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The recent House Benghazi committee report prompted Walter Russell Mead to retail the idea we need more congressional involvement in our foreign policy.
… At the same time, with our Libyan policy, like the country itself, in ruins, one has the sense that the Benghazi investigation missed the larger point. The United States participated in the overthrow of the Qaddafi government, largely on humanitarian grounds, but we were utterly unprepared for the aftermath. Libya is in chaos today, radical jihadi groups have proliferated in the ruins, Qaddafi’s arms and fighters have fanned out across North Africa and the Middle East, and arguably more Libyans have died as the result of the intervention than would have perished had we stayed home. On top of this, there are credible allegations that the U.S. had guaranteed Qaddafi’s safety when he gave up his WMD program. Did our intervention in Libya break a pledge, or did it reduce our ability to persuade other countries to abstain from WMD programs? Did the decision to intervene in Libya also mean that the U.S. was less ready and able to respond appropriately to the much greater humanitarian and strategic crisis that holds Syria in its grip?
Benghazi was one consequence of a much larger and more serious policy failure, and the costs of that failure are still mounting up. By focusing narrowly on Benghazi, Congress missed the bigger question and the more consequential failure. Again, the question is less one of partisan politics than of the national interest: what can we learn from policies that go awry so that in future we can make better choices?
A review of our policy failure in Libya (or earlier ones in Iraq and elsewhere) isn’t just about second guessing and assigning blame. It is about making sure that the nation’s foreign policy infrastructure is up to the tasks that our turbulent century has set for us.
This is the investigation we needed after the Libya fiasco. Unfortunately, unless something changes we are unlikely to get it.
What we need to do at this point is begin to rethink the role of the Congress in American foreign policy. If there is one thing that has become clear since the end of the Cold War, it is that the United States needs to raise its game in foreign policy. …
Seth Mandel posts on Susan Rice’s part in Hagel’s failure.
Chuck Hagel’s unceremonious dismissal as secretary of defense has refocused attention, once again, on the insularity of President Obama’s inner circle, its suspicion of outside voices, and its distaste for dissent. But it has changed in one way: this time, the concerns about secrecy, enforced groupthink, and high school clique behavior don’t center on Valerie Jarrett. Instead, the name that keeps surfacing is that of National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
It’s true that this isn’t the first time we’re hearing of the toxic atmosphere and mismanagement at Rice’s National Security Council. But it’s striking how clearly the battle lines appear to be drawn in the steady stream of bitter leaks aimed at Hagel, designed to kick him while he’s down. The cruelty with which the Obama insiders are behaving right now is unsettling, to be sure. But more relevant to the formation of national-security policy is the question of whether Susan Rice’s incompetence and pride are playing a role in the constant stream of Obama foreign-policy failures. …
Debra Saunders has more on Hagel.
… In one sense, Hagel’s forced exit is reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the disastrous 2006 midterm elections. Except the difference here, Hoover Institution fellow Kori Schake pointed out, is that in terminating Rumsfeld, Bush “was announcing a change in approach. Obama fired Hagel while insisting there would be no change in approach.”
“They needed a dead body in the hallway,” Schake continued, and “Hagel was the most expendable” because he was not part of the president’s very tightknit and very like-minded inner circle.
If that wasn’t clear, look who was sitting in the front row during Hagel’s 15-minute goodbye: national security adviser Susan Rice. In October, Hagel sent Rice a two-page memo about his concerns that the administration’s Syrian strategy might strengthen the hand of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Now Hagel, the administration critic, is gone, and Rice, the administration enforcer, remains in power.
Schake was no fan of Hagel’s leadership at the Pentagon. She can’t get over the fact that in heat of the wars in Afghanistan and Syria, Hagel actually proposed the idea of banning smoking in the military. (“Really? That’s where you’re going to put your effort?”) Still, Schake believes that the president threw Hagel under the bus for something Hagel did right — his warning that military strategy in Syria needs to change. …
It was not widely reported, but FOX beat everybody, even the networks, in the election coverage. David Zuriwak of the Baltimore Sun has the story.
… But there are three ratings stories the last two weeks that taken together show Fox News rising to a new and remarkable level of dominance – and they have been underreported in the mainstream media.
First, Fox News beat not just CNN and MSNBC, but also ABC, NBC and CBS on Nov. 4, the night of the mid-term elections. It did so in both total viewers and the key news demographic: viewers 25 to 54 years of age.Fox more than tripled the audiences of MSNBC and CNN in total viewers, while beating ABC, NBC and CBS by more than 3 million, 2 million and 1 million viewers respectively. (See figures at end of post.)
On a watershed political night, more Americans tuned to Fox for information about the vote than anywhere else.
I have been covering media long enough to remember when CBS, NBC or ABC was the big story on election night in the 1970s and ‘80s.
And, as a critic, as late as 2008, I was thinking no channel mattered more than CNN. This year, for all the reporters it had on the ground election night, CNN barely did better than the we-lost-our-credibility-in-our-slavish-devotion-to-Obama MSNBC. That’s pathetic.Second, buoyed by its election-night juggernaut, Fox was the highest-rated cable channel of the week of Nov. 3, beating such ratings engines as Nickelodeon and ESPN. That’s not the highest-rated cable news channel, the universe it used to live in. That’s highest-rated period – beating all the entertainment channels like AMC and TNT. …
In keeping with their devotion to this president, NBC and ABC have yet to report on GruberGate. Ricochet post suggests the RNC stop allowing those networks to be part of the election campaign.
… The GOP cannot control who NBC, ABC and CBS put into executive news editorial positions or the stories they choose to report, or not report. However, they can choose if they participate any longer with conglomerates whose clear goal is to protect an unpopular President and elevate a future Presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton. It is time to stop complaining about media bias and do something about it. Something bold.
ABC and NBC have instituted a three-week blackout — on network broadcasts, websites and social media pages — of the devastating admissions of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. The ACA architect repeatedly boasted of deceiving the American public about legislation that cost six million people their family doctor. This should be the final straw in any relationship the GOP and RNC leadership has with these networks, period. No more debates, no more appearances on “Meet The Press,” “Morning Joe,” or “This Week” on ABC.
Boycott both NBC and ABC over failing to report on Gruber’s revelations and put CBS on final notice over the revelations that they coordinated with the Obama administration to tank Sharyl Attkisson’s Benghazi reporting. …
Noemie Emery reminds us what a lot of fools like, Chris Buckley and David Brooks said about the man who proved to be an awful president.
… “Having a first class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama … has in him the potential to be a good, perhaps even a great leader,” said Christopher Buckley.
“What struck me is how incredibly even … and how reassuring he is,” David Brooks told us. “Obama is just the mountain. He’s there. He’s always the same. … His steadiness, his temperament has been the dramatic theme of this … campaign.”
Reagan appointee Kenneth Adelman slammed John McCain (and Sarah Palin) while praising the Democrat’s judgment and temperament.
Former Reagan chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein followed suit, saying the Palin pick (like Obama, she had served only a part of her first term in state office) “had very much undermined the whole question of John McCain’s judgment.” His endorsement came a few days after those of his friend Colin Powell, whose career had been made by the Reagans and Bushes.
What these brains helped to give us was the worst presidential temperament since Richard M. Nixon, an under-experienced brittle narcissist, lacking in all the political skills save those of campaigning, whose main legacies will be an unworkable healthcare “reform” and a wholly avoidable Middle Eastern crisis. Obama’s lack of political sense has gotten him into many disasters, which his lack of political temperament only makes worse.
A story from The Hill shows there is nothing the president won’t lie about. Billy Joel kicked the cigarette habit until recently when The One invited him out to the North Portico for a smoke.
… Joel had received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song earlier that evening at a star-studded gala at DAR Constitution Hall. With “no entourage” around, our source — who counts themselves among Joel’s “biggest fans” — struck up a conversation with the “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” singer.
Joel described the day’s events, mentioning that he went over to Capitol Hill to Rep. John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office. Our tipster says that Joel recalled the Speaker, well-known for his nicotine habit, opened up a drawer, then “pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. And I said, ‘No thanks, I quit.’ ”
A photo posted on Boehner’s Instagram page Wednesday shows the pair chatting in the lawmaker’s office at the Capitol.
Then, Joel remembered another tobacco offer from a high-profile politician. According to our tipster, the 65-year-old entertainer said, “I was at the White House recently, and President Obama did the same thing. He said, ‘I’m going out on the North Portico to have a smoke. Do you want to come with me?”
Joel said he replied, “Well, I haven’t smoked in a long time,” but indicated that he ultimately couldn’t turn down a cigarette offer from the president. …
Is there nothing statins can’t do? Scientific American says they may protect people from air pollution.
One of the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States may have an extra benefit: protecting people from air pollution.
Statins, prescribed to lower cholesterol and reduce risks of heart attacks and strokes, seem to diminish inflammation that occurs after people breathe airborne particles.
“Health impacts from spikes in particulates in the air are substantial. Statins seem to protect not only lungs from these impacts but the heart, too,” said Dr. Norman Edelman, the American Lung Association’s senior medical advisor.
About one in four Americans over the age of 45 takes statins, including Lipitor, Zocor and other brand names.
Although drugs cannot be prescribed to protect people from air pollution, several studies show that people who take statins have fewer proteins in their blood that indicate inflammation of tissues, said Dr. Stephan van Eeden, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in lung health. This inflammation may aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Most recently, a study of 1,923 U.S. women found that those taking statins are less likely to have signs of inflammation, said Bart Ostro, an epidemiologist with California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment who led the study. …