicious enough. But that’s Jim DeMint. On the whole, this makes Republicans look good, and far less silly and ideological than usual. (YES, there are some big ideological issues at stake in this matter, but you don’t actually have to care about them to care about the outcome.)

As for Mr. Obama — it’s pertinent that Nikki Haley has asked him, personally, to weigh in on this. (Which I don’t believe he’s done yet, Mr. DeMint. If he has, someone please send me a link.) Not that he’ll want to. As much as I like Mr. Obama, we all have our faults, and one of his biggest is his unwillingness to oppose Big Labor, which crowds him into some really ridiculous positions, such as his longtime, indefensible opposition to the Colombia Free Trade agreement.

This issue puts the president right where the SC GOP wants him. Since, you know, they mean him ill and want him to look bad. More to the point, it puts them in the position to look very good.

Me, I don’t care who looks good, as long as the bid to derail this project fails.

Obama right, Graham wrong on bin Laden photos

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Meant to blog about this all day, but wanted to do a little research first. I’m out of time, and before the day ends, I’m just going to throw it out there…

I was disappointed by Lindsey Graham’s criticism of the Obama administration for deciding not to release photos of Osama bin Laden’s bullet-riddled body:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., criticized President Barack Obama’s decision Wednesday not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Graham on Monday had congratulated Obama on Sunday’s daring raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, but he said withholding photos of bin Laden’s corpse would raise questions about whether he is really dead.

“The whole purpose of sending our soldiers into the compound, rather than (delivering) an aerial bombardment, was to obtain indisputable proof of bin Laden’s death,” Graham said.

“I know bin Laden is dead, but the best way to protect our decisions overseas is to prove that fact to the rest of the world,” the second-term senator said. “I’m afraid the decision made today by President Obama will unnecessarily prolong this debate.”

Obama, though, said releasing photos of the slain terrorist would amount to gloating that would only inflame anti-American sentiment and do nothing to satisfy skeptics.

“That’s not who we are,” Obama told CBS in an interview. “We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.”

Especially since I seem to recall Lindsey Graham saying additional Abu Ghraib pictures should not be released, using pretty much the same arguments the White House uses for not releasing this.

By the way, in going to look up an Abu Ghraib link, I just noted that Mother Jones notes the same inconsistency that I do. Mark this day, folks — Mother Jones and Brad Warthen having the same thought.

Sen. Graham’s argument now is that we must shut up doubters by proving we did, too, kill bin Laden.

But you know what I think? I think this decision fits perfectly with the series of good decisions the president has made in this situation, from the start. He was right to send in the SEALS rather than B-52s so that we’d know we got him (not to mention the intelligence treasure trove that would have been destroyed in a bombing). He buried him at sea so that not one could make a fetish of his body or his grave. Then he similarly refused terrorists a rallying point by refusing even to let them see photos of the body.

The president knows he’s eliminated bin Laden (let anyone who says otherwise produce him as evidence). That’s enough for him. It’s enough for me, too.

Changing my mind — maybe we DID get Osama because of Obama

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This is one of the problems with new media. Sometimes you spout off before you have taken in enough information and processed it. After the Obama administration analyzed intel for eight months, and STILL only had a little better than a 50-50 supposition that bin Laden was in the house, maybe I should have taken a little more time to pass judgment. After all, my original training was in a medium when I could take all day, or — in the case of my columns — all week to make up my mind. Consequently, I can only think of one or two columns ever that I later regretted writing.

Blogging is different. I try to make sure I really mean what I say here, too, but sometimes my interlocutors get my dander right up, as Professor Elemental would say, and I give ill-considered answers.

Such is the case with my reaction to a comment by our old friend Bud the other night. Here I was very pleased with President Obama’s performance in the bin Laden case, and saying so, when I read this by Bud:

Let’s not forget the tireless work the president did as commander in chief to bring this operation to a successful conclusion. It really does matter who our leader is. Thankfully we have someone competent in charge.

… it tapped me on a sore spot. The comment itself was pretty innocuous by Bud standards, but in it I read the ghosts of so many other comments by Bud along the lines of EVERYTHING George W. Bush ever did was wrong, especially invading Iraq, and so I responded:

Bud, we should all give President Obama full credit for playing his leadership role well. But don’t make the political mistake of thinking this happened because he is president. This is more about stellar work by nameless, ground-level people in our military and our much-maligned intelligence services.

There is one sense in which Obama was a critical factor, though. It’s complicated. I think I’ll do a separate post about it…

That separate post was the one in which I argued that it was Obama’s laudably bellicose attitude toward going after our enemies hiding in Pakistan that made a positive difference here….

And as I was writing that, my sense that Obama being president WAS critical to the way this happened started to take hold. Not that Bud was right or anything; I still object to the way he characterized it, especially later when he said, “I find it so refreshing to have a competent, bright, hard-working leader in charge. He’s not rashly going in to places like Iran and Libya. Not sure why we still have troops in Iraq but otherwise Obama is doing an outstanding job keeping our foreign involvements to a minimum.”

But that’s quibbling over personal quirks.

Bottom line is, the more I’ve thought about it the last couple of days, then more I have decided that on the MAIN, unadorned point, Bud’s right: There are elements to what happened that are uniquely Obama. Not that it wouldn’t have happened under other presidents — JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. — but maybe not exactly this way, or this successfully.

I was thinking that this morning when reading The Wall Street Journal’s detailed story on how the raid unfolded, “U.S. Rolled Dice in bin Laden Raid:”

An early favorite: a bombing raid. That approach would minimize risk to American troops and maximize the likelihood of killing the residents of the compound. But it might also have destroyed any proof bin Laden was there.

A helicopter raid would be more complex, but more likely to deliver confirmation. Some officials were wary of repeating a fiasco like “Black Hawk Down” in Somalia, when U.S. forces were killed after a botched raid on a warlord… [By the way, one quibble on this story: That last sentence was inaccurate. The raid was NOT on the warlord, but to grab some of his lieutenants, and it was successful, not “botched.” The lieutenants were neatly grabbed and the operation was essentially over when the militia managed to hit two helicopters with RPGs.]

On April 19, Mr. Panetta told the president the CIA believed bin Laden was there. Other advisers briefed Mr. Obama on preparations for an assault, including the outcomes of the dress rehearsals. Mr. Obama told them to “assume it’s a go for planning purposes and that we had to be ready,” an administration official said.

That same day, Mr. Obama gave provisional approval for the commando-style helicopter assault—which was launched from Jalalabad, Afghanistan—despite the added risk. Senior U.S. officials said the need to get a positive identification on bin Laden became the deciding factor.

You’ll notice that Bill Clinton wasn’t on my list above. That’s because I’m practically certain that he would have opted for the bombing. And the more I think about it, the less I’m positive about the other presidents.

Whereas Obama made exactly the right call. The Seal raid was the way to go. And the president was completely right not to tell the Pakistanis — another point where I have my doubts about some of those earlier presidents (for instance, Bush pere was all about some multilateralism). There is a certain confidence — something important in a leader — in Obama’s choosing the riskier option in the absence of certainty, and then, once HE was satisfied that this was bin Laden who was killed, having the body buried at sea. The president was saying, LET the conspiracy theorists claim it wasn’t him — I know it was, and I’ve eliminated his body or his grave becoming an object for our enemies to rally around.

The president may be a lousy bowler, but he makes good calls in a tough situation. That is my considered opinion — now that I’ve taken time to consider.

By the way, I might not have decided to write about this change of mind — it happened sort of organically the more I read, rather than in a “Eureka” moment — if I hadn’t read two other items in the WSJ this morning. As it happens, they were opinion pieces by people who are as firmly entrenched on the right as Bud is on the left. But whereas Bud’s reflexive anti-Bush rhetoric put me off from being convinced of his point (that, and the fact that I just didn’t have enough info yet to reach that conclusion), their unadulterated praise of someone they usually criticize really drove the point home in a way that not even I could miss it.

Bret Stephens’ piece was headlined, “Obama’s Finest Hour:”

Thane’s point isn’t that vengeance is better than justice. It’s that there can be no true justice without vengeance. Oddly enough, this is something Barack Obama, Chicago liberal, seems to better grasp than George W. Bush, Texas cowboy.

The former president was fond of dilating on the point, as he put it just after 9/11, that “ours is a nation that does not seek revenge, but we do seek justice.” What on Earth did that mean? Of course we sought revenge. “Ridding the world of evil,” Mr. Bush’s other oft-stated ambition, was nonsense if we didn’t make a credible go of ridding the world of the very specific evil named Osama bin Laden.

For all of Mr. Bush’s successes—and yes, there were a few, including the vengeance served that other specific evil known as Saddam Hussein and those Gitmo interrogations that yielded bin Laden’s location—you can trace the decline of his presidency from the moment he said, in March 2002, that “I really don’t care [where bin Laden is]. It’s not that important.”…

Good points, although I may not be totally with him on the virtue of “vengeance” alone. Note that he makes a point similar to one I made yesterday, as my mind was starting to change (sometimes, and this may be hard to understand, I change my mind as I’m writing something — on the blog, you can sometimes see it happen, as I argue with myself) — that when it comes to Pakistan, Obama is more of a go-it-alone cowboy than Bush. Which to me is a good thing.

Then there was William McGurn’s column, which was about how Republican candidates (obsessed as they are with fiscal matters) have a long way to go to catch up with Obama on foreign policy:

It’s not just that Barack Obama is looking strong. For the moment, at least, he is strong. In the nearly 10 years since our troops set foot in Afghanistan, a clear outcome remains far from sight, and many Americans have wearied of the effort. As President Obama reminded us Sunday night, getting bin Laden doesn’t mean our work there is done—but his success in bringing the world’s most hunted man to justice does reinvigorate that work.

It does so, moreover, in a way that few of Mr. Obama’s recent Democratic predecessors in the Oval Office have matched. The killing of bin Laden was no one-shot missile strike on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory suspected of making chemical weapons, as ordered by Bill Clinton. Nor was it a failed hostage rescue in Iran à la Jimmy Carter. Instead, it was a potent combination of American force and presidential decisiveness.

First, Mr. Obama authorized a ground operation with Navy Seals far inside Pakistani territory. Second, he did not inform the Pakistanis.

These are the kinds of hard decisions that presidents have to make, where the outcome is likely to be either spectacular success or equally spectacular failure. For taking the risks that would paralyze others, and for succeeding where others have failed, the president and his team have earned the credit they are now getting.

Also good points. And hearing such good points made by people who don’t like the president nearly as much as I do made a big impression on me.

So in the end, I find myself agreeing with those guys, and with Bud, on this point: Having Obama as president made a big difference in this case.