Because everything is political to me, it is kind of awesome to think about how disastrous the last week has been for Trump. While he was spending the week launching racist attacks at President Obama, the WH is busy tracking down the man who attacked Trump’s city and finally bringing him to justice. Then, yet another birth certificate copy is released, and Trump is forced to claim victory while everyone outside the teatard base is laughing at him. He then gets demolished Saturday evening by Obama and Seth Meyers. On Sunday, his television show, Celebrity Apprentice, is knocked off the air for breaking news, and while Trump is last seen debating whether to fire lil John, Obama strides out to inform us that Osama is dead. The dagger through the heart, though, is that this Osama news is so momentous that no one, not even the Fox news hacks or the villagers at Morning Joe, want to have Trump on to whine about how mistreated he was on Saturday.
I’m loving it.
Libby
Admit, the only joy I feel at this moment is that the thumping of Trump on Saturday night will not capture the news cycle for the next two days, as I had expected when I went to bed last night.
Observer
@Cole: Amen to that, brother.
kerFuFFler
I’ll repeat this joke just to pile on:
Trump’s campaign slogan: We shall overcomb!
Mike in NC
We need to coin a new word, “SchadenTrump”, for extreme assholes who get what they deserve.
AkaDad
Republicans were right about Obama. Getting Bin Laden proves that he’s the most Liberal President ever.
ulee
Trump will need to see the death certificate. Otherwise we’ll have to take the president at his word.
moe99
Steve Benen makes two important points today. First that really no credit should be given to W for this as Cantor is trying to do, because if you look at the facts, W disbanded his OBL unit in 2006. Second, in 2008, McCain said getting OBL was just not that important. Never forget this about the Republicans.
catclub
Well, to all the folks who claimed that Obama’s timing was pefect in waiting a while before releasing the LFBC. I now disagree.
I think that Trump could have been allowed to self-immolate for a while longer, all to the harm of (real) GOP presidential candidates.
Montysano
Hello Balloon Juice community. I’m back after 4 days without power here in north Alabama. Luckily, we suffered no damage, but within 7-8 miles of our house are areas of complete destruction.
I hate the circumstances that brought it about, but I gotta tell you: unplugged was kind of awesome.
jibeaux
This is, however, excellent news for John McCain.
Does anyone else remember McCain saying, oddly, during a debate “I know where he is, my friends. I’ll get him!” and me thinking, “well, if you really know where he is more specifically than Afghanistan-Pakistan, which my grandmother knows, maybe you should share this information with the US government now rather than waiting…?”
zmulls
@catclub, I agree. If you want to think politically about it for a moment (since this is John’s “political thinking” thread); you have to wonder if releasing the long form BC was done this week in part because Obama knew that by the end of the week, any discussion of the BC would be wiped off the news….
bkny
exactly.
and it’s especially enjoyable to see that donald trump will be disappeared from further national consideration.
Exurban Mom
@Montysano: Very glad you are okay and back with us. The devastation was hard to get my brain around from the TV coverage…can’t imagine what it’s like on the ground there.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
Trump who?
stuckinred
Captain Choi, recently drummed out of the Army under DADT celebrating?
GADNYNJ
Obama is Michael Corleone wrapping up all the loose ends on his way to the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Badass…
Ash Can
Cole, you nailed it yesterday when you said
SFAW
Cole, you’re an insensitive bastard for not feeling The Donald’s pain.
Montysano –
Glad to hear you’re OK, I hope the same is true for your friends and family in the area.
Seebach
Can someone list for me all of the wars that Republicans have won?
Also, you don’t get to count the Civil War because they regret winning that one.
Cacti
This would have happened sooner if Obambi had passed the public option!
jibeaux
I kind of wonder if the whole clown car that is the Republican primary will be even more clown-y. Or possibly it will just hold the same number of clowns on the inside that it would appear to hold on the outside.
Just saying, if I were Pawlenty, I’d probably be thinking “eh, Minnesota actually has a lot of things which require my attention…”
gnomedad
Enhanced.
PurpleGirl
@jibeaux: Yes, I do. I disregarded the claim as faux boasting; because wouldn’t you share that information with the relevant authorities.
Bobby Thomson
@catclub:
I disagree with your disagreeing. Releasing the long form showed the lunacy of the conspiracy theorists (and enhanced the credibility of the president) – and nothing since 9/11 itself will breed more conspiracy theories than the death of Osama bin Laden.
Punchy
The old lady and I are having a contest to see just how the Repubs will criticize O today. The teatards won’t allow them to praise Obama, so they’ll have to be creative in conjuring up some slams. We think they’l go the “u waytd sinz August 2 do this! ” route…
Mr Furious
Eyes on the prize, and alla that shit. The douchebags last time around would’ve blown the operation trying to rush it by Election Day or something.
This is what happens when you focus on getting the goddamn job done, and done right.
It’s more than impressive how long they kept this quiet and how focused everyone was from top to bottom.
Anyone who thinks Obama should not be getting the credit for this isn’t stopping to think about how badly someone at the top of the chain could fuck something like this up. No, he didn’t pull the literal trigger, but I give him credit for holding the gun really fucking steady.
Maude
@Ash Can:
That says it all.
Made the mistake of going to look at Atrios comments. Oh, brother.
SFAW
It’s still 18 months away. Poppy was sittin’ pretty after Kuwait, ya know.
Virginia Highlander
I gotta bad case of schadenfreude.
And I like it.
A lot.
Tom Levenson
@bkny: Actually, it’s my sincere, deep hope that the rage he must be feeling just now will be enough to derange him to the point that he actually decides to declare and run, just to show us all, ya know.
He could truly be the gift that keeps on giving.
Vanishingly unlikely, I know…but a man can dream. ;)
Gin & Tonic
@Montysano:
How awesome was it for the food in the freezer?
djesno
i just found fake OBL death photos are spreading around the intertubes….
by noon today the birthers will become “deathers” and start screaming like cuba gooding, jr., “show me the bodayyyyyy!”
Fred
The opportunistic douche bag is at it again.
http://theobamadiary.com/2011/05/02/priceless-2/
WereBear
@Montysano: Glad to hear you made it through.
I found out as an adult that I’d been through a tornado when I was two; it explained why they scare me so much.
Judge Crater
Also too, all that waterboarding of people during Bush/Cheney produced nothing and solid, Sherlock Holmes type sleuthing by the CIA got results. So much for torture as an intelligence method.
MattF
Do you think The Donald has the sense to lie low for a while? I certainly hope not, but we shall see.
Napoleon
What are the chances that Mark Halperin says that Trump won the week?
Linda Featheringill
@Montysano:
It can be.
nancydarling
@djesno: They were already calling in to Washington Journal this AM demanding just that.
jibeaux
@SFAW:
Sure. But if there’s a Clinton hiding among these “contenders”, I haven’t seen him/her yet. I haven’t seen a Kerry either. It’s just wall to wall Mondales as far as I can tell.
Mnemosyne
This may also explain why Napolitano announced the new “terror threat scale” this week.
wonkie
My bet is that in about three days the Rethugs and the corporate media will settle o their meme: anyone who gives Obama credit for taking out Bin Ladihj is being partisan and shuold be criticized for demeaning a national vicotry that belongs to everyone.
‘Ten dollars to a dog rescue. Any takers?
Kane
The thing is, when you’re a millionaire and you have a bad week, you’re still a millionaire.
Sure, Trump is a laughingstock. But Trump has never given the impression that he really cares about his reputation, and people have been laughing at him for years.
Marek
I know what you mean, but NY isn’t “Trump’s city.” He can’t have it.
SLKRR
@Seebach:
The Spanish-American War, bitches!!
Georgia Pig
Just par for the course for Trump, another magnificent failure he will survive, cockroach that he is. However, a bad couple of months for Republicans. They get pantsed by Obama and Reid in the budget negotiations, overreach in Wisconsin, release that suicide pact called the Ryan Plan and hopelessly watch as their party is hijacked and driven into ditch by a reality show clown. Then the Leader From Behind gets bin Laden’s head on a pike.
Citizen_X
@Montysano:
Hooray!
Shit.
Good to hear you’re alright, though.
maya
FOX NEWS BULLETIN: But…but..but… we have Saddam’s pistol right over here.
Montysano
@Gin & Tonic:
We have a ’50s-era gas stove, so we could cook. We basically emptied our freezer, as well as taking food from friends’ freezers, and cooked. Then went looking for people who wanted/needed to eat.
Rosalita
@Montysano:
Glad to hear you are okay. I have a friend in Decatur, we were texting while he was in a shelter that evening. Really scary stuff.
Chris G
@jibeaux: That’s just unfair to Mondale. The GOP primary is a pack of Mike Gravels, except MAYBE for Romney, who might possibly almost rise to Rueben Askew on the very best days of his political career.
RossInDetroit
I wonder how the ‘primary Obama’ hysterics are feeling this morning.
SFAW
I think you’re being optimistic. Mondale was well known, but had the Carter albatross to contend with. And, I think Carter was a relative unknown prior to 1976, and yet he beat a sitting President. (Yeah, I realize Ford and Obama are different, etc.)
Look, I hope you’re right, but taking things for granted is a good way to get beaten.
Earl Butz
Too bad, they did it right. Wrapped him in an American flag, put some lead weights in there, and shoved him over the side with the rest of the ship’s garbage.
And that was far better than he deserved.
Greyjoy
I spent all last week seething every time I saw a headline with Trump’s ever-increasing BS. Today I am totally Nelson-laughing and pointing. “HA-ha!” Man. Epic.
Linda Featheringill
@Montysano:
Ah, a movable feast. Actually sounds kind of fun, like a slow-rolling party. :-)
jibeaux
@SFAW:
Fortunately, I am not running Obama’s re-election campaign. I’m not taking anything for granted, or not trying to, but yes, I am laughing at them. They’re *begging* me to.
geg6
Josh Marshall had a good take on this very matter this morning:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/05/always_more_to_the_story_1.php#more?ref=fpblg
Legalize
@wonkie:
This is already settling in as the official meme.
Shade Tail
John Cole:
Everything *is* political. I don’t like it, but it’s true. There are going to be people (three guesses who, and the first two don’t count…) who will try to twist the President’s accomplishment for their own selfish purposes. This is universal; there is always someone who will try to do that with everything.
And we ignore that at our peril.
SFAW
No argument here
General Stuck
Dispatch from Wingnut Central Command. Stop
GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor.Stop
Stop
Stop
Cognitive Dissonance set at DefCon Dumbass. Stop
Republicans beat rubber chicken to death. STOP
eyelessgame
Maybe the lesson here is “do not piss this president off”.
bluehill
I don’t have military experience, but the more I read (assuming it’s correct) the more I’m impressed with Obama’s leadership and decision-making: patient surveillance, multiple attack options, deciding not to bomb and send in special ops to ensure OBL was killed.
Yes, the military and special forces carried out the attack, but Obama and his security team made decisions that allowed them to do what they are trained to do. More importantly, Obama had the balls to do this. He could bombed the bejeesus out of that place, but risked a deep penetration into a foreign country with questionable allegiances.
Remember when Obama ordered the killing of the Somali pirates holding the American cargo ship captain? I think that gave us a prelude into how the President would deal with something like this.
All while dealing with the budget stand-off and Trump’s birther nonsense.
Nice to have a leader who walks the walk.
scottinnj
I saw the best tribute this morning, just outside the PATH station entrance at Ground Zero, which was about 2 dozen soldiers (some in dress, camoflague or sweats) just standing silently at full attention and saluting Ground Zero. It didn’t seem planned, just happened to be what a bunch of soldiers coming by spontaneously did.
I do get the cheering but I think this kind of silent tribute by those that serve and who remember what is important today is the most moving and appropriate tribute of all. All I can say and think is that our men and women in uniform are just f-ing awesome.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i think the only thing obama did on saturday, that pointed to what he knew was happening sunday, was when he referenced the the celebrity apprentice, and how the decision to fire gary busey is one that would keep him up nights.
because that is a whole lot funnier in retrospect.
Adrienne
I disagree. The dagger through the heart is that the WH scheduled the announcement for 10:30pm, prempting half of Celebrity Apprentice, but Obama did’t come out for an HOUR after that! Millions of people literally turned off the Apprentice to stare at an empty podium in the East Room, waiting for President Obama. It would be irresponsible not to speculate on whether Obama did this on purpose….
Captain Howdy
@jibeaux:
McCain also said, in 2008, that he wouldn’t go into Pakistan to get OBL:
“Larry [King], I’m not going to go there and here’s why: because Pakistan is a sovereign nation.”
TaMara (BHF)
@Montysano: Okay that is so awesome! Glad to hear you’re okay. Sorry about the big mess. It is hard to fathom both the destruction and the deaths.
chopper
i think he’s getting Trumpmentum.
PurpleGirl
@Montysano: During one of NYC’s blackouts I had a house guest. In the morning I offered to make breakfast and the guest was surprised and asked “how can you do that without electricity?” “Easy,” I said, “the stove uses gas.” The guest, from the IL, only knew electric appliances.
Thank you for helping feed others.
Tractarian
John, you’re assuming that Trump is not a liberal plant, in cahoots with Obama, tasked with the objective of delivering the Dems a 100-seat House majority and 60% popular vote share for Obama in 2012.
So far, in this entire Trump saga, I have seen nothing that persuasively rebuts that theory.
JCT
@bluehill: I think the interesting story behind all of this is the suggestion that all of our resources (military – intelligence – executive) are actually working together and from a standpoint of what appears to be mutual respect.
The my way or the highway, blustering stuff appears to be waning.
This is an encouraging sign.
chopper
@General Stuck:
lol. ‘i commend president obama for following the vigilant plan of president bush, who bravely disbanded the CIA’s bin laden unit and gave up entirely on the search for this asshole. because obama wisely followed this plan, bin laden was located and killed, again thanks to president bush’s vigilance in ignoring the issue entirely’
WaterGirl
@Montysano:
What a great thing to do. thank you.
Earl Butz
@Captain Howdy: Your tears are so delicious I’m going to toss the rest of the Monday donuts in the trash and pass your sobbing butthurt out to all of the employees instead.
Montysano
@Linda Featheringill:
It was very enjoyable. But we’re sparse meat-eaters, so we’ve had more meat in the last 4 days that we’d eat in several months. Tequila also, too, so Mrs. Monty and I feel a bit… fuzzy this AM.
Still no power, phones, or internet at work, which, for a small business struggling to survive, is worrisome.
Fred
@Georgia Pig: On the 8th anniversary of the “Mission Accomplished” banner to boot!
handsmile
While it’s indeed satisfying that the Trump Carnival has been chased out of town for the moment, does schadenfreude get any more delicious than the heaping mounds of steaming crow that Village Elder and WaPo Editor-in-chief Fred Hiatt must now gorge upon after his latest homily: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-obama-too-rigid-to-seize-a-mideast-mome.
Read it and weep (copious tears of laughter), my friends. Keep in mind this piece was not published in The Onion. (Also, too, read it before it’s scrubbed.)
If the man had a morsel of honor, he would suddenly realize that his family needs him more than the long-suffering readers of the Kaplan Test Prep Daily.
General Stuck
BREAKING NEWS
ANOTHER RUBBER CHICKEN FOUND DEAD UNDER REPUBLICAN CIRCUMSTANCE
President McCain
edit – drat, scooped again
catclub
@Seebach: How could you forget Reagan’s victory in Grenada? Historic!
Xecky Gilchrist
@Tractarian: So far, in this entire Trump saga, I have seen nothing that persuasively rebuts that theory.
Indeed, the only plausible rebuttal is Occam’s Razor: Trump really is as much of an egotistical, racist moron as he appears to be.
Chad N Freude
I guess that Accomplishing the Mission explains why US Air Force bases raised their alert levels yesterday. (Haven’t seen any press reports, but I have connections.)
catclub
@chopper: But it was Bush’s brilliant knowledge that only by disbanding his OBL unit would OBL let down his guard and be captured.
I bet the secret letter that presidents leave for their successors was a map to the OBL hideout. It just took Obama this long to learn to read it without a teleprompter.
…this is fun. I could make bank as a rightwing troll.
WaterGirl
@handsmile: Your link didn’t work.
MaryRC
@handsmile: It’s gone already. Clicking on that link takes you to “We’re sorry, that page can’t be found.”
Bet Glenn Reynolds is wishing the Examiner would do the same with his editorial.
brendancalling
i’m beginning to wonder if Trump’s birther act isn’t a sophisticated punking… of the Republicans.
catclub
@TaMara (BHF): Now multiply by about 1000 and you start getting to how hard Japan was hit last month.
elmo
@Tractarian:
I’d like to test that theory.
/RupertGiles
Shade Tail
@handsmile:
“We’re unable to locate the page you requested.”
Already been scrubbed. Still hilarious.
Virginia Highlander
@MaryRC:
No, just a busted link. This one should work.
bluehill
Hiatt’s editorial:
Missing a Mideast moment?
The ideology behind Obama’s caution
By Fred Hiatt, Sunday, May 01,11:08 PM
We all know that when Barack Obama moved into the White House, a supple and pragmatic thinker replaced a rigid ideologue.
alt-tag
President Obama during his March 28 national address on U.S. action in Libya.
But what if what we all know is wrong? What if history is proving George W. Bush to have been the more adaptable, and Barack Obama the more rigid — or, to put it in positive terms, consistent?
Start with the truism that no president gets the presidency he expects or plans for. Where each distinguishes himself is the extent to which he bends his goals to changed circumstances or seeks to bend those circumstances to his purpose.
Probably no president shifted more dramatically than President Bush after Sept. 11, 2001. The man who had run on a platform of humility abroad and modest government at home proceeded to invade two countries, evangelize for democracy and dramatically expand the size and power of government.
Obama has confronted at least one and arguably two historical shifts of comparable importance to al-Qaeda’s strike on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The first was the near collapse of the financial system and the danger of a second Great Depression. Obama responded ably and aggressively, continuing the rescue operation Bush had begun and extending it to the car companies and beyond.
But he did not allow the crisis to reshape the priorities he had brought to the White House. Instead, he repackaged them. Reforms of health care, schools and energy were resold as essential to repair the economic imbalances the financial crisis had revealed. A giant spending package ostensibly aimed at stimulating the economy was crammed with measures, from computerizing doctors’ offices to promoting merit pay for teachers, that had more to do with Obama’s original policy goals than with economic stimulus.
Now the president is facing another seismic shift, of less immediate relevance to Americans but arguably of equal or greater historic significance: the stirrings of democracy across the Middle East.
Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, recently told my colleague David Ignatius that the White House recognizes the Arab Spring as an epochal event, equivalent to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire or the decolonization of the Middle East after World War II.
He’s right: In just a few months, ordinary people across the region — ordinary in everything but their courage— have upended decades of expert explanations that Arabs would never rebel against their dreadful dictators. The risks, to Israel and the fight against terrorism, are sizable. But so are the potential rewards for a region that has been left behind for so long and for U.S. security and world peace.
Yet going back to the failed Green Revolution in Iran in 2009, and continuing through the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, the only constant in Obama’s response has been its slow and halting inconsistency.
Some observers have puzzled at the caution. Others have praised what they see as the president’s pragmatic understanding that every country is different and requires a particular and thoughtful response.
But maybe the president is just being faithful to the plan he brought to office.
The guiding principle of foreign policy for Obama the candidate was engagement: the notion that by embracing the diplomacy that Bush supposedly had neglected, Obama would restore U.S. standing in the world. Where Bush had lectured and bullied, Obama would embrace alliances, international law and a more realistic acceptance of America’s declining relative power.
The thesis has had limited success. There have been diplomatic achievements with Russia, and a peaceful election in Sudan, but little or no progress in key targets of administration engagement: Iran, Burma, North Korea, Israel-Palestinian peace.
Still, when the people rose up in Iran, Obama seemed reluctant to disturb the possibility of negotiating with the ayatollahs. In Egypt, the administration was reluctant to give up on a partner who had promised to help in the Middle East peace process. In Syria, it seems reluctant to give up on a dictator who might someday promise to help in the peace process. In Libya, Obama’s commitment to a modest U.S. role has taken precedence over winning a war he hesitantly entered.
There’s virtue in consistency and danger in wild swings. Bush’s with-us-or-against-us epiphany proved unsustainable in a complex world, and his insight that Arab dictators, although allied with the United States, were feeding the terrorism that threatened us did not translate into a workable new policy toward the region.
But there’s danger in consistency, too — of failing to seize opportunities that unexpectedly present themselves. The Arab Spring could all go wrong or fizzle, but it could also prove comparable in import to the fall of the Soviet empire. You’d hope to see America doing everything within its considerable power to nudge it in the right direction, even if that requires a change in course or a shift in ideology.
[email protected]
SFAW
The comments to Instadork’s editorial are breathtaking in their stupidity, inanity, insanity, and making-shit-up-ness. (I especially liked the “stagflation” comment w/r/t Obama.)
It’s reassuring, in a kind of sick way, to know that no matter what, wingnuts will continue to ignore reality. One would only hope that Darwin worked a little faster on those imbeciles.
Svensker
@Montysano:
Hope things go OK. Nice of you to do what you did but so sorry you had to.
WereBear
Since this is a political thread, let me say, politically speaking, what this event means:
Game over.
This is the most profound political defeat since Grant took Lee’s surrender at Appomatox. The defining moment of this century, for our nation, was the September 11 attacks. And we had to sit on the sidelines as the utter screwing up of the aftermath took place.
Now, with this action, the closure has taken place; the healing can begin. And in the clearest, starkest, most emotional of terms, the meme has been set.
And it’s not in the Republican’s favor. Historians are going to look back and peg this as the Beginning of the End.
kay
@General Stuck:
It’s such a stupid thing to say. “Who has followed…”
How far back are they going to go, and how do they get away with the ridiculous things they say. I choose to go back to…Bill Clinton and terrorism. Or, Jimmy Carter. Yup. That’s my argument.
This is a national conservative leader. He’s not supposed to be like the Tea Party lunatic part-time state legislators we follow here. He’s supposed to make sense.
It’s so gross how the Bush PR team fan out periodically. They’ll be defending him until they draw their last breath.
Svensker
@MaryRC:
Heh, indeedy.
VOR
Pawlenty is not going back to Minnesota, his term as governor was complete in January 2011. He left a $6B deficit behind for his successor. Fun fact: he did not got 50% of the vote in either of his gubernatorial elections. I doubt he could win a Senate race against the well-regarded incumbent Senator Amy Klobachar in 2012 after spending 2007-2008 running for VP and 2009-2010 running for President while occupying the office of governor. Just not much residual good will in Minnesota for Mr. Pawlenty outside the core of the Republican party.
nancydarling
@WereBear: It’s not over without a fight. We can’t rest on President Obama’s laurels. He need us all now more than ever to do the blocking and tackling while he carries the ball.
djesno
@Tractarian: um, troll alert?
rikryah
love this post..
BWA HAH A AH AH AH
grandpajohn
@Adrienne: Ya THINK?
Its amazing how many non-verbal ways an intelligent person can say, “Don’t fuck with the Lone Ranger.”
Perfect Tommy
So did the WaPo folks have some advanced notice of Obama’s planned diss and invite Trump to the prom so they could watch as the bucket of blood is poured on him?
john b
@Chad N Freude:
yeah working at an AF base, we got a text warning yesterday afternoon. I figured it had to do with Libya in some way.
john b
@MaryRC:
the hiatt editorial isn’t gone. the link provided upthread was just wrong.
here’s the correct link
camchuck
@Napoleon:
That was my first thought. He might be forced to spin this one as a toss-up.
MazeDancer
The President just presented 2 posthumous Medals of Honor. One to a brave man from Hawaii. Which was felicitous serendipity to hear patriotism and the 50th State linked today.
Just hearing Mr. Obama speak is calming. Watching him be strong, sure, country-loving Commander-in-Chief is uplifting on such an emotional day.
Uloborus
@WereBear:
Yes. Like I said in the last Obama thread, OBL’s death is only a part of why people are celebrating. We feel good because we can finally FEEL like Bush is no longer in charge, like one of his most giant fuck-ups has been corrected and the US government is no longer incompetent. Like something has been accomplished. That it’s a man’s death is immaterial. We’d been stuck in stasis because our leader was a selfish drunken frat boy for a decade.
Bob Loblaw
@WereBear:
This is so, so dumb. This isn’t the end of the Cold War. Al Qaeda hasn’t even carried out a successful international attack since London 2005. OBL really was nothing more than an over-the-hill criminal and fake Muslim leader with negligible following, more done in by democratic aspirations of Muslim youths than anything the US was able to do to him.
And yet perception is worth more than reality. So I guess it’s true. The administration can keep its 2011 drawdown date, throw parts of Afghanistan back to the Taliban and move on. The story of the triumphant dual surges of Iraq and Afghanistan will live on forever. Obama will be hailed for bringing about the “successful” end of the war on terror.
And should an Iraqi or Pakistani blow up an IED in Grand Central Station five years from now, we hopefully won’t do it all over again. Hopefully.
Karen
You know what they say:
Slow and steady wins the race.
Trump is so desperate for publicity that at first he said that he decided in his mind to run for Pres but it’d have to wait until the end of Apprentice. Then his new tack is to offer to cease the fighting with Obama for now.
How generous of him!
Southern Beale
Oooh I didn’t know that. We don’t watch that show.
Awesome.
handsmile
Wading back into the comments stream….
To Blue Hill (#92 above): Many thanks for retrieving and posting Hiatt’s entire sermon. Just ignore those messages from Fred’s attorneys inveighing against Fair Use violations.
To Watergal, MaryRC, john b, ShadeTail et al: My apologies for what is now evidently an inoperative link. At the time I simply copied what appeared in the buffer of the WaPo page.
To Perfect Tommy: Anyone who adopts as user name a character from “Buckaroo Banzai’ is indisputably a person of impeccable taste and breeding.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: How do you know that the poster is not the actual Perfect Tommy?
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I’m pretty sure that independents will notice that Obama did in just two years what Bush was unable to do in seven. Fox News and the other Republicans will do their best to lipstick that pig, but facts is facts and I don’t think there’s any dogwhistle loud enough to distract people from that.
Brachiator
@Bob Loblaw:
Why would they do that? No one from Iraq or Pakistan was responsible for 911.
And of besides, if the Iraqis have a grievance, it will be in part because of Dubya’s phony war, not some endless cycle of violence.
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus:
Perhaps the trauma has clouded your memory: In his battles against the World Crime League, Perfect Tommy was kidnapped by minions of Lord John Whorfin and dispatched to the Eighth Dimension. The cosmic cruelty still rends my heart.
Bob Loblaw
@Brachiator:
Well, technically, any number of Pakistanis could very well be “responsible” in some way for 9/11. We’ll never know officially. At least, not for decades.
But I wasn’t talking about a cycle of violence, so much as pointing out that there are a couple hundred million people out there who take a slightly different perspective of our demonstration of national greatness in the war on terror, and all it ever takes is a couple dozen to stir shit right back up.
danimal
@WereBear: I heartily agree. I believe this is a bookend event, a turning of the page from Reaganism to Obamaism. The victory over Al Queda, of which the killing of Bin Laden is the coup de grace, allows the nation to pivot from fear to hope.
The GOP remnants will not have the same resevoir of fear from which to refuel. Reaganism was launched with the failure of a special ops effort to free the Iranian hostages. The end of Reaganism comes with the success of a special ops effort. A nice bookend.
The economic failure of Reaganism has been apparent to anyone with an independent thought for the past two years. The Reaganite foreign policy requires a unifying ‘other’, a target to direct our fears. That figure is now dead, feeding fish. The pragmatic, analytic Obama approach to foreign affairs represents a significant departure from Reaganism. The withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, already planned, will now proceed with the support of a majority of Americans.
I’m getting long-winded, so I’ll just echo what you said: Game Over.
Elie
@danimal:
From your lips to God’s ears. Truly. We so need to return to rationality and pragmatism on the left and right. Can we do it? So many people seem to want to have the soap opera — to make real life into a reality show morality play. They despise planning, deliberation, fairness, balance — and accountability above all.
Tom Q
“Obama’s re-election is now assured” and “This will have no impact; remember Daddy Bush” are equally simplistic takes. You have to look at the totality of a presidency. Though I think the system as a whole is too anal, Lichtman’s Keys system does a good job of explaining how voters weigh the totality of the evidence.
Obama, like Bush I with the Gulf War, has unquestionably gained the “foreign policy success” key Lichtman cites. But otherwise their presidencies are quite different. Bush I was non-charimsatic and a caretaker; Obama is charismatic and has effected major policy change. Add this victory to what Obama already had, and you see a guy moving toward re-election. Bush I was always on the borderline, vulnerable to the recession and charismatic challenger that came along. Obam is in better shape to begin with, and I don’t see full-blown recession or, more definitely, a charisnatic challenger coming his way.
Mnemosyne
@danimal:
Just wanted to re-emphasize this part. I think a lot of independents and Blue Dog Democrats were reluctant to wind down the wars while Bin Laden was still at large. Now that he’s dead, they’re going to be a lot more likely to support the withdrawals.
Bill Arnold
@Mnemosyne:
The Obama-faked-OBL’s-death conspiracy theories, or some of them at least, will feature this as a motivation. One hopes that opposition to withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan won’t become one of the right-wing litmus tests.
SFAW
First of all, it’s “Poppy”, not “Daddy”.
Second: for someone using the word “simplistic”, your understanding of what I wrote is limited.
So, here’s the explanation for you: when Desert Storm was a rousing success, and Poppy had an approval rating somewhere near 90% (I think), people assumed he would be unbeatable in 1992.
But things/conditions changed, as they often do, and his foreign policy success (which Desert Storm absolutely was) did not translate into a guaranteed re-election.
I did not say (nor imply) no impact. I merely cautioned re: over-hyping a big win 18 months before an election.
Brachiator
@Bob Loblaw:
Well, no. There is no evidence of Pakistani involvement, nor any reason to believe that there was Pakistani involvement. This is at the same level as saying that Saddam Hussein was behind 911. Hey, you never know what we might find out decades from now. Not.
So, people’s behavior should be based on what a couple of dozen people might do? No wonder the Tea Party People think that they are the most important people in America.
And it’s not as if the US government sponsored rallies and trucked out celebrants. And most of the celebration has been relief as much as chest thumping, and not much in the way of any anti Muslim sentiment (as far as I have seen so far). It just seems pointless to expect human beings to behave as though they were at a Vulcan funeral.
Tom Q
@SFAW: And what I was saying was, some of us DIDN’T view Bush I (who I’ll call whatever I choose) as unbeatable in ’91 because we saw his other debits (slow long-term economic growth, lack of charisma, no major achievements), and felt he was still vulnerable. Whereas Obama’s considerable assets (under Lichtman’s rating system) make him a far stronger candidate for re-election today, with this foreign policy success only moving him further up the ladder.
SFAW
Yes, and “some people say” and all that.
And, from what I hear, based on Lichtman’s rating system, the Mets won last year’s World Series.
Glad you were so prescient in 1991. (Well, actually, glad for the result of the 1992 election.) But rather than (apparently) assume that my initial comment was a version of “Everybody, including Tom Q, was certain that Poppy would win in 1992″, why not take it as a less-personally-directed, more generalized comment, and stop trying to show us all that you’re wicked smaht.
Tom Q
@SFAW: You know, the funny thing here, when I first posted, I was half-taking your side — I think the Wag the Dog-inspired “this alone’ll win the election” view is fallacious, and, if the economy goes back into recession, there could be a cascading of events that does lead to an Obama defeat. But I also don’t hold that just the economy slowing is enough to cause Obama’s defeat, either, and I think this achievement counts permanently in the plus column for him. I tried to explain how it differed from ’91/’92, as dispassionately as I could.
I’m sorry if (as it seems) you took the whole thing as lashing out at you or my trying to claim genius status. I think Lichtman’s system has proven, over 30 years, to do a good job of predicting elections, including those initially projected the other way (as in ’88). I was attempting to share it. Nothing else.
maus
@Chad N Freude:
My Canadian coworker was stopped for an extra-thorough screening this morning.
SFAW
Tom Q –
OK. I’ll try to dial it back a bit. Thanks for the attempt to enlighten me and others. (Yes, I’m being serious.)
Let’s hope you’re right re: Lichtman.
No one of Importance
@Southern Beale: Schadenfreude pie is so very sweet and delicious :)