Posted on 10/18/2009 3:09:18 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
President Obama may seem to dither, but he is ready to strike
Andrew Sullivan
There is a strange quality to Barack Obama’s pragmatism. It can look like dilly-dallying, weakness, indecisiveness. But although he may seem weak at times, one of the words most applicable to him is something else entirely: ruthless. Beneath the crisp suit and easy smile there is a core of strategic steel.
In this respect, Obama’s domestic strategy is rather like his foreign one — not so much weakness but the occasional appearance of weakness as a kind of strategy. The pattern is now almost trademarked. He carefully lays out the structural message he is trying to convey. At home, it is: we all have to fix the mess left by Bush-Cheney. Abroad, it is: we all have to fix the mess left by Bush-Cheney. And then ... not much.
The agenda may be clear. He wants an engaged Iran without nuclear weapons. He wants to be the first American president to enact universal health insurance coverage. He wants a sane two-state solution for Israel/Palestine. He wants to leave Iraq without having it blow up on him. He wants to find a way to solve the AfPak Rubik’s Cube. He wants to allow gays to serve openly in the military. But on all these things, it’s mid-October and still ... nothing substantive. So obviously, he’s a total fraud and failure, right?
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
If this is about Zero dismantling U.S. and turning it into one party dictatorship, I could have given it a more credibility. But Iran, healthcare, and war? He is totally clueless on these subjects.
On the other hand, if this is the best spin you can expect from Zero's shills, Dems are indeed falling apart badly.
This is funny, funny stuff. Sullivan should get into comedy writing.
Weakness, feigned or not, invites attack in nature, play ground, and work place. And there are a few (very few) examples in nature of such a strategy and it is somehow repugnant even when it works. It can work in battle (as Sun Tzu has exlained) but it would be used only by a superior warrior/tactician (and Obama is not such a man)
It is difficult to imagine the logic of using use a tactic when the one using it has never been in any kind of battle (except for a very dishonest presidential campaign) and has never demonstrated the guile, cunning nor underlying strength to successfully combat the almost certain attacks such behavior will invite.
Furthermore, whatever attacks are forthcoming will certainly be defended against not by Obama but with the lives of American troops. Ergo, one must ask, what has Obama done to earn the devotion of our men and women in uniform such that they would lay down their lives for the odd battle plans of this otherwise foolish man
Andrew Sullivan is an expert on weakness.
After idiots in Nobel committee gave him the peace prize, he may be even more deluded to think that promise alone would bring results. :-(
I reread that article and wondered if it might just be satire. It is just that frikken silly!
What Obama really, really, *really* wants is irrelevant. What he’s doing is sucking all possible power to himself. When he has *all* power, we’ll learn what he wants, and what we’ll “by God — no, by Obama” do. All but a few of us: we’ll find something else to do.
“Beneath the crisp suit and easy smile there is a core of strategic steel.”
Bwahahaha!!! Oh, please stop, yer killin’ me, Andy!
I have no doubt Obama is a consumate planner. I just don’t see the “steel”. George Stephanopolous had him on the ropes in the Democratic primary debates. Sarah Palin got so deep into his head on the campaign trail, his teeth rattled. Rush and Fox have sucked him into wars of words that make his entire administration look petty and childish.
As for “learning” about Russia and Iran, Andy conveniently forgets the price tag for that knowledge: dumping on a pair of allies (Poland and Czech Republic) and throwing away a valuable bargaining chip (long range missile defense), apparently without securing anything concrete in return.
His effectiveness was particularly on display in Copenhagen.
And Sullivan is what goes for an “intellectual” these days...
No wonder these “intellectuals” write for a living.
They aren’t capable of doing anything else.
Once again the Clinton Dictionary is in use at the White House.
Wow, just Wow! I have never seen abject quivering quisling weakness described as steely ruthlessness.
Top is bottom, white is black, idiocy is genius. What next? Maybe a Noble prize for Obama?
If he signs the climate treaty, as he will, you will not be ROFLMAO.
These guys may be clueless, but they are serious about the remake of our society.
He IS RUTHLESS! But he’s RUTHLESS against Conservatives or Democrats that don’t follow him blindly!! BEWARE AMericans....BEWARE! Hiler didn;t start by killing Jews.
Why do I get the feeling that some of the Obama people, smarting from all these allegations that the President is weak and dithering, went to the media and asked the to write an article about the President really being strong. This is the best they could come up with.
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