Snap My Fingers \u2014 Guantanamo Closed!<\/strong><\/p>\nRemember Guantanamo? He could have said in January: \u201cTough call. Eric Holder once thought it was fine. Where else do you put non-uniformed murderers, who are sort of foreign soldiers in a global war unlike domestic criminals, but yet not soldiers either as we have traditionally defined them at Geneva? \u00a0We will have a long look at the facility, get bipartisan input from the Bush administration and the Congress, and then choose the bad rather than the worst choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nope. Instead, we got the hope and change soaring cadences about shutting it down within \u201ca year\u201d and \u201creset button\u201d inanity\u2014ad nauseam. That will prove to be impossible. Already he is throwing his Guantanamo czar under the bus, even as Mr. Craig blames (you guessed it) the Bush administration for his inability to depose of the detainees. (Did he really think that divine-sounding Germans and British leftists who shouted that we were running a Stalig would really want their own terrorists back home rather than in Cuba under lock and key?)<\/p>\n
Snap Twice\u2014Europeans Hypnotized<\/strong><\/p>\nIn fact, most contemporary meltdowns involve Nemesis. Did Obama imagine that he could wow cynical Europeans with diversity stories about Chicago, as if they were props at a campaign rally or guilt-ridden college deans? Yes, it worked in 2008, but already then his fatuousness was gaining the goddess\u2019s attention. (I am careful when doing European interviews; even sympathetic Euros have at best an ironic streak, at worse a sort of delight in embarrassing you, given their world weariness and suspicion of anything that sounds of idealism or na\u00efvet\u00e9 (cf. the old trope of \u2018innocents abroad\u2019).) Obama should have learned all that from his Brandenburg Gate\/Victory Column stunt two summers ago. (When he stands next to the smaller, but more significant Sarkozy, Obama now seems almost pre-teenish.)<\/p>\n
And Then There is Always Letterman to the Rescue<\/strong><\/p>\nDitto David Letterman. It was not just that he indulged in the same sort of behavior as the butts of his jokes serially enjoyed, but that such jibes naturally turned attention to his own supposedly exempt lifestyle. If a Clinton or Edwards got caught up in the vanity of power, and needed the ego-boosting or enjoyment that younger flesh might impart, why did Letterman, given his similar character, think he was any different? Did he think the goddess was snoozing when he libeled the 14-year daughter of Sarah Palin as a dugout tart?<\/p>\n
Be Careful\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Greeks remind us that when success and bounty arrive, then, especially, it is time to be self-effacing, modest, generous, and forgiving. If not, retribution follows \u2014 whether because human nature dictates that the crowd wishes misfortune upon the haughty, or, as I confess that I believe, there is a sort of divine force that seeks to remind us of our own folly and can only do that in appropriately dramatic and timely fashion.<\/p>\n
If it were true that the financial meltdown of last September and the tough time in Iraq were reminders to the Bush administration that once around 2003, coming off Wall Street surges and easy victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, they should have calmed down, and treaded softly (rather than \u2018mission accomplished\u2019 and \u2018bring \u2018em on\u2019), so too Obama should have feared the goddess last winter.<\/p>\n
Nemesis Was Watching, Watching\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\nNemesis has caught up with him in oh so many ways. From what we can tell, he was not a serious student, but rather a glib and politically astute observer, who rode affirmative action, identity politics, and campus trends (I am now gleaning this from his own autobiography) right through Occidental and Columbia to Harvard Law \u2014 without much scholarship. He was given much more attention at Chicago Law School for what he represented than what he accomplished. He arrogantly thought he could glide into the racist cauldron of Trinity Church, and glide out as an authentic African-American organizer of the Jesse Jackson sort.<\/p>\n
His Senate career was similar \u2014 long on soaring rhetoric, in perpetual campaign mode, predicated on white liberal guilt and ease with a charismatic \u201cother\u201d \u2014 and short on actual accomplishment.<\/p>\n
Nixonian<\/strong><\/p>\nIf Richard Nixon had a bad habit of being vindictive and bending the rules for political purposes, so too Obama had believed that glibness, casual acquaintance with facts, and flashy rhetoric were substitutes for accomplishment. Just as Nemesis struck Nixon in 1973 at his apogee for long accrued but previously unpaid sins, so too Obama is now caught and tumbling to or below 50% approval. (Despite the media blitz, the worn racist charge, the glamour, the youth and interviews, the novelty of his presidency, despite all that, one of two Americans, within a few months of his inauguration, simply does not support him or his agenda.)<\/p>\n
So Easy Then, So Easy Now?<\/strong><\/p>\nDaily, his lack of study and prior scholarship come calling to embarrass him. Apparently one can get through Harvard Law and think Austrian is a language or Auschwitz was liberated by Americans \u2014 or that there is no difference between a democratic Columbia and Israel and a dictatorial Venezuela and Syria. After the dazzling campaign, the 75% approval ratings at the inauguration, and the nonstop media attention, Obama was at the crossroads. Could he have pondered the choices, \u201cNow is the time for serious study and statesmanship \u2014 or wow, that was easy, now more of the cheap path of duping crowds with hope and change banality, and \u2018I am the one we\u2019ve been waiting for\u2019 monotony\u201d? He took the latter path, and so summoned Nemesis.<\/p>\n
What If?<\/strong><\/p>\nA sober man would have concluded the following: Republicans tanked because of Congressional corruption, deficit spending, natural weariness after eight years with Bush, the Iraq war \u2014 and especially the September 2008 meltdown. That latter panic, combined with American good will toward the idea of electing the first African-American as President, and eagerness to have a young Camelot couple in the White House, provided the narrow margin of victory. The win was not because we like debt, more government, the U.N., or Van Jones.<\/p>\n
Instead Obama, as was his wont, thought \u201cI am so charismatic and the public so easily mesmerized, that I will talk on through the greatest upside-down change in the nation\u2019s history, partly through mellifluousness, partly through my accustomed demagoguery.\u201d It worked \u2014 but scarcely for six months.<\/p>\n
The Albatross Has Landed<\/strong><\/p>\nSo here we are: a center-right country \u2014 looking back with more perspective at what caused the panic, assessing Iraq over time, always uncomfortable with the collective burden of debt, not eager for the DMV people and the post office running healthcare \u2014 is balking. Yet look at the agenda to come soon: socialized healthcare, cap-and-trade (a trillion in new surcharges?), immigration reform (open borders and amnesty?), more stimuli (redistributive, not job-creating, influxes?), iconic appointments to czardom who are race\/class\/gender polarizing figures \u2014 and always the class warfare rhetoric of Michelle\u2019s bar-raising \u201cthey,\u201d coupled with confessions of American sins abroad.<\/p>\n
Sorry, that agenda would take a demi-god to push through. Obama thought he was divine, but he has feet of clay, and now his once hypnotized supporters in the Congress are stuck with a Jimmy Carter\/LBJ like albatross around their collective neck. The reason Dick Morris is one of the most astute critics of Obama is precisely because he saw the same tendencies in the less charismatic Clinton, and found the right elixirs to purge him of such suicidal political instincts \u2014 just in time to save his presidency.<\/p>\n
Time to Repent?<\/strong><\/p>\nWhereas Clinton tried to coax the opposition, and out-fox them legislatively, Obama, always the even greater narcissist and more sincere ideologue, is choosing the us\/them crusade. But defaming critics, assuming that moderates are apostates, redealing the dog-eared race card, gnashing his teeth at legitimate skepticism \u2014 all in pursuit of making America Luxembourg or Belgium, all that will boomerang. Just watch \u2014 but avoid Nemesis in our \u201cWe told you so\u201d moments.<\/p>\n
\n* I hope this is not a \u201cI told you so\u201d moment, since the idea of such an essay was not just mine: I offered a few thoughts on the Democrats as Afghan zealots, over a year ago, in\u00a0World Affairs<\/em>, at the invitation of my friend, the gifted editor Peter Collier, who easily saw through the \u201cLet Me Go Get \u2018Em\u201d tough Obama talk on Afghanistan. Collier was worried that the rhetoric of the future President would get him \u2014 and us \u2014 in trouble. The more I reviewed the texts of Obama\u2019s whistle-stop braggadacio, energized by toss-offs from the Kerrys and Reids of Congress, the more I agreed and wondered whether Obama knew what he was calling down upon himself. In many of the comments posted here during the past three years, many of you readers voiced your own skepticism about this sudden muscularity on Afghanistan \u2014 not that you wished it were not true, but rather that you wished it were, but suspected it was not, and that it was a campaign pose. The tragedy is, of course, that the best among us are out there fighting the 7th-Century, and sorely need our support for their magnificent vigilance and the terrible risks they incur. As long as they are in harm\u2019s way, we should hold the President to his boasting about his rock-solid determination to give them the tools they need:<\/p>\nVowing to do what it takes in the good war by leaving Iraq \u2014 infusing more troops into Afghanistan, and occasionally invading Pakistan \u2014 was for candidate Obama always a rhetorical stance that proved both his anti-Iraq War\u00a0bona fides<\/em>\u00a0and his larger credibility on matters of national security. But President Obama and his mercurial supporters in Congress will soon face a rather embarrassing dilemma. Without the responsibilities of a commander-in-chief, he once demanded we should leave Iraq when leaving would have lost that war. But now, as commander- in-chief he will soon learn that a few thousand more troops will not guarantee lasting victory over the Taliban. And changing strategy from stealthy attacks by aerial drones in Pakistan to open ground incursions across the border risks widening rather than solving the conflict.<\/p>\n\u201cTaking our eye off the ball\u201d was always a dubious campaign talking point. Afghanistan was not the only \u201cball\u201d in the global war against terror; we never took our eye off it; and we were always binocular. What we may well see instead is that those who wished more of an American commitment to Afghanistan as cover for their opposition to Iraq will now desert President Obama, as anti-war critics take their eye off a receding Iraq and focus it instead on an increasingly violent Afghanistan \u2014 especially given the sensational terrorist acts associated with the near-rogue state of Pakistan. In that case, President Obama may well have to revert to his earlier manifestation of candidate Obama, who campaigned on the notion that a surge of military forces into an apparent quagmire was little more than an unsophisticated act of desperation \u2014 in a complex landscape that required American forces to exit and to allow indigenous tribal folks to sort out their own affairs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n
\u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Nemesis Everywhere I have believed in the power of the goddess Nemesis (\u201cdispenser of dues\u201d) ever since I was introduced to the concept as a teenager studying classics, especially in the texts of Hesiod, Herodotus, and Sophocles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[651],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-zQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6904,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-it-about-hubris-politicians-dont-get\/","url_meta":{"origin":2222,"position":0},"title":"What Is It about Hubris Politicians Don’t Get?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 Have any of them taken two hours to read one Sophoclean play? A reelected and proudly iconoclastic Christie in recent months relished in his swagger, braggadocio, media celebrity, and often picked fights, apparently assuming that his first-persona laced speeches and gestures were immune\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6184,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nemesis-after-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":2222,"position":1},"title":"Nemesis, After All","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media A Plodding Goddess Like a broken record, for the last five years\u00a0I have invoked\u00a0the Greek concept of Nemesis, or divine retribution for unchecked hubris, to explain what was in store for the Obama administration. Most readers have sighed, \u201cOK already, but where\u2019s the divine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9919,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ancient-laws-of-unintended-consequences\/","url_meta":{"origin":2222,"position":2},"title":"The Ancient Laws of Unintended Consequences","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Eight years of a fawning press have made the Left reckless. The classical idea of a divine Nemesis (\u201creckoning\u201d or \u201cdownfall\u201d) that brings unforeseen retribution for hubris (insolence and arrogance) was a recognition that there are certain laws of the universe that operated independently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Democrats"","block_context":{"text":"Democrats","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/democrats\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1531,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/saving-obama-from-himself\/","url_meta":{"origin":2222,"position":3},"title":"Saving Obama From Himself","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Do you remember candidate Barack Obama offering his hope-and-change platitudes in front of the fake Greek columns during the Democratic convention? Or earlier pontificating at the Victory Monument in Berlin? Why didn't an old cigar-chomping Democratic pro take him aside and warn him\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2010"","block_context":{"text":"June 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/june-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberal-chickens\/","url_meta":{"origin":2222,"position":4},"title":"Liberal Chickens","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It could not last \u2014 the attendee of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright\u2019s church sermonizing on tolerance; the practitioner of Chicago politics lecturing on civility; the most partisan voting record in the Senate as proof of a new promised bipartisanship; earlier books and speeches\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Left"","block_context":{"text":"The Left","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/liberalism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9908,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/presidential-payback-for-media-hubris\/","url_meta":{"origin":2222,"position":5},"title":"Presidential Payback for Media Hubris","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/Defining Ideas \u00a0 \u00a0This article is reprinted from Defining Ideas, an online journal at the Hoover Institution. To read the original article click here.\u00a0 Donald Trump conducted a press conference recently as if he were a loud circus ringmaster whipping the media circus animals into shape. 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