Americans are finally starting to figure out that he doesn’t have any.
Which is, of course, quite frustrating to those of us to whom this was obvious six years ago. And there was never any sensible reason to think otherwise.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Relentless incompetence: Americans are starting to give up on Obama.”
Unfortunately, at least two years too late. I’d like to see the latest “buyers’ remorse” polling of 2012 voters.
[Update a while later]
Obama’s failing foreign policy: Groping for a reset:
At this point, none of President Obama’s foreign policy problems can be solved by a teleprompter. The President doesn’t need more speechwriters or better ones. He needs something totally different: He needs some real-world wins. You don’t demonstrate your mastery of world events by making smart speeches about how intelligent your foreign policy is; you demonstrate your mastery of world events by having things go your way.
…The world is a big place, and there are lots of issues to choose from, but the President now urgently needs to put some points on the board. Otherwise, his authority will continue to erode.
As it is, the President appears to be second guessing himself, but in the worst possible way. He is stepping up support for the Syrian rebels, but not by enough to make a difference on the battlefield. He is proposing new military spending for Europe, but at such a low level that his proposal disappoints his allies and reassures his opponents. One can hope that some things are happening behind the scenes, but from what we can read in the press, President Obama is still splitting differences and splitting hairs when he could and should be making a stand. This is President Obama at his worst: months of agonizing and logic chopping ending in a strategy that fails.
The essence of strategy is to align your ends with your means: to match your goals and your resources. The core problem that has dogged this President from the beginning is a failure to do that. His goals have always been high and difficult, but he hasn’t wanted (or perhaps felt able) to invest the political, financial, or military resources that such large goals require. To heal the breach between the United States and the Arab world, for example, is a noble and a worthy goal, but it is extremely hard to do and would take much more money, political engagement, and policy change than President Obama has been willing to put on the table. Nuclear disarmament, a global climate change treaty, democracy in the Arab world, victory in Afghanistan, detente with Iran, the establishment of R2P as American doctrine, Israeli-Palestinian peace: This is less a foreign policy than a catalog of Holy Grails.
Based on a delusional view of the real world, and how it works. As he notes, the “reset” that is really needed is in the White House. And it won’t happen with its current inhabitant.
In related news, Americans now targets for Taliban. From that conservative bastion, TIME.
http://time.com/2826442/taliban-kidnappings-bergdahl/
Thank the Force for Obama’s incompetence. A competent statist in the White House is much more to be feared than “Il Dufe.” Obama’s incompetence is probably liberty’s last best hope.
It’s not just that this administration has failed to succeed at its objectives. At improving relations with Russia, improving relations with middle eastern countries, de-escalation, nuclear disarmament, fighting al qaeda, improving the economy, etc. Rather, at every turn this administration has bumbled so badly they have actively made things worse, in some cases much worse. Relations with Russia are the worst they’ve been since the end of the Cold War and getting worse by the minute. Iran has become a nuclear power in plain sight with few consequences of note. The heavy reliance on drones in persecuting attacks on terrorist organizations has created a huge backlash and increased the popularity of anti-Americanism in places like Yemen especially. The arab/islamic world has been in chaos from Nigeria and Kenya through Libya, Egypt, and Sudan through Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq to Turkey and Pakistan. Not to omit the other great geopolitical messes in Ukraine, North Korea, China, Vietnam. Meanwhile al qaeda and their cohorts are resurgent and probably more powerful than they have been in over a decade.
And the economy? We’ve been in an economic stall for over half a decade. The only reason it isn’t worse is because we are a much richer nation today than we were in the 1930s or even the 1970s. There are about 2/3 of a million (0.5%) more jobs today than there were when Obama was elected, while the population has grown by 13 million (4%), with the population not in the labor force growing by 12 million. Even those figures discount the horrific state of the current economy. Over the past 6 years zero jobs have been added for adults under 25, despite an increase of 2.5 million in that population. Early work and income sets the stage for an entire lifetime, and many young folks are being denied a future because of the sad state of the economy and the high cost of increasingly mandatory higher education. The number of jobs for people 25 and over who have only a high school degree or less has decreased by 3 million.
If America were a person, its friends would have long since staged an intervention to point out how badly things are going and how everything they’re touching has been turning to shit ever since they got addicted to Obama.
Obama needs a reset because he is incapable of understanding events that took place before he was President. In the real world, there is no fresh start. You can’t shake up the etch a sketch. You have to deal with conditions as they exist when you take office not wish them away or ignore them because they don’t fit your world view.
Wasn’t Mr. Obama supposed to be the President who would listen to the generals instead of going it alone? I don’t offer this in snark but in all earnestness after this USA Today item,
“The deal to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees held by the U.S. military nixed a Department of Defense effort to include other U.S. citizens held by the Taliban and its allies, according to a top congressional aide.”
“Wasn’t Mr. Obama supposed to be the President who would listen to the generals instead of going it alone?”
That was the claim but he shortchanged his general’s requests for troops during his Afghan surge and then pulled troops out before the surge was over. He picked a general to lead the effort but then never met with him. Obama then fired the general because people on the general’s staff,while out drinking, said Biden was stupid. Criticism of the administration is the only thing that can get one fired under Obama.
“Wasn’t Mr. Obama supposed to be the President who would listen to the generals instead of going it alone?”
In order to listen to them you have to first arrange to talk with them. Obama didn’t speak to McCrystal for months and months and months after the inauguration….October 2009.
There’s one thing Obama is very good at doing:
Spiteful, arrogant punishment of people who disagree with him.
Oh he’s EXCELLENT at that!
Here’s the latest:
Feds say no end in sight for policy of ‘dumping’ illegal immigrants in Arizona, Gov. Brewer says
“Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday she is “disturbed and outraged” after she was informed by federal officials that not only has the government been shipping illegal immigrants out of Texas and “dumping” them in her state, it has no plans to stop.
Federal officials told Brewer Friday that the practice will continue for the foreseeable future, and this weekend more than 1,000 illegal immigrant children will be “dumped” in Arizona. Adults and family units will also arrive, though Brewer was not told how many, her office said.
……………………
“This is a crisis of the federal government’s creation, and the fact that the border remains unsecure – now apparently intentionally – while this operation continues full-steam ahead is deplorable,” she said in a statement.
Brewer said the federal government never formally informed her administration of the practice and has never explained it.
Brewer said she has demanded answers from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and is again calling on President Obama to terminate the practice.
“I am disturbed and outraged that President Obama’s administration continues to implement this dangerous and inhumane policy, meanwhile neglecting to answer crucial questions our citizens demand and deserve,” she said. “
The above came from:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/07/feds-say-no-end-in-sight-for-policy-dumping-illegal-immigrants-in-arizona-gov/
“He is stepping up support for the Syrian rebels, but not by enough to make a difference on the battlefield. He is proposing new military spending for Europe, but at such a low level that his proposal disappoints his allies and reassures his opponents.”
Obama is – and always was – about image…how things look. Not how things actually are.
Part of the reason the MSM is beginning to turn on Obama is due to something I wrote about last year, in this blog:
Battlespace prep for the future.
It’s time to lay the groundwork for the Hillary Clinton Campaign. As such, it’s important to differentiate Clinton from Obama. So you can expect to see 3 efforts ramp up – some have already begin:
1) Cries of RASCIST! will begin to recede and be replaced with cries of MYSOGYNIST!
– That has already begun.
2) Attempts at disassociation between Clinton and Obama’s policy/actions will have to be made in order to convince the electorate that they would not be voting for 4 more years of the same thing.
– Look for a number of examples where Clintonistas use the phrase, “Hillary ran on a totally different policy in 2007…….”
3) MSM and Dem Pols will have to start badmouthing Obama policy/moves in order to create daylight between Hillary and Obama.
– This has already started. Again note, however, that the Dem pols utter only words…there hasn’t been, and will not be, any substantive action on the part of Dem pols to alter anything Obama does.
Another thing Obama – or his crew – is very competent at, is creating a crisis (often by lawless action) which forces the GOP to either vote on a clearly Progressive Solution or look like heartless bastards.
Case in point:
Obama Thugocracy causes hundreds of thousands of children form other countries to immigrate illegally into the US. Now the GOP either votes money for lawyer food shelter medical care and education or is made to look like heartless bastards.