Tues. May 14, 2013:
Faithful loyal readers,
What follows is my emailed reply to a bright decent Obama-voter friend -- in response to his moderate Republican frustration with Obama's leadership on this date in history.
My reply is hardly elegant, or the last word. But it's my own
crie de coeur.
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Again, we have selected different villains. Obama is no Lincoln, for sure.
But never -- ever -- has our country seen such a prolonged, systematic, downright unpatriotic, opposition-party effort to undermine everything that a White House has tried to do. The Founding Fathers postulated the need for a "Loyal Opposition." They would roll in their graves, if they saw what "Opposition" means now.
A 41-Senator minority has blocked appointment after appointment -- some left vacant for 7 years! They ask for "entitlement" cuts [even though most "entitlements" have actually been EARNED by average citizens]? Obama offers some, including Social Security cuts, and Paul Ryan refuses to even discuss it further, because it is "insufficient." Other Obama initiatives -- originally GOP ideas, like Cap & Trade, like Single Payer to combat HillaryCare? Once Obama's fingerprints are on anything, Republicans reject it out of hand.
Out here in Massachusetts, there is resounding disgust for blatant Republican obstructionism. FDR & LBJ & and a Democratic Jesus Christ could not reason with these guys. And even Republican Bob Gates suggests, this behavior is our #1 National Security threat. To blame it on Obama is a stretch.
For Lindsay Graham and McCain to call Benghazi "worse than Watergate" is absurd. Yes, State, CIA, FBI, the Pentagon, and the White House all tried to cover their asses -- especially the latter, with an eye toward Nov. 2012. [AS IF a Republican administration would do otherwise!] In fact, a key figure in the so-called "cover-up," Victoria Nuland, was a top aide for Dick Cheney before staying on with the Obama administration. Not sure if you saw [Republican!] Bob Gates on last Sunday's Face the Nation, but he and Thomas Pickering [another Republican] both say that "Benghazi" is a tempest in a teapot. Yes, Barack's & Hillary's operatives smell as if they tried to minimize the Al Qaeda "terrorist" angle. But Hillary's sorta right, "What difference does it make?" In the big picture, we lost 4 good people & a miniscule "embassy" -- mostly because the Republican House has slashed our budgetary ability to provide adequate protection to dangerous outposts in a turbulent Arab Spring world.
In about 3 of his 18 minutes, Bob Gates demolishes Benghazi as a military issue. [Then, for the next 15 minutes, he has outstanding things to say about the bigger threats to our National Security -- you'll especially agree with his last 2 minutes, when he tells us what our greatest National Security risk is! It's the most balanced assessment of where we are, generally, that I've seen in quite a while.]
Political cover-up on Benghazi? Probably, but what politician, or White House, hasn't done that, especially with an election coming up in a month or two? LBJ on Vietnam. Reagan on Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton on a wag-the-dog missile strike in Africa. GWB after 9/11.
To me, the same unfair 20-20 hindsight second-guessing of Bush & Co. after 9/11 was no more productive than FIVE goddamn House Committee investigations over Benghazi. Reeks of preemptive strike on Hillary, 2016. If the GOP wants to do something useful on Benghazi, how about ponying up the $$$ to secure our diplomatic outposts in a wretched part of the world!
You're right about Benghazi being a "disaster" in one sense: The GOP has decided "Benghazi" is Close Enough -- to an important scandal -- to stop doing any more work on issues that matter. That IS a "disaster."
Basically, 41 Republicans [plus a handful of scared red-state Dems] in the Senate, and the GOP-dominated House, have decided:
We Are Ending Obama's Term Now.
No budget deal, but instead more debt-ceiling brinksmanship.
No gun deal.
Maybe immigration, but ONLY because WE need it for 2016 and beyond. [Obama is smart NOT to put his fingerprints on any immigration legislation, because then it would surely get obstructed!]
Instead, we in the House are starting, 4 months into Obama's last term, with committee investigations of everything.
Darrell Issa is now running the USA. [You're right on one thing: Unlike Obama, LBJ wouldda had Issa and Boehner & McConnell bribed, smeared, or killed by now. And, there wouldn't even have been a Committee to investigate it!
And as for GOP Austerity fiscal policies, more & more evidence is piling up that it is exactly the wrong thing to do for our economy at the present time.
Note, especially, Japan.
After decades of austerity & deflation, a judicious amount of inflation has Japan finally doing well again. You are certainly right, Inflation should NOT be overdone. But it is crystal clear that Deflation crushes an economy, and especially milllions of potential consumers.
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