2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMaureen Dowd: Neocons Slither Back
PAUL RYAN has not sautéed in foreign policy in his years on Capitol Hill. The 42-year-old congressman is no Middle East savant; till now, his idea of a border dispute has more likely involved Wisconsin and Illinois.
Yet Ryan got up at the Values Voter Summit here on Friday and skewered the Obama administration as it struggled to manage the Middle East mess left by clumsily mixed American signals toward the Arab Spring and the disastrous legacy of war-obsessed Republicans.
Ryan bemoaned the slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria. Mobs storming American embassies and consulates. Iran four years closer to gaining a nuclear weapon. Israel, our best ally in the region, treated with indifference bordering on contempt by the Obama administration. American foreign policy, he said, needs moral clarity and firmness of purpose.
Ryan was moving his mouth, but the voice was the neocon puppet master Dan Senor. The hawkish Romney adviser has been secunded to manage the running mate and graft a Manichaean worldview onto the foreign affairs neophyte.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/dowd-neocons-slither-back.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120916
Faygo Kid
(21,478 posts)No question that they are running the Romney campaign.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)Secund: to be paid by one organization while operating under the authority of another.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Nominated by the Republican Party, Romney is paid by crooked right wing billionaires.
sofa king
(10,857 posts)Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Neo-Con foreign policy in three words.
These maniacs must be kept away from power at all costs.
"The terms "Manichaean" and "Manichaeism" are sometimes used figuratively as a synonym of the more general term "dualist" with respect to a philosophy or outlook. They are often used to suggest with a somewhat disparaging undertone that the world view in question simplistically reduces the world to a struggle between Good and Evil."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#Figurative_use
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)Let's look at the clarity expressed by Romney spokeswoman Tara Wall recently. "the campaign has laid out a number of specifics relative to the principles that will guide the policies of a Romney-Ryan ticket".
progressivebydesign
(19,458 posts)Anyone want to return to THAT fucking disaster???
lindysalsagal
(20,683 posts)exactly 2.5 ounces of some strange secret live herb that only grows in Iceland: She throws in just enough crossword puzzle words to make sure you know she's smarter than you.
Manichaean worldview
both jejeune about the world.
Panglossian scenarios of progress.
But she's always right.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)especially since she was against Obama from moment one, lionized Clinton, and frankly plans to make sure Hillary gets in, which I myself have mixed feelings about, as the Clintons did as much to destory the left as did the GOP.
TroyD
(4,551 posts)1. Were we reading the same columns by Dowd in 2008? She was very anti-Hillary a lot of the time, as was Arianna Huffington for that matter. The way I remember it, both Dowd & Huffington were pro-Obama. They certainly weren't in Hillary's corner. IF Hillary runs in 2016, we'll see if they change their tune.
2. Bill Clinton allowed the Republicans to push him to the right some of the time, but don't forget that Obama has too. Unfortunately the current Democratic Party is not the party of FDR. If it were, Elizabeth Warren would be in charge of it. She has the same policies on clamping down on Wall Street greed & corruption as FDR did. Unfortunately, the Obama administration, as well as most in the Democratic Party, have been pretty timid when it comes to taking on Wall Street.
3. Let's not forget that Bill Clinton was able to become the first 2-Term Democrat since FDR. Hopefully Obama will become the 2nd. But it took someone who was able to re-build the Democratic Party to make it a successful party again. If it weren't for Clinton, the Republicans may have won the White House in 1992 and maybe a few times more after that. He fundamentally altered the dynamics of the Electoral Map and brought many states into the Democratic column that have remained there ever since. One of the reasons Obama is in good shape today is because of the foundation laid by Clinton.