This impenetrably juvenile screed has been thoroughly answered by a number of other bloggers, so I don’t have to. See Steve M, Booman, and mistermix. Now I have to go do other things for a while.
Primer on Democracy and the Middle East
A bit more on Mitt’s remarkably vacuous foreign policy op ed. Rightie blogger Rick Moran thought it was brilliant, but this sentence — well sentence fragment — of Moran’s jumped out at me —
A perfect summation of Obama’s “Leading from Behind” strategy, as well as his still incomprehensible embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood as some kind of agent for Arab democracy.
Righties do tend to use words without thinking real hard about what they mean. So let us examine democracy.
The word democracy is derived from the Greek dÄ“mokratÃa, meaning “will of the people.” Essentially, a democracy is any government that derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. The people of a democracy enjoy the freedom to exercise its will, usually through elections.
Whether we in the U.S. like it or not, the Muslim Brotherhood has a broad popular following in the Middle East. The Egyptians had elections last year, and as a result, as I understand it, about half of the seats in the Egyptian parliament are controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won the election with 51.73% of the vote.
So, if one respects democracy, one must at least respect the legitimacy of the Muslim Brotherhood in the government of Egypt. Of course, a substantial percentage of Egyptians didn’t vote for the Muslim Brotherhood and don’t much care for them, but if we are to respect democracy we have to let the Egyptians work that out for themselves through their own constitutional processes. It’s not up to us.
However, it’s possible Rick Moran wasn’t using the word democracy to mean, you know, “democracy.” Sometimes I think righties use democracy in regard to the Middle East to mean “pro-American.” But that isn’t what it means. The people of a democratic Middle Eastern nation can choose to be anti-American if they want to. I’m not saying that’s what I like; I’m saying that’s how it works.
And this presents a paradox that U.S. conservatives have never been able to solve. They can barely acknowledge the paradox exists, in fact, but prefer to paper over it with rhetoric about how much we love democracy and freedom even when our foreign policy was anti-democratic and anti-freedom.
American foreign policy going back to the Cold War era has assumed that we prefer pro-American dictatorships over potentially anti-American democracies. This usually turns out to be a stupid policy that ends badly, but often that’s what we’ve done, reasoning that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. For example, during the Eisenhower Administration the United States played a significant role in overthrowing a popular, democratically elected government in Iran and installing the unpopular Mohammad Reza Shah in its place. It might have looked like a smart strategic move at the time, but you can pretty much draw a straight line between that and why Iran is so screwy today.
So now we’ve got the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. We may object to the Muslim Brotherhood for many reasons, but so far we cannot object to them for being un-democratic, since it was democracy that gave them power in the first place. It may be that the Muslim Brotherhood will morph into a dictatorship, but they haven’t done it yet. If the Right wants the U.S. military to overthrow every democratically elected government we don’t like, then they should say so, but lets not pretend we’re doing it because we love democracy so much.
Now, what does President Obama think of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? A short time ago the President said of the government of Egypt, “I don’t think that we consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.†The mouth-breathers on the Right promptly hooted that the President doesn’t know who are allies and enemies are. I thought the President was sending a not-too-subtle signal to the Muslim Brotherhood that they might want to spend some time considering Egypt’s relationship with the U.S. It was tough and smart, IMO. However, as we all know, righties don’t get nuance.
But just a few days later they’re back to calling the President a Muslim-lover and enabler of the coming globe-straddling caliphate. How soon they forget.
New Polls: Warren Ahead of Brown
Just to brighten up a Monday morning, two new polls show Elizabeth Warren with a small but growing lead over Scott Brown. Toldjah the Native American heritage bash wouldn’t work, Scotty boy.
Mitt: I’ll Bury Our Enemies With Platitudes
Mittens has an op ed in the Wall Street Journal called “A New Course for the Middle East” that I made myself read so you wouldn’t have to. Although you can if you like.
Executive Summary: The strategy appears to be that we are going to overwhelm the Middle East with our glorious greatness, and once they fully appreciate how gloriously great we are they will love us and stop misbehaving.
At one point, Mittens writes that he would place “no daylight between the United States and Israel.” That’s as close as he gets to any concrete policy. The rest of it is all verbiage that doesn’t say shit. Writing an article about new Middle East policy without using the words “Afghanistan,” “Iraq,” “troops,” “drones,” or “Islam” may provide a clue how utterly empty this op ed is. It is a mush of platitudes and straw men.
Mittens appears to believe that the United States can control everything that happens in the world if we just want to badly enough, and the fact that people in other countries misbehave is all President Obama’s fault. Typical paragraph:
The first step is to understand how we got here. Since World War II, America has been the leader of the Free World. We’re unique in having earned that role not through conquest but through promoting human rights, free markets and the rule of law. We ally ourselves with like-minded countries, expand prosperity through trade and keep the peace by maintaining a military second to none.
We mostly got to be “leader of the free world” because we were the only major power on the winning side of World War II that wasn’t left in ruins when it was over. And thanks in large part to the economic stimulus provided by government spending on the war, plus postwar programs like the GI bill, our economy was strong and growing while most of Europe and Asia were still struggling to just find their socks and make some breakfast. We were fortunate to have moderately progressive leaders, including Republican ones like Eisehnhower, who respected FDR’s New Deal legacy and who ignored the hotheads who wanted nuclear war with China. We also implemented the Marshall Plan and maintained sensible foreign aid programs even though conservatives grumbled about it. And that’s how we got to be “leader of the free world.” But after the Debacle that was Dubya, it’s hard to say that title has any real meaning any more.
But in recent years, President Obama has allowed our leadership to atrophy. Our economy is stuck in a “recovery” that barely deserves the name. Our national debt has risen to record levels. Our military, tested by a decade of war, is facing devastating cuts thanks to the budgetary games played by the White House. Finally, our values have been misapplied—and misunderstood—by a president who thinks that weakness will win favor with our adversaries.
Mitt Romney seems to think that history jumped from VE Day to the assassination of Ambassador Stevens in Libya with nothing happening in between. He describes President Obama’s policy as afflicted with “incomprehension.” I don’t doubt Mittens doesn’t comprehend it, as there are no tax shelters involved, but fortunately President Obama is a lot smarter than Mittens.
In this period of uncertainty, we need to apply a coherent strategy of supporting our partners in the Middle East—that is, both governments and individuals who share our values.
And who would that be, Mitt, except Bibi Netanyahu? And, frankly, I’m not sure many of us over here share Netanyahu’s “values,” whatever they are. The U.S. has a long policy of propping up anti-communist dictators, such as the Shah of Iran — notice how that turned out — and of forming alliances with people who openly are selling us out — think Pervez Musharraf. But when people in other countries win the freedom to finally elect their own choices, they don’t always choose people we might like. Our glorious greatness doesn’t always make an impression, I guess.
This means restoring our credibility with Iran. When we say an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability—and the regional instability that comes with it—is unacceptable, the ayatollahs must be made to believe us.
And how are you going to do that, Mitt? Send them rotten fish in the mail? Insult their mothers? Threaten them with nuclear war? Don’t ever make threats you aren’t willing to carry out, dude.
It means placing no daylight between the United States and Israel.
OMG.
And it means using the full spectrum of our soft power to encourage liberty and opportunity for those who have for too long known only corruption and oppression. The dignity of work and the ability to steer the course of their lives are the best alternatives to extremism.
See, Mitt, I don’t think anyone actually disagrees with that. The question is, how will you do it? That’s kind of the catch, son.
But this Middle East policy will be undermined unless we restore the three sinews of our influence: our economic strength, our military strength and the strength of our values. That will require a very different set of policies from those President Obama is pursuing.
One might question the degree to which our “values” ever had much to do with our foreign policy. But I don’t see that President Obama is anti economic or military strength, or that he has no values. And throwing money at the Pentagon to maintain some muscle-bound military prepared to land on Normandy Beach and slog toward Berlin doesn’t necessarily address current military need.
And how is it that this moron was such a success in “business”? Making boatloads of money must not take much in the way of smarts.
Update: See also Paul Waldman, “Foreign Policy Is Hard.”
Mitt’s Pancake Syrup
Every now and then Tom Friedman hauls his head out of his ass and writes a good column.
For the first time in a long, long time, a Democrat is running for president and has the clear advantage on national security policy. That is not “how things are supposed to be,” and Republicans sound apoplectic about it. But there is a reason President Obama is leading on national security, and it was apparent in his U.N. speech last week, which showed a president who understands that we really do live in a more complex world today — and that saying so is not a cop-out. It’s a road map. Mitt Romney, given his international business background, should understand this, but he acts instead as if he learned his foreign policy at the International House of Pancakes, where the menu and architecture rarely changes.
Rather than really thinking afresh about the world, Romney has chosen instead to go with the same old G.O.P. bacon and eggs — that the Democrats are toothless wimps who won’t stand up to our foes or for our values, that the Republicans are tough and that it is 1989 all over again. That is, America stands astride the globe with unrivaled power to bend the world our way, and the only thing missing is a president with “will.” The only thing missing is a president who is ready to simultaneously confront Russia, bash China, tell Iraqis we’re not leaving their country, snub the Muslim world by outsourcing our Arab-Israel policy to the prime minister of Israel, green light Israel to bomb Iran — and raise the defense budget while cutting taxes and eliminating the deficit.
I would add that all that stuff didn’t really happen in 1989, either. Of course, Republicans have been playing the “we’re tough on security and they’re not” game since the end of World War II, and they’ve had a good run with it. Dems were first soft on communism and then soft on terrorism, according to the GOP. Looking at the actual history of the past century or so, I see no evidence that Republicans are intrinsically more effective at keeping America safe than Democrats, but they have managed to market themselves as the superior foreign policy brand lo these many years. And they’ve gotten away with that because Americans on the whole don’t travel much and don’t have a strong grasp of what’s going on in the rest of the world. Or much care, for that matter, as long as it’s not in their neighborhood.
I’d like to think that the young folks who grew up in the Internet age are less provincial and not so easily fooled. We’ll see. But my sense of things is that right now the general electorate is not in the mood to hear about bombing some Middle Eastern country if we can, you know, choose not to bomb some Middle Eastern country. Recent experience tells us that bombing Middle Eastern countries doesn’t really settle anything.
As far as Mitt is concerned, his hookup with the old Bush neocon gang was not something I would have predicted a couple of years ago. I had assumed he was more sophisticated about the world than that. And maybe he is, and he’s just playing the game because he thinks it will help him get elected. But if he knows it’s all a scam, that doesn’t speak well for him, either.
GOP: A Cult Looking for a Personality
Billmon (yes! Billmon!) writes,
There simply is no getting around the fact that the mentality of the modern grassroots conservative movement is in almost all particulars the spitting image of a 20th century totalitarian political party–an “epistemically closed” loop of self-reference and self-delusion. In other words: a cult.
The upshot is that one of America’s two main political parties has managed to turn itself into the proverbial insane asylum run by the inmates. And, unless the doctors want a quick trip to the electroshock table, they damned well better tell the patients that they, too, can see the same pink elephants (wink) tapdancing on the walls:
I’ve been more or less saying movement conservatism is a cult of crazy since I started this blog more than ten years ago. However, I have only recently appreciated how much the Bush regime was able to control Teh Crazy even as they fed it and grew it. Back when the Bush cult of personality was at its peak, Dubya, Turd Blossom et al. were able make the GOP appear to be a normal political party, at least enough so that the media establishment politely looked the other way when Teh Crazy was showing, the way you do when your elderly uncle forgets to zip his fly.
A lot of the media are still doing that, of course, but not all of them. Not any more.
Dubya can’t, or won’t, play the role of Respected Elder Statesman, a role that Big Bill fills so very well. And nobody has taken his place as the Big Giant Head of the cult. Yes, many of them gave their love to Sarah Palin four years ago, but Palin needed a Karl Rove to channel and manage her to keep her cult of personality going. She lacks the smarts and discipline to do it herself (so did Dubya, but he did have a Karl Rove).
(Looking back, it’s a bit surprising Karl didn’t have somebody groomed and ready to step into the role of Trilby to his Svengali when Dubya stepped down. Maybe he didn’t fully appreciate the importance of the cult of personality to manage the masses, either. We may have Dick Cheney to thank for that, though. If Dubya had had a veep with any charisma at all, that person likely would be POTUS now.)
Anyway, now nobody is in charge, and there’s nobody telling Teh Crazy when to zip its fly and behave correctly in public. And the question is, can the toothpaste be persuaded to crawl back into the tube?
Jonathan Bernstein writes that some on the Right may be stoking Teh crazy for personal gain —
Many of us argue that there’s something really wrong with the current GOP. It’s not that it’s conservative; it’s that, well, to be blunt, it’s nuts. Or, to put it more gently, it’s that there are strong incentives for being dysfunctional, such as the profit motive for those who stand to make a lot of money from the party being out of office (when talk show ratings go up and wacky conspiracy theory books about Democratic presidents sell like hotcakes).
In other words, he’s saying feeding Teh Crazy has become an end in itself, instead of just a means of gaining and hanging on to political power. So Teh crazy continues to grow, but no one Big Giant Head is controlling it. And this is not sustainable. No compounded thing remains in stasis for long; it either grows or it decays.
The result is a party more hospitable to, say, Sarah Palin than to Richard Lugar. And a party which takes presidential candidates such as Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain at least somewhat seriously. That is, it’s a party which frequently ignores reality and rejects the normal compromises of the U.S. political system. And every candidate the GOP nominates either shares in the crazy or is hostage to it — which is what we’ve seen from Mitt Romney throughout the campaign.
Bernstein thinks the only thing that might save the Republican Party from self-annihilation would be a leader who could have their loyalty and who would then work to marginalize Teh Crazy. His example is the way President Eisenhower, working partly behind the scenes, marginalized Joe McCarthy. But now the GOP has been infested with countless Joe McCarthys, and I don’t see anyone of the stature of Eisenhower who could both gain their trust and call a halt to it. And McCarthy wasn’t being funded by a 1950s equivalent of Sheldon Adelson and supported by a vast network of think tanks and dedicated media outlets; he was pretty much a one-man show.
Further — if we go back to the McCarthy example, we see that McCarthy was supported by the Republican establishment until he became a political liability, and then they dumped him rather abruptly. And that was the end of his public career. At least part of the current Republican establishment seems to understand their party is out of control, and I bet they would like to tone it down if they could, but Teh Crazy isn’t listening to them any more.
The 20th century totalitarian political parties were eventually defeated, but it took war to do it. Watching Soviet soldiers loot one’s house can help one wake up to the reality that maybe the war isn’t going well, and maybe some political leaders had one snookered.
However, I am inclined to think that Teh Crazy will fade slowly rather than go down in a blaze of inglory. The question is, will the GOP itself survive? Can this party be saved? Or will it break up and go the way of the Whigs? The original Republican party was made up mostly of ex-Whigs plus a contingent of anti-slavery Democrats, I believe, so you could argue that the original GOP was something like the Reformed Whigs. I could see a coalition of moderate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats challenging the crazy-infested GOP someday. I think that’s at least as likely to happen, eventually — not right away, but in four to six years, maybe — as the GOP coming back to its senses.
And have we reached peak wingnut yet? I didn’t think so back in 2008, when the peak wingnut theory was first kicked around, but now I think wingnuttism is pretty close to maxing out, short of armed and violent insurrection.
Not Dependency, Not Wingnuttery
Here’s another “47 percent” ad from Team Obama.
I’m glad the Obama campaign is ripping the “dependency” meme out from under Mittens. Even today I’ve seen Romney “recovery not dependency” ads online. I suspect it won’t be long before Lord Etch-a-Sketch is denouncing the “d” word and changing his ads.
Of greater concern — see Ed Kilgore, “The Million Wingnut March.”
True the Vote clearly does not represent an idle threat. Well before election day, reports are surfacing that it (or its state affiliates, like the Ohio Voter Integrity Project) is challenging the registration status of voters in battleground states based on changed addresses, residences listed on tax rolls as commercial property, and student addresses.
But it’s the specter of Election Day (or perhaps in-person Early Voting locations) that should trouble everyone, regardless of partisan affiliation. It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous scenario than that of hundreds of thousands of self-righteous suburban wingnuts showing up in poor and minority neighborhoods to hassle would-be voters, with Fox News cameras on hand to record any random examples of Solid Citizens experiencing resistance from annoyed locals.
And if we head towards Election Day with Obama still enjoying a clear lead in the polls, you have to figure True the Vote’s shock troops will be loaded for bear, viewing themselves as the last desperate defenders of “their†country against the barbaric hordes of looters and baby-killers who are already plotting to herd them into concentration camps during Obama’s second term, after they close the churches and shut down radio talk shows. At a minimum, we can expect “poll-watchers†to come up with enough “documented†example of “voter fraud†to support a general post-election effort to de-legitimize the results.
If they are going to start a violent pushback against the will of the people, this may be where it will start.
The President Is Getting Uppity Again
Right now most of the rightie blogosphere is trembling in outrage because the President of the United States is not being properly deferential to Benjamin Netanyahu, and will be speaking with him only by phone and not in person. Apparently the First Holy Priority of American foreign policy is kissing Netanyahu’s ass.
The Weekly Standard is also upset that Reuters and AP took “shocking” photos of Bibi’s UN speech. It took me a few seconds to figure out what the “shock” was. Well, OK, he looks a little like he’s giving a Nazi salute.
But this is the photo everybody’s laughing at today. As far as I can tell, the only people publishing the “Nazi salute” photos are rightie bloggers expressing outrage about them. I haven’t seen them anywhere else but on right-wing blogs and rightie websites like the Weekly Standard and the Daily Caller.
And you know that if Reuters and AP sent out photos of President Obama doing a Nazi salute or whatever the equivalent would be in our culture, the Weekly Standard (plus every wingnut with a blog) would have it splashed all over its print and web editions. We’re all supposed to be more respectful of the Premier of Israel than of our own President.
Y’know, this really is getting tiresome. And the same allegedly American people pushing Israel Uber Alles (sorry, but that’s the truth) are perpetually harping on the rest of us because we are insufficiently patriotic. But what would please them? Should our flags and lapel pins display the stars and stripes or the Star of David? Y’all do sit down and work on that, and let us know, OK?
Nobody in U.S. politics that I’ve seen is anti-Israel, and I would join with the enormous majority of Americans wishing Israel peace and prosperity. But this business of putting the Premier of Israel, or the head of any other country, on a higher pedestal than the POTUS is, frankly, offensive.
In 2004 the Bush campaign took a statement by John Kerry and twisted it into a claim that Kerry would be taking foreign policy directions from other countries and would need permission from the international community to defend America. That was nonsense, of course. But now some of this same crew wants our Middle East policy to be dictated from Tel Aviv.
Clue: There’s a difference between being pro Israel, which I believe most Americans are, and being shills for Likud.
This obsequious pandering to Bibi may all be about getting the “Jewish vote,” but the last I heard, Jewish Americans overwhelmingly are supporting President Obama. So, dudes, if that’s your game, it ain’t workin’.
I can’t read President Obama’s mind, but if it’s true he’s being cool to Bibi it might be he’s signalling to Bibi to back off. No meddling in U.S. politics. No assuming we’ll dance to your tune. If so, this is entirely appropriate.
See also:
Netanyahu overplays his hand with Obama
Breaking Yom Kippur fast, American Jews talk Obama, Netanyahu
At UN, Netanyahu needs to repair his own power of deterrence
This Afternoon’s Features
Here’s another new Obama ad —
Meanwhile, here’s another blast from Mitt Romney’s past, talking about “harvesting” the companies Bain buys —
Charles Pierce has dubbed Mittens the “international harvester.”
Reminds me of one of the President’s earlier ads, which ended with the tag line “Romney is not the solution; he’s the problem,” or some such.
See Adam Hanft, “Bain Brain: How Managing Like a CEO Has Led Romney Astray.” This is spot on. In brief, Mittens has a set of skills that served him well in business but which don’t work with political campaigns. Or governing, either, I suspect.
And see Steve M., “Mitt Romney Makes a Hostage Video.” You will enjoy this.
Too Many Mitts
Here’s a new two-minute ad from President Obama:
Just for fun, compare/contrast to Mitt’s recent one-minute ad, oddly titled “Too Many Americans.” Really, does he want to get rid of some of us to reduce the surplus population?
Garance Franke-Ruta points out that Mittens has a “them” problem. He’s looking right at the camera and saying his plan will help “them.” Not “you.” Not “us.” Them. “President Obama and I both care about poor and middle-class families. The difference is my policies will make things better for them.”
By contrast, the President is all about “we.” Even when he’s talking about the points in his plan, he says “we.” We’re going to increase jobs; we’re going to give tax breaks to those who invest here; etc. There’s very little “we” in Mitt’s ad.
The President is talking to everyone; Mittens is talking to, well, I’m not sure. He seems to be addressing people who are not unemployed or hurting because of the economy, and he’s saying new policies are needed to help those poor unfortunates he keeps reading about in the newspapers.
That’s just weird. I’m surprised that no one in Mitt’s campaign organization caught that.
My biggest criticism of the President’s ad is that most of this is stuff he ran on four years ago. We know that he couldn’t implement as much as he wanted because he was blocked in Congress, but still, it’s a potential weakness.