Droning Blind: Reactions to Obama’s Global War on Terror Speech
If you’ll forgive the lazy pun I’ll return to the regularly scheduled links tomorrow. For now, before interest surrounding military and counterterrorism policy dies down completely, I want to focus on some of the more incisive commentaries on the President’s speech last Thursday.
Jane Mayer is thankful to finally have a President who’s committed to grappling with the tough questions and nuanced moral dilemmas facing him.
Conor Friedersdorf is skeptically hopeful based on what he heard the President say, even if he thinks it’s utterly ridiculous for the President to assume his own legal framework will limit his successors.
James Fallows applauds the speech for, in his opinion, treating its audience like grown-ups, putting terrorist threats in perspective, and generally turning the page on a decade of war.
Garrett Epps outlines a tale of two Obamas.
Glenn Greenwald demonstrates how people will read into the President’s speech whatever they want, mostly because of its penchant for weaving together contradictory principles and ideas.
Ross Douthat looks at how much better Obama is at selling Bush’s war on terror, mostly because of how well he publicizes his anguish.
Tom Junod notes that the lethal presidency originated in deeds, not words, and we’ll require more than just the latter to undo itself.
Joshua Foust explains how the President attempts to eschew accountability for the policies he enacted and still believes in.
Andrew Bacevich searches for what to call the war that Obama refuses to name.
Jack Goldsmith tries but fails to assess the meaning of secret changes to secret standards.
Can I assume that Andrew Sullivan had a favorable opinion?Report
Sully’s reaction mirrored the Presidents speech in sentiment. Favorable but anguished.Report
Wait….Ross Douthat is correct?!Report
I should have included his…also I’d love to read others…please link in the comments if you have a good one…pro or con.Report
It will take a while to work through your links, but the first one by Jane Mayer has come in for all sorts of fun abuse. Hotair take on her article.
I’d have to agree, because to me being publicly conflicted, if not downright confused and uncertain, isn’t automatically praiseworthy in a leader who continues to give orders that result in surprise death from above. Any high school kid can wallow around in moral confusion and self-doubt, or spout endless long-winded explanations about why what he’s doing isn’t really wrong, even though he feels bad about doing it and doesn’t intend to stop, but wouldn’t mind stopping, and, by-gosh, he wrestles with it, so pat him on the head.
As mentioned at Hotair, Obama has ordered the targeted assassination of four US citizens while Bush only waterboarded three terrorists, one of whom planned the 9/11 attacks. He shouldn’t get a cookie for being conflicted over it, or for being conflicted over the IRS suppression of his political opponents, the DoJ wiretaps on reporters, or the prosecution of twice as many Americans under the Alien and Sedition Acts as his predecessors did during WW-I, WW-II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq I & II combined.
He can’t find a guiding moral principle that he’s defending, but he can’t seem to restrain himself either. I guess he wishes the job weren’t so darn hard, bless his little heart. I have a cat that shares his uncertainty. It won’t leave the mice alone, but it can’t bring itself to kill them, either, so it just plays with them till their limp and bloodied, drops them in my lap, and lets me take care of things. Obama is the bad mouser who won’t control the rodents, won’t leave them alone, and demands endless praise for occasionally wrestling with them in a pale imitation of a grown up kitty.Report
Obama has ordered the targeted assassination of four US citizens while Bush only waterboarded three terrorists, one of whom planned the 9/11 attacks
I’m confused, where there no drone strikes under Bush? Otherwise what is the relevance of this comparison? Might as well say Obama has ordered the targeted assassination of four US citizens while Bush only sent massive aid to Africa.
One recurring argument from the right when pressed to defend Bush’s dismal approval rating was that Bush always did the right thing but just didn’t do enough to convince the American people. Obama seems to have learned this lesson very well, understanding the political value in recognizing personal mistakes and nuanced policy decisions. I emphasize “political value” because playing the role of “The Decider President” or “The Anguished President” tells us very little about what kind of policy decisions the president will actually make. But criticizing Obama for learning from Bush’s obvious political mistakes just comes off as sour grapes.Report
As far as I can tell, there were no drone strikes or targeted assassinations of American citizens under Bush. He did prosecute a few that we captured, though.
“Nuanced” isn’t a synonym for “confused.” Negative reactions to Obama’s speech were pretty uniform in pointing out that he sounds confused, often contradicting himself within a paragraph or two. Nuanced thought seems keen, illuminating the boundaries of the complex border lines where ideas abut against each other. Confused thought seems vague, ideas remain lost in a fog, the same fact presented as one thing and then its opposite.Report
As far as I can tell, there were no drone strikes or targeted assassinations of American citizens under Bush. He did prosecute a few that we captured, though.
Again I miss the relevance. Is the conservative argument that Americans actively working for our wartime enemies should be not subject to laws of war (including drones)? Or is the argument that liberals believed as much under Bush and are now hypocrites for criticizing Obama? Or what exactly?
Here, let’s try to de-contextualize it: Police officer O shot and killed four people as they were trying to set of a pipe-bomb, while police officer W only waterboarded three apprehended suspects in the crime. What conclusion are we supposed to draw from this comparison: That W is a better police officer? That critics of W’s police brutality are hypocrites if they also support the actions of O? Does that follow for you because it doesn’t for me.
The Hot Air article you linked to doesn’t talk about “nuance” versus “confusion”, it talks specifically about the different intellectual attitudes between Bush and Obama:
Allahpundit is deeply shocked that people prefer a president that can articulate the complexities of an issue and his difficulty in making a decision to a president that dubs himself The Decider and says he’s got no regrets. Why the hell is Allah shocked to learn this?! After two terms of Bush, if there’s one lesson that readers of any political persuasion should be able to agree on it’s this one!Report
Drone strikes seem to be diminishingReport
I wouldn’t say they drone strikes are diminishing, just that Obama slacked off a slight bit during part of 2012 when he got distracted by campaign fund raisers.
Maybe I’m cynical.Report