Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration

[Vuk]

Shame that Ron Paul or Nadar got so little number of votes. Shows you how many smart people there are in America.

How is it smart to vote for someone who does not have a chance in France at winning when you could give your vote to the lesser of two evils and stop the greater of two evils from getting in? No, those people are just as stupid as the ones who voted for Obama in IMO.

[Beskar]

How is it smart to vote for someone who does not have a chance in France at winning when you could give your vote to the lesser of two evils and stop the greater of two evils from getting in? No, those people are just as stupid as the ones who voted for Obama in IMO.

Don't worry that was done. The greater of the two evils didn't get elected.

Also, why bother with the lesser of two evils? You can just pick the best choice and if everyone just did that, ta da.

[Vuk]

Don't worry that was done. The greater of the two evils didn't get elected.

Also, why bother with the lesser of two evils? You can just pick the best choice and if everyone just did that, ta da.

You cannot count on everyone picking the best choice, because the best choice is a matter of opinion and people are always divided (not to mention special interests). Let me ask you a question, if you had to pick one of the other, would you rather be lightly hit on the shoulder, or punched full force in the face by Kimbo? Obviously you would pick the lesser of two evils. It is basic damage control. :P You are not helping cut down on the damage though when you vote for someone who has no chance.

[Xiahou]

An interesting article by Robert Kagan about the Obama administration and their foreign policy philosophy. Lengthy, but insightful.

[Lemur]

An interesting article by Robert Kagan about the Obama administration and their foreign policy philosophy. Lengthy, but insightful.

Oh for Pete's sake, if there's a three-part series of editorials about the first year of Obama foreign policy, why not link to all three, instead on singling out the negative one? The full set:

Obama's Year One: Contra

Obama's Year One: Medius

Obama's Year One: Pro

[Marshal Murat]

I liked Kagan's article, always insightful but somewhat out-of-place. He seemed more intent on writing an article on the "foreign affairs" side than an overall view of Obama. Not to say that he is out of place because Obama's legacy is based on his results on the international stage. At the same time, however, he seems to be more focused on his views and thoughts than an analysis of Obama's total legacy (then again it's an article in Foreign Policy or whatever)

The "median" article is also somewhat denegrating of Obama, which accurately reflects the current situation. Despite overall hopeful attitudes, his actions have failed to produce concrete tangible results, which is true in the overall sense. Even the pro article seemed to be sad with Obama's overall results, but that's just me. Just this man's opinion.

[Lemur]

An interesting take on Obama and the environment in which he operates, from a Limey perspective:

In Britain, an opposition party in total revolt can do only so much. In the US system, where the constitution makes big change very, very hard, an opposition can gum up the works much more successfully. Because the Republicans lost so many seats last time around, their current ranks are dominated by those in the safest seats, and their main worry is being picked off by primary challenges from the Sarah Palin-Dick Cheney wing. Because of the still-waxing power of religious fundamentalism in the American South, the Republicans increasingly frame their arguments in doctrinal terms, rather than pragmatic ones. And so the party has become more purist and more radical in the wake of its defeat. To give a simple example, last week the Republican candidate for the governorship of Alabama was forced to offer the following campaign pledge: “I believe the Bible is true. Every word of it.” He had previously gaffed that some parts of the Bible might not be taken literally, but as metaphor or parable. No, this is not Iran. It’s America. In 2010.

Obama’s promise was that he would try to end this culture war. My view is that — to great dismay among his own partisan base — he has largely fulfilled that promise. He went to dinner with conservative journalists before he schmoozed the liberal ones; he spent more time on Capitol Hill with Republicans in his first few months than Bush ever had; he asked the evangelical Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration; he avoided abortion and gay rights issues; he refused to investigate, let alone prosecute, the war crimes of his predecessor; and he has ramped up the war in Afghanistan. He has cut taxes and refused to nationalise the banks.

But for all this, he is the target of almost relentless and extreme opposition, painting him as the most radical and extremist anti-American ever in the Oval Office. And with a Senate that requires a 60-40 majority to get anything done, that makes his promises very hard to keep. When Europeans wonder if America is ungovernable, this polarisation is the critical thing to keep in mind. Obama’s gamble is therefore to outlast this reaction, to refuse to take the bait for total political warfare at home, and to enact as much as he can as quickly as he can in case the natural upswing of an opposition in a depressed economy renders his congressional majority moot by next November.

The Republican gamble, in turn, is that the extremism of their populist oppositionism doesn’t rally the fringe of their base at the cost of alienating the critical middle that still holds sway in American politics. My own sense is that in a low-turnout mid-term election, they could do very well with this tactic. But at a strategic level, I suspect that this is a trap for 2012. If they cannot attract younger or minority voters, if they continue to fail to offer actual policy alternatives instead of recitation of right-wing dogma, they could manage to stymie Obama later this year at the cost of immolation in 2012. Winning in 2010 could even persuade them that becoming even more radical is the way to win in 2012. A Palin nomination is perfectly possible.

It’s a war of nerves. If the Republicans win it, the culture war lives on. If Obama survives, he will remake the centre of American politics as a Democratic bastion again. Those are the stakes. And they keep getting higher.