In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Russia conducts hacking campaign -> FBI investigates Trump campaign
Obama and Dems aren't involved in that chain right there. Obama's FP is a separate topic. If you want to randomly talk about Obama's FP related to Russia or Cuba or Australia that's fine, but it's not effective in muddying the Trump Russia issue.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
On July 26 2017 00:23 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: Does anyone have any information on Dwayne Johnson's presidential bid? I can't seem to find anything corroborating the story.
I don't think anything is truly official, but a bunch of fans want him to run and I believe he's joked (or at least, "can't tell if serious") about a "Sure why not, since anyone can run!" presidential run.
Casual conversations/ interviews on it:
Disclaimer: There really isn't much to it though afaik, for now.
On July 26 2017 00:23 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: Does anyone have any information on Dwayne Johnson's presidential bid? I can't seem to find anything corroborating the story.
I don't think anything is truly official, but a bunch of fans want him to run and I believe he's joked (or at least, "can't tell if serious") about a "Sure why not, since anyone can run!" presidential run.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
That is some damn impressive re-writing of history there. Obama's Russian reset? Are you for real? Last I checked Russia was hurting under economic sanctions put on by the EU and US under Obama.
One side complains that the US is hurtling headlong into a new war with Russia while the other complains they were not hard enough, right up to the point where they themselves got in charge and then they were best friends with Russia all along...
What do you think Obama should have done more? Should he have declared war? Should he have made sweeping moves to economically isolate Russia after the election so that everyone would complain he was 'abusing' his power like they already did? Because he can't do that before the crime is actually committed. What do you think the Democrats did not do enough of?
Clearly nobody is actually, oh I don't know, READING the article I linked before commenting on it extensively.
Today’s liberal Russia hawks would have us believe that they’ve always been clear-sighted about Kremlin perfidy and mischief. They’re displaying amnesia not just over a single law but the entire foreign policy record of the Obama administration. From the reset, which it announced in early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that year, to its ignoring Russia’s violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian military intervention, the Obama administration’s Russia policy was one, protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow. Throughout his two terms in office, Obama played down the threat Russia posed to America’s allies, interests and values, and ridiculed those who warned otherwise. “The traditional divisions between nations of the south and the north make no sense in an interconnected world nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War,” Obama lectured the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, a more florid and verbose way of making the exact same criticism of supposed NATO obsolescence that liberals would later excoriate Trump for bluntly declaring.
That's what I blame Obama for, helping get us into this mess. I'm not equating Obama to Trump, despite what reactionary partisan leftists here seem to think for no apparent reason.
And why would that even matter. No matter the mountain upon mountain of 'stuff' you think he should have done. None of it excuses the actions of the Republicans today.
I never said that. The article I quoted never said that. This is a total strawman.
Its the stupid notion that you cant criticize the fact that the President and his closest associates are in proven collusion with a foreign state that you yourself deem dangerous because they haven't kneeled before god and confessed their heinous crimes of not launching ww3 and ending the world in nuclear fire.
More strawmanning...
You might even conclude the "none of this excuses the actions of Republicans today" and "you can't criticize the fact that the President ..." means debaters are unwilling to shine a harsh light on Obama administration foreign policy and priorities. You must obviously be only examining his Russian action/inaction in light of wanting to excuse Trump and the GOP today ... lol.
Expect only a tepid one-line "don't worry fellas, I also blame Obama/Dems," when going on to detail all the ways Republicans share the blame and how the real story is the extent to which they dodged the blame or shared culpability.
It's all pretty transparent. US Reactive Partisanship Megathread.
You can discuss Obama's foreign policy in isolation just fine, and this thread has done so plenty. The problem arise with opening sentences of "We can't take the Democrats seriously on Russia because Obama".
You're intentionally misreading his point. You can't own up to past policy failures and it's only recently become highly apparent to everyone. The thread's response basically confirmed the article's point: you still can't examine Obama's past mistakes critically without dithering, equivocating, and trying to put it all on Trump (your double strawman response). I disagree sharply with TheLordOfAwesome on the import of Trump-Russia. You'd be foolish to ignore a bigger Trump critic than myself because you can't summarize his argument honestly.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
1) The status quo is that POTUS controls FP at the moment. I agree this isn't a good idea, but this means POTUS is responsible for FP failures (and successes). Obama going to Congress in a punt doesn't change that.
2) Congress didn't make Obama's infamous red line statement.
On July 26 2017 00:23 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: Does anyone have any information on Dwayne Johnson's presidential bid? I can't seem to find anything corroborating the story.
I don't think anything is truly official, but a bunch of fans want him to run and I believe he's joked (or at least, "can't tell if serious") about a "Sure why not, since anyone can run!" presidential run.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
That is some damn impressive re-writing of history there. Obama's Russian reset? Are you for real? Last I checked Russia was hurting under economic sanctions put on by the EU and US under Obama.
One side complains that the US is hurtling headlong into a new war with Russia while the other complains they were not hard enough, right up to the point where they themselves got in charge and then they were best friends with Russia all along...
What do you think Obama should have done more? Should he have declared war? Should he have made sweeping moves to economically isolate Russia after the election so that everyone would complain he was 'abusing' his power like they already did? Because he can't do that before the crime is actually committed. What do you think the Democrats did not do enough of?
Clearly nobody is actually, oh I don't know, READING the article I linked before commenting on it extensively.
Today’s liberal Russia hawks would have us believe that they’ve always been clear-sighted about Kremlin perfidy and mischief. They’re displaying amnesia not just over a single law but the entire foreign policy record of the Obama administration. From the reset, which it announced in early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that year, to its ignoring Russia’s violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian military intervention, the Obama administration’s Russia policy was one, protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow. Throughout his two terms in office, Obama played down the threat Russia posed to America’s allies, interests and values, and ridiculed those who warned otherwise. “The traditional divisions between nations of the south and the north make no sense in an interconnected world nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War,” Obama lectured the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, a more florid and verbose way of making the exact same criticism of supposed NATO obsolescence that liberals would later excoriate Trump for bluntly declaring.
That's what I blame Obama for, helping get us into this mess. I'm not equating Obama to Trump, despite what reactionary partisan leftists here seem to think for no apparent reason.
And why would that even matter. No matter the mountain upon mountain of 'stuff' you think he should have done. None of it excuses the actions of the Republicans today.
I never said that. The article I quoted never said that. This is a total strawman.
Its the stupid notion that you cant criticize the fact that the President and his closest associates are in proven collusion with a foreign state that you yourself deem dangerous because they haven't kneeled before god and confessed their heinous crimes of not launching ww3 and ending the world in nuclear fire.
More strawmanning...
You might even conclude the "none of this excuses the actions of Republicans today" and "you can't criticize the fact that the President ..." means debaters are unwilling to shine a harsh light on Obama administration foreign policy and priorities. You must obviously be only examining his Russian action/inaction in light of wanting to excuse Trump and the GOP today ... lol.
Expect only a tepid one-line "don't worry fellas, I also blame Obama/Dems," when going on to detail all the ways Republicans share the blame and how the real story is the extent to which they dodged the blame or shared culpability.
It's all pretty transparent. US Reactive Partisanship Megathread.
You can discuss Obama's foreign policy in isolation just fine, and this thread has done so plenty. The problem arise with opening sentences of "We can't take the Democrats seriously on Russia because Obama".
You're intentionally misreading his point. You can't own up to past policy failures and it's only recently become highly apparent to everyone. The thread's response basically confirmed the article's point: you still can't examine Obama's past mistakes critically without dithering, equivocating, and trying to put it all on Trump (your double strawman response). I disagree sharply with TheLordOfAwesome on the import of Trump-Russia. You'd be foolish to ignore a bigger Trump critic than myself because you can't summarize his argument honestly.
If you displayed 1/10 of the introspection that you demand of other people, this argument would carry more weight.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
1) The status quo is that POTUS controls FP at the moment. I agree this isn't a good idea, but this means POTUS is responsible for FP failures (and successes). Obama going to Congress in a punt doesn't change that.
2) Congress didn't make Obama's infamous red line statement.
Agreed, they did not make the statement. But let’s assume for a moment that Obama never said that. Should the US ignore the use of chemical weapons by Syria? How should congress and the president have addressed that issue? Do we just let Syria use all the chemical weapons they want? I am willing to accept criticism of Obama if it is follow up with some sort of solution. Again, because the world is not going to stop moving while our congress pulls it’s head out of its ass. The status quo is not sustainable and Obama has stated that several times. Congress cannot simply pass the buck to the president on the entire middle east while they fight over domestic policy.
On July 26 2017 00:23 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: Does anyone have any information on Dwayne Johnson's presidential bid? I can't seem to find anything corroborating the story.
I don't think anything is truly official, but a bunch of fans want him to run and I believe he's joked (or at least, "can't tell if serious") about a "Sure why not, since anyone can run!" presidential run.
On July 26 2017 00:23 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: Does anyone have any information on Dwayne Johnson's presidential bid? I can't seem to find anything corroborating the story.
I don't think anything is truly official, but a bunch of fans want him to run and I believe he's joked (or at least, "can't tell if serious") about a "Sure why not, since anyone can run!" presidential run.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
1) The status quo is that POTUS controls FP at the moment. I agree this isn't a good idea, but this means POTUS is responsible for FP failures (and successes). Obama going to Congress in a punt doesn't change that.
2) Congress didn't make Obama's infamous red line statement.
Agreed, they did not make the statement. But let’s assume for a moment that Obama never said that. Should the US ignore the use of chemical weapons by Syria? How should congress and the president have addressed that issue? Do we just let Syria use all the chemical weapons they want? I am willing to accept criticism of Obama if it is follow up with some sort of solution. Again, because the world is not going to stop moving while our congress pulls it’s head out of its ass.
I supported a response similar to Trump's (preferably broader) during Assad's second use of chemical weapons, which is what I believe what Obama was basically asking for.
The public at large did not support such an intervention though.
So the answer to your question lies in how much you think Congress should use its own judgment over public opinion.
Congress's degree of independence from public opinion has gotten roasted in the Twitter Age, which is imo one the of big problems in modern US politics.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
1) The status quo is that POTUS controls FP at the moment. I agree this isn't a good idea, but this means POTUS is responsible for FP failures (and successes). Obama going to Congress in a punt doesn't change that.
2) Congress didn't make Obama's infamous red line statement.
Agreed, they did not make the statement. But let’s assume for a moment that Obama never said that. Should the US ignore the use of chemical weapons by Syria? How should congress and the president have addressed that issue? Do we just let Syria use all the chemical weapons they want? I am willing to accept criticism of Obama if it is follow up with some sort of solution. Again, because the world is not going to stop moving while our congress pulls it’s head out of its ass. The status quo is not sustainable and Obama has stated that several times. Congress cannot simply pass the buck to the president on the entire middle east while they fight over domestic policy.
Congress can pass the buck to the President if they want to, imo. But that they should stop criticizing the President on it, which is what they did not do. Which is why Obama put the onus on them when Syria used chemical weapons. I would assume he thought it would pass because the use of chemical weapons is a universal no.
As others in the past have stated, this congress increasingly wants to shove responsibility away from itself so people stop criticizing the bad job they do. Be it FP, state rights or 'repeal and delay until its next congress's problem'.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
That is some damn impressive re-writing of history there. Obama's Russian reset? Are you for real? Last I checked Russia was hurting under economic sanctions put on by the EU and US under Obama.
One side complains that the US is hurtling headlong into a new war with Russia while the other complains they were not hard enough, right up to the point where they themselves got in charge and then they were best friends with Russia all along...
What do you think Obama should have done more? Should he have declared war? Should he have made sweeping moves to economically isolate Russia after the election so that everyone would complain he was 'abusing' his power like they already did? Because he can't do that before the crime is actually committed. What do you think the Democrats did not do enough of?
Clearly nobody is actually, oh I don't know, READING the article I linked before commenting on it extensively.
Today’s liberal Russia hawks would have us believe that they’ve always been clear-sighted about Kremlin perfidy and mischief. They’re displaying amnesia not just over a single law but the entire foreign policy record of the Obama administration. From the reset, which it announced in early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that year, to its ignoring Russia’s violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian military intervention, the Obama administration’s Russia policy was one, protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow. Throughout his two terms in office, Obama played down the threat Russia posed to America’s allies, interests and values, and ridiculed those who warned otherwise. “The traditional divisions between nations of the south and the north make no sense in an interconnected world nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War,” Obama lectured the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, a more florid and verbose way of making the exact same criticism of supposed NATO obsolescence that liberals would later excoriate Trump for bluntly declaring.
That's what I blame Obama for, helping get us into this mess. I'm not equating Obama to Trump, despite what reactionary partisan leftists here seem to think for no apparent reason.
And why would that even matter. No matter the mountain upon mountain of 'stuff' you think he should have done. None of it excuses the actions of the Republicans today.
I never said that. The article I quoted never said that. This is a total strawman.
Its the stupid notion that you cant criticize the fact that the President and his closest associates are in proven collusion with a foreign state that you yourself deem dangerous because they haven't kneeled before god and confessed their heinous crimes of not launching ww3 and ending the world in nuclear fire.
More strawmanning...
You might even conclude the "none of this excuses the actions of Republicans today" and "you can't criticize the fact that the President ..." means debaters are unwilling to shine a harsh light on Obama administration foreign policy and priorities. You must obviously be only examining his Russian action/inaction in light of wanting to excuse Trump and the GOP today ... lol.
Expect only a tepid one-line "don't worry fellas, I also blame Obama/Dems," when going on to detail all the ways Republicans share the blame and how the real story is the extent to which they dodged the blame or shared culpability.
It's all pretty transparent. US Reactive Partisanship Megathread.
You can discuss Obama's foreign policy in isolation just fine, and this thread has done so plenty. The problem arise with opening sentences of "We can't take the Democrats seriously on Russia because Obama".
You're intentionally misreading his point. You can't own up to past policy failures and it's only recently become highly apparent to everyone. The thread's response basically confirmed the article's point: you still can't examine Obama's past mistakes critically without dithering, equivocating, and trying to put it all on Trump (your double strawman response). I disagree sharply with TheLordOfAwesome on the import of Trump-Russia. You'd be foolish to ignore a bigger Trump critic than myself because you can't summarize his argument honestly.
The issue under discussion is whether Democrats can be taken seriously when speaking on Trump/Russia. In this instance, owning up to past policy failures or examining Obama's FP is outside the scope.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
1) The status quo is that POTUS controls FP at the moment. I agree this isn't a good idea, but this means POTUS is responsible for FP failures (and successes). Obama going to Congress in a punt doesn't change that.
2) Congress didn't make Obama's infamous red line statement.
Agreed, they did not make the statement. But let’s assume for a moment that Obama never said that. Should the US ignore the use of chemical weapons by Syria? How should congress and the president have addressed that issue? Do we just let Syria use all the chemical weapons they want? I am willing to accept criticism of Obama if it is follow up with some sort of solution. Again, because the world is not going to stop moving while our congress pulls it’s head out of its ass. The status quo is not sustainable and Obama has stated that several times. Congress cannot simply pass the buck to the president on the entire middle east while they fight over domestic policy.
Congress can pass the buck to the President if they want to, imo. But that they should stop criticizing the President on it, which is what they did not do. Which is why Obama put the onus on them when Syria used chemical weapons. I would assume he thought it would pass because the use of chemical weapons is a universal no.
As others in the past have stated, this congress increasingly wants to shove responsibility away from itself so people stop criticizing the bad job they do. Be it FP, state rights or 'repeal and delay until its next congress's problem'.
I don't know if it's fully Congress's fault though. The massive expansion of Executive Order power was outlined by the Supreme Court. I don't remember the case name off the top of my head, but that ruling has been a disaster imo.
Obama was also a huge player in expanding EO power. People argue it was the Republican Congress's fault, which is fair to an extent. But Obama didn't only expand EO to keep the country running (which would have been fair), he used as a substitute for his legislative agenda (which he should not have because the public voted in a Republican Congress for a reason). I'm not a fan of how he deliberately structured the Paris Deal to circumvent Congress either. I thought Obama was a decent to above-average president, but he certainly engaged in a lot of executive overreach imo. So he deserves some of the blame for the POTUS/Congress power imbalance.
You can blame Congress for not scaling back post-9/11 executive power expansion, but the executives and the public (for not caring) share some of the blame for that I think.
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
That is some damn impressive re-writing of history there. Obama's Russian reset? Are you for real? Last I checked Russia was hurting under economic sanctions put on by the EU and US under Obama.
One side complains that the US is hurtling headlong into a new war with Russia while the other complains they were not hard enough, right up to the point where they themselves got in charge and then they were best friends with Russia all along...
What do you think Obama should have done more? Should he have declared war? Should he have made sweeping moves to economically isolate Russia after the election so that everyone would complain he was 'abusing' his power like they already did? Because he can't do that before the crime is actually committed. What do you think the Democrats did not do enough of?
Clearly nobody is actually, oh I don't know, READING the article I linked before commenting on it extensively.
Today’s liberal Russia hawks would have us believe that they’ve always been clear-sighted about Kremlin perfidy and mischief. They’re displaying amnesia not just over a single law but the entire foreign policy record of the Obama administration. From the reset, which it announced in early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that year, to its ignoring Russia’s violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian military intervention, the Obama administration’s Russia policy was one, protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow. Throughout his two terms in office, Obama played down the threat Russia posed to America’s allies, interests and values, and ridiculed those who warned otherwise. “The traditional divisions between nations of the south and the north make no sense in an interconnected world nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War,” Obama lectured the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, a more florid and verbose way of making the exact same criticism of supposed NATO obsolescence that liberals would later excoriate Trump for bluntly declaring.
That's what I blame Obama for, helping get us into this mess. I'm not equating Obama to Trump, despite what reactionary partisan leftists here seem to think for no apparent reason.
And why would that even matter. No matter the mountain upon mountain of 'stuff' you think he should have done. None of it excuses the actions of the Republicans today.
I never said that. The article I quoted never said that. This is a total strawman.
Its the stupid notion that you cant criticize the fact that the President and his closest associates are in proven collusion with a foreign state that you yourself deem dangerous because they haven't kneeled before god and confessed their heinous crimes of not launching ww3 and ending the world in nuclear fire.
More strawmanning...
You might even conclude the "none of this excuses the actions of Republicans today" and "you can't criticize the fact that the President ..." means debaters are unwilling to shine a harsh light on Obama administration foreign policy and priorities. You must obviously be only examining his Russian action/inaction in light of wanting to excuse Trump and the GOP today ... lol.
Expect only a tepid one-line "don't worry fellas, I also blame Obama/Dems," when going on to detail all the ways Republicans share the blame and how the real story is the extent to which they dodged the blame or shared culpability.
It's all pretty transparent. US Reactive Partisanship Megathread.
You can discuss Obama's foreign policy in isolation just fine, and this thread has done so plenty. The problem arise with opening sentences of "We can't take the Democrats seriously on Russia because Obama".
You're intentionally misreading his point. You can't own up to past policy failures and it's only recently become highly apparent to everyone. The thread's response basically confirmed the article's point: you still can't examine Obama's past mistakes critically without dithering, equivocating, and trying to put it all on Trump (your double strawman response). I disagree sharply with TheLordOfAwesome on the import of Trump-Russia. You'd be foolish to ignore a bigger Trump critic than myself because you can't summarize his argument honestly.
Alright, lets talk about Obama without talking about Trump. Where did he go wrong with Russia, what should he have done differently and what sort of effect do you imaging it would have had?
On July 25 2017 21:34 Plansix wrote: I'm confused by the article's premise, am I supposed to take the republicans seriously on Russia?
No....
The republicans controlled congress for 6 year, didn't this also happen on their watch? What if the real answer is that winner takes all, win by any means necessary style politics is harmful to the nation as a whole?
Congress doesn't do much foreign policy. The President has enormous powers to shape foreign policy according to his will. Unlike domestic policy, where he can't even technically propose legislation. But US presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time discussing domestic policy, with very little attention paid to foreign policy, because most Americans can't find Afghanistan on a map, after we've been at war there for 17 years.
My point is that Obama has no one but himself to blame for his own foreign policy failures. Most of them were caused by Obama making decisions in foreign affairs on the primary basis of what would play best to his audience back home, not on the basis of what would have the best long-term impact on the world. (for evidence of this, see Ben Rhodes's profile in the NYT.) Obama could have taken the Russian threat seriously at any point during his presidency. He chose not to because that would have damaged his domestic political narrative of a successful "reset" with the Russians. Keep in mind, the "reset" came months after Russia invaded Georgia. As the article I linked pointed out, the passage of the Magnitsky Act was opposed by Democrats, because additional sanctions on Russia for its horrible actions undermined the Official Narrative that the misspelled "reset" had worked.
So instead Obama only woke up to join the fight at the 11th hour, when a greatly emboldened Russia began dramatically meddling in US domestic politics to the detriment of the Democratic party. Do I blame Obama for not taking the Russians seriously for a very long time, despite ample warnings, particularly after 2014? Absolutely.
The current outcry from the Democrat party over the Russia scandal does have validity, because it is a huge freaking scandal. That being said, I am somewhat cynical concerning the motivations of Democratic politicians. "For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about 'active measures,' 'kompromat' and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics."
You may have missed my opinions on the subject, but I don’t disagree that Obama had short comings. But Congress’s hands off foreign policy stance has been a huge problem for the US since 9/11. They have been more than happy to hand over that job to the oval office and heckle from the side lines. This has created a problem, since they all have no skin in the game anymore and limited investment.
I will freely admit that Obama has failings in foreign policy. However, congress has theirs that I won’t let people heap on Obama’s lap. When congress voted down Obama’s request to strike Syria after they deployed chemical weapon, they might as well have set off a starter gun for people to challenge the US. Three months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it Obama’s fault for drawing the red line? Sure. But it is also congress’s fault for not having the president’s back, for being all too willing to put domestic political gain over backing the Commander and Chief.
The president is no all powerful and does not have total control over US foreign policy. Congress should have greater involvement in that complicated issue, simple because that forces them to sell these foreign policy decisions to their district. The current dynamic of them using running against the foreign policy of the oval office is not acceptable and not healthy in the long term. These Russian hacks are just start of how dysfunctional thing could get.
Edit: I am also deeply trouble by the attacks on Obama for not bringing up the Russian hacks during the election. The Republicans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves why Obama was not comfortable doing that. I would love to live in the world where the president could come out with these revelations and the opposing part would take it all in good faith, but that is not the reality I live in. Again, it is easy to heckle once the hard decisions have been made.
I agree with you that Congress needs greater involvement in foreign policy. But...
Blaming Congress for Obama's failure to enforce the red line is silly. Obama had unilateral authority to launch strikes. I don't think Obama sought Congressional approval for any other military intervention during his term (most notably the monthslong Libya campaign).
Both Congress and Obama knew the public had no appetite for foreign intervention at the time. The only reason Obama went to Congress for the Syrian chemical weapons response was to do a political punt.
Obama didn't have a random moment in the middle of his term saying "Hey, maybe I should actually talk to Congress this time." He knew the move was unpopular, and he knew how Congress would vote. Going to Congress was a way to save some sort of face with the public over the issue.
Again, he has that authority because Congress gave it to the president before him. Having been president for a while, he realized that Congress would simply heckle from the sidelines and cry about an overreach of power and not addressing congress first. He read their hand and asked them to have his back. They refused and now they own the consequences of that refusal. Congress got beat at their own game because Obama gave them exactly what they wanted.
Congress wants it both ways. They want input, but don’t want to make the hard choice. They don’t want to own these discussions and the outcomes that might come from them. But they also want to be able to talk shit about the decisions to earn political points and win elections. Congress has not always been this way. Even during the Bush administration the Democrats had Bush’s back when foreign leaders would throw insults at him on US soil.
It is both Obama’s and congresses fault, if we have to blame someone. But the world is not going to stop while we figure out who is more as fault. The war in Syria was not going anyplace and Congress didn’t give a shit until ISIS showed up. Then they cared a whole lot and wanted to blame Obama. Because blaming Obama is the golden goose of politics.
1) The status quo is that POTUS controls FP at the moment. I agree this isn't a good idea, but this means POTUS is responsible for FP failures (and successes). Obama going to Congress in a punt doesn't change that.
2) Congress didn't make Obama's infamous red line statement.
Agreed, they did not make the statement. But let’s assume for a moment that Obama never said that. Should the US ignore the use of chemical weapons by Syria? How should congress and the president have addressed that issue? Do we just let Syria use all the chemical weapons they want? I am willing to accept criticism of Obama if it is follow up with some sort of solution. Again, because the world is not going to stop moving while our congress pulls it’s head out of its ass.
I supported a response similar to Trump's (preferably broader) during Assad's second use of chemical weapons, which is what I believe what Obama was basically asking for.
The public at large did not support such an intervention though.
So the answer to your question lies in how much you think Congress should use its own judgment over public opinion.
Congress's degree of independence from public opinion has gotten roasted in the Twitter Age, which is imo one the of big problems in modern US politics.
I agree it is what he was asking for. And congress didn’t give it because they were worried about public opinion. And this is the problem. Many of the House members are not interested in governing or making decisions on these issues. They don’t think it is their job, even though congress is the one that is supposed to declare war and decide how the military is funded.
EPT
