All of this makes our leadership in both parties look like idiots, and that is bad for America. Even those of us who think that our leadership are idiots cringe when it becomes obvious to the rest of the world. The American public by a margin of 71:22 thinks that the Iraq War wasn’t worth it. They are against any sort of intervention because there is no-one they trust to conduct intervention sensibly.
Putin is not smarter than we are. He is simply unburdened by the illusion that most of the countries in the region should or will succeed, and he is willing to stay one jump ahead of the game, maneuvering for advantage as opportunities emerge. We are fettered by Obama’s affirmative-action approach to the Muslim world as articulated in his July 2009 Cairo address and numerous subsequent statements, and the Republicans’ ideological belief that the mere form of parliamentary democracy fixes all problems.
The intrusion of reality benefits the likes of Putin, because Putin is a realist. It hurts us, because we refuse to accept reality. Our leaders live in ideological bubbles; they are incapable of considering the consequence of their errors, because they believe in their respective causes (the innate goodness of Islam or the innate propensity of people towards democracy) with religious intensity.
Unfortunately for Obama, Kerry et al, reality has a bias toward realistics. And sadly, their disconnect with reality isn’t confined to foreign policy.
I have some thoughts on the passing of Johnnie Walters and Howard Baker, in the context of the current IRS criminality, over at Ricochet. For those not members, I hope it will get promoted to the front page. If not, I’ll repost here at some point.
[Update a while later]
The post has been promoted, and should be visible now.
Historically, reporters and editors have believed that their job is to disseminate news. That is no longer true. Now, most reporters and editors believe that their principal function is to prevent people from learning things they are better off not knowing. Day after day, they run interference for their party, the Democrats. Blockading inconvenient stories from making the news is job number one.
Yes. As he notes, if the parties were reversed, there would be non-stop coverage until the Republican president was hounded out of office.
“You know, if George W. Bush or any Republicans had an IRS member that went after Democrats and then there was an internal investigation launched, you would not have time or space on the front page to talk about [other] issues,” Scarborough said. “This really is a scam!”