Looking foolish: the press on Obama’s Syria policy

The New Neo Posted on by

A certain segment of the liberal MSM seems to have turned on Obama (at least temporarily) for his Syria policy.

One would expect criticism from Niles Gardiner of Britain’s Telegraph; after all, he was once an aide to Thatcher. But even the leftist Guardian is not pleased. And Maureen Dowd, once an Obama admirer, is scathing on Obama and Syria—comparing him to Bush, perhaps the unkindest cut of all.

Here’s a bit of the flavor of Dowd’s column, featuring her characteristic snark:

Now, when it is clear Obama can’t convince Congress, the American public, his own wife, the world, Liz Cheney or even Donald “Shock and Awe” Rumsfeld to bomb Syria ”” just a teensy-weensy bit ”” Pooty-Poot (as W. called him) rides, shirtless, to the rescue, offering him a face-saving way out? If it were a movie, we’d know it was a trick. We can’t trust the soulless Putin ”” his Botox has given the former K.G.B. officer even more of a poker face ”” or the heartless Bashar al-Assad. By Tuesday, Putin the Peacemaker was already setting conditions.

Just as Obama and Kerry ”” with assists from Hillary and some senators ”” were huffing and puffing that it was their military threat that led to the breakthrough, Putin moved to neuter them, saying they’d have to drop their military threat before any deal could proceed. The administration’s saber-rattling felt more like knees rattling. Oh, for the good old days when Obama was leading from behind. Now these guys are leading by slip-of-the-tongue.

A blogger on the right could hardly have put it better.

What gives? After all of the outrageous things Obama has done, why is this the one that’s really getting the goat of his erstwhile admirers? Not very many people have been able to muster up their usual praise. Even Obama’s usual yes-man, Ezra Klein, seems lukewarm at best.

I submit that it’s for two reasons. The first is that Obama is advocating a military action (or at least he was until recently) in a manner that seems to them somewhat reminiscent of George W. Bush, their arch-nemesis. The second is that he has made himself look foolish, and transparently so. And if he looks foolish, it makes his usual admirers look foolish, for having called him such a brilliant tactician and strategist.

They can forgive many things, but not being made to look foolish.

Obama: the clingers on the right, revisited

The New Neo Posted on by

I neither watched nor listened to Obama’s speech last night. Fortunately I was out with friends, so I didn’t even have to ponder whether or not to subject myself to it.

I did read about it (and the transcript) when I returned, and it was as expected: fragmented, sloppily conceptualized. My summary of Obama’s remarks would be, “I’m going to attack Syria, but I’m not. And I trust Putin, except I don’t. So maybe let’s have a diplomatic solution instead. And suddenly I believe in American exceptionalism—at least regarding military affairs limited to targeted strikes.”

The speech contained an interesting section with telling and contrasting appeals to left and right that Ace characterizes thusly:

…Obama chose to drop this little insult:

And so to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might with a failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.

To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.

Note that Obama’s “friends on the left” believe in freedom and dignity in all people. People on the right don’t, apparently…

Even when he’s supposedly “reaching out to us,” this Master Diplomat and Coolly Brilliant Poet-Warrior steadfastly refuses to pay the right the slightest degree of respect…

Hey wingers, get behind this war. It’s got the three things you Bitter Clingers can’t get enough of– Guns, Spooky Religious Nonsense, and Killing Foreign People.

Now, Friends on the Left, you can get behind it for the true moral purposes which flow from reason and higher functions of the brain.

But Friends on the Right, we’ll appeal to your Lizard Brains and Blow Up Some Shit because you folks seem to like that sort of thing.

Obama could hardly have been more clear about his concept of the interests of people on the right and left, and his political calculations on how to reach out to each side. I cannot recall a president in my lifetime, right or left, who was so gratuitously and continually insulting to the opposition. It is especially ironic that Obama is given credit by the MSM for reaching out to that same opposition as he simultaneously trashes them.

But come to think of it, although Obama’s contempt for the right is obvious, he also expresses a certain amount of contempt for the left. It’s just a somewhat more covertly-expressed contempt. Each are simplistic appeals: let’s have those big guns for the bitter clingers of the right, and the little suffering children for the bleeding hearts of the left; the cold warlike aggressors versus the warm touchy-feelers. Meanwhile the great thinker, Obama, plots his brilliant course in Syria, playing four-dimensional chess with Putin.

9/11: the twelfth anniversary

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ll skip all the usual observations about how amazing it is that so much time has passed. But it is and it has.

And I’ll skip all the solemn pronouncements about how different things are and at the same time not. But they are/are not.

I will say that as time passes the facts become more believable because we have assimilated them, but the horror never fades if the events of the day are re-imagined, the evil of the perpetrators confronted, and the lives of the victims revisited.

It is a solemn day and always will be for those who were alive at the time. Let us remember, and teach our children and grandchildren.

[NOTE: I’ve recommended the book Touching History before, but I’ll remind readers that it’s an absolutely riveting account of what happened in the skies that day. Some of it will be a surprise to you.

And here is my own account of 9/11 and my reactions to the event.]

Another day, another “cracker”

The New Neo Posted on by

Another racially-motivated attack in New York City, in full view of an audience:

An attacker pummeled a bus passenger so hard he smashed the bones in his face after calling the victim a “cracker” in Manhattan ”“ marking the second time in two days that people appeared to be randomly targeted in racial tirades against white people, authorities said.

In the latest incident, the suspect passed a 31-year-old rider on the M60 bus riding through Harlem, on West 127th Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive, around 2:45 p.m., Friday, when he shouted the racial slur and punched the victim in the face, breaking his nose and eye socket, cops said.

I would have thought a group of the witnesses might have jumped the attacker and pummeled him, or at least restrained him. The article gives the following clue as to what actually happened:

Two people who tried to help the victim were also punched but refused medical attention at the scene, law enforcement sources said.

New York, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is a city in which gun laws guarantee that concealed carry is almost nil. So any attackers have the assurance that onlookers are very unlikely to be armed.

This incident appears to resemble another recent one I wrote about previously, in which it seems that the “knockout game” is being played by a single perpetrator with little or no fear of retaliation.

At least this particular attack is being investigated as a hate crime, which it most definitely appears to be. But note that in the NY Post article to which I linked, the races of both perpetrator and the victim are not explicitly mentioned. However, their races are certainly implicit in the story (and there is a photograph of the suspect).

[CORRECTION: A commenter has pointed out that the punching of the two onlookers appears to have occurred in the previous attack, not this most recent one. I have also noticed, on rereading the article, that the investigation as a hate crime also seems to refer to the previous attack.]

The Syria situation segues into bizarro world

The New Neo Posted on by

From the start, President Obama’s confrontation (for want of a better word) with Syria’s Assad was odd, then meandering and contradictory, but always somewhat mysterious.

What was Obama’s goal? Was it just to appear a certain way for political reasons? Or did he think bluster would actually work to cow the Syrian dictator? Or was he in fact intent on actually attacking Assad? Was his underlying message to Assad at all, or was it instead for Iran, or for Russia, or the low information voter, or the international audience, or some or all of the above? Was the whole thing a mostly mindless blunder or a strategic ploy of some sort?

Only the Shadow knows.

But yesterday the situation took a turn for the surreal when John Kerry casually and without much conviction called for Assad to surrender his chemical weapons to an international force and Putin said “Great idea!” I don’t have answers, but I share many of the questions Jeffrey Goldberg poses in this piece.

In addition, I’m with the first commenter to the Goldberg article:

So, throw away the reasons why what is proposed for Syria won´t work, both tactically and politically or what questions to answer to perhaps make the situation better and bring about a solution and just understand that now, today both by ridiculous and irresponsible “diplomatic error” by both Obama and Mr. Kerry, the influence on this issue and the real power now resides in Moscow and Tehran and to a smaller level, Damascus not Washington DC.

This also sets the stage for the real ending of American influence in that region.

Was this the goal all the time? Or did Obama and Kerry just wander into it serendipitously, although guided by their overarching vision of waning American influence in the world and submission to internationalism?

[NOTE: Even the usually Obama-friendly New Republic is skeptical:

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the White House was just as surprised as anyone. Asked if this was a White House plan that Kerry had served up in London, Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken was unequivocal. “No, no, no,” he said. “We literally just heard about this as you did some hours ago.”

So that’s good. At least everyone’s on the same page…

Last night, President Barack Obama, who, just over a week ago, had said he was ready to act, tells the nation’s cable watchers that he’s now discussing this bogus plan with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that he’s “going to take this very seriously” while also not letting up on the drumbeat of military strikes while. On Tuesday, Syria said it had accepted Russia’s proposal and France said it would seek the UN Security Council’s backing for the proposal.

This, in other words, is no light at the end of the tunnel. This, to borrow a phrase from a Congressional staffer at his wits’ end, “is an unmitigated clusterfuck.”

Please read the whole thing; quite an interesting piece for TNR to have published. The author, Julie Ioffe, seems to think the answer to the “Obama: fool or knave?” question is most “fool.” I think it’s “both,” and have for quite some time.]

[ADDENDUM: Politico—another ordinarily Obama-friendly venue—is likewise critical:

“As soon as I saw Kerry [make his proposal], I said: ”˜He’s in trouble,’” [Lee Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations] said.

”The Russians saw the opening right away and Syrians saw the opening right away, now [U.S. officials] have got to play this card out,” Gelb said. “I think most people see the Russian and Syrian response as a canard to delay any action and maybe weaken it entirely, but nonetheless you cant now just ignore your own proposal and their acceptance of it.”

“In international politics, it’s all about who takes the initiative,” said Toby Gati, who headed up the State Department’s intelligence bureau under President Bill Clinton.

“The Russians saw this opening ”“ and part of the appeal of the opening for them is to tie down Gulliver ”” that’s us. That’s why I’m concerned that this can turn into a proposal from hell,” she said.

Harsh words from a former Clinton appointee.

Hmmm—former Clinton appointee, former Clinton appointee—one could speculate that perhaps part of the agenda is for Clinton supporters to criticize John Kerry, one of her potential rivals for the Democratic nomination in 2016?]

[ADDENDUM II: More.]

The trouble with John Kerry’s “unbelievably small” comment

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s what Kerry said:

“We’re not going to war,” Mr. Kerry told reporters Monday after meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague in London. “We will be able to hold [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort, in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing; an unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.”

Trouble is:

(1) The word “unbelievably” is all too believable. That is: people do not believe what this administration says anymore (or John Kerry, for that matter), and that even includes Obama’s supporters.

(2) Not only is it “unbelievable” because Obama’s and/or Kerry’s veracity is in question, but it’s unbelievable because their judgment is in question. War, and attacks that amount to less than war, is inherently unpredictable, and this administration is foolish if it thinks such a thing can be predicted and strictly limited.

(3) If it’s so unbelievably small, how can it be so very believably effective?

Obama and Syria: words versus deeds

The New Neo Posted on by

I have a new post up at American Thinker entitled “Obama and Syria: Words versus Deeds”:

In trying to puzzle out what might be going on with President Obama’s muddled, non-strategic, and fundamentally “unserious” approach to Syria, it helps to remember that Obama believes that words are as good as deeds, perhaps even better — especially when those words are uttered by Obama. He has concluded that words serve a convincing purpose in the moment, that one utterance does not have to be consistent with the next to be credible and serve that purpose, and that none of it has to be followed up with action to be effective.

And why wouldn’t he? Words have gotten him to the pinnacle of the US presidency without deeds ever having been necessary…

Lobsters and longevity: who knew?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article entitled “Lobsters may hold the key to eternal life.”

I don’t know that “eternal” is quite the right word for it. But certainly “very long” would seem to fit.

Apparently it’s all in the telomeres:

Although they are still susceptible to death by disease or attacks, lobsters can theoretically live forever because getting older does not raise their chance of dying.

An enzyme known as telomerase prevents the DNA in lobsters’ cells from being damaged as they are replicated, scientist Simon Watt reports in The Sun.

Does that make you feel more guilty about eating lobster? Or does it make you feel better about it?

On small breasts

The New Neo Posted on by

NOTE: I thought everyone might enjoy a break from politics and world events, and so I’m recycling the following old post with some minor updating.]

In an effort to boost my traffic, I am writing about breasts today.

Small breasts. But breasts nonetheless

As did the NY Times a few years ago, in a piece about a new trend: lingerie stores that cater to and celebrate the less-endowed woman.

I’ll keep a respectful silence about my own particular form; that much traffic I’m not seeking. But back when I was a dancer, I observed that small-breasted women had it kind of good, at least in the ballet and fashion world. Their bodies created a better line for both dance and the display of fashionable clothing.

And I never understood the later trend towards implants, especially of the perfectly round variety, a shape that does not exist in nature for the human female breast but has since become a standard of sorts. After viewing enough of these orange- or grapefruit-like objects in catalogs such as Victoria’s Secret which purport to show the ideal female body, the unreal becomes the sought-after, although it is unobtainable except through surgery.

Men being men, there’s a certain tendency I’ve noticed for them to consider larger breasts better—at least, up to a point (pun intended). But men also being men, there’s a certain tendency I’ve also noticed for them to consider a pretty wide range of possibilities more-than-acceptable for the desirable female form.

And speaking of wide ranges, there is actually a website dedicated to photos of unenhanced, non-surgically-altered female breasts. It’s not meant to be prurient, although some might certainly find it so. It’s meant to demonstrate to girls growing up in the age of the ubiquitous implant what a natural breast actually looks like, so they don’t get the idea that theirs are abnormal. That’s what it’s come to.

[NOTE: You might enjoy Nora Ephron’s comic 1975 meditation on her own small-breast woes. I especially love this sentence; a perfect description of the bathing suits I recall from the late 50s and early 60s:

That was the era when you could lay an uninhabited bathing suit on the beach and someone would make a pass at it.]

Don’t sit on a hot stove…

The New Neo Posted on by

…till President Obama weighs in on this case:

A man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process.

Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime.

Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that left the gentle, retired train conductor in a coma, CBS 2”²s Dave Carlin reported on Friday…

Babbitt was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said.

“He said ”˜the next white person who walks by I’m going to [expletive],’” one woman said. “His fist went in and the man’s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.”

The man continued his rampage before demanding to see police officers.

“He stood there and hit two more people and asked for the police to come,” Michael Benson said.

Stunned witnesses counted a total of three people attacked. The suspect, Lashawn Marten, 31, remained at the scene until police arrived.

Sounds like a variation on the “knockout game,” except that in this version the perp had a few more years on him than is usual, and he was going solo rather than being part of a group competition. Otherwise the m.o. is similar to that of the knockout game, as is the choice of victim: an older white person.

The knockout game isn’t all that common, fortunately. But even one case would be one too many. Here’s a description of a St. Louis, Missouri version of the phenomenon:

They created a game. The objective was to knock out a stranger with a single punch, get them off their feet. Stealing a wallet or cellphone was not the point. “Do the lick,” in Eisele’s words, and get on with it…

They flaunted their TKO status on Facebook. They sought out other kids to join their nascent gang. They taught recruits to pick vulnerable, older adults. One rule was that a TKO member had to witness the assault, “kinda like a performance evaluation,” Eisele recalls.

Police are described as baffled, because the motive is so unconventional. But I don’t know why they’re baffled. Thug and gang culture glorifies violence for violence’s sake, and Facebook gives youths a venue for bragging about it. The juvenile justice system (as you will see if you read the article about the St. Louis situation) gives the perpetrators the sense that, if they are underage, they will get a mere slap on the wrist if caught. The Zimmerman case—and yes, our president’s comments about it—have heightened black anger at whites, and have probably made people even more reluctant to defend themselves for fear of becoming a George-Zimmerman-type pariah. What’s more, the method of attack, which takes the victims by surprise, makes it unlikely they would have enough time and warning to strike back, and in cities such as New York the perpetrators know that spectators are almost certainly unarmed.