Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Even Jimmy Carter occasionally learned a few things from his foreign policy mistakes

Charles Krauthammer ponders the thick-headed cluelessness of BHO, and compares him - unfavorably - to the frequently hapless Jimmy Carter, who at least, every now and then, had a moment of lucidity.
Obama is not the first president to conduct a weak foreign policy. Jimmy Carter was similarly inclined — until Russia invaded Afghanistan, at which point the scales fell from Carter’s eyes. He responded boldly: imposing the grain embargo on the Soviets, boycotting the Moscow Olympics, increasing defense spending and ostentatiously sending a machine-gun-toting Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Khyber Pass, symbolizing the massive military aid we began sending the mujahideen, whose insurgency so bled the Russians over the next decade that they not only lost Afghanistan but were fatally weakened as a global imperial power.

Invasion woke Carter from his illusions. Will it wake Obama?
No, no it won’t. Carter didn’t enjoy the advantage of a Democratic Party that was slavishly devoted to him, nor did he have the kind of adulatory press that clings to Obama like the scent of cheap cologne. All of this blind loyalty creates a sort of white noise that muffles the sound of those odd, and sometimes dangerous, things that go bump in the night, thereby enabling our president to continue snoozing comfortably while the world collapses around him.

The foreign policy ineptitude, plus the ObamaCare disaster, are now combining to sink Barry in the polls, and his wretched performance looks like it may torpedo the Democrats’ chances of holding onto the Senate this fall. Gee, liberals, it must suck to find out that your Manchurian candidate is a complete dumbass who’s tracking dog s**t over all over your red carpet to ultimate victory.

Update: More from Richard Fernandez.
There are no good choices because America is in a foreign policy clip-joint. Everything on the menu is bad and all the liquor is bogus. We should be looking for a way back on to the street and not seeking a way to get further in. The word is out: every bad guy within hail knows Obama is a screw-up and worse, one with delusions of grandeur.

3 comments:

Col. Milquetoast said...

"After my election I have more flexibility"

The problem with Smart Diplomacy was that it was only a rhetorical device to imply that anyone else had Dumb Diplomacy.

Merilyn said...

Wonder when the media [and that includes the media in Australia] will realise that the "Emperor Has No Clothes", they still cling to Rudd and Julia Gillard here.

bruce said...

Yes Milquetoast, Smartypants Diplomacy has all the brilliance of the class nerd.