I don’t care for Ted Cruz any more than Dana Milbank does but for slightly different reasons. My impression of the man is that he’s very smart and very ambitious and knows how to tailor a message to a particular audience. In other words, a demagogue. An opportunist. He’s also far too hawkish for my tastes.
However, what bothers me about Mr. Milbank’s column is that he’s putting forward the view that unless you are in 100% agreement with the White House 100% of the time the only alternatives he sees is that you are either a warmonger or an isolationist (the president has been both, at least according to Mr. Milbank’s skewed definitions, as suited his fancy). With respect to Syria I think the president erred in making an idle threat. You should never make an idle threat. That’s been a prevailing bit of western wisdom for the last two millennia. Having made the threat he should have followed through with it, at least half-heartedly.
So, Mr. Milbank falls victim to the tertium non datur fallacy. Sen. Cruz could oppose retaliatory bombing of the Assad regime without contradiction by supporting a land invasion, just to name one possibility. It’s not a view with which I agree but it’s a possibility.
When did Milbank start commenting at OTB?
Reverse causality. They don’t know nothin’ but what they read in the newspaper.
From the link (3rd paragraph):
This appears to be Dana Milbank’s thesis, but he only provides support for the second part: “… Cruz rallied opposition to bombing Syria.” He assumes that the bombing would have enforced the red line, but he does not support this assumption. He assumes that Obama was not able to bomb because of Cruz’s actions, but he does not support this assumption.
Meandering towards his concluding paragraph, he throws several other premises against the wall to see what will stick. “This is vintage Cruz, who I’ve long suspected to be a charlatan.” “Now, isolationism is fading within the conservative movement, and Cruz is opportunistically becoming more of an interventionist.” “And now Kinzinger is campaigning against the opportunistic Cruz; he backs Jeb Bush for president.” The last one is a parting shot.
I dislike Sen. Cruz, and I am no supporter of the delusional hawks. Dana Milbank dislikes all Republicans, but he is not willing to say this. Instead, he will use one to bash another. Next week, he will use Sen. Cruz to bash somebody else. He is not the only one who does this. The Right does it also.
???? I don’t really understand the red line thing. The got rid of their chemical weapons. What else should we have wanted?
Steve
Well, first off they didn’t get rid of their chemical weapons. They declared some and destroyed them. That’s not the same thing. It enabled us to save a little face as long as you weren’t paying attention too closely.
We should have wanted not to reduce the effectiveness of our foreign policy and the deterrent effect of our military. It seems to me that’s the least we should expect from our presidents.
Jimmy Carter had a very harmful effect on both our foreign policy and our military reputation. Reagan started out poorly in that regard but by the end of his presidency things had turned out pretty well. George H. W. Bush increased the effectiveness of our foreign policy and boosted the repute of our military to a new high.
Clinton didn’t do much one way or another. You might have thought that George W. Bush had pushed things about as low as they would go but you’d be wrong. Obama started out on a high note and at this point our allies, frenemies, and opponents don’t trust us and show their disdain for him pretty openly.
Fuck Cruz, PATAKI is running!
(A line said with enthusiasm by no one, to borrow a construction from the kids.)
This all reminds me of the asshole Republicans a few years ago that were stating that Obama would lead to a new Reagan. I’m not even going to recount the obvious reasons that was a pile of steaming hooey, as I expect everyone here will think of several of the ones I did on my own, and several others I didn’t think of.
The older I get the less I believe in the universal warm-body franchise.
Rand Paul got himself into trouble with Bobbie Jindal and Chris Christie for saying GOP hawks were responsible for ISIS, but Rand Paul himself retreated from his initial non-interventionist stand against ISIS and has long abandoned his dad'[s refusal to kowtow to Israel, which alone would likely lead him into war if nominated and elected president.
Not to worry, though, the Israel Firsters still don’t trust him and would never allow it.
Ken,
Well at least Hillary isn’t an Israel Firster, right?
They destroyed a large amount. it is not clear if anything other than chlorine is being used now. It is not clear who is using what. If you want to claim that this reduced the deterrent effect of our military, than you have to believe we aren’t using it enough. From my POV it should be all too clear that we are always ready to use our military to solve everything.
“Reagan started out poorly in that regard but by the end of his presidency things had turned out pretty well.”
From the military aspect was this from running away in Lebanon or conquering Grenada? Those were both in 83 when I was in the military and I don’t remember anyone thinking those were great military feats. About all I can think of later in his second term is the Soviets leaving Afghanistan. I guess you can give him some credit for arming and training the mujahideen, but we know where that ends and that was really not military action per se.
Now on the foreign policy side, I think he gets tons of credit for bucking his own party and talking with the Soviets. The nuclear treaty was truly a good thing. Internal forces were already tearing apart the USSR and he mad it pretty clear we weren’t going to attack and take advantage of their chaos.
Steve
Nonsense. Deterrent effect relies on the belief that force will be used. There are other ways to do that than by using force. We still have a nuclear deterrent even though we haven’t used nuclear weapons in 70 years.
Once a threat of violence is established as credible, it does not need to be constantly repeated. It may occasionally need to be bolstered if the circumstances dictate. This is true with children, criminals, or countries.
Once the rules are established, everybody knows the consequences of breaking the rules, and everybody can play the game. Problems arise when people do not understand how the game works.
The people who wanted Gaddafi gone got their wish. The people who want Assad gone are getting their wish, and the people who made the Baltimore police the criminals got their wish.
Just because there are a lot of people wishing for the same thing does not make it a good idea. A stupid idea is still stupid no matter what percentage of people agree with you.
But once your hand has been called and they realize you were bluffing you can’t regain that credibility easily.
Hillary? Of course.
Why even Bernie Sanders defended the Gaza genocide as only slightly
overdone.
Dennis Kucinich, if you want a Dem on the left with clean hands.
Of course gerrymandered out of office, replaced by another suspect.