A Selfie-Taking, Hashtagging Teenage Administration

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 12, 2014 | ELIOT A. COHEN

[Makana]

...Why does the Economist magazine put a tethered eagle on its cover, with the plaintive question, "What would America fight for?" Why do Washington Post columnists sympathetic to the administration write pieces like one last week headlined, "Obama tends to create his own foreign policy headaches"?

Clues may be found in the president's selfie with the attractive Danish prime minister at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in December; in State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki in March cheerily holding up a sign with the Twitter TWTR +0.44% hashtag #UnitedForUkraine while giving a thumbs up; or Michelle Obama looking glum last week, holding up another Twitter sign: #BringBackOurGirls. It can be found in the president's petulance in recently saying that if you do not support his (in)action in Ukraine you must want to go to war with Russia—when there are plenty of potentially effective steps available that stop well short of violence. It can be heard in the former NSC spokesman, Thomas Vietor, responding on May 1 to a question on Fox News about the deaths of an American ambassador and three other Americans with the line, "Dude, this was like two years ago."

[Makana]

Cohen nails it. We are led by inexperienced, self-indulgent, educated-beyond-their-capacity children.

[clintonh8r]

The children are in charge. The only grey beards in the administration are possibly insane or drunk most of the time....Clapper, Hagel, Biden, Shinseki, Kerry....

[Oratam]

"Like self-obsessed teenagers, the staffers and their superiors seemed to forget that there were other people in the room who might take offense, or merely see the world differently."

This has been my experience working with libs. And if you do see the world differently, you are not only wrong, but evil.

[jurroppi1]

no doubt, great article!

[griswold3]

Perfect article on the Cult of Personality running the government. The US is being guided by the navel-gazing Prince of Fools. Someday Obama will be out of office, what do we do about the foolish 47% that vote for a living?

[redhawk.44mag]

We should just elect those that are 70yo or older

[Ben Ficklin]

"Cohen nails it"

Its a talking point.

If you do a Google news search of "Thomas Vietor Dude", you will find an uncountable number of articles in the right wing media on this. It is planned and co-ordinated.

WSJ, Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller, American Thinker, Twitchy, Townhall, Spectator, and countless others to numerous to mention.

[Steely Tom]

We should just elect those that are 70yo or older

My mom is 79, and she's in love with Barack Obama.

[redhawk.44mag]

Lets hope she doesn’t get elected

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I remember and agree with Abe.

Abe: "You [America] initiated a policy to tolerate the Marxist-Alinsky radicals and let them rant; not only has it not ceased but was constantly augmented by decades of infiltration and indoctrination. You now have two Americas . . . ."

The 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats were celebrated in the establishment MSM as the most intelligent generation ever! They are now arguably that very establishment that praised them and they hold themselves and their ideological issue in even higher regard.

Don't know about selfies but the old jerks must remember tweet tweet. I do.

tweet tweet

[Steely Tom]

Lets hope she doesn’t get elected

I guess the point of my comment went over your head.

[BerryDingle]

Hey Zip, your telephone wants to talk to you.

[Rummyfan]

We are led by inexperienced, self-indulgent, educated-beyond-their-capacity children.

Yep!

[MeshugeMikey]

[redhawk.44mag]

or just didn’t get off the ground

[WilliamofCarmichael]

In a searing memoir published in January, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates describes with disdain the trash talk about the Bush administration that characterized meetings in the Obama White House. Like self-obsessed teenagers, the staffers and their superiors seemed to forget that there were other people in the room who might take offense, or merely see the world differently.

It's the tactics of 1960s Mau-Mauing campus radical, psycho spoiled brats and street agitators. Bring back the flak catchers to suffer their tantrum tactics and let all the other continue to work in peace. Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe.

[dangerdoc]

There are plenty of idiots over 70.

Lets try electing conservatives and see how that works out instead.

[redhawk.44mag]

Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do? Where are they?

[dfwgator]

Basically every hashtag a liberal tweets can be summed up as follows:

#WeCareMoreThanYouDo