Charles Pierce on Cuba and a Obama as a non-lame duck

[MBS]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_President_Messes_Up_The_Rebranding

. . . As I will explain in lengthier detail in an upcoming edition of Esquire: The Magazine, a president is only as lame a duck as he believes himself to be, and this one doesn't seem to believe himself even to have a slight limp. Granted, Senator Professor Warren was right about that awful goodie tucked into the luggage rack of the Cromnibus,. . . In response to six years of being called a "dictator" for just trying to keep the lights on in the government, he dropped an executive order on immigration right on their heads. Now, in response to six years of being told he was un-American, and a friend to the country's enemies, he's handed them the ultimate exploding cigar.
(quoting an AP story): "Wednesday's announcements followed more than a year of secret talks between U.S. and Cuban officials in Canada and the Vatican. U.S. officials said Pope Francis was personally engaged in the process and sent separate letters to Obama and Castro this summer urging them to restart relations." (Ed. Note: The pope remains The Most Interesting Man In The World) . . .

. . .(talking about Rubio's speech) . . .

Leave aside that the history of the presidency since 1900 has been a long record of coddling dictators and tyrants, and then deposing them in order to install new dictators and tyrants. Leave aside the fact that, if Rubio wants this country not to coddle dictators and tyrants, he should stop insulting Jimmy Carter, the only president in my lifetime who made human rights a priority over coddling the various dictators and tyrants that his predecessors installed. And leave aside the fact that the greatest dictatorship and tyranny of our time fell partly because Russians wanted blue jeans that cost less than a strike fighter, and because Czechoslovakia had kids who loved the Beatles. The idiotic Cuban boycott has isolated the Cuban people from the greatest weapons in our soft power arsenal, and I renew my longstanding call for Major League Baseball to put a team in Havana at the earliest opportunity. Cheap tickets and cheap airfares -- My management strategy will conform in all things to the management principles of the late Bill Veeck. -- and you'll draw from all over the Caribbean Basin, and it makes a helluva lot more sense than having two teams in Florida. (MLB missed a great opportunity when it didn't move the Expos to Havana, by the way.) We almost blew up the world over Cuba. Whatever we owe the shrinking band of angry Batista fans in Florida, and their noisy spalpeens, is a debt we paid in full long ago. As policy, this is a no-lose proposition.
As politics, of course, it's completely brilliant. Fresh off the Triumph Of The Morons, the Republicans now have two major freak-outs in their base that will do nothing except inflame the implacable Right, and thereby cripple the party's ability to reach out to the new Hispanic voters it claims it wants to attract. The president has dressed Mitch McConnell and John Boehner in meat suits and sent them to feed the wolverines. This is extraordinarily well-played. . . .

[Scuba]

1. Pierce gets it, and uses his words masterfully.

[longship]

2. "he's handed them the ultimate exploding cigar."

Shit! Charley Pierce is fucking good.

I love him on Wait! Wait! too.

Then, there's this:

The president has dressed Mitch McConnell and John Boehner in meat suits and sent them to feed the wolverines. This is extraordinarily well-played. . . .

And very well played by you, Mr. Pierce.

[riversedge]

4. I have read Charles Pierce's work for a long time. I like his work for the most part

[summerschild]

3. Meat suits to feed the wolverines! Oh, God, Charlie - - I LOVE YOU!