In one meeting, Rice pressed the German delegation relentlessly for leadership within the European Union. The Germans sought more time and consultation with other EU member states, frustrating Rice to the point that she lost her cool and reportedly launched into a profanity-filled lecture that featured a rare diplomatic appearance of the word “motherfucker.” Germany’s national security advisor, Christoph Heusgen, was so angered that he told an American confidante it was the worst meeting of his professional life.
…Rice’s bluntness and hot temper have undercut her effectiveness throughout her career. In July 2014, the New Republic reported that she once confronted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas outside the Oval Office, saying, “You Palestinians can never see the fucking big picture.” A U.N. ambassador of one of the world’s major powers told me that he didn’t “understand what she thinks she is achieving by talking to us like a longshoreman.” The brusqueness hasn’t helped with her interpersonal relationships within the administration or with her staff, either.
Actually, though, the piece is really a critique of the administration overall, and Obama in particular:
The problem is that in seeking to sidestep the pitfalls that plagued Bush, Obama has inadvertently created his own. Yet unlike Bush, whose flaw-riddled first-term foreign policy was followed by important and not fully appreciated second-term course corrections, Obama seems steadfast in his resistance both to learning from his past errors and to managing his team so that future errors are prevented. It is hard to think of a recent president who has grown so little in office.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
As bad as Bush was, at least there was a foreign policy strategy and some people with experience in foreign policy manning the helm. With the Obama administration, there’s virtually no real experience, and the appointments all appear to be totally political. And the decision-making isn’t merely influenced by domestic political concerns, it’s totally controlled by them.
One thing I hope comes out of all of this is a Congress (after the elections) that reasserts its role in warmaking, which is desperately needed, and it starts getting more serious on the Senate side about the advise and consent function. The latter isn’t just political, as the GOP has a tendency to rubber-stamp most appointees, even from the other side.
But… but… but they’re the best people! With degrees from all the best schools! And they were vouched for by the most sensible art-history professor at this lovely cocktail party!
I’d be thrilled if we could get even decent human beings in office, let alone competent ones.
Why it’s become okay to elect people who are dishonest, unqualified, and incompetent is beyond me. Especially when we keep allowing the state to get more and more powerful and less accountable to us.
First rate leaders hire first rate staff. They want the best people they can get to accomplish their goals. Second rate leaders hire third rate staff. They want to look good by comparison. Third rate leaders hire fifth rate staff. They don’t want anyone that could possibly show their weaknesses. Look at Obama’s appointees and staff. It isn’t hard to figure out what kind of leader he is. He couldn’t lead a man with dysentary to make a bowel movement.
“Yet unlike Bush, whose flaw-riddled first-term foreign policy was followed by important and not fully appreciated second-term course corrections, ”
Such as? Even if you view going to war in Iraq as a foreign policy blunder, Bush exercised considerable skill in getting so many countries to support our efforts there and to keep doing so as the war turned unpopular in the USA and the rest of the world. Other than Iraq, I don’t recall a first term filled with foreign policy flaws.
“entering into the long, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, remaking U.S. national security policy around the terrorism threat — led to a backlash that ushered Obama into office with a perceived mandate to undo what his predecessor had done and avoid making similar mistakes.”
Really? The housing bubble bursting just before the election had nothing to do with it? Going to war in Afghanistan was a mistake? I thought that was the good war. Bush was re-elected when Iraq was doing very poorly. I don’t think anti-war sentiment played the definitive role the author is claiming. Yup, he is off base on his views of the 00’s.
“Obama’s presidency is largely a product of a moment in history that likely will be seen someday as an aberration — the decade after 9/11, during which a stunned, angry, and disoriented America was sent spinning into a kind of national PTSD. Call it an age of fear, one in which the country and its leaders were forced to grapple with a sense of vulnerability to which they were unaccustomed”
For any President not to act after 9/11 would be an aberration. The author is making the argument that there is no argument, going to war in Afghanistan was a mistake. What was the alternative? We were not motivated by fear but anger. No one should get away with what happened on 9/11.
The environment that led to the rise of Obama had little to do with Iraq and Afghanistan and more to do with the economy and, more importantly, what was going on in the Democrat party at the time. Democrats were heavily invested in race and to show how much non-racist they were than their competition, were always bragging about firsts. Obama was the first black Democrat politician that had the same privileged upbringing as the party elites. He came from progressive academia, the Democrat base. His work history was one of not working for a company but working as an activist, another part of the base.
Obama came along at the perfect time to take over the Democrat party because of the conditions in the party, what Democrats were looking for as a candidate. It didn’t matter who the Democrats put up as candidate. The chances that a Republican would be elected after eight years of a Republican President were slim, remember that link from last week? This is especially true when major financial catastrophe happens in the months before the election.
Even though I am no fan of Obama, I find the author’s criticism of him to be off base as well, with a few exceptions.
The environment that led to the rise of Obama had little to do with Iraq and Afghanistan and more to do with the economy and, more importantly, what was going on in the Democrat party at the time.
You make good points. I believe that the almost complete takeover of the mainstream media and academia by progressives over the past several decades also contributed strongly to Obama’s rise, and that the façade of a two-party political system in the 21st century will only to serve to protect incumbent power bases.
“The environment that led to the rise of Obama had little to do with Iraq and Afghanistan and more to do with the economy ”
I seem to recall a couple points that had staying power through the election cycle relating to the wars. First the war was going to pay for itself. Also America was not going in for Nation building, and that is what we did. I seem to recall those two points through out the election. Were they definative points for President’s Obama’s win? I doubt it, but it must have brought a few votes.
I agree the economy tanking and the banking issues were the main factors.
Certainly, the war in Iraq was a campaign issue for Obama, you are right to point that out, and we agree the election was not a referendum on Iraq.
Afghanistan, though, was portrayed as the good war, the war we needed to fight. Obama promised to focus our attention on Afghanistan and that we hadn’t done what was needed there because of Iraq. Obama promised that by the proper application of military force, we could bring our troops home responsibly. But then Obama took a hands off approach. After choosing a strategy and a general, he never met with the general, cut the troops requested, and in the middle of the Afghan surge, cut the time allowed for it. This was bad because the exchange for less troops was that the strategy would take more time, it got neither.
When things went bad for Obama in Afghanistan, people like the author of the linked piece, claim that Afghanistan was also a bad war that never should have been fought, that Obama always thought this was the case, and that Obama campaigned on ending the bad war in Afghanistan. Yes, Obama campaigned on ending the war is Afghanistan but he also campaigned on escalating it. Obama likes to stake out multiple and contradictory positions on statements just so that his defenders can do this.
IMO, Obama’s positions on Iraq and Afghanistan were only important for him in winning the Democrat primaries. Non-Democrats and many if not most Democrats were motivated by other issues in the general election.
Tom Jones sings…”She’s a lady… Whoa. whoa whoa whoa… and the so called lady is there’s…”
Unless you’re a truther, most people will recognize that Bush didn’t set out to make his presidency about foreign policy. The dot com bust was ongoing, and he came in wanting to focus on solving domestic problems. 9/11 forced him to focus on foreign policy. Some think he wanted to go after Iraq all along, but those same people don’t want to remember that Clinton left the next President with a no-fly zone operation ongoing in Iraq.
Democrats would not even let Bush have the humanity to be motivated by human suffering rather than profit motive, corruption, and dreams of empire. The stereotypes would not allow for a Republican to care about the lives of brown people in the middle east.
The blacks in Obama’s administration sure do work hard to break stereotypes
Rice clearly watches HBO and Showtime. According to “Deadwood,” “The Tudors,” “Games of Thrones,” et. al., society’s political and business leaders demonstrate their power by excessive use of profanity.
It’s got to be said, who wants to see a Condi vs. Susan, Rice on Rice, claymation grudge match?