“Magical Thinking Run Amok”: Now Is A Good Time For The Administration’s Critic’s To Just Shut The Hell Up
Now that the Crimean “referendum,” such as it was, has produced its preordained outcome, and probably even the most intense Ukrainian nationalists have given up hope of ever recovering that territory, the big question now is less one of “punishing” Russia for an undoubted violation of international law, than of losing any influence on what Putin does next.
In that context, all the howling for U.S. “leadership” and “toughness” we hear is more than a little incoherent. As Michael Cohen points out at the Guardian, nobody among the many critics of the Obama administration is willing to advocate military action:
[O]ne is hard-pressed to find a single person in Washington who believes the US should send actual American soldiers to Ukraine – even if Russia truly escalates the crisis and send its troops into Eastern Ukraine.
All of which raises a quite serious and legitimate question: what the hell are we arguing about?
If the US is not prepared to put troops on the ground? If we’re not willing to use military force? If we’re content with taking the biggest tool in the US toolbox off the table, then how exactly is the United States supposed to reverse Russia’s seizure of the Crimea? Our vast military capabilities won’t mean much to Putin if he knows we aren’t willing to use them.
Here’s the dirty little secret of the foreign-policy pundit/expert orgy on what to do about Crimea: the US has at its disposal very few levers with which to change Russia’s behavior, at least in the near-term. We can cancel multilateral summits and military training (already done); we can deny visas to Russian officials (just beginning); we can even ramp up bilateral economic sanctions and try to build support among key European allies for a larger, more invasive sanctions regime (under discussion).
But as our long effort to bring Iran to the negotiating table over its nuclear ambition reminds us, such steps will take time and diplomatic effort to bring results. They won’t offer the guarantee of a satisfactory result, and they could produce significant economic backlash for US companies – and, more directly, US allies.
In the end, we’re stuck arguing over policy responses that largely dance around the margins, and a situation in which Europe’s actions likely matter more than America’s.
One thing is for certain sure: all the high-volume demands we are hearing from American pundits and Republican politicians that Obama magically change the situation by “standing up” to Putin (without, of course, even contemplating military action) aren’t helping. If there were ever a good time for an administration’s critics to shut up for a brief while and await further developments–from the Russians, from the Ukrainians, from the Europeans, and from our own diplomats–this is it.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, March 17, 2014
“An Inconvenient Constitution”: Fighting Obama On Immigration Is Not Enough, GOP Wants To Sue Him Too
The House Republican caucus wants to sue President Barack Obama.
They say he isn’t living up to his constitutional obligations on a range of issues—and in particular, that he’s not faithfully executing immigration laws. They cite his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, put into place by executive order in 2012, which halted deportations of people who were brought to this country as children—the so-called “dreamers.” There are roughly 1.1 million of them, according to the best estimates.
To gut that measure, along with parts of the Affordable Care Act and a grab bag of other administration policies, House Republicans crafted and passed what they are calling the “ENFORCE the Law” Act. It would create what amounts to a legal shortcut. House members could file a lawsuit against the president, and it would go directly to three-judge panel of a federal district court—and from there, could be appealed straight to the Supreme Court.
The measure is unlikely to become law, since Senate leaders have declared it dead on arrival. Even if they hadn’t, it might not survive a court challenge: Experts say it openly tampers with the constitution.
Still, the vote for ENFORCE is a statement, and one that directly violates the immigration principles Republicans outlined in January. At the time, the leadership professed support for a pathway to “legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, those who know no other place as home.” But that was nearly two months ago—and ENFORCE represents the House’s first vote of the year on immigration.
It makes the vote Democrats have been demanding, on the reform bill that passed the Senate last year, seem a lot less likely. (And it’s not like prospects were good in the first place.) “It doesn’t require much to look at what House Republicans are doing today and question whether or not they’re serious about moving forward on comprehensive immigration reform,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday. That’s a departure from statements that both the president and House Speaker John Boehner have made this winter, insisting legislative reform still stands a chance. Last month, Carney called a meeting about immigration between the two men “constructive”; Boehner called it “healthy.”
Republicans may have been trying to underscore a message with the vote: that Obama should not even consider addressing deportations with executive authority, as he did with DACA, and as immigrant-rights groups are demanding he do again. “If he stopped deporting people who are clearly here illegally, then I think any chance of immigration reform is dead,” Senator Lindsey Graham warned in February. But as the prospects for immigration reform dim, Obama may wonder why he’s waiting for the House to meet him partway.
By: Nora Caplan-Bricker, The New Republic, March 13, 2014
“One American Voice”: GOP Should Listen To Gates On Ukraine
The words of the late Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.) have been ringing my ears these past few days. The then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in 1947 that “partisan politics [must stop] at the water’s edge.” Translation: No matter the domestic battles with the president, international crises demand we speak with one voice. Those days are long gone judging by the cacophony of ridicule of President Obama because of the actions taken in Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on CNN, “We have a weak and indecisive president that invites aggression.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) slammed Obama on Monday for having “a feckless foreign policy where nobody believes in America’s strength anymore.” And Sarah Palin, the person McCain saw fit to make his 2008 vice presidential running mate said later that night, “People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”
My Post colleague David Ignatius’s column today was a needed tonic. He got former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the phone to talk about Republican bashing of the president over Ukraine.
Gates, a Republican himself, urged the GOP senators to “tone down” their criticism and “try to be supportive of the president rather than natter at the president.”
Not only that, Gates told Ignatius that Putin “holds most of the high cards” and that “considerable care needs to be taken in terms of what is said, so that the rhetoric doesn’t threaten what policy can’t deliver.” Ah, such reasonableness from the GOP. Pity Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary, isn’t in the Senate.
In the end, even he shared my lament. “It seems to me that trying to speak with one voice — one American voice — seems to have become a quaint thing of the past,” Gates told Ignatius. “I regret that enormously.” At least I’m in good company.
By: Jonathan Capehart, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, March 5, 2014
“Playing The Wrong Blame Game”: Blame Vladimir Putin For The Ukraine Crisis, Not President Obama
All I have heard with regard to Ukraine & Russia is the blame game. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC said it was Bush’s fault. The right wingers in America say it’s President Barack Obama’s fault. And I, Leslie Marshall, who do I blame?
Putin.
Putin is acting like a school yard bully, only it isn’t kids he’s targeting, it’s an entire nation. Putin loves what most nation’s leaders historically have: power and money. Just look at the emperors of Rome or the kings of England; the more land they acquired, the more powerful and richer they were. And so is the case with Putin and Ukraine – if he gets his way. And that’s a big if. The people have spoken. The Ukranian parliament has booted its former elected leader. Ukraine wants to be westernized and a part of the European Union. And the western world wants to help them; the United States has already promised, pending Congressional approval, $1 billion dollars in loan guarantees.
Now there are those that believe this is personal between Putin and Obama, as if Putin deliberately took action in Ukraine when the president warned him not to. And to those I say: Don’t be ridiculous. Again, remember who this man is and what he wants. Putin has the ego of Ramses and would have responded in this matter to the resistance of the pro-European Ukranians no matter who was president … Obama, either Bush, Clinton, Carter, Reagan, FDR, Truman or Eisenhower in the same exact way.
And speaking of past presidents; many on the right have invoked the name ‘Reagan” with regard to this issue, saying their political messiah would have shown Putin who is boss. Really? Doubtful. This is a very different time. Putin isn’t Gorbachev, Ukraine isn’t East Germany.
The right also want to blame President Obama for resetting the U.S. relationship with Russia in ’09 and not being more forceful; accusing him of having a weak foreign policy. Really? Was taking Osama bin Laden out weak!? Oh I’m sorry, our Navy SEALs took him out, I forget. But when Saddam Hussein was captured, wasn’t the line being used that Bush got Saddam? I didn’t hear ‘our troops caught Saddam.”
So let’s talk about Saddam. Saddam Hussein. A man who wrongly imprisoned his people and made many of them disappear. Sounds a bit like Putin doesn’t it? There are those that also say we have no right to call out Russia for breaking the law by invading the sovereign nation of Ukraine; but let’s look at who is making that statement: President Obama. Although the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, it was done during the Bush presidency – and voted against by a young Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. Iraq was not Obama’s war. He did not start it, he ended it. Must we refuse to help any nation being invaded in the present because of our past sins?
And there are those on the right who roll their eyes at the president when he speaks (hello Lindsey Graham) and many on the right who say the world doesn’t respect Obama or take him seriously and they’re wrong. Of course when the president wanted to fly over Libya’s air space they said he was overreaching. And now with Ukraine’s he’s too cautious. Perhaps the right should make up its mind.
Let’s be honest, the United States is not going to get involved militarily in Ukraine. Obama knows it, the right knows it, Putin knows it and furthermore, both parties in the U.S. don’t want it nor do our allies. Ukraine is just not that important politically or resource wise to either the United States or the EU. So the President has limited options with what he can do. And I believe he is going about this the right way.
Due to Putin’s nature (power and greed), we must strike him where it hurts most. We need to reduce Russia’s International stature and isolate Russia, not just the country, but it’s people; especially the richest of the rich of Russia.
Now Russia’s stature has already been diminished. President Obama contacted (and got on board) Germany, the U.K., Poland and every other G8 nation to hold off preparations for the Sochi meetings. Further, to isolate Russia, Secretary Kerry has discussed travel bans and there is a possibility of freezing Russian business assets. And learning from history, the U.S. won’t do this alone. We won’t fly solo or take just a few of our team with us; we need everyone worldwide to be on board, otherwise we will fail.
And for those that think Obama is weak, an intellect who is trying diplomacy while Putin comes to the fight with a weapon; think again. Putin backed a failed government in Kiev. Putin watched as the world was disgusted by his actions in Ukraine; so much so, he made up a nice fairy tale to justify it. And after President Obama accused Putin of breaking the law, we have not seen any movement from the Russian military in Crimea.
So who is to blame? Putin.
Who does the world look down upon? Putin.
Who is losing this fight? Putin
So for those of you that want to champion Putin over our president, like actor Steven Seagal did on Russian television, perhaps you had better wear red rather than red, white and blue. Obama’s our commander in chief. Russia’s not our ally. The right thing to do – the patriotic thing to do – is to back our president and trust he has our best interest at hand.
In Kiev this week, voices echoed as they chanted “Thank You America!” as Putin covered his ears.
BY: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, March 6, 2014
“A Confederacy Of Dunces”: President Obama Is Truly Blessed In The Idiocy Of His Enemies
You probably saw a news item about a hearing yesterday of the House Government Oversight Committee. The reason you saw it is that it ended with some shouting, which is a relatively rare occurrence on Capitol Hill, and therefore that became an irresistible piece of news. But what really mattered about that hearing wasn’t Darrell Issa cutting off Elijah Cummings’ mike, causing Cummings to get extremely angry. It was that the hearing was happening at all. I’m not sure if there’s ever been an opposition party more thoroughly convinced of a president’s corruption yet so utterly incapable of doing anything about what they see as his crimes. You might think that’s because Barack Obama is not particularly corrupt, and that’s part of the story. But the Republicans’ buffoonery—and Issa’s in particular—when it comes to making Obama pay for his alleged misdeeds seems to know no bounds.
If I were a Republican, I’d really be wondering right now whether Issa can tie his own shoes, much less whether he’ll be able to take down the President of the United States. Just look at how this thing developed. On Sunday, Issa went on television and said that Lois Lerner, the former IRS official whom Republicans believe holds the key to showing how a lengthy application process for Tea Party groups seeking 501(c)(4) status was the linchpin of a White House conspiracy to destroy its enemies, would finally be testifying in front of his committee, answering all the biting and incisive questions Republicans have. Later that day, Lerner’s attorney told reporters that he had no idea what Issa was talking about. Lerner had invoked her Fifth Amendment rights, and she was going to continue to do so; there would be no testimony. Yet Issa still maintained she would be answering questions, and when she was brought before the committee on Wednesday, he was apparently surprised that she invoked those rights and would not answer their questions.
There are a few explanations for how this happened. One is that Lerner’s lawyer simply lied to Issa and his staff, telling them that she was ready to answer questions when he had no intention of letting her do so. This seems rather unlikely, particularly since he said publicly that she wouldn’t testify. The second possibility is that there was some kind of misunderstanding somewhere along the way, leading Issa and his people to believe she would answer questions when she actually wouldn’t. Again, this would seem to be contradicted by the fact that the lawyer said publicly she wouldn’t testify. The third is that Issa sensed some weakness in her position and thought that if he got her under the hot lights, he might force a few answers out of her.
Not knowing anything about the internal deliberations, I can’t say which of those three most resembles what happened, but given that from the outset this investigation has been an endless string of embarrassing pratfalls on Issa’s part, I suspect it’s the third. But what I wonder is, do they actually believe that they’re just one hearing away from busting this whole thing wide open? Just how deluded are they?
Meanwhile, you have Republicans like Lindsey Graham telling anyone who’ll listen that the reason for the crisis in Ukraine is…Benghazi! Yes, that must be it. If we can’t actually use it to impeach Obama, at least we can blame it for everything that happens anywhere in the world that we don’t like. Why is China still communist? Benghazi. Why did Oscar Pistorius shoot his girlfriend? Duh, Benghazi. Why did the women’s hockey team lose the gold medal game to Canada? Obviously, the Canadians were emboldened by Benghazi.
And I think they genuinely believe that Benghazi is going to keep Hillary Clinton from the White House. Sure, their potential 2016 candidates may look like a collection of amateurs and extremists. But just you wait—once Americans hear the truth about Benghazi, she doesn’t stand a chance!
Barack Obama has ridden a lot of ups and downs in his presidency, some of his own making and some that he could not have controlled. But he has been truly blessed in his enemies. They’re such a bunch of incompetent clowns, he could strangle the Dalai Lama on the White House lawn in full view of the cameras and they wouldn’t be able to pin it on him.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, March , 2014
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