dagblog - Comments for "Dissipating Power"

Well-done Peracles, had

Bruce Levine — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 19:25:37 +0000

Well-done Peracles, had overlooked this with the pace of news. Your point is particularly well taken by yours truly, because I wrote a piece praising Ambassador Powers to no end a few years back. I was genuinely inspired by her book. Here's a snippet of what I wrote, and don't think it's stood the test of time:

Were Samantha Power free to speak on her own behalf right now, I submit she would, without hesitation, use every waking moment to promote whatever intervention is needed to stop the ISIS slaughter. I understand the need to consider other factors surrounding any decision to step up our role. Still, it is my firm belief and conviction that it is both fair and just to ask ourselves whether we as human beings living in the most powerful nation in the world can stand by yet again and do nothing -- as thousands or tens of thousands of innocent human beings are slaughtered -- and right before our very eyes.

All we can or should expect

Flavius — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 05:02:25 +0000

In reply to Dissipating Power

All we can or should expect is an Obama. A "good enough" President.

o One precedent- setting accomplishment (or per Joe Biden , a BFD):Obamacare . Without an offsetting failure elsewhere of equivalent magnitude . Despite the truly despicable efforts of the (dis)loyal opposition.

o Foreign policy ? Comme ci, comme ca.What you make on the bananas, you lose on the coconuts.

o Civil liberties ? A lot of good stuff.

o Presidential image ? Excepting Carter and Bush 41 the first president since Ike who wasn't an embarrassment to the office.. .

What's not to like? I'll take it.

revised to add Bush 41

It is hard to measure our

moat — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 02:13:03 +0000

In reply to Dissipating Power

It is hard to measure our efforts in an unbiased manner.
The first problem is that criticisms couched in terms of the path not taken have the obvious problem of not providing much in the way of a comparison due to the fact that path was not taken. Not much evidence from that front, eh?
If we can learn from experience, it means we take our limitations to heart. One has to go at least half way.
The messaging of the last election cycle omitted consideration of a world as a place we had to fit into. It was only about what the rest of the world could do for us or our excellent qualities that we could continue to provide to them.
I think we need to change this tune.

Yes, I don't think outrage

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 22:01:06 +0000

In reply to I hopped from the Seth Mandel

Yes, I don't think outrage quite gets it either - but how to keep the excitement up while handling the more mundane? How to even communicate that things are moving & where they're going, while the other side is busy burning the Hussites and storming the gates of Kiev (or at least claiming to)?

I hopped from the Seth Mandel

artappraiser — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 17:31:21 +0000

In reply to Dissipating Power

I hopped from the Seth Mandel piece to Andrew Ferguson's on Obama. The two pieces make a nice contrast: which is better, Shrieking Like a Banshee or King of So Much Cool That One Starts to Snore?

It makes me see clearly: neither. Rather: a Bill Clinton, not a Hillary Clinton (who in actuality tends to have a little too much banshee for my taste at least.) There's a big difference between the two, whether Bill likes that judgment or not. There's not one around, unfortunately I got nothing else. Except that I still think, as I did back in 2003 with Bush, that the "outrage" thing doesn't work, doesn't solve anything. Want proof: just visit Israel v. Palestine.