People, People, People -- Can We Be Serious, Please? (the politicization of national security).

[laststeamtrain]

People, People, People -- Can We Be Serious, Please?
Posted by David Shorr

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Eight years ago, the new Bush administration gave us 'Anything But Clinton (ABC)' foreign policies. Now we have AODID -- Anything Obama Does Is Dangerous. The administration's policies are beside the point. The chief purpose of foreign policy decisions is to provide another news cycle to charge them with weakness, emboldening our adversaries, undermining our allies, blah, blah, blah. If the criticism has very little to do with the actual policy, only the former really matters any way. I give you the national security debate of 2010, or, the big lie.

I mean, it's galling enough that purported leaders peddle this nonsense, but what really gets me is how no one is really calling foul. In other words, should the milimeter-deep critiques of Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani (these are just the most glaring examples) really count as the on-the-one-hand half of a policy debate? Shouldn't there have to be SOME substance? Even calling it the politicization of national security is probably too polite; how 'bout politics devoid of intellectual honesty or policy seriousness?

Don't take it from me, Daniel Larison exposes the political game in his recent "Hawks are Just Embarrassing Themselves":

"Republicans and mainstream conservatives destroyed their credibility on foreign policy and national security, they have done nothing to improve on the bad ideas and policies that helped destroy that credibility, and so they have to try to position themselves as opponents of a new Carter. They do this even though they have few grounds for any serious objections to what the administration has done, because it is crucial for them to re-establish the link in the minds of the public between Democratic Presidents and perceived or real weakness abroad. This will allow them to posture as the nationalist defenders of the country, which might be enough to make people forget their remarkable failures in the past.

"These critics are laboring under the false impression that by constantly emphasizing their hawkishness and imputing to Obama a dovishness he does not possess that they will turn the public against him. Because Obama continues to be consistently “centrist” and relatively hawkish in his foreign policy, which is mostly a bad thing, he does not provide any real openings for legitimate hawkish criticism. So they are reduced to inventing the “apology tour,” simply lying about the “appeasement of Russia,” hallucinating a “soft” approach towards Iran, constructing a ludicrous narrative of hostility to allies and accommodation with enemies, and topping it off with the silly claim that Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism."

As I understand it, the right wing's knock on current policy boils down to a few simple ideas. 1. America's prime foreign policy objective -- and sole criterion of effectiveness -- is to display as much toughness/resolve/moral clarity as possible. 2. This toughness will translate into other nations complying with America's wishes. 3. Since there's no such thing as excessive toughness or moral clarity, there can never be a cost or down side resulting from actions or policies on behalf of toughness.

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http://www.democracyarsenal.org/

[BootinUp]

1. Tough nut to crack

one of the reasons I supported Wes Clark for Pres in '04.