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Demonizing Obama’s domestic opponents doesn’t change Obama’s foreign policy failures

Demonizing Obama’s domestic opponents doesn’t change Obama’s foreign policy failures

In this article at CNN by columnist Frida Ghitis, she offers excuses for what she sees as Obama’s foreign policy failures (“There is no question that Obama was dealt a difficult hand”) even as she describes that foreign policy as having gone into a “tailspin.”

Ghitis seems unaware—or unwilling to admit—that Obama may have different goals for his foreign policy than we usually assume for presidents. A strong America in a stable world may not really be what he has in mind.

But what especially caught my eye in Ghitis’ article was this [emphasis mine]:

America’s foreign policy has gone into a tailspin. Almost every major initiative from the Obama administration has run into sharp, sometimes embarrassing, reverses. The U.S. looks weak and confused on the global stage.

This might come as happy news to some opponents of the administration who enjoy seeing Barack Obama fail, but it shouldn’t.

So not only does Ghitis not recognize that the U.S. looking “weak and confused on the global stage” may in fact be Obama’s goal, and that it would be Obama who’d be enjoying this spectacle, not his opponents, but she also doesn’t seem to realize what actually does motivate his opponents.

I don’t know whether Ghitis actually believes what she wrote there (the old “fool or knave?” question), but it hardly matters. Whether she believes it herself or not, it’s what she would like her readers to believe. And what she’s saying is that Obama’s opponents are driven by an animus that has nothing to do with principle but is just opposition for opposition’s sake. Whether that opposition arises because of Obama’s race (the accusation so many of his supporters make) or because of his liberalism or is merely reflexive political opposition for the sake of gaining power themselves Ghitis does not say.

But she displays no realization or acknowledgement that the reason Obama’s opponents are so opposed is what Obama has actually been doing, and that this most definitely includes his foreign policy which was clearly on track to be a disaster to the U.S. from the start.

In other words, a great many of these “opponents” are patriots with the good of the country in mind. They see what the damage has been and what the further damage could be, and many of them saw the potential for this foreign policy disaster from the start of Obama’s administration and probably even before.

I certainly did. Most on the right certainly did. Thing is, it wasn’t hard to see.

But demonizing his “opposition” allows Ghitis to observe (correctly) how bad things have gotten under Obama’s watch, simultaneously blaming him and exonerating him by accusing his opponents of ill will. She closes the article by encouraging Obama to do better, and by chiding those opponents:

It is time for Obama to spend some time thinking about what America stands for, what its goals are and then explain it in a clear and credible way. Even if we disagree with his conclusions, at least there will be a North Star guiding his policies.

Obama’s supporters and his critics should hope he can pull America forward.

Poor dear beleaguered Obama’s just a bit confused. He just needs to think and explain more clearly. And then those nefarious opponents should start hoping the results are good for America even though it’s Obama doing it. They should finally put their country’s welfare above their animus against Obama.

This would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that writing like this is everywhere in the MSM, and it influences people. Most people just swallow what they read and don’t think too much or too critically about it. They’re busy with their lives; they’re doing well to even take the time to skim it in the first place.

And besides, people like Ghitis have been declared experts. They write about this stuff, and they’ve been doing it for most of their adult lives. Some are actually experts at writing propaganda. Some are experts at divining what they’re supposed to write and doing so. And some are experts at following and echoing what others write. But to step outside the box and say “wow, it seems Obama’s critics were correct” would be just too difficult and just too threatening—both to psyche and to career and to the liberal cause.

[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]

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Comments

If Hillary is elected, she will complete the job. She proved as Secretary of State that she’s perfectly capable of being perfectly incapable.

    The good thing about Hilary is that she is completely dishonest, and so is likely to be more moderate. (I felt this before Obama was elected.)

    she’ll complete the job she started in the 90’s that obama implemented.
    serious, hes done everything she tried to do before yet shes insulated from most of the fallout.
    just like when she ran bill and he was potus in name only.

assemblerhead | August 10, 2013 at 5:20 pm

She hasn’t figured it out. Other people know that verbally arguing with a ( polite term – “name caller” ) goes nowhere.

Either ignore the “name caller”, or go find the “clue bat”.

Neo-Neocon I am just going to toss this out there… I agree with you so what is to be done about it.

I am an Independent voter who would have voted for Hillary in 2008 but not in 2016 given all that has happened. I worked with a political group in 2012 trying to find a viable third party candidate. It seems however though the only thing that Independents have in common is that they did not like either of the candidates proposed by the Democrats or Republicans (so that was a bust).

I see this country sinking in so many ways and most can be pointed directly to Obama, his political allies, and his minions in the press. I am willing to write my congressman but the only thing that will really make a difference is to elect some officials that have a clue what they are doing and who really care about America and the American people.

I have been reading Legal Insurrection for a while and have seen several pointed articles that I think are on the pulse of what is going on but while the articles point out the problems I don’t see any solutions.

The time to organize for 2016 is now but like 2012 I don’t see a great deal going on except possibly Obama trying to get the laws changed for a third (3+ – hello Chavez) terms or Hillary who given her support for the current mess has lost my support. I don’t see anything happening for the Republicans and again any viable Independent candidates are no where in sight.

So again I agree with you – what can be done?

Shepherd Book: I don’t care what you believe in, just believe in it.

I keep seeing this theme repeated and repeated. And not just with Obama.

A recent round table on France 24 they referred to Obama losing his mojo. Most of the complaints revolved around the fact that some parts of the Obama foreign policy is contradictory of other parts.

Just in case anyone is interested in the political party I mentioned earlier that was a total bust in 2012 –

http://www.americanselect.org/

From my layman’s view on what went wrong. There was huge discontent against the two traditional parties but no one could agree what type of candidate the three choice should be so essentially there was no third choice.

Note: The above should read “third choice” instead of “three choice”.

I dare anybody to define an “Obama Doctrine”. Bush, for all his faults, had a much more coherent definition (although there are at least three definitions since Bush never declared it himself). The Obama Doctrine, on the other hand, is much more amorphous.

The piecemeal nature of the Obama foreign policy seems to be a construct based on a country by country basis. It seems to mimic Obama. He likes to be the “right” things to each individual group. It is a mirror of the man who started 5 years ago as a “blank slate” for everybody.

This may work politically, but foreign relations is based on the same set of goals and values, which empiric data shows Obama to be fatally lacking.

    ConradCA in reply to Neo. | August 11, 2013 at 11:20 pm

    How about “Turn our friends and allies into enemies.” a strategy pioneered by J Carter. Obama is very good at this.

      NateWhilk in reply to ConradCA. | August 12, 2013 at 5:07 pm

      How about “Treat our allies like the UK and your political opponents who are your fellow citizens like enemies, and treat everybody else like friends, including actual enemies like Iran.”

The average guy and gal in America doesn’t even spend two minutes a day thinking about Washingtonians at all. It’s not as if the average person even cares what the “hotties” in DC are saying to each other around their party circuit.

Do people think health insurance is a ripoff? Most do. Which is why healthy young people aren’t big time customers. They either get “some” from work. Or even some from parents. And, some get it from spouses. And, others? Maybe, they qualify for Medicaid if they find themselves needing health care? It’s not like the old days, where my mom used to flash her hospital bill when I was born. The total cost was $39. And, she got a two week stay. The first week of which she wasn’t allowed out of bed. Nurses didn’t exactly strap women to their beds. But getting out of bed after childbirth just wasn’t allowed.

Things change.

And, again, if you went by “averages” … more people disliked Dubya at the end than they do Obama, now. (Except Glenn Reynolds says Obama’s approval rating is down to 41%.)

You’d think in such an environment the republicans would be running circles around Obama … but just go and look at how low Boehner and McConnell are rated when polls are done evaluating congress critters.

A lot of what Obama says, maybe, can be taken in stride? Or do you really believe he believes he’s just like Trayvon?

What if Obama has the knack to make news from Washington seem boring?

Ms.Ghitis is DUMB as a sack of rocks. The Obama cheering section, chorus line and lemmings of the national mainstream useless media have lied, shied, grifted, blathered and shouted,”Look at our hands so you won’t see or hear what the Boy King Obama is saying and doing.”

Are we not blessed,’Yo?

Obama’s objectives, foreign and domestic, have always been to bring the United States to its knees. Unfortunately he has had too many successes in that regard. Damn him!!!!!!

Hillary Clinton is a joke. And a bad one.

A few sentences were devoted in this article about Obama’s opposition and it stated that they were opposed either due to his skin color or just being obstinate and opposing. WRONG…..couldn’t be more WRONG. When Bush was President, the media tortured him and OPPOSED him. The Dems jumped on that bandwagon every chance they got and OPPOSED him. The same for Reagan…check it out and see. There is no secret formula for why Obama’s opposition exists….IT IS SUPPOSE TO EXIST. Very few Constituents are riding the middle of the road anymore…Obama caused that. It is not that the right has gone far right …it has more to do with the left going FAR LEFT. We have a darn near police state…Obama has caused gas to rise over 2.00 a gal. because of that green energy he has been wasting our money on. He has tried to water down the 2nd Amendment and is diligently working on the 4th. Socialized medicine is throughout Obamacare and now the debt stands at almost 17 TRILLION with ridiculous entitlements like 5 Obamaphones per poor person. The list is endless….and you ask why is the right opposed to Obama? I’m just sayin’…….

Obama has lost Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. He has abandoned Iraq and Afghanistan, thrown Israel under the bus, let down the missile shield in Eastern Europe, allowed Iran to crush a democratic uprising and go nuclear. Syria is on fire with civil war which has already killed 100,000 people and will result in either a strengthened Assad allied with Iran or an al Qaeda militant islamic state. Saudi Arabia and the gulf states, where the West gets most of its oil, are surrounded by shiite states.

Our southern border is wide open. The 2,500 guns Obama supplied to the Sinaloa cartel (without the knowledge or consent of the Mexican government) have killed hundreds of Mexicans and at least one American law enforcement officer.

Russia and China filling the power vacuum we left. Russians still occupy part of Georgia, they hold Northern Europe hostage with threats of turning off natural gas. Chinese naval vessels visit the Gulf of Mexico and threaten Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines. China’s vassal state, North Korea is developing an ICBM that could hit the West Coast.

All of these disasters were managed by Hillary Clinton. It is hard to imagine how it could get any worse.

My mother always tells me that if I can’t say something nice I shouldn’t say anything at all. Okay, Mom, this is all I’ve got:

Obama sent John Kerry to Syria and John McCain and Lindsay Graham to Egypt (but they all came back).

So basically Frida admits that obamas foreign policy is failing, but tries to blame obamas failures on people like us who are pointing out obamas failures. I suppose this makes sense to her leftist readers, but it does not make much sense to me.

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