It's not always about optics
Look, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I know politics often involves more optics than substance. Hell, I sometimes demand better optics from the political class myself. But I'm really irritated by this false meme that Obama is pretending to take charge of the response to Irene.
No. He's not just "learning the lesson of Katrina" and making sure it appears he's engaged and in charge. He's actually taking charge of the response, because it's his job and he's been fully engaged in doing that job from day one. He's not the one who asks for the Cliff Notes version for the briefings. That was the last guy and any superficial analogies between the two are wildly invalid. Not that it has stopped the media from plying this lazy narrative.
And of course, the usual GOPologists are working overtime to promote that bogus meme. But everybody knows they have an agenda. They don't pretend to be neutral observers.
There's lots of valid reasons to question and criticize Obama's decisions. But it's simply wrong to imply that he makes them without having become as fully informed as humanly possible.
No. He's not just "learning the lesson of Katrina" and making sure it appears he's engaged and in charge. He's actually taking charge of the response, because it's his job and he's been fully engaged in doing that job from day one. He's not the one who asks for the Cliff Notes version for the briefings. That was the last guy and any superficial analogies between the two are wildly invalid. Not that it has stopped the media from plying this lazy narrative.
And of course, the usual GOPologists are working overtime to promote that bogus meme. But everybody knows they have an agenda. They don't pretend to be neutral observers.
There's lots of valid reasons to question and criticize Obama's decisions. But it's simply wrong to imply that he makes them without having become as fully informed as humanly possible.
Labels: policy, politics, President Obama
posted by Libby Spencer at 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
The idea that he's a figurehead who doesn't do anything doesn't fit with the simultaneous story that says he's a tyrant, does it? When bin Laden was shot, I got an e-mail within minutes claiming that no credit should be given to him and that he actually was under house arrest and Panetta and the Joint chiefs because the president was a coward who just couldn't give the command.
I got nearly the same story when those Maersk Alabama pirates were shot -- Obama was too afraid to give the order so the Secretary of defense had to overrule him secretly so no credit should be given.
I don't know whether these traitors are too stupid to remember what they said last weak or whether the idiots that spread this stuff are too stupid or too racist or simply psychotic, but I don't care. They're dirt bags who don't deserve citizenship and should be dumped in the ocean in weighted sacks like bin Laden's corpse.
I have an old link somewhere to a medical study that suggests it's a cortical dysfunction. Something in their brains gets triggered when presented with information that negates their beliefs, and not only does it make them angry, it reinforces their belief in the mistaken belief. Or, they're just sociopaths who have always been out there but before the internets, we didn't have to see or listen to them.
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