“Backing Up President Obama”: It’s Foolhardy To Forsake What The President Has Accomplished
It is long overdue for someone, anyone, to back up President Barack Obama.
Yes, it is easy to kvetch about the shortcomings he’s faced on both domestic and international fronts, and who can argue with the most recent Gallup poll that equated his approval rating to that of President George W. Bush, but as an early supporter of the president, I must admit, I am prouder than ever to call Barack Obama my president.
He’s smart, he’s pragmatic, and he’s black. Yeah, I said it. I’m a white Jew from the San Fernando Valley who grew up in an all-white and Asian neighborhood. Never in my life did I have an opportunity to demonstrate my unflagging support for a black man who clearly deserved the nation’s top spot, not because he is black, but because voting for President Obama demonstrated to the world that America values competence over race.
I am grateful that I have an opportunity to tell my son that I am responsible for helping elect the country’s first black president. And I know what the pundits will say: There goes another self-righteous white liberal who thinks he’s saving the world by backing up a black president. And all I have to say to you is this: It’s foolhardy to forsake what the president has accomplished.
It’s foolhardy to forsake the man who brought the country’s most maligned terrorist to justice. It’s foolhardy to forsake the man who inherited a suck-wind economy that is a lot healthier now than it’s been in years. And it’s foolhardy to forsake the man who had the courage to fix a health care system that no other recent president dared to fix because they didn’t have the guts to do so.
And I know what the pundits will say: There goes another self-righteous white liberal whose naiveté about how the world works is what gets the country into trouble in the first place. And all I have to say to you is this: It’s foolhardy to forsake what the president has accomplished.
It’s foolhardy to forsake the man who is dealing with ISIS, Ukraine and Russia, fallout from Ferguson, and every other red-hot world crisis that is happening at the same time. It’s foolhardy to forsake the man who believes gay people should be treated like everyone else. And it’s foolhardy to forsake the man who cares about the environment.
And I know what the pundits will say: There goes another self-righteous white liberal who is making excuses for the president and lacks any sort of moral fortitude. And all I have to say to you is this: It’s foolhardy to forsake what the president has accomplished.
It’s foolhardy to forsake the man who improved the image of Americans when traveling in foreign countries, it’s foolhardy to forsake the man who decided to tackle the inequities of student lending programs, and it’s foolhardy to forsake the man whose family values serve as an important role model.
Measuring the president’s approval rating is riddled with pitfalls. The Gallup poll feels more like a barometer for people’s take on how messed up the world is at the moment, and boy, does the world feel messed up at the moment.
And I know what the pundits will say: It’s the president’s fault. And all I have to say to you is this: The scale of what Barack Obama has accomplished as president has done more for this country in the long run than any pollster can measure, and if you realize this, hardly a fool that you can be called.
By: Evan Pondel, The Huffington Post Blog, September 24, 2014
“The Faithful Are Spinning Out Of Control”: The Bizarre Behavior Of Christian Conservatives This Week
If Christianity had its own PR flack, he would be slamming his fist on the desk right about now, as the faithful are spinning out of control.
A Tennessee man, Ronnie Monday, and his friends thought they were doing the “Lord’s work,” by raising money to erect a massive billboard in the town of Portland that called homosexuality an abomination. It quotes Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination.” To the right of the verse the billboard says, “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin.” Yet what Monday didn’t address is that a few verses later in Leviticus, homosexuals are condemned to death. So much for loving the sinner.
The United States Air Force entered the religious battle this week when it said it would not let a veteran airman reenlist unless he swore an oath unto God. The airman, who has remained unnamed, signed the oath document, but crossed out the words “so help me God.” Bryan Fischer of the ultra-conservative American Family Association said that atheists should not even be allowed to serve in the armed forces. “There is no place in the United States military for those who do not believe in the Creator,” he said. “A man who doesn’t believe in the Creator … most certainly should not wear the uniform.”
How quickly Fischer dismisses the lives of those like Pat Tillman, an open atheist who lost his life not long after he walked away from his professional football career to fight Al Qaeda after 9/11. The American Humanist Association and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation quickly took action against the Air Force, which strongly defended the wording of the oath. Eventually, the organizations wore the Air Force down, and it dropped its religious enlistment requirement.
After the Air Force’s decision to drop the requirement, the 700 Club’s Pat Robertson went on an anti-Semitic tirade: “There’s a left-wing radical named Mikey Weinstein [president of MRFF] who has got a group about people against religion or whatever he calls it, and he has just terrorized the armed forces.” He continued, “You think you’re supposed to be tough, you’re supposed to defend us, and you got one little Jewish radical who is scaring the pants off of you.”
On the subject of the military, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee declared in front of a crowd that the US should not fear a war with the Islamic militant group ISIS because Huckabee has read the Bible, and it contains a prophecy. “I got good news for all the dispirited and disquieted Christians in America who somehow are afraid that the Sons of Ishmael who are challenging us now in the Middle East will overwhelm the Sons of Isaac,” Huckabee said. “Let me assure you, I have read the end of the book! My dear friend, we win!”
For those who have not read the Bible, there is a massive lack of information about how to deal with ISIS, but that did not stop Huckabee, who even appeared on Fox News endorsing greater military action, saying dropping bombs is not enough to “eradicate ISIS.”
And last, if you are not familiar with Jesus’ famous sermon on the mount, Jesus blessed the poor and the hungry. But now he’s blessing the gun nuts? Pat Robertson, who can’t stay out of the news, has added a new verse: “Blessed are the fully armed because theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”
Robertson was referring to earlier fear-mongering comments in which he claimed, “Violent attacks and even deaths on church property occur far more often than people realize.” But Robertson had good news for his viewers, saying, “The good news: You can protect yourself. What are you going to do, are you going to give church members AK-47s at the door to let them blow away those intruders?”
I don’t think Jesus meant handguns when he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
By: Dan Arel, AlterNet, September 18, 2014
“A New Round Of Conservative Complaints”: Even A Response To Ebola Can Apparently Be Politicized
President Obama traveled to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta this week to unveil an ambitious U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa, including money, materials, and military and health personnel.
It’s one of the most aggressive responses in U.S. history to a disease outbreak. Michele Richinick reported that “as many as 3,000 military personnel will assist in training new health care workers and building treatment clinics in the countries affected by the disease,” and some of our financial resources will be used to “construct 17 new treatment centers, each with 100 beds, and 10,000 sets of protective equipment and supplies to help 400,000 families protect themselves from the epidemic that is spreading exponentially.”
A day later, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, announced plans to establish “a new on-the-ground mission in West Africa to coordinate the struggle against Ebola,” while the World Bank Group issued a report warning of a “potentially catastrophic blow” to the economies of countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.
Given all of this, it seems like an odd time for conservative media to start a new round of complaints.
Right-wing media are using President Obama’s plan to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as another opportunity to attack him. Conservatives are calling the president a “hypocrite” because he’s sending “more soldiers to fight Ebola than we are sending to fight ISIS”; labeling the plan “arrogant” because of problems with HealthCare.gov; and accusing him of trying to “change the subject” by “fighting a really bad flu bug.”
It was former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) who equated the Ebola virus with a “really bad flu bug.”
Rush Limbaugh added, “We are sending more soldiers to fight Ebola than we are sending to fight ISIS or other Muslim terrorists…. I didn’t know you could shoot a virus. Did you?”
For what it’s worth, there’s a credible argument to explain why a military component should be part of the response to an outbreak like this. Julia Belluz had an interesting piece on this yesterday, noting the larger debate.
Obama has repeatedly referred to the threat of Ebola in security terms, arguing the virus could cripple the already fragile economies in the African region. He’s made the case that this will have consequences for not only the security of countries there, but also for nations around the world – even if the virus doesn’t spread beyond Africa.
For examples of this war-like mentality, look no further than the president’s address, delivered Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta: “If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected, with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us. So this is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security – it’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic. That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease.”
It’s a fairly easy argument to make. There are critics of the “securitization” of these public-health crises, but in countries facing “potentially catastrophic” economic and destabilizing conditions, it’s not hard to imagine unrest and possible violence.
The point is not to “shoot a virus”; it’s to create conditions in which people who contract the virus can receive care.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 18, 2014
“John McCain Is A Dangerous Radical”: He Has Advocated Attacking Roughly Half The Eastern Hemisphere’s Land Mass
It should be obvious by now that John McCain wants to attack everyone, everywhere. In September 2013, Mother Jones made a map of the world showing that McCain has advocated attacking roughly half the Eastern Hemisphere’s land mass. Now he wants to attack basically everyone in Syria. Even the hawkish Jeffrey Goldberg thinks this is a bit much:
McCain’s second criticism: Obama is not attacking the root cause of the Syrian war, which is the behavior of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its supporters in Iran. He said the U.S. should be bombing government targets at the same time it is bombing Assad’s Islamic State enemies. I, too, am dispositionally interventionist, but it seemed to me that McCain was outlining not only a formula for chaos, but also a program that could not possibly be sold to the American people.
I asked him this question: “Wouldn’t the generals say to you, ‘You want me to fight ISIS, and you want me to fight the guys who are fighting ISIS, at the same time? Why would we bomb guys who are bombing ISIS? That would turn this into a crazy standoff.’ ”
“Our ultimate job is not only to defeat ISIS but to give the Syrian people the opportunity to prevail as well,” McCain answered. “Remember, there are 192,000 dead Syrians thanks to Assad. If we do this right, if we do the right kind of training and equipping of the Free Syrian Army, plus air strikes, plus taking out Bashar Assad’s air assets, we could reverse the battlefield equation.”
The U.S. could conceivably wage war on two fronts against two vicious parties that are also warring against each other, on a battlefield in which another set of America’s enemies — Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — are also fighting. But this is a much too complicated mission for any post-Iraq War American president to prudently tackle, even a president not quite so reluctant as Obama.
For those Americans who are moving toward McCain and away from Paul on crucial questions concerning the U.S.’s role in the world, I can’t imagine that they would be able to stomach such a war, either.
If you think John McCain actually understands the complexity of trying to hold together an alliance to fight ISIS that includes Sunni governments in Amman, Riyadh, Cairo, and Ankara and Shiite governments in Baghdad and Teheran, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. The war in Syria is sectarian in nature, as are most of the problems within Iraq.
If you are trying to get Baghdad to govern inclusively, you can’t take the side of the Sunnis in Syria. If you can get consensus from the Sunni powers to eliminate the most radical and effective army on their side of the fight, then you’ve accomplished something. But, if you take it too far, everything will blow up in your face.
I wake up every day thanking fate that John McCain never got to order our armed forces around.
By: Martin Longman, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 14, 2014
“The New Campaign Theme: Fear”: Republican Candidates Are Rediscovering How To Use Fear In Campaigning
There’s a new narrative emerging about the midterm elections. After months in which political reporters essentially wrote the same stories over and over with only small variations — it’ll be a good year for Republicans; the Affordable Care Act is a disaster for Democrats; oh, wait, maybe not — we now have a brand-spanking new storyline to play with.
Now, the elections are all about security and terrorism and foreign policy.
Fear is back! Which, of course, is great for the GOP.
There is some evidence that the elections may be shifting on to these topics. But like the threat from the Islamic State, it may be being overhyped by a news media eager for excitement.
One of my theories about the ebb and flow of political coverage is that any new development that promises change is unusually attractive to political reporters. Polls that never change are boring. And if America is about to embark on a new military adventure, then change must surely be in the air.
So we’re seeing a whole raft of articles claiming that the election is now all about security, like this one and this one and this one.
Yes, the news has been dominated by the Islamic State question for the past couple of weeks, and people respond to what’s in the news when they’re asked what they care about (this is called agenda-setting). There is some public opinion data showing more people expressing concern about terrorism.
But the question is: Is there any clear evidence that the public is actually gripped by terror, that the elections are going to look any different next month than they did last month?
If the public were actually terrified, that would almost certainly be good for the GOP. Research has shown that if you make people afraid or remind them of their own mortality, a significant number will gravitate toward Republican candidates. A lot of news stories about shadowy foreign terrorist groups could be enough to do the trick.
A complicating factor, however, is that Congress is pretty much abdicating its responsibility for oversight over the escalation. What’s more, Republican candidates don’t have much to say about what’s going on in the Middle East, as GOP strategists admit:
For candidates, there’s a difficult balance to strike between using the issue to beat the drum against Obama and getting too far in the weeds on actual strategy proposals. Most GOP strategists agree that the way to talk about foreign policy this fall is to make it a broad argument about leadership and stay out of such details as whether or not the U.S. should put troops on the ground.
“I don’t think that many Republicans are going to rush out there with detailed foreign policy initiatives in their own campaigns,” said GOP pollster Wes Anderson. “I don’t think there’s any market for it — what voters want to hear is that somebody is going to take initiative and show leadership.”
Having no actual ideas hasn’t historically stopped Republicans from exploiting an issue, of course. And there are some signs that Republican candidates are rediscovering how to use fear in campaigning (see here or here), which is its own story worthy of examination.
But House Republicans are actually showing surprising unity with Obama on how to respond to ISIS. The disagreements among Republicans over how to proceed seem procedural more than anything else, and they are likely to give him what he wants in terms of training the Syrian rebels, which could undercut efforts by GOP candidates to use this against Democrats. On balance, it’s probably too early to say that the election has been transformed.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect; The Plum Line, The Washington Post, September 12, 2014
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