{"id":650,"date":"2014-05-07T07:18:19","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T07:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/?p=650"},"modified":"2014-05-07T07:24:13","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T07:24:13","slug":"democrats-obama-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Democrats\u2019 Obama Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cSunday Review \u201csection of the New York Times<\/strong>\u2014what used to be called the \u201cOp-Ed\u201d Section\u2014unerringly reveals liberals\u2019 current fantasies and fixations.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re in a panic about the surpassing incompetence of the Obama presidency, a somnolent ineptitude so perverse and pervasive it could damage the reputations of all known accomplices\u2014including Hillary.\u00a0 No less than three articles in the latest \u201cSunday Review\u201d attempt to inoculate Hillary from Obama-Incompetence.<\/p>\n

Start with Maureen Dowd\u2019s column titled \u201c42 and 45 Overpower 44\u2014As singles hitter strikes out, Hillary\u2019s on deck.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m not positive, but I\u2019m pretty sure this is Dowd\u2019s first column since 1999 that does not mention \u201cW\u201d and \u201cRummy.\u201d\u00a0 Her new target is Obama, whom she attacks as \u201cfatigued and fed-up.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cObama\u2019s reign has become increasingly bloodless . . . Things have now reached the point where it feels as though 42 and 45 have already taken over the reins of Washington power from 44, who is fading Snapchat-fast.\u201d\u00a0 (Not fast enough; he\u2019ll be golfing at Andrews Air Force Base for another 33 months, but who\u2019s counting?)\u00a0 Of course, Dowd wants us to forget that Hillary was a chief \u201carchitect\u201d of Obama\u2019s incoherent foreign policy\u2014something the House Benghazi hearings will prevent.<\/p>\n

Then we have globe-trotting savant Thomas L. Friedman explaining to us that, yes, our foreign policy is a mess and the U.S. is on the wrong track, but \u201cIt\u2019s Not Just About Obama.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThere has been a festival of commentary of late bemoaning the pusillanimous foreign policy of President Obama,\u201d but Tom wishes to \u201crise in \u2013 partial \u2013 defense of Mr. Obama.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cTo pretend that Obama\u2019s wariness is just because he\u2019s a sissy community organizer\u201d is nonsense, Tom tells us.\u00a0 It\u2019s partly the fault of, let\u2019s see, \u201cthe decisions by the Bush I and Clinton teams to expand NATO,\u201d the Bush II team deciding to fight two unsuccessful wars, the weakness of our European allies, the political fragility of Mideast nations, our $1.3 trillion debt to China, and political corruption in Ukraine.\u00a0 But there is a still deeper cause of American weakness in the world, according to Tom:\u00a0 \u201cOur biggest problem, though, is not Europe or Obama.\u00a0 Our biggest problem is us and our own political paralysis\u201d which has produced a failure \u201cto do more nation-building at home first\u2014including infrastructure investment, replacing income and corporate taxes with a carbon tax, a major new push for both energy efficiency and properly extracted natural gas, skill-building and immigration reform and gradual long-term fiscal rebalancing.\u201d\u00a0 In Friedman\u2019s reckoning, these numerous domestic policy failures have nothing to do with Obama.\u00a0 He\u2019s just President of the United States.<\/p>\n

Then we have a full-page editorial titled \u201cPresident Obama and the World,\u201d where The Times<\/strong> addresses the widespread perception that \u201cthe world sometimes seems as if it is flying apart, with Mr. Obama unable to fix it.\u201d\u00a0 It was a mistake, the Times<\/strong> acknowledges, for Obama to fancy himself a transformational figure whose mere election would enhance America\u2019s global stature.\u00a0 It admits further that the \u201cperception\u2014of weakness, dithering, inaction, there are many names for it \u2013 has indisputably had a negative effect on Mr. Obama\u2019s global standing.\u201d\u00a0 The Times<\/strong> gamely wades through Obama\u2019s various foreign policy misadventures–Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, “the Asian puzzle,”\u00a0Israel and the Palestinians, “Arab turmoil”–\u00a0to demonstrate that \u201cMr. Obama\u2019s record on foreign policy is not as bad as critics say.\u201d \u00a0Faint praise indeed.<\/p>\n

One thing is certain.\u00a0 Vladimir Putin won\u2019t let Obama\u2019s foreign policy problems go away.\u00a0 Obama would have to improve the situation with a humbling change of course\u2014a policy \u201creset,\u201d if you will.\u00a0 Unfortunately excessive humility is not generally counted among Obama\u2019s personal deficiencies.\u00a0 So the next two and a half years could be challenging for Hillary and the Democrats, as well as for Rand Paul and other so-called \u201cneo-isolationists\u201d in the Republican Party, who will have to recalibrate their approach to foreign affairs.<\/p>\n

Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2014.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cSunday Review \u201csection of the New York Times\u2014what used to be called the \u201cOp-Ed\u201d Section\u2014unerringly reveals liberals\u2019 current fantasies and fixations.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re in a panic about the surpassing incompetence of the Obama presidency, a somnolent ineptitude so perverse … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[331,333,335,336,25,337,334],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-foreign-policy","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-maureen-dowd","tag-new-york-times","tag-obama","tag-rand-paul","tag-thomas-friedman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallstreetandkstreet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}