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Streetwise Professor posts on the Taliban trade.
… So Obama has some serious explaining to do to justify this fiasco. So far his explanations have done worse than fallen flat: they’ve unleashed a firestorm of criticism. So you know what will happen: dismissing this as a manufactured DC controversy (which has already happened), attacks on the messenger (already well underway), and spin, spin, spin. Indeed, many of the media dervishes are whirling away as we sit here.
But not to worry. It’s not like anybody is noticing that Obama is feckless and incompetent, and taking advantage of that. Well, other than Putin, of course. And the Iranians. And the Chinese:
“On the surface, this may look reckless. But one theory gaining traction among senior officials and policy analysts around Asia and in Washington is that the timing is well calculated. It reflects Mr. Xi’s belief that he is dealing with a weak U.S. president who won’t push back, despite his strong rhetorical support for Asian allies.
Mr. Xi’s perception, say these analysts, has been heightened by U.S. President Barack Obama’s failures to intervene militarily in Syria and Ukraine. And it’s led him to conclude that he has a window of opportunity to aggressively assert China’s territorial claims around the region.”
I’ve often said that I hope Bismarck (“There is a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the USA”) and Adam Smith (“there is a lot of ruin in a nation”) are right. Obama is putting both aphorisms to the test.
A couple of our favorites try to understand how it came to pass we have such amateurs running our foreign policy. Kimberley Strassel introduces us to this president’s “Kissingers.”
… NSC (National Security Council) staff are foreign-policy grownups, and its meetings are barred to political henchmen.
Or that was the case, until the Obama White House. By early March 2009, two months into this presidency, the New York Times had run a profile of David Axelrod, noting that Mr. Obama’s top campaign guru and “political protector” was now “often” to be found “in the late afternoons” walking “to the Situation Room to attend some meetings of the National Security Council.” President Obama’s first national security adviser, former Marine General and NATO Commander Jim Jones, left after only two years following clashes with Mr. Obama’s inner circle.
He was replaced by Democratic political operative and former Fannie Mae lobbyist Tom Donilon. Mr. Donilon joined Ben Rhodes, the Obama campaign speechwriter, who in 2009 had been elevated to deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. Also present was Tommy Vietor, whose entire career prior to NSC spokesman was as an Obama spinmeister—as a press aide in the 2004 Senate run, and campaign flack for the 2008 Iowa caucuses, and assistant White House press secretary. In fairness, his credentials also included getting caught on camera in 2010 pounding beers, shirtless, at a Georgetown bar. America’s foreign-policy experts at work.
Not that Mr. Obama’s first instinct is even to rely on his now overtly political NSC. This paper reported in September 2013 that as the White House struggled with the question of military intervention in Syria, it summoned all the old “Obama loyalists” for advice. They included his 2008 campaign manager ( David Plouffe ), his former press secretary ( Robert Gibbs ), a former speechwriter ( Jon Favreau ), and Mr. Vietor (who had by then left the NSC to form a political consulting group).
A serious-minded NSC, in the tumultuous aftermath of Benghazi, would have responded with a sober assessment for its president of the real and continued terror threat, and of the failings that resulted in four dead Americans. Instead we find the deputy NSA, Mr. Rhodes, crafting an internal email advising his colleagues to spin, and blame it all on an Internet video. Mr. Rhodes had no interest in advising the president on hard realities. His only interest was ensuring his boss got re-elected. …
Jonah Goldberg sees the comedy.
I think the Bergdahl story is really very serious and there are still lots of things we don’t know. My friend James Rosen’s story that Bergdahl turned mujahideen in captivity is very interesting, but it doesn’t mean — nor does Rosen say — that he was a jihadi when he left his base. And, while the case doesn’t look good for Bergdahl, we don’t know that he was a deserter yet. We only know that he was AWOL. Indeed, according to an earlier Pentagon report, we know he had a habit of wandering off base. That may make him a flake or an idiot, but it doesn’t prove he was a deserter.
Indeed, there are so many unknowns here that it might be best to withhold judgment on a lot of aspects to this story.
Save perhaps one: The White House is run by clowns. …
… My only point is that the White House’s political chops in this fiasco look about as sharp as Dom DeLuise’s forehead. That’s kind of weird when you consider that his foreign-policy shop is largely run by political hacks — as Kim Strassel notes in her excellent column from yesterday. “Obama’s Kissingers,” as Strassel calls them, should be better at the politics than the foreign policy, given their resumes. But it turns out they stink at both. When you run foreign policy like a domestic political operation, it turns out that both the policy and the politics can blow up on you. I think this is because over the long haul foreign policy doesn’t work like domestic politics. You can have the best political hacks in the world, but if you give them a job they’re not suited for, it will actually make things worse. If you want to see what I mean, ask your mechanic to do your prostate surgery. …
… They sent Susan Rice — Susan Rice! — out on the Sunday shows to beclown herself again. This woman was going to be secretary of state until she went out on the Sunday shows and read Ben Rhodes’s talking points verbatim. Apparently that’s sort of her thing. She reads what the hacks above — or below — give her. It’s like she’s the Ron Burgundy of foreign policy. But you’d think this time around she’d go over with her staff exactly what they know — and don’t know. You’d think she’d be like Roy Scheider in Jaws 2 telling the town council, “As God is my witness, I’m not going through that Hell again.” Instead she’s like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials and the White House political hacks are like the other kids. “Give these talking points to Susie, she’ll say anything.” …
George Will when a president goes rogue.
… Obama did not comply with the law requiring presidents to notify Congress 30 days before such exchanges of prisoners at Guantanamo. Politico can be cited about this not because among the media it is exceptionally, well, understanding of Obama’s exuberant notion of executive latitude but because it is not. Politico headlined a story on his noncompliance with the law “Obama May Finally Be Going Rogue on Gitmo.” It said Obama’s “assertive” act “defied Congress” — Congress, not the rule of law — in order “to get that process [of closing the prison at Guantanamo] moving.” It sent “a clear message” that “Obama is now willing to wield his executive powers to get the job done.” Or, as used to be said in extenuation of strong leaders, “to make the trains run on time.”
The 44th president, channeling — not for the first time — the 37th (in his post-impeachment conversation with David Frost), may say: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Already the administration says events dictated a speed that precluded complying with the law.
This explanation should be accorded open-minded, but not empty-minded, consideration. It should be considered in light of the fact that as the Veterans Affairs debacle continued, Obama went to Afghanistan to hug some troops, then completed the terrorists-for-Bergdahl transaction. And in light of the fact that Obama waged a seven-month military intervention in Libya’s civil war without complying with the law (the War Powers Resolution) that requires presidents to terminate within 60 to 90 days a military action not authorized or subsequently approved by Congress.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee, says the administration told him he would be notified about negotiations for the release of terrorists. He now says he cannot “believe a thing this president says.” …
Ann Coulter has some interesting items.
… Three days before he walked off his base, Bergdahl emailed his parents:
– “I am ashamed to be an american.”
– “The US army is the biggest joke … It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools and bullies.”
– “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.”
– “The horror that is america is disgusting.”
These emails were given to the author of a 2012 Rolling Stone article on the case by Bergdahl’s own parents.
The overwrought soldier’s father, Bob, emailed back: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!” And then, according to the Rolling Stone profile reporting these emails — as well as the Army report on the incident — Bergdahl “decided to walk away.
“Bergdahl’s unit commander, Evan Buetow, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that intercepted Taliban “chatter” soon revealed that Bergdahl was looking for a member of the Taliban who spoke English. (Other than his father.)
Buetow said he couldn’t prove it, but he believed Bergdahl began helping the Taliban attack his own unit. After that, Buetow says, the assaults were much more direct, and Bergdahl would have known the unit’s tactics and how they would respond to an attack. …
Graduation season is upon us and Dilbert’s dad, Scott Adams, has some terrible gift ideas.
… Many of you are wondering what kind of gift to buy for the innocent wretch in your life who is about to be excreted from the gentle embrace of our education system into the turd-infested pool of misery that we call work. I am here to help.
Gifts are all about the thought you put into them and the message they send. I did some online searching and discovered that all of the top graduation gift suggestions are—as far as I can tell—designed as clever revenge for the grad’s teen years. It’s payback time!
1. One of the top suggested gifts for grads is Money Clips. Try to keep a straight face when you give a money clip to a grad that has a mountain of student debt and no job prospects. Write something on the card along the lines of “This is to keep all of your money organized.” You want to leave some doubt as to whether your intention is to be an evil revenge-monkey or you’re just a terrible gift-buyer. If you’re like me, your unstylish wardrobe for the past twenty years is all the reasonable doubt you’ll need.
2. Luggage is another popular gift item for grads. Nothing says get out of my house like luggage. If that isn’t subtle enough, follow the example of my parents and combine the luggage gift with a one-way ticket to another state. Message received! …