The Obama Doctrine Has Never Looked Better

Officer Bolton thinks Obama has already “bungled” Libya, but an even better sign for U.S. foreign policy is that Douglas Feith, with Seth Cropsey, has taken to the pages of Commentary to define and indict the entirety of the “Obama Doctrine.”

Daniel Larison – whose assessment of the Libyan operation is close to Bolton’s in critical respects, if to diametrically opposite conclusions – curtly dismisses the Feith/Cropsey piece as “nonsense,” and then moves on to Tim Pawlenty’s possibly even worse notions as detailed today in a, be still my beating heart!, major speech, but I think “nonsense” is too kind.  Even a cursory glance will reveal Feith and Cropsey’s culpable inability to comprehend anything other than Bush Era neoconservative unilateralism as representing a potentially valid concept of the American national interest.  The result is a vaguely respectable-looking reiteration of far right gutter-political claims against the President’s basic patriotism.

 

24 comments on “The Obama Doctrine Has Never Looked Better

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  1. Come on now, Larison’s the far right winger, in the Buchanan/Ron Paul camp, then again you thought Reagan was a war monger, that was going to provoke a nuclear war like Sebastian Shaw, didn’t you.

  2. Actually it was Kennedy that was the far right-winger who was going to provoke a nuclear war.

    Ronald Reagan was the bonobo that came into office about when the Soviet Union was collapsing and thought he hit a triple because his handlers’ program called for stripping out the money for social welfare programs and buying weapons with it.

  3. That was not the thinking at the time, I could refer you to Galbraith or
    Samuelson, among many sources. My friend Clarice, who travelled behind the Iron Curtain in her work for the OSI, did see the decay, in the place, but that didn’t indicate they weren’t in an aggressive position at the times. Re Jonathan Schell, Helen Caldicott, do I need to go on,

  4. yes do go on…..tell me how their posture could have been all that aggressive elsewhere while they were getting bled in Afghanistan.

    and tell me about Agent Clarice….

  5. @ fuster:
    She’s retired after deciding that her concern over lambs actually makes manifest all the little white puppies being silenced at the bottom of wells.

  6. I thought she might still be with OSI
    but I wasn’t sure what she might be doing.

    All I know is that it’s Mike (not the crazy salt-add(l)ed) Portnoy on drums.

  7. She was with the Nazi hunting division, as well as attorney in private practice, a long time Washington resident, but not with the Beltway
    mentality,

  8. “Bush Era neoconservative unilateralism”? “Far right gutter-political claims”?

    Damn, last time I was here you were claiming that the Tea Party had disappointed you by not being “progressive” (progressive meaning those who want 1960 tax rates and 1700 technology (no fossil fuels! no nukes!).

    You realize have gone over the far-left bend, haven’t you? What a weird, pathetic freak.

  9. @ Ken:

    well, Ken, how do you view claims such as “Obama isn’t committed to defending America” if not “Far right gutter-political claims”?

  10. Why does it have to be “far right”? Why not just “gutter-political claims”?

    Of course, Obama doesn’t show that his heart is in defending America. This is no secret.

    I notice you’re not commenting on MacLeod’s adoption of “neoconservative” as an all-purpose insult. Neoconservatives were liberals who became conservatives while maintaining their liberal goals. None of this describes Douglas Feith or Seth Cropsey, both of whom are lifelong Republicans.

    I suggest that you look at some of CK MacLeod’s old columns from Hot Air. You might then realize how much he has changed. My impression is that he’s kind of a weird solitary dude desperately searching for friends on the Internet, and eager to please anyone who will fill the hole in his head heart.

  11. @ Ken:

    I have noted that MacLeod’s position and orientation have changed.
    I have not noticed that he’s ever been willing to do so as a means of winning approval.
    I find that particular charge to be even more silly than it is low and mean.
    Don’t know when MacLeod started at Hot Air but I used to read his comments at contentions.
    My responses to those comments and his responses to my own mos def did not indicate a willingness to cede ground.

    Finally, there may be something to calling him genocidal as people have questioned the extent of his complicity in the destruction of the Amalekites and he hasn’t really denied it.

  12. He is the son of Joseph Cropsey[1] noted Straussian political philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. Graduated from Harvard-St. George School, Chicago, IL and St. John’s College and received his M.A. from Boston College. From 1977-1980, he worked as a reporter for Fortune magazine, covering U.S. private enterprise and public policy. In 1981, Cropsey worked as speechwriter and assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

    Between 1982-1984, Cropsey was Director of Policy at the Voice of America. He also served as Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy during both the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Presidential administrations, and in 1991, was the principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.

    Between 1994-1998, Cropsey served as both the Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Asia Studies Center and as the First Departmental Chairman and Professor of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.[1]

    From 1999 to 2001 he was a Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.[2]

    He worked as a Director of Governmental Affairs at the top lobbying law firm of Greenberg Traurig in 2002, and was a registered lobbyist with that firm. [3]

    On December 9, 2002, Cropsey joined the George W. Bush Administration as the director of the International Broadcasting Bureau.[4].

    Seem like Seth has been all over the place, although he has been a ‘warmonger’ in good standing, back when you and CK thought Reagan was going to blow up the earth,

  13. @ Ken:

    Ken, all due respect, the idea that’s arguing for genocide, isn’t just unwarranted but shows an utter failure to understand the words, the meaning of them, or much anything else.

    Reporting that to the FBI will probably not redound to your credit should you ever face a competency hearing.

    Read it some more and ask a couple of questions.

  14. Ken, you don’t understand things as well as you’ve convinced yourself that you do. If I find that statement embarrassing at all, it’s because the excerpt reads a little melodramatically Beck-ish, but it has nothing to do with genocide, and it’s not a good reason for you or anyone to set out to ruin anyone’s life.

    Seek professional help, Ken! And don’t call the FBI unless it’s to report yourself for making threats over the internet.

  15. Well we know the showdown at the Tucson corral, compared to the death and bomb threats in Wisconsin, and the latest brouhaha at the State supreme Court, or how about the psycho that called in a threat
    against the entire Broward County Schools, in order to make some kind
    of point against Allen West, yes crickets. But that was a genuinely Frumworthy passage of little value,

  16. Right because I could think of a much better in house example, like Mort Halperin, approving of Phillip Agee’s DGI encouraged witchhunt,
    that culminated with the bullets in Richard Welch’s chest that dark
    day in Psychico,

  17. “Also, is the Republican Party willing to risk economic Armageddon in the name of religion?” Matthews asked. “That is the religion of no taxes. Well the GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government, willing to bring down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology. This is no phony crisis. If you’re not careful — if we’re not careful, the country risks becoming Greece. Not ancient Greece, by the way, current Greece.”

    Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/05/chris-matthews-gop-has-become-the-wahhabis-of-american-government/#ixzz1RLIIb8SW

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