Replies to post #55456 on Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens apparently has such high expectations for Barack Obama, he seems terribly disappointed that the new president has not yet vanquished U.S. rivals around the world and solved the most serious international challenges.

Barack Obama has now been president for 21 days, following an inauguration that was supposed to have pressed the reset button on America's relations with the wider world and ushered in a new period of global cooperation against common threats.


Stephens then spends the next 700 words reminding us that Iran still engages in belligerent posturing; NATO allies are still reluctant to send troops to Afghanistan; North Korea is still led by lunatics; Pakistan is still dangerous; and Russia still wants to exert influence in breakaway republics. Stephens even found an Egyptian novelist who wants to hear more from Obama about Gaza, which Stephens believes is evidence of skepticism of the new administration on "the Arab street."

All of this leads Stephens to conclude that the president needs to do more to "inspire fear among the wicked."

It occurs to me -- and I'll just throw this out there as a possibility -- that maybe President Obama's foreign policy vision needs more than three weeks to make a difference. Perhaps, before we write off the president's ability to improve the nation's international standing, we could give Obama a chance to unpack first.

Or, as Steve M. put it, maybe it's not Obama's supporters who have unrealistic expectations:

Stephens was expecting everything to be hearts and flowers already? Right-wingers clearly take the notion of Obama as "The One," the magical wand-waving transformer of everything, a hell of a lot more seriously than do the people who are supposed to believe he's "The One," namely liberals and Democrats. We know the changes he's trying to make are going to take time. We know his overtures are frequently going to be rebuffed. (Kim Jong-Il obviously isn't going to come around faster than John Boehner.) Come on, Bret -- three weeks?

[teapeebubbles]

It was par for the course last week when Karl Rove, speaking at Loyola Marymount University as part of its "First Amendment Week," boasted, "I love how the last eight years, this White House, the Bush White House, was criticized for being tight-lipped. We didn't leak." Given the Plame scandal, the irony is rich.

But I was just as interested to read excerpts from Rove's speech, and notice his ongoing criticism of the New York Times for exposing the Bush administration's warrantless-search program.

"Secrecy and confidentiality are necessary for every government, especially when you're at war.

"Most citizens don't want our plans to stop an enemy attack splashed on the front pages of the newspaper. So when the New York Times took it upon itself to describe an intelligence program that used electronic means of communication and information-gathering ... by which we listen in to the electronic communications of our enemy abroad -- their satellite phones, their Internet messages, anything of an electronic nature. When the New York Times let it be known that we were doing this, it put America and our allies at risk.

"Because by sharing this vital secret, we telegraphed to the enemy: Don't you be sending e-mails, because virtually every e-mail in the world passes through a U.S. network, and we'll grab it.

"Don't you be using a satellite telephone to communicate about your plans to attack Americans or our friends or allies, because we may be listening in.

"Don't be using a cellphone, because we might have found some guy on a battlefield somewhere and gone through his pockets. They call it pocket litter. When we kill somebody on the battlefield, every piece of paper, every document, every item on their body is collected and analyzed, and that information goes into a gigantic database. ... So don't be using that cellphone to communicate your plans because we might be listening in on it."



Now, we're long past the point at which it's productive to re-litigate the value of a program that empowers the federal government to access U.S. communications without a warrant. But reviewing Rove's complaint against the NYT, I'm struck by the sweeping nature of the message to terrorists abroad.

To hear Rove tell it, the New York Times effectively told al Qaeda that it can no longer communicate by way of telephones, cellphones, satellite phones, emails, or apparently any kind of electronic communication.

I'm curious -- what does that leave the terrorists? Smoke signals? Carrier pigeons?