Friday Open Thread
First Read: “No president since George H.W. Bush has had more foreign-policy successes happen under his watch than President Obama. The death of bin Laden. The dismantling of al Qaeda. The ouster of Khaddafy. And the end of combat operations in Iraq.” And now the radical American-born Al Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in a drone strike in Yemen.
Jake Tapper: “Remember when Rudy Giuliani warned that electing Barack Obama would mean that the U.S. played defense, not offense, against the terrorists? If this is defense, what does offense look like?”
Andrew Sullivan: “Obama has done in two years what Bush failed to do in eight.”
But also consider the other parallel of comparing that foreign policy success to that of George H W Bush: it didn’t do squat for him in re-election terms, because–as Bill Clinton said–“It’s the economy, stupid.”
He won’t be able to cash in on any of this in a big way, because the narrative that Obama is anti-Israel, bows to foreign leaders, and spent his first two years apologizing for America is too firmly set not only in the minds of conservative voters, but many independents. And time spent trying to dislodge that won’t be time (or money) well spent by his campaign.
(Besides, even if people believe the argument, I’d be willing to bet you they give more credit for foreign policy success to Hillary instead of Obama.)
Khadaffi, like Saddam, was not a serious threat to US interests. But neither will be regretted.
Unlike the war on Iraq which was long planned, the US involvement in the ouster of Khadaffi was I think opportunistic. In the context of the Arab Spring, we saw something was happening in Libya and we needed to influence events before they influenced us.
“what does offense look like?”
Like $3 trillion borrowed and handed to the military and their cronies.
No true independent cares a whit about Israel. Nor do they care about the other items you mention. The folks who do but call themselves independent are just Republican-leaners who for whatever reason don’t register as Republicans. Those votes are lost, and would be no matter what Obama had done, other than govern as an out-and-out conservative.
But if you go back further than ‘W’, Nixon was probably the winner in terms of foreign policy.
Obama is following the Israel policy I supported, which is to start putting meaningful pressure on Israel on settlements and for negotiations, while not withdrawing overall support. The radical pro-Israel camp sees this as a reversal of policy, but it really is just common sense.
But now that Palestine is seeking UN recognition, I think that might be the way to go. Peace negotiations have never worked there, and if we wait for an agreement we will be waiting forever.
But Palestinians better be careful what they wish for. Because once they are a recognized nation, they become responsible for attacks from within their borders, and there will be no question that Israeli counter-attacks are legal under international law, even attacks on infrastructure that supports the initial attacks. Palestinians may yet regret their wish to step up to assume the responsibilities of nationhood.
I tend to agree with Geezer on the Israel issue; I disagree with Geezer in that I don’t think even governing like a conservative would have won him any votes in this particular polarized electorate. In his own way, Obama is MORE conservative than Bush.
His civil liberties-related actions have been, in the main, more conservative than Bush’s.
Several of the items allowed into Health Care (and yes I think he had something to do with them) like no negotiating with pharma companies and guaranteed customers for large corporations, were almost a GOPer wet dream by themselves.
His defense budgets have been consistently larger, his military policy more interventionist, and his hand-outs to big financials (hello, Goldman Sachs) were just as GOP-like as anything John McCain could or would have done.
By and large what this has accomplished is to alienate him from the more progressive parts of is own base without winning any points from the center-right.
We have a sociology prof at DSU who has been surveying NASCAR fans for the past two decades on political issues. No surprise, he reports them as being overall significantly right-of-center. But even there, in 2008-2009 he found a significant “Obama bump” [approval or at least acceptance of Obama jumped from something like 33% to something like 48%, which is statistically huge; I am doing the numbers from memory].
But the bump evaporated very quickly over 2009-2010 back down to the margin of error territory. When he asked why, the answers correlated almost entirely toward employment. Not foreign policy, not health care, not gay rights, not civil liberties–employment.
I read a lot of the individual statements and they boiled down to “Yes it was Bush’s fault the economy tanked, but you were elected to fix it and you haven’t.” They didn’t care about Congress or obstructionism or anything else.
Grim thoughts for the Obama campaign.
Ironically, I still believe he will squeak by and get re-elected. Jimmy Carter would not have lost to anybody less well-packaged and less charismatic than Reagan, even with Iran hostages, and the GOP has nothing anywhere close to a Reagan as a candidate.
Obama is continuing Bush economic policies so he shouldn’t be surprised to get Bush economic results.
Agreed about Carter vs. Reagan.
If, when Reagan said “There you go again…” the media had fact-checked and publicized that Carter was in fact correct on the point, and properly taken Reagan to task for interrupting the President (with a lie no less), Carter may well have won that election. The landslide didn’t form until that point; IIRC Carter was slightly ahead for most of the campaign.
But – Carter succumbed to a media/voter feeding frenzy that wasn’t really rooted in reality. The same thing could happen to Obama.
If, when Reagan said “There you go again…” the media had fact-checked and publicized that Carter was in fact correct on the point
But the media of 1980 was not that kind of media (nor were we that kind of media consumers).
The same argument could almost have been made about Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960. The media never pointed out at the time that people who only heard the debate thought Nixon won, while people who saw the debate gave it to Kennedy.
Media, information/communications technology, and our views about what is the role of the media have changed so rapidly over the past five decades that it is difficult to make straight-up comparisons. Huntley, Brinckley, and Cronkite would not have know what to do with our current media. (And Brinckly and Cronkite spent much of their last years proving that point.)
Even Bill Clinton, master of media in the 1990s, found out in 2008 that his grasp of what worked and what didn’t was already obsolete, which was why he came across as a whiner around the time of the South Carolina primary.
And even after he said “There you go again” to Carter’s accurate charge he had opposed Medicare, Reagan’s explanation was that he did eventually sign the bill in California. In other words, he was against it before he was for it.
But that was back before Democrats turned off the power to all the third rails. Nowadays there is no need for Republicans to defend their hostility to the safety net.
I just reviewed the clip, and apparently my revulsion for that moment was so strong I had remembered Reagan as interrupting Carter (he didn’t). Another thing I forgot was Reagan’s absolutely shit-eating smirk as he knew what was coming, and planned to use his acting skill to lie, and show up Carter’s factually correct but dry presentation. I never understood how such vicious condescension was somehow perceived as genial and masterful humor. And it is the smirk I imagine on every movement conservative since 1980 now turned to a sneer.
I agree that Obama has been more conservative than Bush in the ways Steve notes, and that it hasn’t helped him with the crowd that likes to call people “socialists” without understanding the term.
FWIW, Gallup just did a poll showing the enthusiasm gap between Ds and Rs is at its highest point in a decade.
I think that the killing of bin Laden and now Anwar al-Awlaki will go a long way to blunt any GOP attempt to argue that Obama is soft on foreign policy. Those are tangible results and that’s what voters like. I don’t think that “the end of combat operations in Iraq” will (and should not) have any measurable effect on voters because we still have troops in Iraq.
I think that this election will be 95% about the economy. The Republicans will demagogue that, and a big part of Obama’s (mostly accurate)defense will be rather abstract and elusive for most voters: those Republican Senators and their “filibusters.” So in effect he will have to argue: “For me to be effective in a second term, you will not only have to vote for me but vote in such a way as to ensure that we have a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic and filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.” That will be a tough and abstract sell.
Fortunately for Obama, he will not be facing a primary from a true progressive who would argue that Obama’s initial stimulus plan (and now this new one) was too paltry to reverse (not merely temporarily staunch) the effects of the Great Recession in an economy as big as the USA’s.
I agree with what Dana said and would only add that David Plouffe is an idiot.
“those Republican Senators and their “filibusters.”
Good luck with that if Democrats filibuster the jobs bill.
“The media never pointed out at the time that people who only heard the debate thought Nixon won, while people who saw the debate gave it to Kennedy.”
Many things wrong with this oft-recycled comment:
1. Only one survey had that data – but it had a hideously small sample – 282 listeners – and didn’t account for the listening audience’s composition, largely centered in rural GOP strongholds.
2. The “media” didn’t squelch the survey. The Sindlinger survey wasn’t even released until the day before the election.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/did_nixon_win_with_radio_liste.php?nr=1
This piece from the NJ reports that Chris Coons talked about the need to “compromise” on so-called entitlement programs the other night with the PDD.
My board meeting didn’t end in time for me to get there, but would be interested in what those in attendance would report on this. I’m especially interested in hearing why Coons would expect that Social Security would need to be subject to compromise.
Kicking Nixon further:
Although the opening to China and detente with USSR were laudable, his administration’s policy in Vietnam – doing the same deal in January 1973 that could have been accomplished in January 1969 – cost 30,000 American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, fanned domestic divisions that last to this day, and fed the domestic crimes that led to his resignation in disgrace.
@ Puck , Do you really see a difference between them? Looks to me like ones giving cover for the other.
I love how this regime’s sanctioned assassinations and invasions are lauded.
Hypocrites.
Peace must be loved before war. As demonstrated by this post, the left and right are equally morally bankrupt in this regard.
“This piece from the NJ reports that Chris Coons talked about the need to “compromise” on so-called entitlement programs the other night with the PDD.”
This is depressing. I thought I was doing something good to stay home and help my kids with their homework. I would have done them more good going to the meeting.
basically – he wants to make sure SS is there for the future.
he was not specific HOW this would be done, he did say it is funded for quite some time but that its needs to be looked at to ensure stability.
it is however, on the table but I did not get the impression that it would be cut significantly if at all if taxes can be raised.
Medicare would also be looked at, again I sensed it would be refining it, not destroying it
and depending HOW that process works it might be a good thing. Population has increased = babyboomers are a big chunk now and the funding levels need to align ith it
I would like to see BIG PHARMA be forced to cut their prices AND DRS held to a higher accountability on pricing and tests.I have seen many just order off test coz the PT has medicare – that needs to be kept a lid on WITH the codicil that PT cares is tantamount
its going to be a fine line.
Let us not forget that in October 1983 242 United States Marines were killed in Beirut and Reagan took no action. Contrary to the popular spin that Clinton actions led to the Terrorist threat this was the incident that convinced OBL that America would not fight if the cost were to high.
“As demonstrated by this post, the left and right are equally morally bankrupt in this regard.”
The post is about politics, not morality.