Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser.
To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt trampled on civil liberties in a way unimagined by Dick Cheney.
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Ronald Reagan signed the most liberal illegal-immigration-amnesty bill in history, and ran larger yearly deficits than Jimmy Carter had. “Read my lips” George H. W. Bush agreed to huge tax increases. And George W. Bush ran up the largest debt of any eight-year president, outspending Bill Clinton more than fivefold. The latter, remember, bombed Belgrade without either congressional or United Nations approval — and without anti-war protests. Without an opposition, almost anything goes.
In other words, right-wing presidents can sometimes act left-wing, and left-wing presidents can act right-wing — to the embarrassed silence of their respective bases, but to the private delight of their greenlighting opponents.
We have no better examples of that irony than our two most recent presidents. George W. Bush was still damned as an uncaring reactionary by the Left even as he pushed for big-government programs such as No Child Left Behind and unfunded entitlements such as Medicare prescription-drug coverage. Barack Obama was alleged to be squishy about hunting down terrorists, even as he increased targeted assassinations tenfold and found plenty of opportunistic former legal critics of Bush’s national-security protocols to write justifications for them.
In terms of the Obama presidency, there is now no anti-war movement. It simply vanished in January 2009. Former outrages like Guantanamo, renditions, and Predator-drone assassinations almost magically became A-okay. The left-wing base dared not continue its old Bush slurs, given its support for Obama’s liberal domestic agenda. Quiet conservatives were perplexed over whether to be outraged that Predator-in-Chief Obama proved to be such an abject hypocrite, or relieved that, better late than never, he had morphed into a Bush-Cheney national-security disciple.
The result is that for the next year or so, Obama can more or less do whatever he wishes abroad. If he chooses to bomb a country that poses no direct threat to the U.S. without congressional authority, like Libya, or to assassinate a U.S. citizen-terrorist, like Anwar al-Awlaki, the Left will keep mum. And the Right, for different reasons, probably will, too.
What, then, should we expect abroad in the waning months of Obama’s four-year term, with continuing economic bad news at home?
Suddenly, intelligence agencies at the U.N., and in the U.S. and Europe — after once denying, during the supposedly trigger-happy Bush administration, that Iran was close to getting a bomb — now warn us that Tehran may actually test a nuclear weapon after all. Iran poses an existential threat not only to Israel, but to the entire notion of nuclear nonproliferation in the key oil-exporting Gulf. Its missiles could reach southern Europe.
1. The antiwar movement is pretty burnt out (and we are--finally--leaving Iraq for good, amen).
2. It's tough to get an antiwar movement going when there's no draft.
3. VDH forgets that W was pretty much Teflon right up to the Katrina debacle. Yup, it took 5 1/2 years before the press actually started asking tough questions to W.
That's the most ridiculous thing I have read today. Granted, its still early, but still. Bush was pummeled by the press as soon as they realized he didn't run screaming and yelling from that classroom on 911. Of course, they would have criticized him for that as well.
There really wasn't an anti-war movement. It was an anti-Republican movement funded by various left-wing groups. True anti-war protesters were pawns in that game. I don't doubt their sincerity but the simple fact that it all evaporated once Obama was elected pretty much proves the fact that it was all politically motivated and not based on a true anti-war sentiment.
As for your point #3, I think your memory is very selective.
Actually, we are still deploying people to Iraq. But I doubt we'll hear about it from the press, only from the families of those who are deployed.
And burned out? With something as serious as the war? You poor things are burned out? We're still in Afghanistan - where are you on that? Are you waiting for 2012 with a new republican president before taking to the protest fields again?
Let’s see now. US Soldiers normally carry close to a 100 pounds of gear into combat in the heat of the middle east, while enduring attacks from an enemy that blends into the local population. They have endured multiple deployments and between deployments are in constant training.
1. The Left's antiwar movement never burns out until a Democrat is in office. Which is exactly what happened with Obama, even though he continued and even expanded many of W's policies. Now, rather that "torturing" terrorists for information, we're just blowing them into a thousand pieces. Gee, I guess it's just more humane.
2. There was no draft during W's entire 8 years, and yet there was plenty of antiwar protesting going on.
3. You conveniently forget about something called 9/ll...and the press did not wait 5 1/2 years to start asking tough questions. That assertion, like everything else you posted is simply a lie.
4. Do you ever ask yourself why fabricating moronic falsehoods is so important to you?
It's a good premise, and supportable, but I think that Obama is too much of an idealogue to really do something so painfully necessary by all wartime standards. His non-action during the Iranian uprisings was a major message to the Islamists. Yes, he's supported the uprisings in the Middle East, but against whom? Rulers which were hated by the Islamists. Not Syria. More likely is that Obama, who hates Israel, will greenlight their attacking of Iran's nukes, then villify them, and set up a no-fly-zone against the Israelis, backed by the Arab League (being a man who loves prescedent...) This has been Obama's way. Set up AIG, then villify them and release the mobs. Set up Fast and Furious, then villify the 2nd...oops, didn't work that time. Still, he'll continue this route. It's all he knows.
Anyone who thinks the USA (especially it's Congress, which is VERY pro-Israel save for a few outliers like Ron Paul) would countenance a US-led no-fly zone over Israel is not living in reality (not to mention the fact that no US or European pilot in his right mind would ever want to fly against Israeli "experten"). Actually, Israel (and by extension the US) would prefer that Assad stay in power. Thanks to Assad (father and son), the border between Israel and Syria has been quiet since the Yom Kippur war ended 28 years ago. If Islamic fundamentalists (and please, fellow NR'ers stop using that idiotic term "Islamist") overthrew the Assad regime, Israel's security would be further threatened. As for Obama's "silence" during the Iranian uprisings, 2 points:
1. American support for the students and urban yuppies behind the protests would have made matters much worse for them (giving the protests a "made in the USA" imprimatur).
2. The protests were not broad-based as in Tunisia or Egypt; they were centered around a small minority of college students and educated urban yuppies. Iran's version of Joe and Jane Sixpack out in the hustings hate modernity, hate the USA and like the mullahs. Just a sad fact of life.
A preemptive strike against Iran is about as likely as the super committee reaching a deal that balances the budget. NOBODY is going to stick out their necks in an election year to do something like that, even if it is the best thing for the country.
How can you cover Washington for all these years Victor, and still not think politicians always vote their own self interest?
jfpack - you missed Mr. Hanson's point, I think. The "weird paradoxes" of presidential politics allow the president to do things, presumably in the national interest, that he/she would otherwise never do because of the feared political fallout - they gain a sort of free pass from their base and from the opposition to do things we would expect only the other side to do. Thus, Obama could strike (or arrange for a strike) against Iran without threatening his political self interest. Indeed, it could actually HELP him with some who like his big-governement-do-everything philosophy but worry about him not being tough enough internationally.
Wait a second, wait a second! The intelligence agencies are telling Obama a regime in the Middle East has weapons of mass destruction? I pity the MSM. What are they going to say?
If we or the Israelis don't take out the Iranian nuclear capability, what's the worst thing that could happen? The Iranians develop nuclear weapons, they attack Israel and wipe out Tel Aviv,then Israel retaliates and wipes out Tehran, Mecca, Damascus, and a few more major cities, then all Islamic countries attack Israel with their conventional forces, then the U.S. steps in to help Israel, and Russia attacks U.S. forces in order to show support for OPEC, which triggers a U.S. counter-offensive against Russia, which drags in China against the U.S. due to its security pact with Russia, which causes the U.S. to have to respond with tactical nuclear weapons against the Chinese, which ultimately drives up the price of most products at Wal-Mart which gets most of their products from China. So, in order to prevent unhappy Christmas shoppers, I think it's a safe bet to assume the U.S. will bomb Iran to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons.
