When people consider themselves exceptional, they make themselves potentially dangerous. That’s the gist of what Vladmir Putin had to say in his N.Y.Times op-ed piece, and people of many different political stripes here in the United States seem to have taken exception to this. I happened to be at the dentist the morning of its publication; the flat-screen t.v. above my dental couch was playing Fox & Friends, and they were throwing Stalin in Putin’s face. No surprise there. (What else can you expect from a clown parade headed by Michele Malkin?) A lot of t.v. liberals didn’t like it either. Frankly, though, for all of his failings as a leader, it’s not hard to see what Putin was getting at.
We have, under the banner of American Exceptionalism, invaded any number of third-world countries over the past century and a quarter. The results have not been positive. (Just ask them.) Putin and others are approaching us as if conducting an intervention; trying to keep us from repeating the same bad behavior, over and over again. You know you have a problem when it takes Russia and China to talk you down. One can only hope that they succeed. This Syria intervention is just a crazy, bad idea, and one that the president seems very attached to. It’s a kind of madness, executive power, and it’s long since taken hold of old Barry-O.
What is kind of amazing is that the notion of striking Syria is really deeply unpopular from the get-go. This is so clearly the case that many conservative Republicans in congress really don’t know whether to shit or wind their watches. I heard one dancing around like a little wind-up toy on the radio a few days ago; they sooooo want to support an attack, but they sooooo need to undermine Obama, and their constituents are pushing them hard. This is the new pacifism: 20-25% of the country is opposed to war with Syria because they are against anything Obama wants, no matter what it is. Half of the centrist-liberal-left spectrum is firmly against it. That leaves neocon Republicans, “muscular” interventionist liberals, and other armchair bombardiers. I guess that means having a Democratic president makes us less likely to intervene in these polarized times.
Whatever keeps this disaster from happening can’t be all bad.
luv u,
jp
