QotD, Nobody In The White House Knows How To Play This Game edition.

(H/T: @allahpundit) I can’t believe that a senior administration official would TELL Yahoo News this:

“Sen. Paul’s 13 hours on the Senate floor won’t have any practical effect on our policy and how we’re going after terrorists on a day-to-day basis,” a senior administration official told Yahoo News on condition of anonymity.

Or, rather, I can; I just can’t believe my luck.  Look – and I’m going to break out the coveted ‘dumbass’ on this one, because it qualifies – look, dumbass: the administration’s biggest short-term problem with regard to drone policies isn’t Senator Paul; it’s the progressives who agree with himParticularly the ones who think that they’re actually libertarians.  They’re all sitting around right now kind of gritting their teeth about that, particularly since we evil knuckle-dragging conservatives and Republicans (including a larger than expected number of Dread Neocons*) are showing that we’ll happily sign off on giving the President a good kicking on general principles.  We’re not going to make giant puppets any time soon, and we reserve the right to (as I think Jonah Goldberg put it once) every so often pick up an especially egregious bad actor nation and smack it against the wall – but not dropping a drone on a bunch of full-contact Occupiers while they’re at a barbecue?  Yeah, sure, we’re down with that.  Especially if the White House can’t even commit to something that basic.

So there’s no point in telling people Oh, yeah, Paul accomplished nothing with this filibuster.  That’s tough guy talk; only problem is, the people that the White House wants to look tough in front of don’t want to hear that Rand Paul accomplished nothing with this filibuster.  They want to hear about when Barack Obama’s closing Gitmo**.  And the defense hawks?  Sure, reassure us that this week’s heartwarming and deeply satisfying exercise in partisan fanservice will have no possible unfortunate side-effects whatsoeverThat’ll stop us from encouraging the next one, ya, you betcha.  And, of course, there’s also one last problem with that argument: if you feel like you have to make it, but you don’t want to put your name to it, then it’s probably not true in the first place.

You know, I’m going to indulge myself again.

…Dumbass.

Moe Lane

*(waving) Hi!.

**Spoiler warning: he isn’t.

2 thoughts on “QotD, Nobody In The White House Knows How To Play This Game edition.”

  1. You know, as someone with a very broad view of the Executive power, I don’t want to say that that killing a bunch of Occupiers who happen to be running a Barbecue is never allowed under any circumstances.
    .
    That said, I really like the Riot Act, and I forget if that is explicitly or implicitly unconstitutional. The Founding Fathers took some care to prevent that from being law, for good and sound reasons.
    .
    Me liking or wanting doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with should or must.
    .
    The inner proponent of using infantry for any and all problems is saying ‘just use infantry instead of drones’.
    .
    The inner transhumanist futurist, who may fundamentally misunderstand AI, is going on about how specifically refusing to permit drones to do stuff is racism, and violating their rights.
    .
    The inner lawyer is pointing out that the positions of the above two are hardly well founded legally, not that it is qualified to practice law.

  2. I’m leaning toward malice rather than incompetence these days. It’s becoming clearer that these schmucks enjoy sneering at those they consider their inferiors–and have zero self-awareness (the anonymous cowards). Not that it’s required, without an adversarial press.

Comments are closed.