Cromwell

While this may seem odd at first blush, the best historical analogy I can draw to Obama and his foreign policy involves Elizabeth I of England.  While popular history has treated her reign kindly, the fact is that she was viewed as a ditherer by many of her contemporaries because she consistently resisted efforts to push her into expensive and inconclusive ideological wars, and she preferred the use of proxies, subsidies, and unconventional forces (i.e., Francis Drake) to direct confrontations.  Based on the outcome of England’s military adventures in the century prior to her reign, she had plenty of reason to do so.

Consider the following;

  Elizabeth         v.              Obama

Political Obstacle         Mother Beheaded          African-American

Aspired to Throne        Mary Queen of Scots     Mitt Romney

Foreign Adversary       Philip II                            Putin

Terrorist Problem        Babington Plot                ISIS

Religious Opponent      Catholics                         Radical Islam

War Lessons Learned   France/Scotland            Iraq

Unconventional War   Privateers                        Drones

Agitated for War          Walsingham/Leicester   Graham/McCain

Left Office                      Died                                    Term Limits

And the winner is. . . Ask me in a few years.

 

A life insurance company is running a very revealing ad on TV these days.  In the ad, people were told to put blue and yellow stickers, representing positive and negative experiences, on two walls, one of which represents the past, and the other the future.  The wall for the past was a roughly even mixture of colors;  the one for the future was almost completely positive.

We as a species are wired to be optimistic.  We think that things in the future will be much better than the past even when experience tells us otherwise.  We can’t live without hope;  in fact, some of the happiest people I have known in my life have been the most self-deluded about their real condition.

So it is with foreign policy.  It is tempting to look at Syria or the Iran deal, for example, and assume that a more bellicose policy would have led to better results even though we don’t have any real evidence to believe that.   For example, we could have given the “moderate” rebels surface-to-air missiles to deal with Syrian air attacks, and they could ultimately have been used by terrorists to shoot down civilian airliners.  If we had launched air strikes on Iran, we might have been looking at $10 per gallon gasoline.  The bottom line is we don’t know for certain that these things would have happened, so we completely discount them, and compare the real problems of today with a Brigadoon that never was or would be.

Obama doesn’t get any credit for the problems that he didn’t cause by refusing to militarize our foreign policy, but he should.

Hey, kids, been fightin’ the recession?

You’re lucky that it didn’t start a big depression.

We’ll kill some Wall Street bankers now, so stick around.

You’re gonna hear some hedge fund whining, solid walls of sound.

 

Say Hill and O’Malley, have you seen them yet?

Oh, they are so freaked out.

Bernie and the Banks.

Oh, Hill is so far ahead of me.

Oh, Hill, she is a pundit’s dream.

She’s got missing e-mails

A suspicious tale

You know I read it in Time Magazine.

Oh, BBBBBernie and the Banks.

 

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie and the Banks. . . .

(Parody of song by Elton John/Bernie Taupin)

Imagine for a moment that you are an American plutocrat (I know, it’s hard, but try).  You inherited a small fortune from your parents and grew it substantially; as a result, you view yourself as a largely self-made man.  You have a very healthy ego, but you have learned from bitter experience to stay out of the public eye whenever possible.

Due to the extent of your business interests, you cannot avoid acting in the political realm.  Your objectives are as follows:

1.  Maintain as much access as possible to global markets;
2.  Keep a large, inexpensive, competent, and servile workforce;
3.  Reduce taxes to the absolute minimum; and
4.  Eliminate as many regulatory burdens as possible.

Along comes Donald Trump-a brash, noisy, and egotistical member of your class-who makes populist arguments that are inconsistent with your positions on free trade and immigration, and develops a dangerously large following as a result of it.  Wouldn’t that really piss you off?  Wouldn’t you be willing to spend whatever it took to destroy him?

You bet you would.  And they will.

How ’bout those Cubbies!

No, really, it was more interesting than I thought it would be.  My overall impressions were as follows:

1.  It is far easier to have a meaningful discussion on the issues with five people on stage than with ten.
2.  None of the candidates was a complete embarrassment.
3.  Sanders has a clear and consistent message that is based completely on his assumption that he can mobilize millions of new voters to overthrow the political establishment.  Unfortunately for him, he can’t, so the entire rationale for his campaign is a mirage.
4.  The vapidity of Republican positions is simply taken for granted in this kind of a forum, which means that the most ideologically pure candidate has a significant advantage over a pragmatist.
5. I want to hear Sanders debate Jeb Bush on “free stuff.”

Winners, Losers, and Also-Rans:

Winner:   Hillary Clinton:  Was, as expected, fully conversant with the facts and the issues.  Sounded presidential without being stiff.  Has an amazing ability to change the subject seamlessly when confronted with an issue that doesn’t favor her.

Losers:  Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee:  Webb looked for all the world like a man who didn’t want to be there.  Chafee just sounds like a weenie.

Also-Ran:  Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley:  O’Malley had an extremely wooden opening, although he improved as the night went on.  He needed a big performance, given his poll numbers, but he didn’t get it.  Sanders looks authentic, has a clear message, and had a good moment with Hillary’s e-mail, but he didn’t press his advantage when she changed the subject on the banks.  His responses on guns, which probably cost him support in the audience, were actually reasonable and pragmatic.

The bottom line is that Hillary reassured her supporters, Sanders neither gained nor lost ground, and the others don’t matter.

David Brooks has a column, and Paul Krugman a post, on the GOP and conservatism in today’s NYT.  I would say that both of them are correct in their way, but neither has described the entire picture.

A “conservative,” by any common definition of the term, is someone who is suspicious of change, and objects to it except when circumstances make it unavoidable.  If you apply this definition to the various factions of the GOP in relation to current circumstances, here is what you get:

1.  The enormous tax and entitlement cuts and regulatory rollbacks that are the centerpiece of the PBP agenda are dramatic changes to the status quo which can hardly be called “conservative.”
2.  The CL attempt to radically roll back the powers of the federal government is not “conservative.”
3.  The Reactionary agenda to turn the clock back a minimum of 50 years from today’s social, political, and economic conditions cannot reasonably be called “conservative.”
4.  Only the CDs are in any way “conservative,” and they only make up about 10 percent of the GOP.

The process wherein the GOP became radicalized (some, but not all of it, after 2008) will be the subject of a future post.  Suffice it to say, however, that Krugman is right when he says that the Democrats are the true conservatives in today’s polity.

We have a running gag in our house in which I attribute natural disasters all over the world to a “lack of leadership” on the part of President Obama.  The point, of course, is that he has no control over these events.  The difference between, say, the state of the rebellion in Syria and a tornado is one of degree rather than kind.

“Leadership” is viewed by the MSM and some Americans as strong and decisive action, regardless of its ultimate implications for the country.  By that standard, Lee’s decision to ignore Longstreet’s advice and to authorize Pickett’s Charge was great “leadership.”  Or, to use a more contemporary example, George W. Bush’s decision to engage in a war of choice in Iraq in the face of international hostility was also outstanding “leadership.”

Demonstrating “leadership” is only important to people who confuse self-esteem with the national interest.  The real issue in foreign policy is not whether we are showing “leadership,” but if any given action is in the national interest–i.e., is it the best available way to promote our prosperity and enhance our security?  If so, whether we are perceived to be responsible for it or not is meaningless.

I haven’t written much about the Democratic side of the race because, frankly, it isn’t very interesting.  Hillary is going to be the nominee unless her campaign completely implodes over Benghazi or some other scandal TBD.  In addition, the candidates don’t disagree about very much, so there isn’t a whole lot to say.

That aside, look for the following tonight:

1.  How far left will she go?  Clinton, in my opinion unnecessarily, has been taking positions on issues like the TPP that will hurt her in the general election in order to deal with Bernie Sanders. Both the substance and the tone of her comments tonight will be important.

2.  How does Sanders argue that he can accomplish his wish list in a Congress largely dominated by the GOP?  The other candidates will maintain at least somewhat plausibly that they have a history of successfully reaching across the aisle.  Sanders, not so much.  Does he honestly believe that 2016 will be a tidal wave election, and that the GOP House majority will magically disappear?

3.  To what extent will the candidates distance themselves from President Obama?   Hillary certainly will on the use of American power overseas.  There probably will be some discussion about sticking it to Wall Street, and Sanders could bring up single-payer.  Otherwise, their only real objection to the President’s agenda is his inability to get it through Congress (see #2 above).

If that isn’t enough to keep your attention, you can be forgiven for changing the channel.  I probably will at some point.

 

There once was a pundit named Ross.

Abortion law made him quite cross.

Although a CD

He supported Mike Lee

To be a Republican boss.

The prevailing narrative in the mainstream media suggests that the dispute among House Republicans is a purely tactical one between establishment “adults” and Tea Party “children,” who do not understand the limits of their power and the consequences of their actions.   While there is certainly an element of truth to this, there are differences in the objectives of the two groups that go far beyond mere tactics and should not be minimized.

The different goals of the Reactionaries and the PBPs were laid out in one of my initial posts.  In a nutshell, PBPs are perfectly happy to live in 2015 as long as the government cuts their taxes and reduces their regulatory burdens, whereas Reactionaries want to turn the clock back to 1950, or 1929, or 1913, or some point in the 19th Century in order to restore the political, economic, and social dominance of white Christian men over the rest of the country.   When the GOP is in power, the alliance between the two groups has resulted in the desired tax cuts and deregulation for the PBPs, but has accomplished none of the Reactionary agenda, much of which is beyond politics.  The Reactionaries have become increasingly aware of this, and are restless.

The apparent nihilism of the Reactionaries is, therefore, based on the fact that GOP victories in national elections only give them the illusion of power.  They cannot win national elections without the assistance of the PBPs, but the alliance with the PBPs ultimately gains them nothing.

The GOP idol Paul Ryan

Rejected a job, I’m not lyin’.

The party insisted

His no was persistent

Is House rationality dyin’?

To a PBP, the Obama Administration is seriously misguided, because it seeks to strengthen the state and the lower classes at the expense of “job creators”.  To a Reactionary, it is evil and illegitimate:  evil, because it seeks to undermine traditional Christian values; and illegitimate, because its electoral majority was attributable to voters who are not, in their eyes, “real Americans.”

Given that discrepancy, is it surprising that government shutdowns are popular among Reactionaries, but not PBPs?

The situation with the House GOP has become so absurd, it transcends irony.  The best possible outcome that one can reasonably imagine at this point is for Boehner to stay long enough to make his usual deal to lift the debt limit and keep the government running.  After that, Congress will essentially shut down until the election.

Boehner’s legacy, it turns out, will be the creation of an exception to the Hastert Rule to permit the government to keep the lights on.  What could it be called except the Boehner Rule?

About six weeks ago, there was reason to believe that the Obama Administration’s determination to be patient and engage with our adversaries was being rewarded in the Middle East.  The Iran deal was a breakthrough on its own terms, and opened the possibility that we could pick our allies in the future instead of being stuck with them.  In addition, there were lots of stories about diplomatic activity involving ourselves, the Saudis, and the Russians, which suggested that we might, in fact, be able to create a less beastly Syrian government and subsequently a united front to crush IS.

All that is in ruins as a result of Putin’s decision to double down on his support of Assad.  I will address his motives for that in a future post.  The bottom line is that he is now the leader of a Shiite axis which includes Iran, Hezbollah, the Iraqi government, and the Syrian government.  The best case scenario for us now is deadlock, years of agony for the Syrian people, and more refugees, because a negotiated solution is impossible for the foreseeable future.  The worst case is the Russians and their allies slowly, and at great cost to the population, gain control over all of Syria and Iraq, and we do nothing to stop them.  Our credibility with our Sunni allies would thereby be destroyed, and we would be almost friendless in an area of great strategic importance.

The Obama Administration apparently is basing its current policy on the best case scenario.  At some point, the dangers inherent in action are less troubling than the dangers presented by inaction.  I believe that point has been reached.  In spite of the complexities and perils that we may face, it is time to no-fly.

 

There once was a woman named Hill.

Obama won’t bend to her will

And scrap his new deal.

He’s right, I do feel

The pact isn’t run-of-the-mill.