A Scheme Deferred
Barry Bugs Out
Tom Englehardt nails the true nature of President Obama’s address to cadets at West Point:
Certainly, the choice of venue, and so the decision to address a military audience first and other Americans second, not only emphasized the escalatory military path chosen in Afghanistan, but represented a kind of symbolic surrender of civilian authority.
Rush Limbaugh’s wistful musing about a military coup is more oblivious than devious: after a perfunctory, brief struggle, the coup is victorious (Of course, if the president had been arrested at West Point and replaced with a military junta, I’m not entirely sure Limbaugh wouldn’t find a way to justify it. Are you?). Under political duress, the president has accepted the role of conditional, if not yet nominal, Commander-in-Chief, surrendering an authority he doesn’t want and wouldn’t know what to do with anyway. Now he bites his nails and waits, like the rest of us.
But it’s not the president’s prerogative to divest himself of command over the armed forces to avoid its political consequences–elite convention notwithstanding. The extraordinary executive power over war itself remains, insulated from legislative or judicial interference, nominally vested in an elected president, wielded by a cabal. This is dereliction of duty of the highest order. The Commander in Chief has abandoned his post to cower in the rear while his mutinous subordinates take command.
But okay, this is all retrograde and simplistic, I know. Just the sort of thing to set elite eyes rolling, like taking the Constitution and sovereignty too seriously. Let’s crassly accept the “political reality” and acknowledge the asymmetry between the White House and the the military establishment :
The Pentagon dictates policy directly to the Republican Party, Fox News, conservative radio and Internet, while fighting to a draw in the contested middle that is the the unallied media.
Obama, on the other hand, leads a party divided on the war and has a more conditional alliance with a media complex–MSNBC, NPR, etc.–that is both less powerful and less subservient than their adversaries. It’s no great boast, but the liberal media and Democratic Party have, on this issue, shown superior independence and character. The difference casts in relief the decadence of the Republican Party and its staunchest media organs.
Meanwhile, in the Boy Wonder’s White House Joseph Biden, garrulous and glib, self-imagined Caesar to Iraq’s Gaul, is what passes for a pragmatist and sage. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (her position the product of a previous political capitulation), known for taking flight in hectoring recrimination before the galling indignity that is the unscripted media encounter, is sent abroad to placate a resentful world. The charmless representing the clueless. God help us.
Rush is certainly genius at sucking in rabidly-left partizans with his style of humor.
You’re hoping we will believe that Obama did not choose the TIME and place of announcing his plan? You’re suggesting that this is NOT Obama’s plan?
You’re saying that FOX NEWS is more closely aligned with GE and the rest of the military-industrial complex than NBC/MSNBC/CNN?
This article is lunacy, and if it was meant as satire, you sure sucked me in – the way Rush does on a regular basis to the estimated 10% of his audience that is hanging on every word trying to find an opening to attack him with.
The large reality that you wish to ignore, as if you were some rabid-lefty, is that this administration is all about rewarding those who have helped Obama. Unions, Leftist Politicians and Activists, Hollywood, MSM, the names are legion.
“The Pentagon dictates policy directly to … conservative … Internet…”.
Are you directly controlled by the Pentagon? Or, are you not conservative? Or not Internet? Or was the above something you made up, and don’t believe?
I’d have to place this post right up there with holiday fruit cake.
You’re saying that FOX NEWS is more closely aligned with GE and the rest of the military-industrial complex than NBC/MSNBC/CNN?,
Ideologically, yes; this is not disputed by the sentient. What I said was more specific: Fox’s credulity toward the Pentagon is unconditional.
…this administration is all about rewarding those who have helped Obama. Unions, Leftist Politicians and Activists, Hollywood, MSM, the names are legion.
Also not in dispute, and in no way contradictory of anything I’ve written. If anything, this supports it; the parties are coalitions of factions. And if this was a post about the relative merits of Left and Right, this would be relevant. I call this the Fallacy of Exclusivity. Maybe I’ll bore everyone with a windy post on the topic.
Are you directly controlled by the Pentagon? Or, are you not conservative? Or not Internet?
Name one “conservative” Internet publication, other than TAC and a handful of individual blogs, that is not every bit as predictable as, for instance, Rush, on the issue of war.
I’d have to place this post right up there with holiday fruit cake.
In a cool, dry place, then. Properly prepared, fruit cake is a delicious and relatively healthy confection; it’s only because of the proliferation of the inferior, mass-produced, dried-out cakes that somehow became a staple of the holidays that “fruit cake” came to be synonymous with inferior (or nutty; nuts are not a necessary ingredient). Johnny Carson used to joke that there’s only one fruit cake out there, people just keep passing it along every Christmas. If that’s true, your comparison is apt; there’s only one Dennis Dale–dry, itinerant, unwelcome, received without enthusiasm.
Excuse me while I bust a freestyle:
When I’ve confounded every man to the last,
Only then will my designs come to pass
Just don’t pass that one fruitcake along with your designs. If Republicans and Democrats are two wings of the Establishment Party, and if most members of the Establishment Party depend on war PROFITS to help finance their reelection campaigns, what are the odds conservatives and lefties who don’t believe in killing Muslim children for PROFIT could convince American voters to vote AGAINST every single incumbent in the House and Senate running in next year’s midterms?
Only when the rich bleed toward war,
Will mankind learn to war no more
Those of us who have never described ourselves as conservative drop by TAC because this is one of few sites posting about what seems (to some of us) painfully obvious: there is no right or left in America – certainly not with any proximity to power. The most salient feature of today’s political landscape is the continuity between administrations that were supposedly so different. You can’t fit a sheet of paper between the policy of Obama’s economic team and Bush – in fact, some of the big players are the same people. As to Obama’s war department – that guy Gates – isn’t he the same Gates that worked for Bush? In style, Obama is less belligerent to other countries and to the English language than was Bush. But that’s just style.
Polls would suggest that had Obama announced a withdrawal rather than Surge II, a plurality of Americans would have been behind him. But the collective heads of the Beltway would have exploded. Obama played to his base.
People who voted for Obama (I did) and who are now disillusioned have no one but themselves to blame. They also have nowhere to go.
Rush is certainly genius at sucking in rabidly-left partizans with his style of humor.
You’re hoping we will believe that Obama did not choose the TIME and place of announcing his plan? You’re suggesting that this is NOT Obama’s plan?
You’re saying that FOX NEWS is more closely aligned with GE and the rest of the military-industrial complex than NBC/MSNBC/CNN?
This article is lunacy, and if it was meant as satire, you sure sucked me in – the way Rush does on a regular basis to the estimated 10% of his audience that is hanging on every word trying to find an opening to attack him with.
The large reality that you wish to ignore, as if you were some rabid-lefty, is that this administration is all about rewarding those who have helped Obama. Unions, Leftist Politicians and Activists, Hollywood, MSM, the names are legion.
“The Pentagon dictates policy directly to … conservative … Internet…”.
Are you directly controlled by the Pentagon? Or, are you not conservative? Or not Internet? Or was the above something you made up, and don’t believe?
I’d have to place this post right up there with holiday fruit cake.
If this was meant as a satirical comment from a dittohead, I say Bravo!
“the liberal media and Democratic Party have, on this issue, shown superior independence and character”
The Democrats were voted in to office by Americans to dial DOWN the wars, not escalate them. They are doing the exact opposite, and their partisan media are not saying a word about it.
To me, that’s not an exemplar of “superior” anything, let alone “character” and “independence.” By running and winning on dovish posturing, and then selling out those who voted for them to appease the various warmongering lobbies actually makes them worse than the GOP and its partisan media, who don’t even pretend to be dovish.
Americans are all being sold out by two lethally cynical parties and their partisan media that are all corrupt to the core.
For the record, that’s superior to their counterparts, not superior in general; again, no great boast. But it must be noted; there’s some debate in the Democratic Party on the issue while the Republicans march in lockstep behind the President, heckling him occasionally for not going far enough. The same goes for their respective media adjuncts.
“But it’s not the president’s prerogative to divest himself of command over the armed forces to avoid its political consequences–elite convention notwithstanding. The extraordinary executive power over war itself remains, insulated from legislative or judicial interference, nominally vested in an elected president, wielded by a cabal. This is dereliction of duty of the highest order. The Commander in Chief has abandoned his post to cower in the rear while his mutinous subordinates take command.”
Are you on acid?
How is what Obama discussed last Tuesday not a plan for the treatment of a problem? The military/civilian relationship that exists in this country is not an issue Obama was elected to deal with, especially in the middle of two on-going wars. He was elected to deal with war, by definition that means dealing with the bureaucracy that is the Pentagon. So he goes to West Point to look in the eyes of the kids being trained there to explain to them the plan he spent three months trying to get as right as he could, and that is somehow the capitulation of a weak man to an overwhelming group of DC barons?
Perhaps you’ve been at your keyboard too long.
The GOP and the Dems are like an old dog that can’t learn new tricks. The GOP has played the “national security” card for so long, as the Democrats have played the “race” card, neither knows, nor is willing, to learn anything else.
Nearly all sensible conservatives and liberals understand, if only instinctively, that America is economically stretched to the breaking point. Yet the fools at the helm of both parties, and even most of the American establishment, suffer from a bad case of metaphysical Marxist-think: ‘We create our own reality. The rules of history don’t apply to us. We can continue our pampered lifestyles and maxing out the credit cards as we always have. Besides, in the end, we’re all dead, anyway.’
In the end, what Marxist-think actually amounts to is an intellectual rationale for maintaining ones own state arrested development and ignoring the problems that state of mind has created. It was really the perfect poison for the infantile Baby Boomer generation — a kind of ready-made potion that allowed them to stay perpetually self-indulgent and selfish while at the same time looking down their noses at their Christian forebears, who built the country and its prosperity, as “backwards” and “intolerant.”
As it turns out, for all their “sophistication,” they will have done more damage to the country and probably the world than any generation of Americans before them.
Obama must love Limbaugh. The imbecile makes an absurd and inflammatory comment every time Obama needs someone to rally his base. And the Left rise to the bait every time, embracing Obama as a “progressive” against the “right-wing hatemongers.” It’s like off-broadway theatre. (That may not be fair to off-broadway.)
Gates is already backpedaling substantially from any withdrawal commitment. Ross Perot may have to bring back his sucking sound, but relocate its origin.
Biden as a foreign policy expert and Hilary as SoS. The US is the one who needs to send the SOS.
Or maybe just some cheerleaders with pom-poms to cheer on the latest imperial adventure in Afghanistan. “Nigel, Nigel, he’s our man, if Nigel can’t do it . . . Ivan can! Ivan, Ivan he’s our man, if Ivan can’t do it . . . GI Joe can! . . .” and so forth until we run out of names, I guess.
Are you on acid?
No. But I’m beginning to think everybody else is. Maybe it’s the fruit cake. How’s the Kool-Aid?
How is what Obama discussed last Tuesday not a plan for the treatment of a problem?
Whose plan? The problem he’s treating is one of electoral viability. Has he even succeeded in detailing the nature of the problem in Afghanistan? As an aside, if that clumsy sentence was a dog, I’d shave it’s rear-end and train it to walk backwards. Couldn’t hurt, after all. Too little time at the keyboard?
The military/civilian relationship that exists in this country is not an issue Obama was elected to deal with, especially in the middle of two on-going wars.
This one is astounding. Let’s all just admire it together. He wasn’t? War negates civilian authority over the military? First Obama echoes Bush, then his supporters echo Bush’s, as they demand we shut up and “listen to the Generals!” Civilian control over the military is in crisis. Harry Truman sacked MacArthur for insubordination. Currently, the president hasn’t even the confidence to muzzle the Petraeus faction. How did we get here?
Is this like one of those optical illusion posters–if I stare long enough at the pattern a coherent picture will emerge (maybe a unicorn)?
Oh wait, I have an idea–pass me one of those tabs.
Very entertaining and thought provoking. I enjoyed the comments. You are of great value to us.
I just disagree strongly with the thesis of your original post.
dennis dale, you a man after my own heart. bravo sir. bravo.
Ditto to Tito! And thanks to Dennis Dale! That Mr. Dale’s article states the obvious is no criticism of it. From the majority of comments that have been made about it, it is clear that the obvious is opaque to most of the commenters.
And why the ad hominem attacks on Mr. Dale? And why are you inane morons reading The American Conservative in the first place?
My only quibble is Mr. Dale’s comment that MSNBC or NPR are “less subservient than their adversaries.” Wrong! MSNBC merely runs a television network for profit, not a loss-leader propaganda machine for megalomaniacs. For MSNBC the issue is market segment: it has found a market segment, the disgruntled left, who will tune to programs that caterer to disgruntled leftists (or Pat Buchanan conservatives or Constitutional scholars or couch-potatoes-as-freedom-fighters). As responsible corporate stewards, the execs of MSNBC cater some programming for these disgruntled leftists (et al), but purely as market segment and as potential consumers of advertising.
MSNBC assumes that these several cohorts use Preparation-H and Geritol just like the rest of ‘news’ show market segments (surely a splendid commentary on those who watch the ‘news’). Give those leftist hemmorhoidal geriatrics their own ‘news’ programs, sell a tube or two of hemorrhoid cream along the way, make a little money off ‘em and get back to the rest of the evening programming.
As to NPR, it’s ear-candy for bourgeois-bohemians, its content something to tut-tut over while sipping Chablis. A little dab of government CYA: allocate a soundproof room; stick a microphone in it; hire a couple of unemployed radio flaks who sound as convincing as William S Burroughs’ ‘wise old radio doctor’ ; give them a script titled “Concerned Citizens’ Report on Deplorable Conditions in the World (and on Other Planets such as Jupiter and Washington)”; turn on the juice; turn on the mike; play a little intro music that sounds vaguely like Elgar. And let ‘em rip!
The bourgeois-bohemians yokels—chair potatoes—will lap it up. “Well, NPR is on top of the problem! We listen to NPR; therefore we’re deeply involved in the issues presented there. We’ll send NPR another donation–maybe next year–and NPR and the hundreds of millions of Americans who think exactly like us will sort this thing out in a jiffy.”
Dare I say it? The whole “less subservient” media runs the gamut from Preparation-H to Jiffy-Lube. Preparation-H as Jiffy-Lube. In the meantime Mr. Obama bends over frontward to accommodate, not you suckers, but oligopoly socialized banking, oligopoly socialized corporatism and monopoly socialized militarism.
As to those who accuse Mr. Dale of taking acid, perhaps you should try it yourselves sometime. One of its benefits is to produce a much more interesting prose style and more sprightly rants!
Thank you, but “inane morons” isn’t necessary. None of the critical comments were out of line. It’s all in good fun, I hope everyone understands.