They’re dropping “Washington,” because it’s embarrassing…
Full disclosure — I didn’t come up with that one. I got it from my son’s father-in-law (and my fellow grandfather) Hunter Herring. He posted the graphic below on Facebook a couple of days back.
I don’t know where he got it. But I thought the #ObamaShutdown tag at the bottom was kind of weird, seeing that the joke seems to be more at the expense of Republicans, since they’re the ones being blamed by most people.
But either way seems overparsing it. It’s really a joke on Washington. We’re pretty much embarrassed by everyone within the Beltway.
Actually, I think the way I tell it works better than the graphic — the “Have you heard…” version. I’ve been trying it on people all day. The great thing is, they get all serious in response to the question, and start saying something like, “Yeah, as I understand it, it’s about…,” and they’re all wondering how I expect them to react… and then I say the punchline, and it relieves the tension. That’s why it works…
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer made an observation Tuesday on Twitter about how the changing media world was adding to political polarization in the country. Then he tried to add, to @jmartNYT, “also a much bigger factor on the right.”
Only his finger slipped, and he typed an N rather than a B on “bigger.” (Look at your keyboard; they’re right next to each other.) This was on an official White House Twitter account, mind you.
The Tweet was deleted, and he apologized. And the world moved on.
But then, some “veteran politicos” on the Hill started wondering why a senior adviser to the President was fooling around with anything as dangerous as Twitter anyway?
POLITICO explained, as would we, that he has little choice:
For years now, Twitter has served as the public square for political journalists, the place where the conventional wisdom is shaped before it turns into “the narrative.” Communications aides have always monitored that conversation closely, and some have long had an active Twitter presence. But many — top White House spokespeople, especially — often felt safer limiting their own remarks to carefully edited statements shared via press release. As a public forum, Twitter was too informal, too risky, too off-the-cuff.
Increasingly, however, flacks have come to see Twitter as a necessary tool in their communications arsenal. Instead of waiting to respond to reporters’ inquiries, Twitter enables them to influence reporters’ thinking and nip negative coverage in the bud.
“Twitter, like cable news, is another medium where the conversation in Washington gets shaped,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told POLITICO. “Given the current media environment, we engage in real time so that as many folks as possible understand our perspective. Twitter is simply another resource to get our message out, and we generally like to avail ourselves of every opportunity to do just that.”
Brendan Buck, the press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner, said Twitter was “what the Speaker’s Lobby used to be. You want to find and talk to assembled reporters, open your Tweetdeck.”
Absolutely.
I am reminded of Trav Robertson who dealt with media for the Vincent Sheheen gubernatorial campaign in 2010. I ran into him(at Starbucks, of course) some months after Sheheen narrowly lost that contest, and he confided that there was one thing that he had been unprepared for: the fact that the old “news cycle” was gone, and that he had to pump out information, and counter stuff that was out there, 24/7.
I was surprised that he was surprised, and wondered if that played any role in Sheheen’s defeat. Probably not, but it was a close race, for a Democrat in South Carolina…
Actually, it would be a tie between him and his namesake/soulmate Ayn Rand, but since she’s dead and he might actually run for president (I wonder if he’ll run ever four years for a generation, like his Dad), I’m going to go with him.
I’m saying this in response to the little ad thingy that cropped up on Facebook a few minutes ago. On the off chance that it was actually asking me whether Barack Obama, who is pictured, was the worst president ever, I hesitated to click on it. Instead, I’m responding here to the implication in the text — that Rand Paul, who is named, would be the worst president ever.
I was sort of warned off from clicking by the fact that our good friend Doug had “liked” it, as you can see.
There are a number of things worth discussing in Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in The New York Times today. One of my favorites is the part where this ex-KGB man invokes God in lecturing us about our exceptionalism:
And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.
I guess someone at the Kremlin persuaded him that that’s how you speak to those simple, theistic folk in America.
Whatever. In any case, I am not deeply shocked that Putin does not believe in, or at least not approve of, American exceptionalism.
I’ll just say that there’s something deeply ironic about the guy whose tank treads so recently rolled over Georgia to be saying such things as, “It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States.”
And don’t get me started on this absurdity:
No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists…
“Every reason to believe” the rebels launched the chemical attacks? Uh, no, there isn’t. In fact, I don’t know of any reasons to believe it, unless you’re an Assad cheerleader and therefore really want to believe it. Yep, some of those rebels would do it if they could. But I’ve seen no credible arguments that any of them have the capability to do it. It’s not like we helped them. We’re just now finally getting around to supplying some of those small arms we promised months ago.
So “every reason?” No, not even close.
Let’s look at the rest of that statement. Which side has “powerful foreign patrons” who are actually actively engaged in supporting its war aims? The only side that describes is the Assad regime, which has been receiving substantial material support from both Russia and Iran. I’m not aware of the rebels having “powerful foreign patrons.” But if that’s a reference to us, then he tells yet another whopper with that bit about “who would be siding with the fundamentalists.” No, as everyone knows, the main reason we have NOT come down unequivocally on the side of the rebels, the way Putin has for Assad, is that we don’t want to risk siding with said fundamentalists.
Oh, but I said “don’t get me started.” Sorry; I seem to have started myself. I’ll stop now.
I mean, I’ll stop that, and turn to the reference to exceptionalism in the president’s speech the other night.
America is not the world’s policeman. [Wrong, but I’ve addressed that elsewhere.] Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. [Nor is any policeman able to right every wrong on his beat, making this a deeply flawed analogy, but again, I’ve discussed that elsewhere.] But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.
No, Mr. President, our exceptionalism is not a matter of simply making “our own children safer over the long run.” Pretty much all nations will take military action if the lives of their own children are threatened. In that respect, as you once inappropriately said, American exceptionalism is no different from “Greek exceptionalism.” You’re right in that collective security affects us all, and a crime against foreign children is ultimately a crime against our own. But America is exceptional in that it has the power to act against tyranny when it’s harming other people, and when our own interests are not directly or obviously involved.
You would have been right if you’d simply said, “when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death… I believe we should act.” That is exceptional. The qualifying phrase about our own children makes us unexceptional. See what I mean?
We are exceptional because, in the ongoing effort to uphold certain basic civilizing principles across the globe, America is what former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called “the indispensable nation.” We have the power to act for good in ways that other nations cannot, and because we have that power, we have responsibilities that we cannot abdicate. Or, at least, should not abdicate.
It doesn’t have to be rationalized in such terms as, Hey, those could be our kids.
Of course, there are many other ways, Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama, in which this nation is exceptional: This is the country where a foreign leader whose interests are clearly opposed to those of this nation can get an oped published, in the leading national journal, trashing that same nation’s cherished ideas of itself, without any consequences to anyone. It’s always been like that here, and it has set us apart starkly from such nation’s as, just to throw one out, the Soviet Union. It’s also the country that believes the whole world should enjoy such a free flow of ideas, and is wiling — occasionally, at least — to stand up for that. Just FYI…
I thought the president gave a good, reasoned, tempered, well-balanced speech at a very tricky time. He scheduled this talk tonight to sell us on the idea of taking military action in Syria, and in the last two days we’ve seen developments that may preclude that.
But he handled it well. He made the case for action, should it still prove necessary, but gave diplomacy a chance to work, given the present extraordinary circumstances.
There’s only one false note he sounded — the repeated emphasis on the United States not being the world’s policeman.
Yes, we are. Everything else the president said indicated that he knows that we are.
This is not me saying that the United States should be the world’s policeman, or that’s what I think we should aspire to. That’s what we are. We have power to act effectively, and if we don’t, it’s an abdication of a moral responsibility. As the president said.
It’s silly to say something like that, just to satisfy the factions who hate the reality that that’s what we are.
Note the faulty logic in this passage:
America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong.
Guess what? A policeman can’t prevent every crime that happens on his beat. He’s not perfect; his power is not absolute. But he does his best.
Other than that, good speech. Just what was needed at this awkward moment.
Well, President Obama has passed his first hurdle in getting authority from Congress (authority he knows he already possesses, which I’m sorry, I just can’t stop pointing out) to take military action against the Assad regime in response to crimes against humanity.
The authority the panel’s resolution grants is limited, but not all that limited:
The Senate committee’s version, released late Tuesday by a bipartisan group of senators, would permit up to 90 days of military action against the Syrian government and bar the deployment of U.S. combat troops in Syria, while allowing a small rescue mission in the event of an emergency. The White House also would be required within 30 days of enactment of the resolution to send lawmakers a plan for a diplomatic solution to end the violence in Syria.
Opening a hearing Wednesday afternoon to consider amendments to the resolution, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said it was “tightly tailored” to give the president the necessary authority but “does not authorize” the use of U.S. ground troops in Syria. The committee subsequently rejected, by a 14-4 vote, an amendment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would have imposed further restrictions by invoking provisions of the 1973 War Powers Resolution…
Still… it really bothers me for a commander in chief to go into a combat situation with his options for response to the situation limited. Dwight Eisenhower, who oversaw one of the most complex military plans in human history, the invasion of Normandy, famously and correctly said that before the battle begins, plans are everything. After the first shot is fired, they are nothing. You have to be able to react to the situation.
But this is about as good as it could get on the course that the president has chosen.
Unfortunately, it’s probably as good as it’s going to get, what with Rand Paul planning another of his filibuster stunts on the Senate floor, and the House prepared to do what it does best — pose and posture and demonstrate utter disregard for the responsibilities of governing.
That’s important, even impressive, given the problems Congress has had lining up behind anything in recent years.
But it doesn’t answer the big questions. A big reason why Congress has been so much more feckless than usual lately is that the leadership lining up behind a plan is not the same as Congress doing so.
One of the causes of the president’s highly disturbing indecision on this issue is attributable to the fact that his party has been drifting toward what has been its comfort zone since 1975 — reflexive opposition to any sort of military action.
But the real indecision is expected on the Republican side, where pre-1941 isolationism has been gaining a strong foothold in recent years.
Such faux-constitutional assertions—based on the notion that only direct attacks to the homeland constitute an actionable threat to national security—would have astonished Ronald Reagan, who invaded Grenada in 1983 without consulting a single member of Congress. It would have amazed George H.W. Bush, who gave Congress five hours notice before invading Panama. And it would have flabbergasted the Republican caucus of, say, 2002, which understood it was better to take care of threats over there rather than wait for them to arrive right here.
Then again, the views of Messrs. Paul, Lee and Amash would have sat well with Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio (1889-1953), son of a president, a man of unimpeachable integrity, high principles, probing intelligence—and unfailing bad judgment.
A history lesson: In April 1939, the man known as Mr. Republican charged that “every member of the government . . . is ballyhooing the foreign situation, trying to stir up prejudice against this country or that, and at all costs take the minds of the people off their trouble at home.” By “this country or that,” Taft meant Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The invasion of Poland was four months away.
Another history lesson: After World War II, Republicans under the leadership of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg joined Democrats to support the Truman Doctrine, the creation of NATO, and the Marshall Plan. But not Robert Taft. He opposed NATO as a threat to U.S. sovereignty, a provocation to Russia, and an undue burden on the federal fisc.
“Can we afford this new project of foreign assistance?” he asked in 1949. “I am as much against Communist aggression as anyone. . . but we can’t let them scare us into bankruptcy and the surrender of all liberty, or let them determine our foreign policies.” Substitute “Islamist” for “Communist” in that sentence, and you have a Rand Paul speech…
POTUS delivered an impressive speech in the Rose Garden today, strongly and ably making the case for why we need to act in Syria, then noting that he is fully empowered to act without anyone’s permission… and then saying he won’t decide, but will leave it to Congress.
You know, the body that can’t pass a budget. The gang that can’t raise the debt limit to keep the government functioning without a major, credit-rating-damaging meltdown. That’s who he’s asking to decide.
First, let’s quote some of the stronger passages in which the president makes the case for action:
This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria’s borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons, or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people harm.
In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.
Now, after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets…
I’m prepared to give that order…
I’m confident in the case our government has made without waiting for U.N. inspectors. I’m comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that, so far, has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable….
What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What’s the purpose of the international system that we’ve built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the world’s people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?
Make no mistake — this has implications beyond chemical warfare. If we won’t enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules? To governments who would choose to build nuclear arms? To terrorist who would spread biological weapons? To armies who carry out genocide?
We cannot raise our children in a world where we will not follow through on the things we say, the accords we sign, the values that define us….
I will also deliver this message to the world. While the U.N. investigation has some time to report on its findings, we will insist that an atrocity committed with chemical weapons is not simply investigated, it must be confronted….
I don’t expect every nation to agree with the decision we have made. Privately we’ve heard many expressions of support from our friends. But I will ask those who care about the writ of the international community to stand publicly behind our action….
But we are the United States of America, and we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus. Out of the ashes of world war, we built an international order and enforced the rules that gave it meaning. And we did so because we believe that the rights of individuals to live in peace and dignity depends on the responsibilities of nations. We aren’t perfect, but this nation more than any other has been willing to meet those responsibilities…
Ultimately, this is not about who occupies this office at any given time; it’s about who we are as a country…. and now is the time to show the world that America keeps our commitments. We do what we say. And we lead with the belief that right makes might — not the other way around.
We all know there are no easy options. But I wasn’t elected to avoid hard decisions….
I’m ready to act in the face of this outrage….
That’s the speech, without all the “buts” and “howevers” removed. Wow. Pretty powerful, huh? What a call to arms. Note the repeated use of the word, “must:” this menace must be confronted… it must be confronted…
Except, in the end, it isn’t. The president said, “I wasn’t elected to avoid hard decisions,” even as he was avoiding this hard decision. Actually, it’s weirder than that. He’s made up his mind, and one of the things he’s made up his mind about is that we really don’t have a choice. We must act. And yet, he won’t.
If the world were a debating society, this wouldn’t matter. Act today, next month, next year, it would all be the same. The important thing would be to let everyone fully have their say, and make sure everybody feels great about the ultimate decision (which ain’t gonna happen, but that seems to be the idea here).
But in the real world, it may already be too late to act with any effectiveness, in terms of degrading Assad’s air assets, or ability to launch future chemical attacks on his people — or having any other effect that would actually be helpful.
As the president says, “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose.” So, if we’re going to do so, the time to do it is now. Or rather, yesterday. Or several months ago, when the president’s red line had already been crossed, and those 1,429 people were still alive, when those 400 children still had futures.
In short, I am most disappointed in the president’s abdication of responsibility — especially after he so ably made the case for immediate action.
That would seem to be the question separating left and right today as they look back on the March on Washington 50 years ago.
For some days now, writers in The Wall Street Journal have been trying to head off what they expected Barack Obama and other Democrats to say today. For instance, John McWhorter wrote this morning:
On the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, we will hear a good deal about how life in this country for black Americans has not changed as much as Martin Luther King Jr. might have wished….
It is easy to forget what an awesome moral landmark it was for an oppressed group to force the larger society to outlaw barriers to its success. But the victory of the 1964 and 1965 laws had an even greater impact than prohibiting segregation and racial discrimination in voter registration: It changed the culture. Personal racist sentiment rapidly became socially proscribed. The Norman Lear sitcoms of the early 1970s, in which bigoted whites were regularly held up to ridicule, would have been unthinkable just 10 years before….
(I)n recent years, the black middle class has flourished. Housing segregation for blacks is the lowest it has been since the 1920s. And a black president has been elected twice. Yet the fury persists, since what actually rankles these critics is the threat to what they feel is their very identity: underdogs with a bone to pick.
This is not where the March on Washington was pointing us. There is work left, but we are free at last. No, we aren’t living in a “post-racial” America, but that fantasy will never be realized. What we black Americans are free to do, in a permanently imperfect world, is shape our own destiny together.
Taking the lectern, the nation’s first African American president paid homage to King’s legacy, saying that “because they kept marching, America changed.” But Obama warned that the struggle for equality is not yet complete, adding that “the arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.”
“To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency,” Obama said. He cited as setbacks the Supreme Court’s decision in June to strike key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the high rates of African American incarceration…
There is justice on both sides of the argument.
A couple of days ago, in his “Best of the Web” feature at WSJ.com, James Taranto mocked Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson for writing, after she saw “The Butler:”
“I wish Chief Justice John Roberts and four of his Supreme Court colleagues would see [‘The Butler’], too. Maybe it will help them understand how wrong they got it when they recently decided that we are so far past Jim Crow that we can dispense with a central provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.”
As Taranto notes, that is a bogus statement on several levels, the greatest of which being that depictions of life on a cotton farm in the 1930s are hardly a guide to the racial landscape of the country today. Another is that doing away with pre-clearance requirement applying to parts of the country that today have greater minority voter participation than parts that are not subject to such requirements somehow dispenses with “a central provision” of the Voting Rights Act.
Every “central provision” in the act is still in force. Complaints of violations of the Act can still be brought. All that goes away is the assumption, codified into law, that people who live in certain geographic locations — this county, but not the one next to it — are guilty of discrimination until proven innocent.
It’s bogus when she says it, and it was bogus when the president cited it as evidence that we have not come far enough. On the contrary, the justices did away with the requirement precisely because we have come so far.
I particularly like Mr. McWhorter’s assertion that the victories of the civil rights movement “changed the culture.” About 20 years ago, historian Walter Edgar and I went out to lunch together, and while standing in line, we witnessed a fairly routine, friendly exchange between a white cashier and a black customer. After we left, Walter started talking about how we took such interactions for granted, when they would have been almost unimaginable at a time within living memory.
I thought back to that just the other day, when I witnessed a white man giving way, in a courtly manner, to a couple of black ladies in a public place. There was nothing unusual about it, and that’s the miracle. Within my lifetime, that likely would not have happened.
Now, on the other hand…
The president rightly cites such disturbing vital signs as the high rates of black incarceration, the high black unemployment rate, and other signs of a demographic group lagging behind, even as legal barriers have disappeared and everyday cultural habits have changed radically.
That is the bitter legacy of the century between the Emancipation Proclamation and Dr. King’s speech.
The huge, continuing argument in our politics will continue to be over what we should do about it.
Those who wondered why the Obama administration had been slow, at least before the last few days, to acknowledge that Syria had crossed its red line — or to act (you know, by actually giving rebels those promised arms) when it did own up to it — must not have paid close attention to the specific words that the president used when he drew the line:
We have been very clear to the Assad regime … that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus…
How much WMD is “a whole bunch?” I don’t know. But I think maybe we’ve finally gotten to that point…
The remarks, delivered without a teleprompter, were a striking example of America’s first black president seeking to guide the country’s thinking on race without inflaming racial tensions or undermining the judicial system.
He managed to do that, and he did it just right. While the topic was a sensitive as all get-out, the president didn’t make a big deal of it. He wasn’t making a pronouncement, or proposing policy. He wasn’t speechifying at all. He started out by lowering the temperature, reducing expectations, making the whole thing as casual as possible without making light of it. It came across this way:
This isn’t really a press conference — we’ll have one of those later. Today, I’m just this guy, talking to you, sharing a few thoughts that I hope will help help black and white people understand each other a little. Not that I’m some oracle or something, I just have some life experiences — just as we all have life experiences — that might be relevant to share…
It was the president using the bully pulpit, only without the bully part. No-drama Obama. Just talking, not speechifying. Thought, not emotion, even though some of the thoughts were about deep, visceral feelings, and the way people act as a result of them. Just, “I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit…”
He had said earlier, on the dispassionate level — what needed to be said: The jury has spoken, and that’s that. He repeated that (read the whole speech here):
The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a — in a case such as this, reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury’s spoken, that’s how our system works.
Going beyond that, he downplayed any expectations that his administration would somehow take up the cudgels against Zimmerman as a way of undoing that verdict:
I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here. Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government — the criminal code. And law enforcement has traditionally done it at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels…
This speech Friday was about trying to explore, just as calmly, the emotional reaction that causes such dissatisfaction with the verdict, appropriate as it may have been given the case:
But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that — that doesn’t go away.
In other words, look, a lot of white folks don’t understand why a lot of black folks react to this thing the way they do, and here’s my take on that:
There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.
And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.
And you know, I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.
Furthermore, a lot of whites may be laboring under the impression that black folks are blind to the fact that young, black men are statistically more liable to be dangerous, especially to each other:
Now, this isn’t to say that the African-American community is naïve about the fact that African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact, although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context…
I think the African-American community is also not naïve in understanding that statistically somebody like Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else.
So — so folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys, but they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it or — and that context is being denied. And — and that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different…
Oh, and in case you think he had some pompous, trite notion of launching something so grand as a “national conversation on race,” he deflated that:
You know, there have been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.
On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s a possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.
Again, and again, his manner, his verbal cues, kept the intensity on the down-low: “watching the debate over the course of the last week I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit… And you know, I don’t want to exaggerate this, but…” Throughout, he interjected the phrase “I think,” to make sure you knew he was just this guy talking, and not The Man, speaking ex cathedra.
Another thing that a lot of whites say about blacks is that they “talk about race all the time.” Well, Barack Obama certainly has not. He’s been the president, not the black president. But it’s a fine thing for America that when he does, on rare occasion, decide that OK, in this situation, maybe he should say something about the topic, he does it so deftly, so thoughtfully, so well.
Barack Obama, like any other presidents, has his strengths as well as weaknesses. Some of his strengths were on display Friday.
The proper expression, to go with the proper statement, striking the proper emotional tone.
First, let’s set aside the fact that I don’t hold with the morphing of the job of president of the United States into Emoter-in-Chief. The idea that the president is supposed to comment, strike the proper emotion, on every news development that engages people’s morbid curiosity at a given moment — whether it has the slightest thing to do with his duties and responsibilities or not — is a discomfiting sign of a republic in decline.
But that’s where we are today, and if the White House didn’t put out a statement on the latest sensation, meaning would be read into the lack of it, so a president who cares about the dignity of his office is really in a spot.
The best he can do is put out as dispassionate a statement as possible, and move on.
“The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America. I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities. We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.”
I could have done without the bit at the end, which mentions “honoring” Trayvon Martin. Those aren’t words I would have chosen. Nothing against the victim of this horrid mess — it’s just that that is what he is, a victim. He’s not a hero, he isn’t a martyr to a cause. He didn’t set out to make a statement. He just had a late-night yen for Skittles (possibly the expression of a case of the munchies), and it got him killed.
I don’t know him, and I think “honoring” him is best left to those who did.
But I know why the president used those words. He used them to head off people who would react inappropriately to this verdict under the guise of “honoring Trayvon.”
Anyway, beyond that, I thought the piece just right. There are two main messages here. The first is neatly contained in this statement: “But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken.”
Absolutely.
But for those who feel that’s not enough, that something must be done, are challenged with the second message, which is a corollary to the first: That, this being a nation of laws, if you didn’t like the way this turned out, engage the system and change the society in which you live, from changing the laws down to “being the change” in your own interactions with fellow citizens.
And I think that if the president had to say something, those were pretty much the right things to say.
Back in my day, a military coup d’état was a quiet affair. We had one when I was a kid living in Ecuador in the early ’60. One day, my parents informed me there had been a “coup.” I had never heard the word. They told me it was like a revolution — the president was gone, and a military junta was in charge. (Then they had to define “junta.” It was like a committee…)
A revolution? I went to the window and looked out. Same old street, nothing interesting going on. I had expected riots, violence, surging humanity. (The story I heard later was that they just let the president have a bit too much too drink — something that wasn’t hard — put him on an airplane, and let him wake up in Panama.)
In Egypt, they known how to have the kind of coup that I was expecting when I looked out that window. Millions surging in the streets. The military moving in, shutting down demonstrations, taking over state media, and tossing out the president who was so defiant, just last night. The latest, from the BBC:
The head of Egypt’s army has given a TV address, announcing that President Mohammed Morsi is no longer in office.
Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said the constitution had been suspended and the chief justice of the constitutional court would take on Mr Morsi’s powers.
Flanked by religious and opposition leaders, Gen Sisi said Mr Morsi had “failed to meet the demands of the Egyptian people”.
Anti-Morsi protesters in Cairo gave a huge cheer in response to the speech….
TV stations belonging to Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood went off air at the end of the speech….
The ousted leader’s current whereabouts are unclear…
See, now that’s a coup. Meanwhile, Morsi fights back on Twitter and Facebook. This sets up an interesting conflict between the old and the new: Is the Tweet mightier than the army? I love Twitter, but I’m old school; I’m betting on the big battalions this time.
What does it all mean, Mr. Natural? For the United States, it’s a touchy situation. This piece, written before the coup actually took place, sets out how touchy:
Over the past two years, post-revolution Egypt has been a policy minefield for the Obama administration, which has struggled to balance its support for a democratic transition with its need to preserve its interests in the region.
The latest chapter of Egypt’s fraught political transition, however, has left the administration in perhaps its most precarious position yet..
As Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi weathers a storm of opposition that could pave the way for a military coup, Washington and its ambassador in Cairo have emerged as lightning rods. Those calling for the dismissal of Morsi say the United States became too cozy with the Muslim Brotherhood, the political and social movement that brought the Islamist leader to power. The Brotherhood, meanwhile, warns that the United States is failing to speak out loudly and clearly against a military coup in the making.
After voicing support for Morsi, the Obama administration appeared to distance itself from him this week, with the White House issuing a statement saying that President Obama had told the embattled Egyptian leader in a phone call that the United States “does not support any single party or group.”
That may sound sort of hapless, but put yourself in the president’s position: Quick, who are the good guys in this mess? Not an easy question to answer…
There was always something desperate about them: an attempt somehow, after five years of remarkably scandal-free governance, to try once again and prove Michelle Malkin’s fantasies (and Peggy Noonan’s feelings) correct. Darrell Issa was the perfect charlatan for the purpose; and Roger Ailes desperately needed a new narrative in the post-election doldrums. But there really was no there there … and you can feel the air escaping from the hysteria balloons…
It has come and gone, having left barely a trace. To be sure, the Obama scandals live on in the conservative world, where the evidence of deep corruption and venality grows stronger and stronger. But that is merely the confirmation of suspicions of “Chicago politics,” ACORN and so on, that predate recent events and don’t require any particular facts to survive…
‘Documents Show Liberals in I.R.S. Dragnet,” read the New York Times headline. “Dem: ‘Progressive’ Groups Were Also Targeted by IRS,” said U.S. News. The scandal has “evaporated into thin air,” bayed the excitable Andrew Sullivan. A breathlessly exonerative narrative swept the news media this week: that liberal groups had been singled out and, by implication, abused by the IRS, just as conservative groups had been. Therefore, the scandal wasn’t a scandal but a mere bungle—a nonpolitical series of unhelpful but innocent mistakes.
The problem with this story is that liberals were not caught in the IRS dragnet. Progressive groups were not targeted.
The claim that they had been rested mostly on an unclear, undated, highly redacted and not at all dispositive few pages from a “historical” BOLO (“be on the lookout”) list that apparently wasn’t even in use between May 2010 and May 2012, when most of the IRS harassment of conservative groups occurred.
The case isn’t closed, no matter how many people try to slam it shut….
But the truth is, I haven’t heard much lately about the IRS thing, or Benghazi. And the “scandal” that Edward Snowden supposedly revealed never was a scandal, and his own saga has become the kind of farce that reminds us of Father Drobney, who has been hiding in an embassy for years in Woody Allen’s play, “Don’t Drink the Water.”
But according to Ms. Noonan, this is all a matter of the liberal media trying to wish the scandals away. She gets particularly indignant about the IRS one:
No one has gotten near the bottom of this scandal. Journalists shouldn’t be trying to make the story disappear. The revenue-gathering arm of the federal government appears to be politically biased, corrupt in its actions, and unable to reform itself.
The only way to make that story go away is to get to the bottom of it and fully reveal it. It’s not a bungle, it’s a scandal.
The New Republic this week is devoting itself to suggestions for how Barack Obama might have a more successful second term. I was sort of intrigued by this suggestion, “REWRITE THE LAWS OF WAR,” to wit:
One of the most persistent criticisms of President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism policy is that he has not definitively broken with the troubled legacy of George W. Bush. But he could put that judgment largely to rest by pushing to modernize the laws of war.
The Geneva Conventions and other similar instruments were designed to deal with traditional armies—not groups with no ties to state sponsors or that operate in failed states. Obama should organize an international conference to establish new standards and agreed-upon interpretations for such subjects as the definition of enemy combatants, the treatment of detainees, and the rendition of suspected terrorists. Drones could also be considered—especially standards to minimize civilian casualties and to establish whether targets pose an imminent threat…
Things have changed, so maybe we should convene a new gathering in Geneva. Or somewhere. If we do, here are some ideas of new rules that the president might want to suggest, but which might not go over well with other potential signatories:
If you make my personal list, I get to take you out with a drone, like Zeus hurling thunderbolts from Mt. Olympus. And if you don’t like that, you just made the list, buddy.
If you make our special short list, we will send in the bully-boys to give you a triple-tap in the forehead in your boudoir in the middle of the night, no matter where in the world your boudoir happens to be. As for countries who object to our doing this within their borders, you, too have a special right under this agreement: You get to try to stop us. Heh, heh.
All battles must take place at night. In the event that night-vision equipment becomes sufficiently ubiquitous that all of our potential enemies have it, this rule will be revisited.
Guantanamo will close when I damn’ well get around to it.
And so forth. You get the idea. I’m sort of kidding, sort of not, given the way this president has continued to conduct the War on Terror. Not only has he “not definitively broken with the troubled legacy of George W. Bush,” as TNR so daintily puts it, he has in some ways been more aggressive than his predecessor in employing the Bush Doctrine.
Basically, the way I just worded all that is probably pretty close to the way folks in some other nations out there see the current U.S. policy. And they’d probably want to address these perceptions at a convention.
So maybe POTUS would like to convene such a gathering, and maybe he wouldn’t…
What with all the travelling I’ve been doing the last few days (I was working on the coast Wednesday and Thursday, drove to Memphis Friday, drove back yesterday), I’m just now getting to Charles Krauthammer’s column from late last week.
I liked his analogy:
The war in Syria, started by locals, is now a regional conflict, the meeting ground of two warring blocs. On one side, the radical Shiite bloc led by Iran, which overflies Iraq to supply Bashar al-Assad and sends Hezbollah to fight for him. Behind them lies Russia, which has stationed ships offshore, provided the regime with tons of weaponry and essentially claimed Syria as a Russian protectorate.
And on the other side are the Sunni Gulf states terrified of Iranian hegemony (territorial and soon nuclear); non-Arab Turkey, now convulsed by an internal uprising; and fragile Jordan, dragged in by geography.
And behind them? No one. It’s the Spanish Civil War except that only one side — the fascists — showed up. The natural ally of what began as a spontaneous, secular, liberationist uprising in Syria was the United States. For two years, it did nothing….
As will not surprise you, he is not satisfied with President Obama’s belated decision to help the rebels with nothing more than small arms and ammo.
He gets way harsh on the pres with regard to Iraq:
The tragedy is that we once had a counterweight and Obama threw it away. Obama still thinks the total evacuation of Iraq is a foreign policy triumph. In fact, his inability — unwillingness? — to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement that would have left behind a small but powerful residual force in Iraq is precisely what compels him today to re-create in Jordan a pale facsimile of that regional presence…
We had a golden opportunity to reap the rewards of this too-bloody war by establishing a strategic relationship with an Iraq that was still under American sway. Iraqi airspace, for example, was under U.S. control as we prepared to advise and rebuild Iraq’s nonexistent air force.
With our evacuation, however, Iraqi airspace today effectively belongs to Iran — over which it is flying weapons, troops and advisers to turn the tide in Syria. The U.S. air bases, the vast military equipment, the intelligence sources available in Iraq were all abandoned. Gratis…
SAN JOSE — As a junior senator with presidential aspirations, Barack Obama built his persona in large part around opposition to Bush administration counterterrorism policies, and he sponsored a bill in 2005 that would have sharply limited the government’s ability to spy on U.S. citizens.
That younger Obama bears little resemblance to the commander in chief who stood on a stage here Friday, justifying broad programs targeting phone records and Internet activities as vital tools to prevent terrorist attacks and protect innocent Americans.
The former constitutional law professor — who rose to prominence in part by attacking what he called the government’s post-Sept. 11 encroachment on civil liberties — has undergone a philosophical evolution, arriving at what he now considers the right balance between national security prerogatives and personal privacy.
“I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs,” Obama said in San Jose on Friday. “My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of safeguards. But my assessment and my team’s assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks.”
“On net,” the president added, “it was worth us doing.”…
You know, I felt like the nation sort of dodged a bullet when Susan Rice fell out of contention for secretary of state.
Not because of the Benghazi thing, but because of all the other stuff we learned about her while she was in the news. Just one foreign policy mess in her background after another.
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Wednesday afternoon that Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, would replace Tom Donilon, who is resigning, as national security adviser in a major shakeup of his foreign-policy inner circle.
The appointment, which Mr. Obama made in a Rose Garden ceremony, puts Ms. Rice, 48, an outspoken diplomat and a close political ally, at the heart of the administration’s foreign-policy apparatus.
It is also a defiant gesture to Republicans who harshly criticized Ms. Rice for presenting an erroneous account of the deadly attacks on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. The post of national security adviser, while powerful, does not require Senate confirmation.
In his announcement, Mr. Obama referred to Ms. Rice’s role as an adviser during his 2008 presidential campaign and praised her work as a key diplomat during his first term…
So… she was advising him back when, for instance, he was against the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, before he was (happily) for it?
Why is the president so high on having this woman in the front ranks of his foreign policy team? The NYT excerpt above makes it sound almost like petulance on his part. I haven’t figured out what it is that recommends her, or at least, what there is that outweighs all the negative…
Some of y’all — those who carry grudges — will recall that one of my reasons for endorsing John McCain in 2008 was that he supported the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. This caused some Obamaphiles to freak out, it just seemed so esoteric to them.
But to me, it was important to cite. First, the large portion of my childhood spent in South America causes me to care more about that part of the world than do most people in this country. I find Yankee indifference to the rest of the hemisphere pretty appalling, frankly. One reason I got into reading British publications years ago was that they actually covered news events in Latin America. Most media in this country do not, for the simple reason that their readers and viewers aren’t interested.
I also saw this as a little-discussed microcosm of a difference in judgment and decision-making with regard to foreign policy in general, one that for me made McCain look better.
Anyway, spin forward more than four years, and I’m pleased to read this piece by Joe Biden in The Wall Street Journal, headlined “The Americas Ascendant.” It begins:
Last week, during a five-day trip through Latin America and the Caribbean, I visited a cut-flower farm outside Bogota, Colombia, an hour’s drive from downtown that would have been impossibly dangerous 10 years ago. Along the way I passed office parks, movie theaters and subdivisions, interspersed with small ranches and family businesses. At the flower farm, one-quarter of the workers are female heads of households. The carnations and roses they were clipping would arrive in U.S. stores within days, duty free.
What I saw on the flower farm was just one sign of the economic blossoming in the year since a U.S. free-trade agreement with Colombia went into force. Over that period, American exports to the country are up 20%…
Yeah, and we could have been enjoying that increase in trade years earlier, had not Sens. Obama and Clinton opposed it, to the gratification of Big Labor.
But hey, welcome aboard. I’m glad the administration gets it now.
I thought it particularly interesting that the vice president focused on the cut-flower trade. So did Nicholas Kristof in an April 24, 2008, piece that had helped focus my attention on the need for the agreement. It began:
BOGOTÁ, Colombia
For seven years, Democrats have rightfully complained that President Bush has gratuitously antagonized the world, exasperating our allies and eroding America’s standing and influence.
But now the Democrats are doing the same thing on trade. In Latin America, it is Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who are seen as the go-it-alone cowboys, by opposing the United States’ free-trade agreement with Colombia….
That piece, too, focused on the cut-flower industry in Colombia. The headline was “Better Roses Than Cocaine.” Indeed.
There is enormous potential—economically, politically and socially—for the U.S. in its relations with countries of the Western Hemisphere. And so the Obama administration has launched the most sustained period of U.S. engagement with the Americas in a long, long time—including the president’s travel to Mexico and Costa Rica last month; my own recent trip to Colombia, Trinidad, and Brazil; Secretary of State Kerry’s participation in the Organization of American States’ annual meeting in Guatemala; the president of Chile’s visit to Washington this week and a planned visit to Washington by the president of Peru. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrives in Washington in October for the first state visit of the second term.
As leaders across the region work to lift their citizens out of poverty and to diversify their economies from commodity-led growth, the U.S. believes that the greatest promise—for Americans and for our neighbors—lies in deeper economic integration and openness.growth, the U.S. believes that the greatest promise—for Americans and for our neighbors—lies in deeper economic integration and openness.
The Benghazi scandal was and is shocking, and the Justice Department assault on the free press, in which dogged reporters are tailed like enemy spies, is shocking. Benghazi is still under investigation and someday someone will write a great book about it. As for the press, Attorney General Eric Holder is on the run, and rightly so. They called it the First Amendment for a reason. But nothing can damage us more as a nation than what is happening at the Internal Revenue Service. Elite opinion in the press and in Washington doesn’t fully understand this. Part of the reason is that it’s not their ox being gored, it’s those messy people out in America with their little patriotic groups.
Those who aren’t deeply distressed about the IRS suffer from a reluctance or inability to make distinctions, and a lack of civic imagination.
An inability to make distinctions: “It’s always been like this.” “Presidents are always siccing the IRS on their enemies.” There’s truth in that. We’ve all heard the stories of the president who picked up the phone and said, “Look into this guy,” Richard Nixon most showily. He got clobbered for it. It was one of the articles of impeachment.
But this scandal is different and distinctive. The abuse was systemic—from the sheer number of targets and the extent of each targeting we know many workers had to be involved, many higher-ups, multiple offices. It was ideological and partisan—only those presumed to be of one political view were targeted. It has a single unifying pattern: The most vivid abuses took place in the years leading up to the president’s 2012 re-election effort. And in the end several were trying to cover it all up, including the head of the IRS, who lied to Congress about it, and the head of the tax-exempt unit, Lois Lerner, who managed to lie even in her public acknowledgment of impropriety.
It wasn’t a one-off. It wasn’t a president losing his temper with some steel executives. There was no enemies list, unless you consider half the country to be your enemies.
Let’s just list a few of the things wrong with those few paragraphs:
“The Benghazi scandal was and is shocking…” I’m not yet persuaded that “Benghazi” actually is a scandal, despite the efforts of people I respect, such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, to portray it as such. Much less that it is widely accepted among others, outside of certain Republican circles. Much, much less that it is not only a scandal, but a shocking one. Yet she begins her column throwing it out there as something that doesn’t even need discussion, as an established fact on the way to what she really wants to talk about. It’s like she’s gotten into the habit of writing only for people on the right. She assumes all her readers think Benghazi is a shocking scandal, and she goes ahead and acknowledges that out of hand. It’s like there are no other kinds of readers out there looking at her column. And if she keeps writing like this, she’ll be right in that assumption.
“Part of the reason is that it’s not their ox being gored, it’s those messy people out in America with their little patriotic groups.” Really? Tell me again which ox was gored. “Gore” means to deliver a serious, perhaps fatal, wound. Did any of these “patriotic little groups,” a characterization we could debate all day, lose their ability to do what they do? Were they indeed “gored”?
Richard Nixon is mentioned, followed by “But this scandal is different and distinctive.” As in, she implies, worse.
What Richard Nixon did with regard to the IRS was indeed an article of impeachment. Because of the abuses of power that he, Richard Nixon, carried out.
Excuse me, but I have yet to see the evidence that indicates, even remotely, that Barack Obama was involved in this mess over at the IRS. (Please give me a link if I’ve missed it.)
And this particular scandal has been proceeding how long? A month or so? (Actually, the first press reports were in March 2012.) I seem to recall that the Watergate scandal connected directly to the White House on Day One. Reporter Bob Woodward, then a nobody, was assigned to go cover the arraignment of some guys caught breaking into Democratic headquarters, and that day found that one of them worked in the White House.
Yeah, pretty different, all right.
Oh, and by the way, I should probably say for the benefit of Steven Davis and others who labor under the delusion that I’m a Democrat or something: I don’t say “Barack Obama isn’t Nixon” because I think Obama is so awesome and Nixon was pure evil.
If I’d been old enough to vote in 1968, I’d have voted for Nixon, without hesitation. For that matter, I was solidly for him in 1960, although you may discount that because I was only 7 years old. I would have voted for him in 1972, the first time I ever voted, if not for Watergate. I pulled the lever for McGovern after standing and debating with myself in the booth for about 10 minutes. I firmly believed that Nixon was the better president — in fact, I was convinced that McGovern would be a disaster. But I was also convinced that the Democrat had zero chance, so this seemed like a safe way to register my concerns about Watergate.
(I did the same thing, only with the parties reversed, in 1996. I respected Bob Dole more as a man than I did Bill Clinton. But Dole had run such a horrendous campaign that I doubted his ability to be a good president. I actually thought Clinton better suited to the job. But I had a lot of problems with Clinton by this time and, knowing that Dole had no chance of winning, I pulled the lever for him as a protest.)
Nixon was in a number of important ways a pretty good president, on the big things. Probably better than Obama in a number of ways (although I haven’t thought deeply about that, and it’s difficult to compare, since the challenges facing them are so different). But his abuse of power on stupid, petty things did him in. And I’ve seen no evidence so far Barack Obama has done anything of that kind.
So no — Obama’s not as bad as Nixon in this regard, much less worse. It’s not even close.
