National Review hated the president’s speech, while William Kristol loved it. I don’t know if that means anything. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but the speech wasn’t for me. Regardless, I won’t personally be turning the page on the Bush years or their decision to invade Iraq under the circumstances in which they chose to do so. And there are going to be costs to our society that we’re treating the Bush administration’s sins as little more than a shanked golf shot. In effect, we’re asking the world for a mulligan, rather taking responsibility for the real score. There’s an accountability gap that will be filled by posterity and may cause more tangible problems for our country, as well.
On the other hand, Obama deserves credit for accomplishing an orderly withdrawal of two-thirds of our troops and millions of pieces of equipment. He deserves credit for holding firm on his promise to remove all troops by next year. He was infinitely more magnanimous to the lunatics that created this mess than he had to be. At least Bill Kristol showed enough of a trace of honor to acknowledge Obama’s generosity.
I just hope we don’t fool ourselves into thinking Iraq was a success or a victory. That would have the worst implications for the future.
Booman, I’m mildly shocked and pleasantly surprised at Kristol’s analysis of the speech. I agree with you about the “accountability gap” and its ongoing, long term costs to our country, both domestically and internationally.
I got the sense that Obama, both by making this speech and in what he said in the speech, was laying the groundwork for:
(I hope I’m right on all counts…although it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong if I’m not.)
hope you’re right on this
Hey, warfare just takes longer these days. Eisenhower got from england to berlin in about a year. The russians went from Stalingrad to berlin in about two. But the napoleonic genius of Petraues is gonna need a blank check to crack this nut, cause it’s tough little nut and it’s deep. But as a very smart man from the army corps of engineers once said, with the right amount of time and money, there’s nothing we can’t do with the mississippi river.
Petreaus is going to have to deliver on his promises of results before he gets another check, and he will not get a blank check; that much is clear from the firing of McChrystal.
Your historical analogies are off. Hitler had overwhelming technical ability and tactics on the Eastern Front. And Russia stopped him at Stalingrad. Just as a century before they stopped Napoleon. The advantages of defending your homes should not be underrated. Especially when defense uses asymmetric tactics. A better analogy would be Hitler attacking Switzerland, which he did not do. Same difficulty of terrain. Same difficulty of temperatures. Same dispersal of troops and armaments.
It will end when there is assurance from Pakistan that foreign fighters have been cleared out off the Northwest Territories and FATA, when there is intelligence (right or wrong) that foreign fighters have cleared out of Afghanistan, when the Karzai government and the Taliban are talking about governing (with or without the Northern Alliances), when there is a minimum agreement that provides safe passage for US troops leaving Afghanistan. That is very likely to take place before August of next year.
I wasn’t trying to present some sort of solid historical analogy. Simply the absurdity of thinking the “war” in afghanistan has any relationship to the wars in which generals achieved prominence for contributing to victory.
There is no chance Petraues will deliver the conditions you describe. I’m astonished you think there is. Pakistan is hardly functioning right now. You expect us to accept a Karzai-taliban alliance? Huh? And safe passage is some sort of delivery on the bold claims Obama has made on his Afghanistan adventure? The “intelligence” that foreign fighters aren’t in Afghanistan is laughable as a concept when we can’t even prove they are there now, or who “they” really are.
I’m at a loss to find any hint in the history of Afghanistan that a marginal change in American strategy will yield a definite and rapid result. No american officer or politician has stood up and described a realizable goal that will be achieved through american arms in Afghanistan, and none ever will. The martial fantasies of grade-school boys are hardly less rational than the arguments presented by the president.
Petraeus doesn’t want to deliver the conditions I described. It doesn’t do the one thing the military has been seeking since Vietnam–show that the US can run a counter-insurgency campaign. The verdict on Afghanistan is already in; counter-insurgency doesn’t work unless you have a legitimate government. Which Diem wasn’t and Karzai isn’t because he stole the election.
Pakistan is functioning better than most folks understand. Several of the factions of the Pakistani Taliban overplayed their hand and attacked the military. They will be put down, and the excuse used to expel Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, and other foreign fighters in the Northwest Territories and FATA. The fact that Pakistan is both dealing with the floods and continuing the campaign to oust foreign fighters shows their serious intent. But they are not going to suppress the Quetta operations of the Taliban.
There most likely are foreign fighters in Afghanistan (besides ISAF that is). Intelligence estimates say roughly 100 or so. But intelligence about anything in Afghanistan sucks. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are somewhere; the story that they are either in the Northwest Territories and FATA of Pakistan or in the Khost, Paktia, or Paktika provinces of Afghanistan makes a lot of sense for strategic reasons. And there are likely Uzbeks, Chechens, and other foreign troops fighting alongside the Taliban. The thing about asymmetric warfare is that it is based to terror to draw an over-response that hurts civilians and the inability for intelligence to track them down. The intelligence agencies most likely to have the best information about al Quaeda in this area are the Pakistanis and the UK. And given the shit that Bush laid on the British, they are not likely to be forthcoming about what they know. And the Pakistanis don’t need to tell US intelligence what they know; they need only rid their country of foreign fighters working against US interests — if only so that the US will leave Afghanistan and leave Pakistan alone.
You missed one item. Defending veterans benefits against the catfood commission and chief Frisky Alan Simpson.
That only pisses me off more. Why should he have to defend the victims of an idiot he himself appointed (and thereby conferred credibility on) and could fire at will? I’m hanging onto my hopes for Obama by my fingernails at this point.
Because Simpson is not the only idiot with that point of view. Look for example at Bush’s treatment of veterans.
Where we better be focused is defeating Republicans in November. Obama has already said he is willing to be a one-term president. And the most hopeful thing about the Congressional elections are the number of more liberal Democrats who have a shot at taking out Republicans. But only if turnout can happen. You don’t need to win public opinion; you need to win turnout.
In a lot of senses, Obama is irrelevant to the outcome of November’s election.
I couldn’t disagree more. Obama was supposed to be the great hope for change. Who else is supposed to rally the base to turn out?
When Obama said he was willing to be a one-term prez, I imagined he was talking about sacrificing himself for something a little more glorious than hanging on to some senile asshole Republican.
Well, on #3 he’s doing a piss-poor job so far. I hope he has an earthquake planned, because that’s what it will take if he waits much longer to rally the country behind something better than “bipartisanship”.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks? The ones that are an even more transparent sham than the ones that have come before them? The ones that aim to come to a final status agreement whose implementation will be deferred for ten years – more than enough time for Israel to completely blanket the OPT with colonies? As long as they are not more serious than that, who cares?
Same as Steve M:
No mention of Elizabeth Warren.
Didn’t take the opportunity to publicly light up Alan Simpson.
And not a hint of support for the public option.
Now I’m officially pissed.
Lol, snark well taken 😉
yes, i also noticed that while he mentioned that the war was dragging resources away from necessary domestic issues, he didn’t really go into detail about what the savings will bee, and how it will be used for these domestic problems.
Your link to Kevin Baker’s Harper’s article in another story was great. Thanks.
Umm … I linked to that!!
I was referring to this comment by seabe:
http://www.boomantribune.com/comments/2010/8/30/14590/0718/18
but if you linked to it to, then I’m similarly grateful. It’s a great article.
Wow!! That’s kind of creepy and cool at the same time. I posted that link yesterday(or maybe Monday) too.
Yup. Exactly. Reminds me of a very old science fiction story I read a long time ago. The good guys were doomed in their space battle. The computers had calculated all the scenarios and gave them an infinitely small chance of surviving. So machoboy hero rips out the computer, starts the weapons blazing away, and annihilates the enemy. Sometimes you just have to dump the scenario and take care of what’s in front of your face right now. Obama doesn’t seem to get that.
I was also disappointed in that speech, but i expected to feel that way.
did anyone hear that vapid bag of shit Mara Liar-son afterwards? She was very upset that Obama didn’t give any credit to George Bush. None at all, she sniffed. She was quite angry, you could hear it in her voice.
what a piece of shit she is. Someone should drop her off in the middle of baghdad and leave her there.
Digby sums it up best:
I think you heard the speech you expected to hear, not the speech that was given.
he didn’t exactly say that (well, except the “troops are awesome” part).
but he did say “we have met our responsibility,” which is so patently offensive i do not know where to begin.
our stupid, unnecessary war on those innocent people has killed hundreds of thousands, and forced millions from their homes into refugee camps. we have not come close to meeting our responsibility for repairing the country that we destroyed.
and we ALL know that we’re not bringing all the troops home, that combat is going to continue (NPR reported yesterday that the most recent troops deaths have been caused by hostile fire).
that part made me upset.
You really expected him, or any president, to mark the occasion by saying the war was worse then useless at best and criminal at worst? I think he walked that line as well as anyone could, and better than most other Dems I can think of. You don’t welcome the troops home by telling them their suffering was for nothing or worse. How would you handle it?
I heard that NPR thing, and don’t get it. Recent troop deaths were caused by hostile fire, when we were expecting it to be from friendly fire, or heart attacks, or car accidents? What? How is this news?
That’s just not true. If Digby expected an American president to say the war was a crime, the troops were criminals, the lives were wasted for nothing, he’s nuts. I think it was amazing how minimally he credited the war with actually accomplishing anything. There was plenty wrong with the speech, IMO, but it doesn’t help to be making shit up about it.
Come on guys Iraq WAS AWESOME. Blowing up the social fabric and infrastructure of a medium sized country, precipitating the slaughter and maiming of an untold minority, traumatizing a medium sized city of young americans, enriching amoral war-profiteers here at home and mercenary gangs across the region…IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.
So yes, we are definitely much much safer having invaded and occupied a foreign country on the other side of the world. MUCH MUCH SAFER from being not awesome and badass that is.
I had it on in the background. I tuned it out. Obama has tried to make himself as innocuous as possible, and he can do that only by refusing to say the things that need to be said. I have better things to do with my time.
His commendation of Bush went too far. When he stops trying to get the approval of batshit crazy conservatives, he’ll be ready to lead.
It was a ceremonial speech classily given and necessary to mark a milestone. Really, not much more needs to be said about it.
My thoughts about the speech:
And…it confused Bill Kristol.
Exactly. And that’s the problem.
Passion over the wrong-headedness of the Iraq misadventure, more than any other single factor, was what got Obama elected in ’08. Given that the economy won’t change significantly in two months, this was the best, maybe only, chance to reawaken that passion in time to do something about the looming catastrophe that is the midterms.
Booman, I think you’re consistently underestimating the anger many on the left have for Obama. It’s not a totally rational response, as you keep pointing out, but that doesn’t make it any less real, and IMO one of the biggest reasons isn’t the substantive policy betrayals (public option, Guantanamo, etc.), many of which were unavoidable, as Obama’s consistent refusal to even acknowledge the validity of his base’s concerns and desires.
Instead of saying something nuanced like “Iraq was a policy mistake, but that doesn’t make the work and sacrifices of our armed forces any less admirable” – something that combines his role as CiC with an actual critique of what nearly everyone acknowledges was a policy train wreck – Obama’s trying to satisfy folks who want Bush vindicated, people who will never, ever support him. And this is what Obama does. Always. And people are really tired of his acting like a legislator rather than a leader, trying to mollify dedicated opponents rather than outflank them.
This was maybe Obama’s best chance, on a substantive issue (rather than a faux-controversy like Ground Zero), to give his 2008 supporters a reason to rally behind the Democrats this year. Didn’t happen. His impulse toward inclusivity and bipartisanship makes him an honorable man, and is going to lead straight to paralysis for the next two years and, if it doesn’t change, a one-term presidency. And I see no evidence that he can, let alone will, change that tune. It seems to be who he is: a good man at a time ill-suited for his talents.
I just find this statement odd. He opposed the war from the beginning, he repeated the fact that he disagreed with Bush about it in the address, he’s winding down the war as promised and he Presidentially praised the troops, discussed PTSD and veterans benefits (which I always thought was a progressive favourite).
If you really supported him during 2008 for his opposition to the war, what else do you want? Would you have preferred that he use an oval office address to smack Bush even harder than he’s already done countless times?
He didn’t need to smack Bush, or mention him at all, really. Wasn’t necessary. Nor was it useful to rehash the decision to invade. But personally? I would have liked to have the sense that we know better than to make many of the same mistakes in Afghanistan. I’d like to get the sense that America’s policy and military leadership has learned something. So it would have been nice to have at least an oblique reference to the over one million Iraqis needlessly dead, or that the war has done more to harm than help our national security, or that Iraqi “democracy” (currently in complete paralysis) still has a long, long way to go.
Obama, in addition to CiC, is America’s lead diplomat and cheerleader, so I didn’t expect those things, and at least some triumphalism was unavoidable. But if I’m an Iraq war opponent who voted for Obama in 2008 and is now disenchanted (not my profile, BTW), I would have wanted a speech that threw more bones to me than my opponents. How odd is that?
I like this comment, because it encapsulates a lot of things that I’ve been thinking about Obama.
I don’t feel the hatred or disappointment that many on the left feel for Obama. But then again, Obama is acting exactly as I expected and in many ways wanted him to act. After a thoughtless, emotion-driven, impulsive president who catered only to his base, I wanted a thoughtful, reasonable, cautious president who considered himself to be the president of all the country. Obama is the antithesis of Bush, and I thought this was what the country needed.
Now I’m not so sure. I know that folks on this blog will probably consider me foolish for this, but I was actually surprised by the fact that the Republicans seem to feel no sense of repudiation after losing two elections in a row. I mean, for God’s sake, they even kept Boehner and McConnell — you would think that even for purely political reasons they would have dumped these two proven losers. And they never rethought their agenda at all. They just doubled down on their opposition, fortified by the knowledge that at least 25% of the country — the foxnews watching zealots — would support them no matter what they did. Amazingly, this worked.
In different times — with a different political culture, or a better economy — Obama’s cautious but left-leaning centrism would have been a sure winner, a political juggernaut which would have moved the country solidly towards a center-left consensus (which I believe we almost reached at the end of the Clinton era before the whole Lewinsky episode blew things up and gave us Bush). But these are not normal times. It’s a political war out there, and I think what people want but are not getting from Obama is a general who can inspire and lead the left in that war. In other words, they want a Bush for the left — an emotionally-charged leader who inspires the progressive base to battle.
So I think I understand where this comment is coming from, even though I personally was not disappointed by the speech. (And I thought that the “shout out” to Bush was very minimal–basically damning him by giving him the faintest praise imaginable.)
Yeah. Obama would have made a good Eisenhower. So far, he makes kind of lousy FDR. Here’s hoping he pulls out of his bipartisan dive while he still can.
I think it would be hard for me to underestimate the anger with Obama on the left since I get about 300 emails a day from various lists of left-wing activists that are about 80% negative. What’s clear is that a lot of people really need a pat on the head and have a total inability to read beyond literal interpretations of political speech.
You can’t be the recipient of a hippie-punch if you refuse to take things personally. It’s that simple. I am so sick of thin-skin. If Rahm Emanual isn’t calling you retarded, he probably doesn’t know you exist.
Very good comment, though.
🙂 Agreed, though the folks I’m thinking of don’t write (or, usually, read) blogs. But just because people have unrealistic expectations doesn’t mean it’s politically wise to ignore them.
I agree that the administration has done a poor job of patting progressives on the head and of giving us more of a sense that they’re grateful for our help. I also agree that they’ve done a poor job of signaling their frustration with their constraints, preferring to sell their product in a positive light. And they have, from time to time, pushed back against the pretty relentless criticism they’ve received from the activist base in ways that were ill-advised or counterproductive. But I am so tired of people reacting to every push back with ‘Ooh, ooh, they just punched a hippie.’
If you consistently ask for things that are not possible and ascribe the worst motives to them, they’re going to reciprocate with a similar lack of respect. It’s human nature.
We’re basically asking them to take the high road and meet fire with flowers.
They need to pick a fight with the Republicans in September and October, though. And they need to make it personal. But I also understand the president is busy at the moment with things like the Mideast peace process.
I think, however, that they need to pivot and take on a partisan tone on the economy, even if it involves asking for things that are not currently possible. It’s political season and it’s time to be political.
Why would those of us on the left need speeches directed solely at us? That is a continuing mystery to me. There was plenty of subtle criticism of Bush and the Republicans if you wanted to hear it, and his aim was to pivot to the economy without losing more voters in the middle. I guess I tend to read an implicit long-term agreement with us about most things in his actions, even when that is counter-intuitive.
Imagine his Presidency without the economic collapse in September of 2008. I think too many of us are willfully forgetting how that transformed the situation as he took over. All of a sudden, the entire basis of his campaign, and the opportunities for various forms of retribution towards Bush became far more complicated, even though it was Bush who handed him the mess.
I saw this as a very political speech, geared to reach voters in the middle who are being picked up in the polling as straying from Democrats in November. Assuming the audience was relatively large, I think he both won some votes and gave others a reason to listen to him as he continues to speak leading up to the election.
I think all the poutrage coming from the left is at its core heart-felt and based on genuine moral outrage, but in terms of the political situation we’re in (and have been in since 1/21/09), it’s short-sighted. He is just not a guy who would get up and give Bush the full-frontal smackdown he deserves on national television, not under the current circumstances at any rate. What exactly was there for him, or us, to gain by him doing so? It would have felt wonderful for a moment, but imagine the end to end stream of 24-hour news cycles debating his “anger” that would have ensued. In this particular circumstance, that would not have been helpful in any way, in my opinion.
I’m watching him more carefully than ever now, and will admit that I want to see this as the first volley in storm of smackdown against the current Republicans over the economy. There is political opportunity there, AND it’s the right thing to do.
Your point is well made. This “not looking back” thing is so damaging, so anti-intellectual, I can’t think somebody as smart as Obama believes it for a minute. All it does is make him look like he’s running scared, afraid to confront historic reality. I think for the most part the ceremonial speech was about what was expected, but he should have left it at that. If all he could do was drip faint praise on Bush, he should have just left him out of it altogether. If he was going to paper over historical reality, he shouldn’t have tried to make this a historic moment.
The content was maybe a little better than it could have been, but the style is starting to bug the shit out of me. He comes off as an analyst, a commentator instead of the nation’s leader. It was great that he tied Iraq to the drain that’s hurting our economy and our place in the world. He could have just done some syrupy military-love stuff and left it at that. But it’s the way he talked about the domestic agenda: We must fix the economy. We must focus on energy, We must fix our infrastructure. Like he’s writing the prescription and waiting helplessly to see if the patient takes it.
Like he’s a candidate telling us what we should do, not a president. It seems like a small thing, but I wanted to hear “With the resources we’ve freed up, starting now we’re going to launch major infrastructure projects that will bring jobs to Americans in every part of the country, right now. We’re going to make sure our returning troops and our unemployed workers have a path back to economic security and productivity. We’re ramping up massive initiatives that will put us irretrievably on the road to an alternative energy economy.” Etc.
Would that really be so hard?
Dave, I share your kind of visceral problem, but he can’t even get a vote on a small business bill that cuts taxes and extends credit. You really want him to go out and announce we’re going to do a bunch of things that we’re simply not going to do?
Part of the reason Obama appears helpless is because he basically is. That’s the point of the Party of No strategy. Keep things bad and blame the president while making him look impotent.
It’d be different if he could seriously threaten the careers of any Republicans, but he can’t. In 2012, it’ll be different. In that cycle, he’ll probably have a lot of marginal Republicans to push around. Not this cycle though.
That’s the very definition of impotence.
hey, maybe you are starting to catch on.
The president, any president, isn’t Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. He can’t click his heels and get Congress to do his bidding. I wish you would understand that the point of the Republicans’ strategy is demoralize the left and divide them while providing red-meat to their side. If you insist on playing your assigned role, you’re little better than a robot.
Well, since you went the nonsequitur route, I’ll put the definition here:
im·po·tent
ˈɪmpətənt Show Spelled[im-puh-tuhnt] Show IPA
-adjective
1.
not potent; lacking power or ability.
2.
utterly unable (to do something).
3.
without force or effectiveness.
4.
lacking bodily strength or physically helpless.
5.
(of a male) unable to attain or sustain a penile erection.
6.
(esp. of a male) sterile.
7.
Obsolete . without restraint.
And they’re winning and we’re losing. And somehow the leader of the team is supposed to be absolved from any responsibility for being beat to shit by the other side. You know better than that, but you’re flirting with dishonesty because you think the only thing that matters is getting everybody excited by ignoring reality. That doesn’t work. We need to know WTF he’s trying to do, from him, and we don’t.
I like the way you refer to the “leader of the team” as if Obama’s the captain of a sport’s side. Well, to make the analogy absolutely correct, let’s say he’s the captain of a very large soccer team who every time he passes the ball upfield is constantly harangued by his team mates for not passing the ball far enough, not using his right foot instead of his left foot, not keeping the ball fully controlled in his movements. While all this carping is going on, the other side have got the ball and are happily moving it in the opposite direction while all the captain’s team mates can do is to let the ball through and blame the captain again.
It’d be different if he could seriously threaten the careers of any Republicans, but he can’t. In 2012, it’ll be different.
Why is 2012 different? Because he’ll be on the ballot again? Hope he likes Darrell Issa and the TradMed being total assholes and making his life miserable come January then.
Because he’ll be on the ballot and because the Republicans are going to win a bunch of marginal house seats that will be at risk in 2012, just as we won a bunch of marginal seat in 2006 and 2008 that are at risk now.
You act like it’s a foregone conclusion that Republicans will win in November and that the grassroots has not agency in the matter. And that there is something that he can magically do to change the narrative in Washington, given that the attempt to co-opt Politico didn’t work.
Neither of those is the reality. The reality is that folks who still agree with what he’s done and who want to see him succeed have not made the connection with the Congressional elections–in part because a lot of them are first-time voters, and in part because the incumbent Democrats are “just politicians”. It’s a matter of getting those folks out of their houses and to the polls to vote what they already believe.
And Darrell Issa’s harkening back to the good ole days of Clinton investigations might just backfire. Will be interesting to see if Issa’s comments get used in political ads.
I hope you are right, but we all know how the Democratic establishment can blow great opportunities. Hopefully this is one they don’t throw away.
Yes. That’s exactly what I want him to do. It’s what politicians do all the time. I want him to paint the picture of what we can accomplish in the economy, energy, etc. I want him to make it so powerfully appealing that the aspiration starts to become the reality. That’s what leaders do — that’s what makes them leaders.
Sorry, but enough with the whining about not having 60 votes. A bill like you describe is small potatoes. If JFK did the kind of political calculation you and Obama seem addicted to we’d still think the moon is made of green cheese. Everybody talks about turnout being the key, but nobody seems to want to remember that there has to be something to turn out for. Bipartisanship ain’t it. Neither is cerebral long-term fiddling. Obama was more than capable of appealing to human passions as a candidate. Now all he seems capable of is patting us on the head and telling us we need a senior-hating asshole determining what to do with social security.
To me, he’s looking less like FDR and more like Woodrow Wilson every day — and that’s the kindest comparison I can think of.
the whole point was to claim victory and get the hell out of there.
next, let’s claim victory in the land mass that is Afghanistan and get the hell out of there too.