Moe Lane

Newsbusters (via Hot Air) has the details.  Short version: the realization that our current President is actually a pretty bad communicator of what I will charitably call his faction’s “ideas” is starting to sink in among our Beltway would-be overlords.  Particularly among the circadian media.  It then follows that, should a member of said media happen to want to get President Obama re-elected, it would be necessary to do some of the heavy lifting him- or herself.  Alas, there isn’t a block and tackle in existence that can lift Obama’s domestic policy out of the Swamp of Fail, so if you’re a self-appointed agitprop specialist for this administration you’re left with talking up the President’s foreign policy, which at least has the virtue of not having anything to do with Obamacare.

But, wait!  How can any of these people talk up Obama’s foreign policy ‘successes’ without also talking up George W Bush’s, given that the former is pretty much (badly) imitating the latter?  That’s a silly question: they open up their mouths and start talking.  You don’t think that they really meant all that old talk about how awful Bush’s foreign policy was, do you?  No, that was just pap for the room-temperature IQ Left – pap designed to get the media’s Democratic Beltway buddies some sweet, sweet House and Senate chairmanships.  But now things are serious.  Just ask Tom Friedman. (more…)

Ouch.

Obama clearly wishes to do good and means well.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, that’s pretty much the worst thing that you can say about a person in English.  It’s what you fall back on when you can’t credibly claim competence or experience for somebody.

Via Riehl World View.  Read the whole thing, although with a title like “World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur” you almost don’t have to.  It is… instructive… to consider that it’s hard to come up with an ally whom we haven’t insulted in the last two years.  Canada’s upset over our trade shenanigans.  Great Britain feels like it’s being repeatedly kicked because of the President’s daddy issues.  India is wondering why the heck the White House isn’t interested in building on Bush’s outreach.  Israel’s visibly deciding that the American government is more likely to condemn Holocaust II than it is to prevent it.  Western Europe’s getting exasperated with our fiscal policy, Eastern Europe’s getting nervous at our willingness to let the Russians repossess them, and we even managed to tick off Japan over the Okinawa air base thing.  And don’t get me started on South America.   About the only ally that I can come up with as being still more or less unscathed by our foreign policy is maybe Australia.

Now watch: the President will get caught on tape sneering at [ yellow tail ], or something.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

This article is only superficially funny when directed towards our current President’s foreign policy reputation; or, more accurately, our current President’s lack of same.  In its pop-cultural way, it’s actually devastating.

Let’s move forward a bit from Machiavelli for our strategic guidance. Let’s refer instead to the great classic of American strategic pedagogy, Happy Days.

[snip]

In one episode, Fonzie tried to teach Richie his style. Richie practiced the grimaces, the flexes, the stares, but alas the bad guys were not impressed and certainly not deterred.

In the midst of a desperate scrape, Richie turned to Fonzie imploringly and asked: Why are my deadly looks, threatening flexes and strategic grimaces having no effect?

Oh yeah, Fonzie replied, I forgot to tell you. For all that to work, once in your life you have to have hit someone. You cannot imagine a deeper strategic insight.

(more…)