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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: George Whorewell on April 29, 2011, 08:00:20 AM
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Absolutely brilliant. Nobody besides George Will is in his league.
Source: NY Daily News 4/29/11
A PRESIDENT LEADS FROM BEHIND
By Charles Krauthammer
"Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President's actions in Libya as 'leading from behind.'"
- Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker
To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy - Lizza's painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears - this will have to do.
And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity during Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the [fictional] "international community" to do what only America can.
But underlying that style, assures this Obama adviser, there really are ideas. Indeed, "two unspoken beliefs," explains Lizza. "That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world."
Amazing. This is why Obama is deliberately diminishing American presence, standing and leadership in the world?
Take proposition one: We must "lead from behind" because U.S. relative power is declining. Even if you accept the premise, it's a complete non sequitur. What does China's rising GDP have to do with American buck-passing on Libya, misjudging Iran, appeasing Syria?
True, China is rising. But first, it is the only power of any significance rising militarily relative to us. Russia is recovering from levels of military strength so low that it barely registers globally. European power is in true decline (see their performance - except for the British - in Afghanistan and their current misadventures in Libya).
And second, the challenge of a rising Chinese military is still exclusively regional. It would affect a war over Taiwan. It has zero effect on anything significantly beyond China's coast. China has no blue-water navy. It has no foreign bases. It cannot project power globally. It might in the future - but by what logic should that paralyze us today?
Proposition two: We must lead from behind because we are reviled. When were we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Dwight Eisenhower? When his vice president was sent on a goodwill trip to Latin America, he was spat upon and so threatened by the crowds that he had to cut short his trip. Or maybe later, under the blessed Ronald Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by demonstrations in the capitals of our allies denouncing America as a warmonger taking the world into nuclear winter.
"Obama came of age politically," explains Lizza, "during the post-Cold War era, a time when America's unmatched power created widespread resentment." But the world did not begin with the coming to consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.
It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed. Moreover, for a country so deeply reviled, why during the massive unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Syria have anti-American demonstrations been such a rarity?
Who truly reviles America the hegemon? The world that Obama lived in and shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.
It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind - diminishing America's standing and assertiveness - is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's.
Other Presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing - as do most Americans - in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America's fitness for leadership. I would suggest that "leading from behind" is a verdict on Obama's fitness for leadership.
Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The President is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Charles Krauthammer's column, which appears on Fridays, is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Formerly a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined The New Republic as a writer and editor in 1981. He is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award for essays and criticism in 1984, the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1987 and the Bradley Prize in 2004
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/04/29/2011-04-29_obama_leads_from_behind_american_might_frightens_the_president.html#ixzz1KvNSvYfv
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But underlying that style, assures this Obama adviser, there really are ideas. Indeed, "two unspoken beliefs," explains Lizza. "That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world."
Amazing. This is why Obama is deliberately diminishing American presence, standing and leadership in the world?
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And you pieces of fucking trash who voted for this asshole have the balls to trash Palin? At least she loves this country!
FUBO and EVERYONE who who still supports this.
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We cannot afford our foreign policy, regardless of who sits in the White House; democrat, republican, we are broke.
One day, we will lose our hegemony and it will be because we have no money for it.
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We cannot afford our foreign policy, regardless of who sits in the White House; democrat, republican, we are broke.
One day, we will lose our hegemony and it will be because we have no money for it.
Entitlement spending dwarfs our military spending exponentially. Secondly, the point of the article that I posted went right over your head.
Finally, you are a tumbling dickweed.
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Entitlement spending dwarfs our military spending exponentially. Secondly, the point of the article that I posted went right over your head.
Finally, you are a tumbling dickweed.
It hardly went over my head.
And you have to love the entitlement argument, and you are right, we spend more on entitlements than military and the argument is then, we should not spend on entitlements whilst at the same time maintain our foreign policy as it is, how about we cut BOTH?! Nah, didn't think so...
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It hardly went over my head.
And you have to love the entitlement argument, and you are right, we spend more on entitlements than military and the argument is then, we should not spend on entitlements whilst at the same time maintain our foreign policy as it is, how about we cut BOTH?! Nah, didn't think so...
We should never have invaded Iraq, but we are leaving in 6 months. We never should have entered Libya. Afghanistan should be bombed into the stone-age and then we should build a Walmart+ 24 hour KFC Taco Bell on what's left.
Military spending should remain where it is, but funds should be allocated more intelligently. No more stupid, pointless wars in country's where the people are mindless and heartless. China is a threat. China is financing its military based on the interest we owe them in debt. They also own billions of dollars in US treasury bonds. If for no other reason, we cannot afford to breakdown our military spending.
However, I do believe that all foreign aid should be discontinued. I am an amoral right winger so I support war and violence but absolutely no entitlements or humanitarian aid.
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8)
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We should never have invaded Iraq, but we are leaving in 6 months. We never should have entered Libya. Afghanistan should be bombed into the stone-age and then we should build a Walmart+ 24 hour KFC Taco Bell on what's left.
Military spending should remain where it is, but funds should be allocated more intelligently. No more stupid, pointless wars in country's where the people are mindless and heartless. China is a threat. China is financing its military based on the interest we owe them in debt. They also own billions of dollars in US treasury bonds. If for no other reason, we cannot afford to breakdown our military spending.
However, I do believe that all foreign aid should be discontinued. I am an amoral right winger so I support war and violence but absolutely no entitlements or humanitarian aid.
LOL. At least you are honest.
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It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind - diminishing America's standing and assertiveness - is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's.
Pretty much sums things up.
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Absolutely brilliant. Nobody besides George Will is in his league.
Source: NY Daily News 4/29/11
A PRESIDENT LEADS FROM BEHIND
By Charles Krauthammer
"Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President's actions in Libya as 'leading from behind.'"
- Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker
To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy - Lizza's painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears - this will have to do.
And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity during Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the [fictional] "international community" to do what only America can.
But underlying that style, assures this Obama adviser, there really are ideas. Indeed, "two unspoken beliefs," explains Lizza. "That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world."
Amazing. This is why Obama is deliberately diminishing American presence, standing and leadership in the world?
Take proposition one: We must "lead from behind" because U.S. relative power is declining. Even if you accept the premise, it's a complete non sequitur. What does China's rising GDP have to do with American buck-passing on Libya, misjudging Iran, appeasing Syria?
True, China is rising. But first, it is the only power of any significance rising militarily relative to us. Russia is recovering from levels of military strength so low that it barely registers globally. European power is in true decline (see their performance - except for the British - in Afghanistan and their current misadventures in Libya).
And second, the challenge of a rising Chinese military is still exclusively regional. It would affect a war over Taiwan. It has zero effect on anything significantly beyond China's coast. China has no blue-water navy. It has no foreign bases. It cannot project power globally. It might in the future - but by what logic should that paralyze us today?
Proposition two: We must lead from behind because we are reviled. When were we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Dwight Eisenhower? When his vice president was sent on a goodwill trip to Latin America, he was spat upon and so threatened by the crowds that he had to cut short his trip. Or maybe later, under the blessed Ronald Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by demonstrations in the capitals of our allies denouncing America as a warmonger taking the world into nuclear winter.
"Obama came of age politically," explains Lizza, "during the post-Cold War era, a time when America's unmatched power created widespread resentment." But the world did not begin with the coming to consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.
It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed. Moreover, for a country so deeply reviled, why during the massive unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Syria have anti-American demonstrations been such a rarity?
Who truly reviles America the hegemon? The world that Obama lived in and shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.
It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind - diminishing America's standing and assertiveness - is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's.
Other Presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing - as do most Americans - in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America's fitness for leadership. I would suggest that "leading from behind" is a verdict on Obama's fitness for leadership.
Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The President is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Charles Krauthammer's column, which appears on Fridays, is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Formerly a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined The New Republic as a writer and editor in 1981. He is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award for essays and criticism in 1984, the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1987 and the Bradley Prize in 2004
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/04/29/2011-04-29_obama_leads_from_behind_american_might_frightens_the_president.html#ixzz1KvNSvYfv
Ha. I just read this and was coming here to start a thread about it. This is one of Krauthammer's best yet.
We cannot afford our foreign policy, regardless of who sits in the White House; democrat, republican, we are broke.
One day, we will lose our hegemony and it will be because we have no money for it.
We? You fled America over a decade ago because you're a pussy and a lifelong student who, at 34 or however many years old you are, still has no direction or accomplishments while continually pursuing the next useless degree you can add to your mantle, all while you travel from country to country trying to find a place to fit in.
What are you studying in Europe this time? Linguistics again? ::)
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I didn't read the article, but isn't Obama foreign policy identical to Bush foreign policy? ???
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Another good one. Krauthammer is terrific.