Could be I'm just whining about the 'liberal press' - I used to think all complaints about the liberal press amounted to dyspeptic whines but since my own POV has shifted increasingly rightwards I can see that we dyspeptic whiners have a point - but how is it Obama is being lauded for the passage of START as if it represented some wholesale victory for him over the forces of evil? Even those who supported the treaty agreed that it was essentially an innocuous document that could only do real harm if were rejected and caused us to lose the Russians [a dubious claim since as far as I'm concerned we don't really have them] - so it's patently absurd that the press covers this thing as if Obama has saved American foreign policy from certain ruin. Not to mention that republicans got what they wanted - it's just as much a victory for them! The right wanted money put on the table for modernization of the US nuclear arsenal and wording to the preamble of the treaty changed so as the ambiguity of it couldn't be manipulated by Russians in opposition to missile defense - and that's what they got. Yes, many on the right are still not thrilled by the treaty because they see it as a sell out to the Russians for the spurious if not delusional goal of gaining their cooperation viz Iran - but as Robert Kagan shrewdly points out in the Washington Post this morning had the republicans aborted this treaty democrats could have blamed them for the eventual failure of the Iran engagement policy - now, when negotiations with Iran inevitably collapse and Russia is revealed to have been less than helpful in that regard republicans can point to Obama and say "you see, your whole approach to foreign policy was naive".
Sure, if Obama, given his new circumstances, is sincere in trying to play the Clintonesque moderate [something that will be hard to do since Clinton actually was a moderate and unlike Obama owed no great favours to the uber lefties] then yes this amounts to a modest victory for him in that context - but that's not how the liberal press is characterizing it - to them this is a reborn, remade Obama rising gloriously in decisive victory over the dark side.
Jennifer Rubin, who was a favourite blogger of mine when she was with Commentary and now is the token right wing blogger for the Washington Post [remember their last 'right wing' blogger turned out to be a lefty ideologue], seems to share my bewilderment at press treatment of Obama's recent successes.
addendum: apparently I was wrong, the preamble language wasn't changed, Obama merely sent a letter to congress promising to defend missile defense, as it were - since the document is virtually useless anyway I don't know if this matters - if Obama doesn't follow through on defense of missile tech he'll be toast - and if Russians threaten to pull out of the treaty because of missile defense, do we really care? The diplomatic dance with Iran will be over by then and since that's the only real justification for the treaty [and a shallow one at that] it won't really matter if the Russians object to our missile defense plans. So it comes down to was there more to gain or lose by letting Obama have his treaty? If so I think I still agree with Kagan's assessment.
Krauthammer has an article in the Post today basically saying that Obama has resurrected his presidency with these legislative successes, that a mere two months removed from electoral slaughter that Obama is back from the dead because of the Bush tax cuts extension, DADT and START. I don't see that. DADT, sure, liberals love shit like this so his base is mollified, but this was a fait accompli, democrats could have lost every contested seat in the midterms and this was still gonna pass - the writing was on the wall, Gates was behind it, Mullen was behind it, Petraeus was behind it, polls suggest Americans don't mind it - this was gonna happen so I'm not really sure it's such a big win for Obama there, e3specially since the tax cuts, which the left absolutely despise, were anything but a fait accompli. START? Sure, a win, but modest and short term - and it's such a bad treaty that if there's no progress on Iran come 2012, or if worse they have actually tested a bomb, well, whoever is the GOP candidate in 2012 will be able to beat Obama over the head with this treaty nonstop - this treaty will become an albatross for him if the Russians don't play nice and Iran gets the bomb: I just don't see how you get any long term benefit from a treaty that even its supporters believe is of limited value and of absolutely no value, in fact negative value should Iran continue merrily on towards nuclear glory, which I fully expect them to do [although Stuxnet has changed the math on those calculations][and let's not forget we'll know by then if Medvedev is running for reelection or whether we'll be seeing the return of Putin - if it's Putin this treaty is absolutely worthless]. As for the tax cuts, Krauthammer asserts they represent a huge win for Obama viz independent voters - but does he forget the language Obama used during the press conference when he announced the extension of the cuts? He was disgusted that he felt he had no choice but to agree with the extension, he summoned the language of class warfare and he promised without reservation that first chance he got he'd be raising taxes on 'the rich'. I don't see how a performance like that lifts your reputation as a moderate - sure, there's short term benefit for him - but during the 2012 campaign I would guess its a virtual certainty that that press conference will come back to haunt him - or is he thinking: the economy will be improving by then, I can always fool independents into thinking I'm a moderate, after all I've done it before, and if I can get the lefties believing that if they just support me again I can deliver on all their 'make the rich pay' dreams, then I'm golden - if he manages to do that I'll almost have to start admiring him - still disagree with him for sure - but if he's that cunning [or cutthroat] an operator you'd really have no choice but to admire it in some way. On the other hand, it'd really just be the incarnation incarnation of Chicago styled political machinations at the national level, so not that revelatory actually - I mean his whole campaign for the presidency was marked by these kind of cynical calculations - Afghanistan, the post-racial uniter, the economic moderate, the restorer of America's reputation to the wide world, the florid speeches to lure people into the comforting fantasy world of him as the anti-Bush - all just a lot of nonsense to gain power - still not clear if it was simply power for power's sake, in his case the celebration of ego, or if he/they truly are motivated by a leftist agenda and all these calculations a manifestation of Alinsky in the Oval Office. After all, his seeming post election embrace of Clintonian triangulation could suggest either scenario is true, ie they're playing for time in hopes of a dramatic turn around in 2012 at which point they will start the revolution all over again; or they're desperate to avoid the scourge of history wherein the first black president would also be tagged an abysmal failure.
