General Discussion

DonViejo

(60,536 posts) Wed Mar 5, 2014, 11:31 AM Mar 2014

Obama's Critics Should Put Up or Shut Up

JOSH MARSHALL – MARCH 4, 2014, 12:36 PM EST

Do you remember when President Bush's political adversaries starting ragging on him during the first days after 9/11? Or during the first days of the invasion of Iraq? Me neither. Whatever you think of the holder of the presidential office, if you are actually concerned about the nation's welfare you don't go on TV mocking him and saying he's weak.

The Syria debacle was the low point of President Obama's presidency in the foreign policy realm - not because he didn't use force but because he needlessly boxed himself in with his "red line" talk and then had to climb down from his imprudent threat because getting involved in the Syria Civil War is such a bad idea. The White House has some argument that the threat of force secured a deal to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles. But it may have been luck as much as anything.

The more relevant point is that, as Peter Beinart explains here, nothing that happened in Syria encouraged or frankly had anything to do with Putin's decision to occupy Crimea.

What I'm struck by, however, is the odd mix of fear and wish projection with which many conservatives view Putin. We hear how dangerous Putin is but also pretty clearly that they wish our leaders were like him - someone who bends history to his will and all that. I mentioned earlier that for all the carping about how President Obama encouraged Putin's aggression and hasn't responded to it with sufficient force - what about what happened in Georgia in 2008? President Bush did basically nothing. The truth is there was very little he could do.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/obamas-critics-should-put-up-or-shut-up

1 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Obama's Critics Should Put Up or Shut Up (Original Post) DonViejo Mar 2014 OP

Well, maybe somebody should have said Bush was wrong after 9/11. JayhawkSD Mar 2014 #1

JayhawkSD

(3,163 posts)

1. Well, maybe somebody should have said Bush was wrong after 9/11.

Reply to DonViejo (Original post)

Wed Mar 5, 2014, 12:43 PM

Mar 2014

I totally agree with all of what you say except, "Whatever you think of the holder of the presidential office, if you are actually concerned about the nation's welfare you don't go on TV mocking him and saying he's weak."

Perhaps "saying he's weak" is not the best way to do it, but criticism is not only appropriate, it is vitally necessary. It was open criticism of Obama that delayed his action in Syria long enough for Putin to step in with a diplomatic solution. It was lack of criticism of Bush that led to the disasterous invasion of Iraq; criticism that was, in fact, supressed by asserting that it was "unpatriotic."

Better to have criticism which is badly done than to have the lock step, sycophantic echo chamber that followed 9/11. To think for one's self and to raise one's voice against the misperformance of governance is the patriotic duty of every citizen, no matter how elegantly or otherwise that citizen may be able to speak truth to power.

Reply to this discussion