“Leading from behind” is a perfect description of Obama’s foreign policy. A man who thinks that the United States is what ‘s been wrong with the world and is in love with “multilateralism” is more then happy to follow behind the French and the United Nations. As John Podhoretz has pointed out, the liberal New Yorker magazine has handed the Republicans a campaign slogan to describe America’s position in the world. This situation has so many similarities to the United States during the Carter years when we were a stumbling, helpless giant and our president told us that our best days were behind us. As Jennifer Rubin has written “Obama has relied throughout his career on a mix of glossy rhetoric and clever pop psychology” – yet all the Madison Avenue public relations nonsense has given us is a world in flames.
by John Podhoretz
The reliably liberal New Yorker magazine isn’t usually in the habit of presenting gifts to the Republican Party, but it has just published three little words that may prove central to the GOP effort to defeat President Obama next year. Those words are “leading from behind,” and they appear at the end of a Ryan Lizza article on Obama’s foreign policy.
Lizza didn’t coin the phrase. “Leading from behind” is a direct quote from of “one of [Obama’s] advisers,” who is describing his boss’ policy on Libya. That same adviser goes on to say that the effort to lead from behind is “so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world. But it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”
And there you have it: the 2012 campaign against Obama’s foreign policy in a nutshell. By the time Election Day rolls around, if the GOP knows what’s good for it, the phrase “leading from behind” will be the “yes, we can” of 2012.
The reason the phrase is so devastating is that “leading from behind” wasn’t intended as criticism but rather as a sympathetic, even proud, defense of the administration’s approach and goals.
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It is something entirely different, and much more profoundly serious, for a presidency to be operating on the basis that the United States can only lead if it “leads from behind” because the country’s power is “declining” and because America “is reviled in many parts of the world.”
Is this something that the independent voters Obama will desperately need next year will be pleased to hear? One gets the sense that they are riven with anxiety about their future and the country’s future. This is not the sort of talk that will calm that anxiety.
Quite the opposite. It would, rather, seem custom-made to provoke anxiety about Obama’s leadership. In the first place, “leading from behind” makes no sense logically or grammatically, so it confuses before it enlightens. And then, once you figure it out, the problems really begin.
A nation’s declining power isn’t like the moon’s effect on the tide, caused by forces beyond our control. It is the result of actions, behaviors, ideas. If the White House truly believes the authority of the United States has suffered a decline, then its paramount responsibility is to reverse that decline.
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Read the rest here: ‘Leading from behind’ could doom O
Jay Nordlinger points out the obvious – that the concept of civility to political opponents is most likely not in Obama’s dictionary, and if it is he does not understand its meaning.
by Jay Nordlinger
Remember when Al Gore referred to George W. Bush as “snippy”? (He was, too, or could be.) Well, our current president is very, very snippy. And somewhat mean. And bluntly partisan. You can see all this in his reaction to Republican budget plans and ideas.
He doesn’t say that those plans and ideas are merely misguided. “My friends on the other side are well-meaning. We all want to save the country from this mess we’re in. But they have it all wrong.” Obama never says anything like that. Instead, he says that Paul Ryan & Co. are dishonest, un-American, and out to starve your grandma.
Obama’s sheer lack of class could be a boon to Republicans in 2012. An obnoxious Obama will be easier to beat than a gracious Obama. Remember that guy? The one who gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention? Mr. One America? Strangely, he has not really been that as president.
And, again, Republicans are lucky. You can be likable, charming, and ecumenical, as you socialize the country. But Obama has been something else. In demeanor and rhetoric, he has been like a DNC chairman — Debbie Wasserman Schultz, at her feistiest.
Walk with me down Memory Lane for a second. In the 2000 general election campaign, Bush had a very, very bad first debate. He came on strong in the next two. But he floundered in the first one. It could have sunk his campaign. But Gore had behaved like such a jerk — rolling his eyes, sighing, etc. — all the post-debate attention was on that: Gore’s boorishness, not Bush’s stumbles.
That was lucky, for Bush and the Republicans. They — we — were also lucky in this: The two Democratic nominees who faced Bush, Gore and John Kerry, were two of the least likable men in public life (as I see it). And the first opponent got more votes than Bush; and the second came very close. What if those Democrats had been peaches?
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Read the rest here: A boon to the Republicans
Tags: Jay Nordlinger, John Podhoretz
