Noonan on Obama and Afghanistan
Yes, I’m back to critiquing Peggy Noonan’s columns.
But please forgive me; there’s a personal reason this time. As vanderleun has pointed out, she seems to have stolen my meme:
After the president announced his plan he seemed to slip in, “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.” Then came the reference to July 2011 as the date departure begins. It was startling to hear a compelling case for our presence followed so quickly by an abrupt announcement of our leaving. It sounded like a strategy based on the song Groucho Marx used to sing, “Hello, I must be going.”
Oh, I know; she probably doesn’t read me. It’s one of those independent parallel observations. And another reason I think she doesn’t read me is that in her very first sentence, Noonan writes:
A deep and perhaps the deepest benefit of the speech was that a Democratic president asserted compellingly, and with a high degree of certitude and conviction, that the United States is and has been immersed in a long struggle with intractable enemies.
Au contraire. I was looking for Obama to use the “e” word and call the enemy an enemy, and he most assuredly did not. This omission was hardly accidental; it takes work to write a speech like that without it. Noonan ought to know something about writing speeches.
But she still seems caught in the snare of Obama Arrangement Syndrome. And although she notices the “hello I must be going” message, she fails to draw any conclusion from it, or to recognize its importance as a communication of lack of resolve—one that the world, enemy and ally alike, will hear.
Breaking up is hard to do.
She thinks she is really stepping out. Box step.
Some people just don’t get 3-D chess playing of the pragmatic centrist kind.
As Mitsu points out:
[Obama] plays a long game – this has always been my disagreement with the right; the right tends, as a whole, to play short-term ball.
Good thing Mitsu’s around to come and straighten us out when we need it.
Recently I saw some quotes that were supposedly taken from books that Obama had written. They were all quite outrageous, and one went something like this: “If things get ugly, I’ll be coming up on the side of the Muslims” Does anyone know if this is true, or was the excerpt taken out of context?
I’m concerned about jumping to conclusions…
Buy the books from Amazon, and read them, will. And you can do it from right here, right from your computer, without stepping out and breaking into an AGW fostered sweat.
Why, I believe I’ve just birthed my first all inclusive ad.
will: This should make it easier for you.
I enjoyed this little snippet linked to by Glenn Reynolds the other night:
President Obama’s Afghanistan Speech Word Count: ‘I’ – 45, ‘Afghanistan’ – 39, ‘Victory’ – 0
I didn’t watch the speech but it doesn’t sound much different than any other Obama speech – dominated by I, I, I, I and more I. When is he going to learn he is the leader of the country, not the country itself?
Here’s an amazing bit from Tina Brown, an Obama supporter and former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker:
Does Obama create confusion on purpose? Is this his “process” based on his confession that he’s a screen onto which people project things? Is it a strategy so that whatever bill trickles out of Congress or however many soldiers linger in Afghanistan, he can claim that the outcome is what he meant it all along? (Clinton and Gates assured nervous senators on the Hill Thursday that the August 2011 deadline was both firm and flexible, and that this position was, in Gates’ words, “not contradictory” in the least.) Or is it that for all the administration’s vaunted mastery of multiplatform communication, Rahm and Gibbs and company are actually amateurs at crafting a clear political message and launching it on the dazed American public?
Or is it that there is so much subtext to every part of this message that the simple heads of the electorate are just not pointy enough to comprehend it?
I have come to the conclusion that the real reason this gifted communicator has become so bad at communicating is that he doesn’t really believe a word that he is saying. He couldn’t convey that health-care reform would be somehow cost-free because he knows it won’t be. And he can’t adequately convey either the imperatives or the military strategy of the war in Afghanistan because he doesn’t really believe in it either. He feels colonized by mistakes of the past. He feels trapped by the hand that has been dealt him.
Obama all but held his nose as he delivered those words–“bring this war to a successful conclusion”–and never once mentioned the word “win.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-03/what-is-obama-talking-about/
President is breaking the record for ‘firsts’. First speech in history to declare war and surrender in one paragraph. If Dumb and Dumber was a comedy what are O’Dumbo and Plugs?
huxley: that’s pretty amazing, coming from Tina Brown.
She started out practically in love with Obama. A couple of months later the bloom was off the Obama rose for her. But still, that article you link shows she has become very disaffected.
I found the trigger word for insanity in the brainwashed democrat party, ‘Palin”. Try it, the one word will trigger an outburst of insanity never before seen outside the walls of a facility for the criminally insane.
huxley: that’s pretty amazing, coming from Tina Brown.
neo: Yes, it is! I suspect that there are many reflective liberals out there who are experiencing similar ambivalence about Obama by now.
Frankly I’m surprised that Mitsu isn’t among them.
It’s hard for me to see how Obama can Commander-in-Chief this war when he is so conflicted and contradictory, his base is against him, and his putative allies — the military, Republicans, conservatives, neocons, and Europeans — are the people Obama has been backhanding for years and are now thinking to themselves, “Is this our leader?”
Not to mention the Afghanis and Pakistanis who have put themselves on the line by aligning themselves with America.
Meanwhile Barack “Treat your friends like enemies, and your enemies like friends” Obama is on the job.
What could go wrong?
A minor point, perhaps, but I believe the joke is that Groucho’s Captain Spaulding had no intention of ever leaving, but rather intended to mooch off of his host forever.
“I’ll stay a week or two.
I’ll stay the summer through.
But I am telling you that I must be going.”
Scrapiron: Something tells me that we are all missing the underlying strategy, for no other reason than it’s too obvious a mistake for a president to make and I don’t trust him. As everyone has pointed out, the bad guys will just go into hiding and wait it out. But the other possibility is the administration is banking on that. If the Taliban retreat and lay low for a few months, he wins and they win too. Dems will announce success in Afganistan, we will pull out on schedule, and very few casualties will result. The subsequent news coverage for our conquering hero will be insufferable, which is of course what he wants most. Once we’re gone, I doubt the media will spend much time covering the Taliban’s resurgence, and he’s betting Americans will just conclude the Afganis aren’t willing to fight to maintain their freedom- if it is reported.
Maybe it’s not that simple, but I don’t believe he took all this time studying military strategies — it’s easier for me to believe he and his advisors spent the time figuring out how to turn surrender into a political victory.
Scrapiron Says:
December 4th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
I know. I’ve seen it. Best to be wearing body armor when saying that word.
I do think she reads you, you have had articles criticizing her… thats enough to have someone start browsing you if you end up on say pajamas media… though i would wonder, stolen, or doff.. a letting you know, and passing it on?
I do think she reads you…
Me too. Or at least an assistant clipping excerpts.
Southpaw,
Fascinating comment. But I don’t think Obama is that smart.
Seems like it was just a bone thrown to his base to try to soften the impact of sending more troops to Afghanistan.
Sad thing is, it didn’t work. His base is fuming mad over this. Even Olbeman and Maddow are taking shots at him.
So it seems like Obama increased the risk without any gain. Which goes right back to the point that he is not very smart.
Neoneocon is linking to FactCheck. Hee, hee!
This:
http://www.theobamafile.com/_eligibility/AnnenbergFactCheckers.htm
I know about Fact Check, G6loq, but in this case I think their facts are correct. Those quotes are either in the book or they’re not. If you can find a reputable source that says they are, give us a link.
Well if she has any sense she reads you.
I don’t know. There’s this pattern of, “Obama speaks, Noonan goes gooey and rambles.” He nearly always disarms her. She might have a couple of gentle suggestions. But mainly she feels–not thinks–that no one could have, or ever has, said anything very different. Not even to soldiers, not even to warriors. A little heavy on the “I” content, is all.
And, as ever, the message from Our Lady is: Be nice. Remember to be nice. (HT: Garrison Keillor.)
Maybe she’s applying for a gig.
I agree with you Neoneocon, factcheck is correct here. I looked up the siding with Islam mahself in the book.
Fun to check on the checkers though … amusing what you find.
Cheers!
Thanks for the clarification Neo!
Dear Neo,
Noonan is a RINO or a thinker in name only and needs to be allowed to fade out like the NYT. They need to be disdained.
Thank you for blogging and pondering.
Dear Mitsu,
When you come back in 2 – 3 months, I can predict that you will say that you haven’t read posts by Neo and CAN’T understand where we come from
You will be negligent and will once again FAIL to read links and see that the sources you are reading are WRONG.
See?
We read your sources. We know what they say. FOr once read the stuff we submit to you.
But – at least I’m on record here and I can point to this post for you when you come back without doing due diligence.
What a failure you are.
Baklava
I’m afraid that Mitsu is stuck in a time warp where it is always October 2008 and the bien pensant can project any kind of fantasy on the Sphinx of Hyde Park. In his own mind, I’m sure he believes that he means well; but his separation from reality is almost complete. What is about to happen will leave him stunned and disoriented. Poor fellow.
I know he’s getting harped on a lot, but I still can’t help but wonder if this blog is Mitsu’s “assignment”.
I have read and read, but have yet to see him conclusively, hands down, win a point. You’d think he’d have some sort of complex ny now.
Quoting Noonan: “That said, it appears we’re seeing some things we’ve not seen before. The president of the United States gave a war speech, and the next day the nation didn’t seem to rally around him. This is not the way it’s gone in the past. Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush–when they addressed the nation about the wars they led, they received immediate support.”
The nation did not rally around Obama on this because he is not a serious man. He is toying with our troops and our war capacities and our very nation so that he can consolidate more power. Everyone feels this in their guts and knows it in their heads.
The nation will never rally around Obama on anything. He has evil in mind for America, and not good. This is a known fact by this time, and there is no evidence to refute it save ‘words’.
In short, since Obama is not an AMERICAN President, therefore Americans could not support him if they wanted to.
The only people who support him are the anti-American fellow citizens we live with. They hold all the reigns of power and are a major chunk of the population.
We are in a war. It is far more serious than the Afghan War (which is hugely serious). The war is FOR America. The war is IN America. America is currently losing that war, and losing badly.
The war is for ‘all the marbles’ as they say. It is not pretend so that there might be a do-over. Rather, it is do or die.
Until there is clarity on this issue, America has zero chance of winning. We will be defeated and ‘America’ (that great beautiful, free and freeing and spirited and imaginative and prosperous thing) will end. It will be over and done, and the default position of peoples over 99% of history will recur – that is, Tyranny.
It is us or them. It has ever been thus. When I think of the good men of my father’s generation, and all those great good men and women of eras past who fought and died for our freedom – and then to think we will lose it without a fight to a bully from Chicago and the likes of Pelosi, Emmanuel, and Reid, et al…..
That’s a Hang Your Head in Shame moment for everyone.
I believe that President Obama will resign the Office of the President of the United States in 2011.
He has a thin skin. He does not take setbacks with grace. He has experienced little adversity in his life and few, if any, emotional crises.
If the American people should elect enough Republicans to take back the House and remove the power of the Democrats to override filibusters, then the power of the President will be greatly diminished.
If the President is unable or unwilling to give up his agenda, then he will find himself marginalized. Republicans would be happy to deadlock the Congress if they can’t get enough Democrats to join in scuttling the programs of the far left of the Democratic party.
In such as situation, I believe that the President would rather resign the office than remain and face continual humiliation from the Congress when they politely ignore his leadership.