What a difference a day, or at least a couple, make. I just finished patting Obama on the shoulder for pulling a fast one on the Republicans. Now it seems he’s doing his level best to live up to the caricature the right wing has drawn of him—an empty suit in search of a teleprompter….
Tag: Obama follies
The incredible shrinking Barack Obama
“My credibility is not on the line,” President Obama said boldly. “The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility is on the line.” Yeah, Barack, you’re practically a bystander to all this. Oy, the hypocrisy. How long O Lord, how long, how long will it take to empty the vials…
Barack Obama: Not without guile
Yes, Barack Obama does throw a nice curve, and it’s fun watching the Republicans sputter and fume at the thought of having to hit the damn thing, at the thought of having to actually take, you know, a meaningful position on the president’s poison-pen letter, “let’s attack Syria and any other country I feel like…
The President’s policy on Syria is useless and a disappointment to everyone. Maybe that’s the idea!
Hey, it’s August! Things are slow, and it helps to have something—anything, really—to talk about. So administration officials utter proclamations, explanations, and recriminations, while the chattering class chatters in chattering class heaven. How entertaining it is to see our war leaders, General William “Wild Bill” Kristol and Admiral Leon “Bull” Wieseitier in particular, strappin’ on…
Obama, losing credibility in order to gain it
“He kept us out of Syria!” sounds like faint praise indeed for an American president, but it’s an encomium one can no longer utter in good conscience regarding Barack “the Disappointer” Obama. The only pleasure one can take in this latest administration folly—and it’s grim indeed—is how gracelessly the administration has gone about announcing and…
President Obama: I’ll be the judge, I’ll be the jury
Should being the editor of the Harvard Law Review be a disqualifier for the presidency? One can wonder. A couple of years ago, when pressed on the point of his administration’s disgraceful mistreatment of alleged (and certainly probable) mega-leaker Bradley Manning, the president had this to say: “I have to abide by certain classified information,”…
Barack Obama, sending the Machiavel to school. Again.
Is there glee in the White House over the latest revelations of National Security Agency mega-snooping? I wouldn’t be surprised. Sen. Rand Paul has another arrow in his quiver, and daddy Ron Paul even praised leaker Ron Snowden, saying that Snowden has “done a great service for telling the truth.” That kind of crazy talk…
Calling Justice Scalia
I don’t know if Nino can protect me, but I’m putting through a call on, yes, my Verizon cell. Obama only wants to protect me, of course, regardless of what that awful Glenn Greenwald has to say. Or that awful New York Times. One can hope that reaction to this latest outrage will be the first step…
Obama Woes, and how the Republicans never fail to remind us that they would only make things worse
President Obama, if he isn’t looking mortal, is at least looking awkward these days. The current “triple scandal” will, I think, end up costing the President little, but it does give the Republicans something to yell about, and yelling to no effect is what the current crop of Republicans does best. The Administration’s handling of…
The Education of Fred Kaplan
You’ve got to hand it to Fred: he’s not turning his back on Afghanistan, no matter how crappy it gets. Long ago, I used to ridicule Fred for his Pollyanna reports on our cool weaponry, including a 15-ton “Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System” that, Fred insisted, people called the “70-kilometer sniper round,” which, coupled with our…