MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

I’ve had a project in mind for awhile now to rank the presidents – specifically, the US Presidents that have served during my lifetime (which in my case would be from Lyndon Johnson up to Barack Obama). But of course I had to wait until Obama’s terms were up before I could add him to the list, which has given me a great excuse to procrastinate. So yr not going to see that list anytime soon, is what I’m saying.

But now that Barack Obama has left the building, I can at least get his entry out of the way and address the burning and traditional question every POTUS faces after leaving office:

So, how’d he do?

That’s not an easy question to answer – partly because most people rate POTUS performance along party lines and pet issues. And in these days of hyperpartisan polarization, too many people have emotionally invested themselves a particular extreme political narrative. For most liberals I know, Obama was the best President ever. For most conservatives I know, he was absolutely unequivocally the worst, most inept, dishonest and tyrannical POTUS ever, and probably not even an American, and pretty much wrecked the entire country so badly that they actually trust Trump to try and fix it.

As you might imagine, neither opinion holds much water with me. The liberal rating tends to be primarily based on select accomplishments (Obamacare and legal same-sex marriage, and Obama arguably should only get credit for the former) and the fact that Obama was charismatic and likeable (as was his whole family). Conservative assessments of Obama are generally based on vitriolic party-line batshit conspiracy nonsense.

Of course, my own assessment isn't necessarily objective either, so if you happen to fall into the above two camps, there’s no reason to take this post seriously.

For my money, rating Obama’s overall performance should take into account a few important caveats:

1. He inherited a terrible mess – the worst recession in decades and two foreign policy quagmires that made the Middle East in particular even harder to deal with than it already was. In terms of difficulty levels, Obama entered office with the bar raised considerably high.

2. He also faced one of the most obstructionist Congresses in history. Republicans simply hated him and refused to cooperate with him on just about every major issue. They blame that on him, because of course they do. But no, it’s pretty clear to me that the GOP demonstrated a public and unabashed determination to ensure that Obama got as little cooperation from them as possible.

3. The metrics of success shifted considerably before or during his presidency. On paper America’s economy is far stronger than it was when he took office, and yet almost half of voters seem convinced that it’s far worse. I suspect it's at least in part because the metrics don’t reflect the reality on the ground for many people. It’s great the unemployment rate is down, but if yr working three part-time jobs to make ends meet and you still can’t save money, you may not feel as though things are getting better. At a guess, this might be one of the consequences of the growing wealth inequality gap – those metrics tend to be better news for the rich than for everyone else who has to work for a living. Or it just might be the consequence of everyone being more poorly informed by hyperpartisan media bubbles. Point being, this has an influence on how Obama’s legacy will be assessed by many people.

4. Given that many liberals I know complained quite a bit about some of Obama’s decisions over his two terms (note: contrary to GOP propaganda, he was NEVER the socialist liberal that actual socialist liberals desperately wanted him to be, and they made that clear by channeling that disappointment into supporting Bernie Sanders), I’m reasonably sure that the people glowing over Obama’s legacy are being partly influenced by the horrific contrast of his successor. Next to the Trump Batshit Reality Show, even George W Bush looks reasonably good, so of course Obama is going to come off looking awesome.

So … given all that, I would rate the Obama admin thusly:

Overall I think Obama did okay with what he had to work with. But it is something of a mixed bag.

I don't have the time or space to go into the details, so you can read some good assessments at these links:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/barack-obama-president-legacy-policy-issues-wins-fights

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/09/opinions/obama-legacy-opinion-roundup/

http://time.com/4632190/historians-obamas-legacy/

http://reason.com/blog/2017/01/12/obamas-foreign-policy-legacy-an-embrace

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21712062-barack-obamas-presidency-lurched-between-idealism-and-acrimony-some-his

To summarize all this into some convenient oversimplified bullet points:

1. Obama’s economic policies generally worked, at least by traditional metrics. Even his unorthodox remedies (i.e. the temp auto industry takeover that Republicans offered as proof of his radical socialist agenda to destroy capitalism) ended up working. But that didn’t seem to translate into economic and employment security at street level, though I’m not sure how much of that is directly Obama’s fault. Either way, the growing wealth-inequality gap widened considerably under his watch, and that’s arguably at the root of some of the discontent.

2. Obamacare was a nice try, but it was also a long-term play, so if the GOP finally gets its wish to repeal and (maybe kinda who knows) replace, we'll never know if it was ultimately workable or not. I don't know enough about the healthcare sector to rate it fairly, though I can say I’ve heard healthcare professionals on both sides of the aisle say good and bad things about it.

3. Obama’s big weak spot has been foreign policy. He did have some successes – his dealings with Iran and Cuba, getting us out of Iraq, etc, and generally making the world not hate America as much as it did under GW Bush. He was less successful with Syria, Libya, ISIS, et al. And while he did end combat ops in Iraq and Afghanistan, he replaced them with drone warfare that isn't necessarily more ethical than boots on the ground (though I guess it is cheaper and ensures that only non-Americans die, so … great?). Again, though, I think his realistic options for action were limited to an extent by the policies of his predecessor.

4. Where Obama really went wrong for me was his failure (or unwillingness) to fix the civil liberties violations institutionalized under the Bush admin. Okay, he got rid of torture, and he only failed to close down Gitmo because Congress wouldn't let him. But in terms of mass surveillance, indefinite detentions, assassinations, etc, Obama turned out to be not so progressive. And I don’t think he should get a free pass on that, partly because I think they're important issues that speak to the core values that America is supposed to stand for, but also because look who has the same powers at his disposal now.

5. In terms of character, he was a pretty inspiring as a leader (at least for the choir – conservatives kept bringing up Lenin, and we all know about him) – he was smart, charismatic, gave great speech, and was a dedicated family man. Republicans will claim he was divisive, but given their outspoken unwillingness to cooperate with Demos under an Obama admin, I don’t take that claim seriously. He also got through eight years without a single major personal or political scandal, which is impressive. (If yr going to bring up Hillary’s emails and Benghazi, save yr breath – those are only Obama scandals in the alternate universe that Trump conservatives seem to live in.)

So yeah, overall I would rank Obama as one of the better presidents in my lifetime – again, within the context of the caveats stated above (and relative to the competition – when you look at the POTUS roster of the last 50 years, you’ve basically got three strong contenders, after which there’s a pretty big dropoff in quality). He didn’t get everything right, but then no POTUS ever has. But what he got wrong is also serious enough to overshadow a lot of what he did get right.

If nothing else, I’d say he was probably one of the most “presidential” presidents of my lifetime – someone who looked confident in the leadership role, put serious thought into his policies, and did his best to inspire.

Usually the key question in assessing any POTUS is: is America better off now than eight years ago? In some ways we are – in some ways we aren’t. But most of the latter has to do with the hyperpartisan Batshit Reality Schism and the general breakdown of civility in political discourse. And honestly that’s not on Obama. That’s on the American People™.

Done and dusted,

This is dF

As you know, the Supremes have been busy making part of America very happy and part of America very very sad and angry.

If you want commentary focusing strictly on the legal reasonings behind the Obamacare and gay marriage decisions, go to SCOTUSblog, though you will find commentary backing both the majority and the dissents – and they’re about as polarized as Facebook on both issues. (Lawyers, eh?)

I don’t have much to say about either decision because I’ve already stated my opinions on Obamacare and gay marriage. You can assume those still apply.

But here’s a few general comments to fulfill my 1A requirements:

1. For those liberal friends of mine who have spent the last ten years complaining about how the GOP has packed SCOTUS with activist conservatives who will kill Obamacare at the first opportunity and rubber stamp every idea that benefits Republicans and Corporate America, I suggest you take some time to reflect on the accuracy of yr predictions, as well as on how SCOTUS actually works.

2. No one ever said it wasn’t funny watching conservatives deploying the “activist judges” routine against judges they’d supported on the grounds that they would be strict constitutional fundamentalists.

3. By “activist judges”, they mean “judges who don’t vote the way I want them to”.

4. Fox news ha ha ha.

5. Ted Cruz is the new Pat Buchanan. Because what's the point of having an independent judiciary if they can’t be pressured by politicians and popular opinion to vote in your favor on your particular pet issue?

6. The SCOTUS rulings won’t end the debate. Of course they matter in terms of Obamacare carrying on and LGBTQ couples being able to be hitched, although it’s likely the states that still have hetero-only laws on the books will take their sweet time in changing their laws to comply with the ruling.

But as Point 5 indicates, conservatives don’t plan to just sit back and take this. So you’re going to see more legal challenges to Obamacare, and there will be efforts to amend the Fed Constitution to either define marriage as hetero-only or “fix” the Supreme Court. They’ll probably fail – conservatives have been proposing such things for a couple of decades now, and have never succeeded. But that's the great thing about political parties – yr always convinced yr the “real” majority no matter what the polls say. (Which proves that when you lose it’s part of some evil conspiracy against you by activist judges or whatever the hell.)

We’ll also see silly things like bills forcing SCOTUS judges to enroll in Obamacare (now called SCOTUScare) so “they will see firsthand what the American people are forced to live with.” Yes, ha ha. Given how much SCOTUS judges make, I doubt they’ll notice the difference.

On a more serious note, I do think you’ll be seeing a lot of other battles around the gay marriage ruling, like whether churches can opt out of performing gay marriages, or whether religious universities can refuse to provide housing for same-sex married couples, etc and so on.

7. Also, it’s an election year, so the bluster is going to have some momentum – at least at the Congressional level. It’s interesting to note that while GOP POTUS candidates like Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal are talking about judicial tyranny, others have opted for the “I don’t agree with the gay marriage ruling, but it’s the law of the land so we must respect it” response – which is political savviness on their part, since the majority of Americans support gay marriage, so the ruling basically lets them off the hook. (No word yet on if they feel the same way about the Obamacare ruling.)

But you can bet a whole lot of GOP candidate at other levels of govt are going to milk these decisions as evidence of liberal “lawlessness” and that you need to vote GOP before it’s too late and America becomes a nation of gay Spanish-speaking Satan-worshipping multicultural Socialist Mexicans.

Which they’ve doing for years, of course. But now that they’ve got fresh “evidence” to rile up the base, they’re almost certainly going to run off the end of the earth with it.

8. I realize I’m mostly picking on conservatives here, but given the tone of the “debate” I’ve seen on both these issues, I feel pretty confident in saying had SCOTUS ruled the other way in both cases, you’d be seeing the same amount of dithering, vitriol and teeth-gnashing from the liberal side of the aisle. Because this is 2015 – we do not lose gracefully because we’ve convinced ourselves the Other Side is a cabal of supervillains out to destroy humanity and MUST BE STOPPED.

Also, it’s pretty much how the Left reacted to Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. So it’s not like they can point fingers at how conservatives are such sore losers in court cases.

Carry on screaming,

This is dF

There is a lot of dithering about the TPP, which Presidente Obama just failed to get fast-track authority for.

And it has to be said, you know something may not be a good idea when Elizabeth Warren and Carly Fiorina both agree it’s a bad idea (albeit for different reasons).

But then, what’s to like?

The TPP isn’t new. It’s been kicked around since the previous presidential admin (bipartisan!), and no one really liked it then – at least, no one not involved with the actual negotiations. Which, BTW, is the main thing that most reasonable people object to – it’s a secret treaty with secret provisions negotiated in secret, and every time a piece of it gets leaked, you start to suspect that it’s secret for a reason: if it wasn’t secret, no one outside of a corporate boardroom would support it.

And that in itself should be a red flag. It’s unreasonable and ridiculous to expect anyone to support a trade deal without knowing what it contains or how it will affect them, much less expect them to take yr word for it that it’s a great deal. The fact that the details will be supposedly made public once it’s up for a vote is small comfort. There might be a great case to support the TPP – but none of its proponents seem capable of making a convincing one, apart from “Trust me, this will be awesome for America, and everyone who says otherwise is just wrong, so let's hurry up and get this done and let me worry about the details!”

Anyway, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has much to say about the TPP, much of it related to copyright issues, which is what first got me interested in TPP back when Presidente Bush was championing this thing. But it’s worth passing on. Most of the focus in the media has been on the specific accusations raised by Warren, but there are plenty of other reasons to suspect the TPP is a bad idea full of unwelcome surprises.

Don’t sign that dotted line,

This is dF

There is dithering about Iran.

Specifically, there is dithering over the deal Presidente Obama has struck with Iran regarding its nuclear program.

I’ll save myself a lot of typing by linking to this Economist article, with is the most level-headed assessment I’ve read about the Iran deal. The upshot: it’s not great, but if the objective is to (1) keep Iran from making a nuke and (2) avoid a war with Iran, it’s the best option under the circumstances.

I’ll add that I’m not that impressed with the criticism from Republicans over the deal. For one thing, they’re programmed to criticize any decision Obama makes about anything as the worst decision ever, particularly regarding foreign policy, and especially with a POTUS election kicking off. (I mean, these are largely the same people who actually wrote Iran a letter during the negotiation process saying they wouldn’t honor any deal they made with Obama even before they even knew what the terms of the deal would be. So it’s not like I can take them seriously.) 

There are some legit reasons for opposing the deal, and some Repubs may be motivated by those as well. Certainly some Congressional Democrats are. I understand that. The thing is, no one is offering up any better ideas – at least not realistic ones. Yes, I know they’re saying the terms aren’t hardcore enough and they’d only back a deal that goes something like “You destroy all yr centrifuges and we don’t bomb you back to the Stone Age.” Written in ALL CAPS for effect. (I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea.) 

The problem is that they want something they can't have. Iran wouldn’t take a deal like the ones Republican hawks are suggesting in a million years. And why should they? A “deal” involves both parties getting something they want. The alternatives being described by GOP hawks (and Binyamin Netanyahu, for that matter) are more like ultimatums rather than deals. Okay, but they don’t really need Iran at a negotiating table for that. You could just send them an email. 

In any case, with all the political posturing and rhetoric flying around, it’s easy to forget what the overall objective is here: how to stop Iran from developing a nuke.

I’m not saying the Obama deal will succeed in achieving that. Neither is The Economist. A lot more work has to be done to make sure the details are workable and the terms enforced effectively. That won’t be easy, not least because if the GOP and Israel are right about one thing, it’s that the Iranian regime can’t be trusted. No one’s really disputing that, as far as I know. 

But I don’t see how playing Big Dick Hardball will get better results. Since Iran already has nuclear facilities, we can’t really stop them from making a bomb by refusing to negotiate and doubling down on sanctions until they give up. We’ve been doing that for over a decade, and Iran’s nuclear capabilities have gotten exponentially better every year.

The remaining option is to do an Iraq on them – which might stop Iran from having a bomb (for awhile), but it would come at the cost of a trillion dollars, a decade or two of occupation, hundreds of thousands of dead people, and destabilizing the entire region.

So no, the Obama deal is probably the best option going if you want a shot at actually keeping Iran from having a bomb. However, if yr only real objective is to talk trash about Obama and Iran for maximum political advantage – which I think is all Repubs are really interested in at the moment – then okay, carry on, and good luck with that.

Deal or no deal,

This is dF

Rudy Giuliani is on TV again for some reason – though when it’s Fox News, “randomly bashing Obama” is as good a reason as any to put anyone on TV, I suppose.

Anyway, Rudy has been going around talking about how Obama hates America and can’t possibly love it as much as Rudy does, because 9/11.

It’s kind of a bizarre spectacle – it’s like someone entering into the middle of a conversation and offering an opinion on a completely different topic as though that’s what you were talking about all along. Except that a given number of people in the room (or in this case, everyone in the room where he was speaking at the time) fully agree with his opinion, however irrelevant it might be to the immediate topic, and let him have his say because hey, fuck Obama.

Anyway, the subsequent reaction has gone pretty much the way you’d expect: 


The only useful comment I’ve read about it is this piece from The Economist, which points out – correctly – that patriotism doesn’t have to be unqualified and unquestioning to be genuine.

More importantly, it makes the point that of course minorities are more likely to have a more complicated view of America precisely because they’ve been victims of discrimination and bigotry, but that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of patriotism:


This is why conservatives always come across as disingenuous to me when they play the Love It Or Leave It Patriotism card like this. I don’t mean they’re fake patriots (though some may be) – I just think they’ve put no real thought into it. They don’t love America so much as have a teenage crush on it. The feeling may be real, and it’s hard to tell the difference from True Love, but it’s superficial and completely out of touch with reality.

Which is downright dangerous when someone like Joe McCarthy acquires the stature to wield patriotism like a drunk waving a gun around. Or when you start applying that test to things like, say, history textbooks. You won’t make America a better country by pretending it’s never done anything wrong.

But then I don’t have a lot of use for patriotism anyway. I understand the necessity of it for a job like POTUS. But it doesn’t impress me. And I’ve always resented people using it as some kind of litmus test to determine your worth as a person. It’s both stupid and lazy.

George Bernard Shaw was right.

No one understands you like I do,

This is dF

There’s been a rash of Big News Stories in the last few days that are probably worth commenting on, but I’m a little pressed for time, so please enjoy these unsolicited and ill-informed capsule opinions.

1. That Sony hack

A lot of people have blasted Sony for pulling The Interview after being threatened by hackers (allegedly from North Korea). I would generally agree with that. It sets a bad precedent when you give in to the demands of hackers who don’t approve of yr content. But I also think that’s a minor story compared to the fact that Sony’s online security measures are as bad as they are.

The censorship angle is the least troubling aspect of all this. Sony isn’t the first company – and won’t be the last – to be subjected to hacking and cyberblackmail, and that’s a problem in this day and age when everything is online. Bruce Schneier has a good breakdown of the real issues at stake here and what companies need to do to get ready. He also explains the futility (and inevitability) of overreacting to this.

As far as the censorship angle goes, well, you can always count on Larry Flynt to lead by example.

2. Cop killers

Two cops dead in Brooklyn, another shot and run over in FLA. When I heard the news, I didn’t even have to go on Facebook to know that all the people who supported Darren Wilson were going to offer this as “proof” that black people were wrong to cry racism and protest on the streets because now look what you’ve gone and done.

Which really just illustrates the extent of the very problem that protesters have been complaining about. The message is basically, “If cops are shooting unarmed black people, don’t complain or someone might shoot a cop and then it will be all yr fault for criticizing cops for shooting unarmed black people.”

Besides, there's nothing lazier or more expedient in the world than using the actions of one crackpot to blame an entire group of people he/she claimed to represent by his/her crackpot actions. Any idiot can do that.

3. Havana affair 

I’m kind of ambivalent towards this, but I see no good reason not to start lifting restrictions. The naysayers are rolling out the usual arguments, and they might be right in the sense that Cuba won’t become a free(er) nation as a result of Obama’s policy.

But let’s not pretend the previous policy was working, or making any real difference. It might have made sense during the Cold War. That ended 25 years ago. Critics have been recycling the same 50-year-old old arguments out of habit, and also because Obama is for it. (And because Cuban exiles vote.) These arguments do not impress me.

I think the worst that will happen is nothing will change in Cuba, so why not try something different? And anyway, it’s hard to argue that we shouldn't normalize relations with dictatorships when we’ve been doing that with China since the 1970s.

Our man in Havana,

This is dF

I have this problem, and I don’t know what to do about it.

This is it: Every time someone on Facebook posts something about net neutrality – and it doesn’t matter which side on the issue they’re on – I want to take my laptop and fling it like a Frisbee through the nearest window.

Which would be dangerous for any innocent passersby below. Plus, it’s a company laptop.

The NN issue has always been around, but has surged to the top of the news cycle again now that the FCC has announced an idea and Presidente Obama has expressed an opinion about it. And so my Facebook page is filled with new variations of the same hysterical memes that floated around the first few times NN has come up.

They read more or less like this:

Pro-NN: CORPORATE AMERICA/COMCAST WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE INTERNET!

Anti-NN: THE GOVERNMENT/OBAMA WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE INTERNET!

In other words, it’s pretty much the same recycled conspiracy theories, although the “Net neutrality is the Obamacare of the Internet” is a new variation that certain Republican politicians are now kicking around.

Ha ha. No, Ted and Marsha – net neutrality is nothing like Obamacare. The comparison is as inaccurate and stupid as it is lazy. Not that it matters – it’s a cut-rate talking point that’s more of an excuse to slap Obama and Obamacare around.

That said, this doesn’t mean the pro-NN’s conspiracy theories about Comcast are validated. It just means their conspiracy theories are less crazy.

I’ve written about this before, and I don’t really have anything new to add, except maybe this:

What really bothers me about the NN debate, I think, is that most people I know are resorting to conspiracy-theory bullshit to make their point when they actually don't have to.

There is a genuine and rational argument in favor of net neutrality, and I fully agree it’s the best model for internet innovation.

But there’s also a genuine need for traffic prioritization to make real-time streaming and other services work properly. And it’s not unreasonable for ISPs to charge companies differently based on that. The balance has to be struck to ensure that process is done fairly and transparently, so that Comcast or AT&T or anyone else can’t throttle competitors or railroad customers (and as I’ve said before, I don’t believe they plan to do either, but there’s no harm in regulations making sure they can’t if they ever decide to do so for some weird reason, like if Lex Luthor becomes CEO of Comcast or something).

But no one is talking about that. They’re just screaming conspiracy theories at each other. Which means that the US is going to be the only country on Earth whose policy on net neutrality is going to be based on which batshit conspiracy theory the FCC chooses to back.

That may still result in a workable net neutrality policy. But it’s depressing to think this is what passes for debate in America now, and that we’re basing important policy decisions on which paranoid conspiracy theory gets the most support.

*drops mic*

Neutralized,

This is dF

I don’t have any real opinion on the immigration reform debate in the US. Or rather, I do, but it’s basically the same opinion I’ve had for awhile – there’s no question reform is needed, but I think the horror stories conservatives throw around about illegal immigrants in America are at best overblown and at worst xenophobic and racist.

In fact, the biggest problem with immigration reform could well be the inability of conservatives to frame it in any other way as an us-against-them invasion of American sovereignty that is, of course, all Obama’s fault (him being from Kenya and all).

This is not only counterproductive to any sane discussion on what to do about it, it’s also providing the batshit wing with incentives to stage really dumb photo opportunities.

Some are relatively harmless – like Sean Hannity and Rick Perry pretending to patrol the Rio Grande with machine guns looking all butch. (I’m assuming they weren’t actually allowed to man the guns. I’d hate to think Hannity was in a position to actually decide whether or not to fire the thing if they’d just happened to come across a bunch of people trying to make it across.)

Others are more stupid and potentially dangerous – like sending angry mobs out to stop buses full of child refugees gawdamn foreigners.

For one thing, you never know when you might scream and yell at the wrong busload of kids. Which just makes you look even more stupid.

Also, it doesn’t actually solve anything. I really don’t know what the protesters think they’re accomplishing – maybe they think the buses should be driving the kids back to Honduras? Or they should just dump the kids in Mexico somewhere? What do they think we do with illegal immigrants who get caught anyway? Give them an Obamaphone and a job in Walmart or McDonald’s?

Whatever it is they think they’re doing – and whatever you think about immigration reform, etc – it still comes down to this:

Dudes, you are yelling and screaming at a bunch of kids. More to the point, you are yelling and screaming at kids on the run from countries steeped in gang violence and poverty and have probably seen things no kid should ever have to deal with. They probably don't need a crowd of angry white grown-ups screaming “Go back to Mexico!” in their face (especially when they’re not even from there).

It’s a dick thing to do. I’m sure many of the protesters are only doing it because they’re angry about the situation and they can’t yell and scream at Obama and they gotta yell at someone, and the kids are just convenient targets. It’s still a dick thing to do.

What’s really striking about all this is how, if this were happening almost anywhere else, this situation would be described by most people regardless of political affiliation as a humanitarian crisis – child refugees fleeing their decimated home countries by the tens of thousands in the hopes of staying alive and finding a better life somewhere else, etc.

But in America, it’s treated mostly as another tool in the political toolbox for conservatives to beat up on Obama and whip up Big Fear of Alien Invasions.

My Republican friends like to tell me this is all Obama’s fault because of his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which they say is basically the same as posting a big sign on the border saying “Hey Central America, send us yr kids!” There’s quite a bit of evidence that this isn't the case, but it’s an election year, so it looks to me like Republicans are more interested in talking points that blame Obama and the Democrats for everything than actually analyzing the situation, much less doing anything about it apart from mass deportations.

Anyway, Jon Stewart has a good breakdown of that, and the ludicrousness there of.

Kicking and screaming,

This is dF

Little ducks, there is trouble in Iraq. Again. Or as usual.

And I’d have posted this earlier but I was under deep cover in Singapore all last week.

So. ISIS is moving towards Baghdad, and everyone’s arguing over two very important aspects of the situation: (1) “What should Obama do about it?” and (2) “Which POTUS can we blame this on?”

I have no idea what the answer to the first one is. The Economist has a pretty good write-up of how it’s likely to play out. The only thing I’m pretty sure about is that of all the options Obama has in front of him, none are going to fix the overall problem, not when at least part of the problem is the current Iraqi leadership.

One thing we do know is that if Obama is hedging on military responses, it’s because the American People™ generally don’t want to hop back in the quagmire, because we’ve been there, and most of us didn’t like it the first time.

The exceptions are the neocons that created and advocated the quagmire in the first place. They’re clearly convinced that (1) we should get back in there and kick some ISIS ass and (2) everything was going perfectly according to their plan until Barry Hussein Obama screwed it up for everyone by not leaving US troops in Iraq forever.

That ground has been well-covered by Jon Stewart and others, but I think it’s worth reiterating. Because whatever you think the US should be doing about Iraq, the last people we should be asking are the dingbats who decided to invade the damn country in the first place. They’ve been consistently and catastrophically wrong about almost every aspect of the war in terms of the rationales and the outcome. Better yet, they refuse to even admit they were wrong despite all evidence to the contrary. Who in their right mind would take these yahoos’ opinions seriously?

I will say I don't think it’s fair to blame the current situation fully on the Bush Admin. But I do think Obama’s performance should be evaluated in the context of a president inheriting an impossible situation his own predecessors couldn’t have fixed even if John McCain had won in 2008.

Of course, that’s not how this works. Republicans are mainly evaluating the situation in terms of how they can inflict maximum political damage on Obama, not how to actually solve the situation. Sure, they’re offering their opinions on solutions, but most of them seem focused on salvaging the situation they created in order to prove they were right to create it.

I don't know if Obama has any better ideas, or if he’ll make the right decisions, but honestly, at this stage I don’t see how he could do any worse. In fact, one good thing I can say about Obama’s approach is his unwillingness to make the kind of snap judgments that Republicans claim to want. Obama is smart enough (or politically savvy enough) to know that a good chunk of America is now hip to the idea that knee-jerk military responses for every little foreign policy crisis comes with consequences, and they do matter.

It’s not so much that America has no right to intervene in trouble spots around the world. It’s more about doing so responsibly. The GOP has trouble admitting this (American Exceptionalism™ and all), but one of the criteria of being the World’s Policeman – especially when it’s a self-appointed post that everyone else accepts by default – is convincing the rest of the world that you have the good judgment to know when to use excessive force and when not to. In that sense, the Bush Posse was less World Policeman and more Maniac Cop.

Result: geopolitically speaking, America isn’t really in a position to take instant, decisive action and bomb whomever it wants. And the GOP has no one but itself to blame for that.

The GOP response to this, of course, is that public opinion doesn’t matter when it comes to making those hard decisions in the name of national security. George W Bush famously said that he doesn’t do focus groups.

Fair point. On the other hand, it helps when yr decisions prove that you were right and the focus groups were wrong.

So no, the neocons and the GOP don’t have a lot of credibility with me when it comes to Iraq.

Wrong about everything,

This is dF

For some reason, this scene has been playing in my head recently.



Which seems to sum up the mindset of people of a certain political persuasion who seem to think that Obama is a spineless wimp on foreign policy, and that the only proper response to Vlad Putin’s aggression in Crimea is to fire a few drone missiles up his ass.

Or … you know, something mighty.

Which seems to be their solution to every foreign policy crisis – just drop some bombs on them. It might not solve the problem, but it will show everyone that America is the greatest country in the world and what we say goes and you do NOT want to fuck with us because we will fuck yr shit up.

Because people respect you when you do that.

Anyway.

There’s a lot of talk about this, obviously. And a lot of it does seem to be happening in a vacuum created by a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation, the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, and how complicated the whole thing is.

So all I really have to say about it for right now is this:

1. The BBC has some good backgrounders summing up the situation. I highly suggest reading them.

2. For all the hawk blathering over the Obama admin’s pussy approach, a military response seems like a very, very bad idea, if only because I’m a child of the Cold War who equates War With Russia with World War III. That’s probably a grand overstatement of the current situation (see point 1, above). However, the pro-military approach seems predicated on the theory that Putin will back off once we show up with navy and air power to stop him. Maybe. But Putin doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who blinks when you point a gun at him.

3. Ironically, this is one of Putin's more endearing qualities to the same people who criticize Obama’s lack of spine.

Sample:


Which is amusing when you remember that the GOP’s two biggest contenders to challenge Obama in 2012 were “Rugged” Mitt Romney and Rick “The Rock” Santorum.

Anyway, I don’t particularly have any problems with how Obama is handling the situation – at least so far. It’s too early to say if he’s doing the right thing or not. But I think it’s fair to say that he’s at least doing the most realistic thing, and he’s doing pretty much exactly what Mitt Romney would be doing if he was POTUS.

Even John McCain agrees with me that a military option is a no-go, although he does go on to say that Putin is only doing this because Obama’s foreign policy sucks so much:


Sure. Because Putin totally respected America after we invaded Iraq. Which is why he did not send troops into Georgia in 2008 when George "Shock And Awesome" Bush was running things.

Granted, the situation in Georgia was somewhat different than the one in Ukraine. Still, I’m not sure I’d want to go around saying things like “no one respects America’s authority anymore” if my political party is the one that thinks America can go around invading another country on completely trumped up pre-texts and still be respected.

Which just isn’t done in the 21st century. Just ask John Kerry. Although he was talking about Russia …

… Oh, f*** it.

Yr move,

This is dF