Good Bye Is Too Good A Word, Babe, So I'll Just Say Fare Thee Well.

The Daily Banter's Bob Cesca recognizes Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky as "an opportunist and will say just about anything in order to sucker either the far-right and the far-left into supporting him."

But the Washington establishment is more likely to be suckered by Paul than are movement liberals, such as when the Senator recently wrote in Time magazine

If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.

The outrage in Ferguson is understandable—though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.

The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action....

When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury—national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture—we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.

The Washington Post's Dan Balz- who nearly defines "inside the Beltway"- claims that conservative critics of the police response to events in Ferguson, Missouri

reflect a shift away from the usual support and sympathy conservatives typically show for law enforcement in such situations. Although possibly unique to the circumstances of the events in Missouri this week, the changing reaction on the right is clear evidence of a rising and more vocal libertarian wing within the Republican Party.

No better sign of that came Thursday than in an article by Sen. Rand Paul.

There are few things more typical of "village behavior," as Digby often has labeled it, than excitement over Repubs who utter statements suggesting they don't dislike people simply because of their ethnicity.  Balz continues "Paul also bluntly pointed to the role that race continues to play in law enforcement. 'Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention,' he wrote."

Michael Luciano, like Cesca blogging at The Daily Banter, admiringly notes "Paul has been one of the few Republicans in Congress who’s taken an active role in crafting legislation to mitigate the racial disparities in the criminal justice system. He’s also faced pressure from the Right for his openness to compromise on immigration reform because, you know, Mexicans."

More likely, Paul has been criticized by the right because he has contended "if you want immigration reform, there has to be openness to compromise." Lacking detail, that is meaningless to the left but poison to the right, to which compromise is a four letter word (another four letter word, completely unrelated, in video below). It's only the mainstream media, lacking an ideological compass,which finds the notion of "compromise" without specifics so alluring.

Even The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn was impressed, maintaining "The politician who gave the strongest condemnation of police tactics in Ferguson, Missouri, may not have been President Obama or any of the other liberal Democrats you might have expected. It was probably Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky."

Unimpressed by Paul, Cesca notes that in April, 2013 the junior Senator from Kentucky had stated

I’ve never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an active crime going on. If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash, I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him…

If there’s a killer on the loose in a neighborhood, I’m not against drones being used to search them out, heat-seeking devices being used, I’m all for law enforcement.

Doubting Paul's sincerity, Cesca argues

Rand Paul is against the militarization of the police — but he supports using $12 million predator drones to annihilate liquor store thieves in Anytown, USA — but he also opposes using drones against American citizens. If you believe he’s sincere on any of these positions, I have some robot insurance to sell you.

Again, he will say anything depending on which way the political winds are blowing. 

Moreover, beyond the headlines he provoked, Paul hints at the "crony capitalism" Republicans periodically trot out cynically to pander to the populist instincts of the GOP base. He criticizes "big government," which

has been at the heart of the problem. Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies- where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.

This is boilerplate conservatism, blaming "Washington" and the federal government for the overreach of municipal government(s) or the private sector.  Still, if Rand Paul believes that gets him anywhere closer to the GOP presidential nomination, he is sadly mistaken. Despite his (Ayn) Randian sentiments, and sincere or not, Paul has criticized law enforcement, raised the specter of racism in American society, and implied that liberals can't be simply wished away.

The Kentucky Senator will dial back those sentiments, which otherwise would doom him to failure far before Cleveland in July, 2016.  But the die has been cast. As Steve M. remarks "Buh-bye, Rand. I really thought you had a shot at the nomination, but you're toast. And if you don't believe me, wait till Monday when Pope Limbaugh excommunicates you from conservatism for that Time op-ed."










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Nothing New Under The Sun. Or With McCain.

Give a Republican some credit. The ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, has remarked

I regret the situation in Iraq has devolved to where it is and the many decisions and circumstances that have led us to this point. While I support the administration's short-term actions to respond to the current crisis, I expect them to lay out in the coming days the objectives they hope to achieve and the related time frame.

President Obama ought to offer the nation a forthright explanation of our objectives.  Certainly, he hopes- and expects- the military involvement in Iraq he recently announced to be of limited duration or, as the Tennessee Repub put it, "related time frame."

But two other Republicans have reacted as one would expect.  House Speaker John Boehner, with neither a clue nor a guiding principle, remarked "The president’s authorization of airstrikes is appropriate, but like many Americans, I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region.”

John McCain, always with more principle than common sense, has commented to The Daily Beast of the smart bombs dropped on ISIS convoys approaching the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan

This is a pinprick... it’s almost worse than nothing because I fear the president is threatening and then he won’t follow through....It’s the weakest possible response and we cannot allow them to take Erbil. What [the administration has] done so far is almost meaningless.

McCain, who advocates more airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and arming the Kurdistan resistance, added "We are paying the price for inaction and we are paying the price for withdrawal.  [Doing more] would contradict some of the fundamentals of [Obama’s] national security policy. But it’s just tragic.”

It is indeed tragic that the Arizona Senator is still beating that dead horse, still evidently unaware that we are not paying the price for withdrawal but for the initial invasion of Iraq- and despite conventional wisdom, for the surge that McCain loves more than life itself.

The primary challenge to the Beltway wisdom that the Surge was a success has been from a few foreign policy experts who argue the Anbar Awakening was more instrumental in reducing the level of violence in Iraq.  However, last month Adam Barr explained

It cannot be denied that the surge and Anbar Awakening were successful in decreasing the levels of violence in Iraq, both against Iraqi citizens and coalition forces. However, I will show that the surge and the U.S. sponsoring of the SOI in the Anbar Awakening held only short-term benefits for Iraq that paved the way for U.S. withdrawal. These short-term benefits of violence reduction came at the cost of long-term stability in Iraq after the U.S. forces withdrew, due to the bottom-up approach that the surge and Awakening took, which was “adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration” (Simon, 2008: 58). The bottom-up strategies of the surge and Awakening fostered the retribalisation of Iraq, undermining the authority of the central government and the cohesion of the country; encouraged the growth of warlordism – especially amongst the Sunni tribes; and failed to address the driving forces behind much of the sectarian violence, instead providing a short-term ‘band aid’ approach to the problem. Moreover, the U.S. failed to use its leverage against the Maliki government to pursue a top-down approach to stabilising the country in the long-term, which should have focused on repatriating the Sunnis back into the political process at an earlier date and brokered a more sustainable power sharing agreement. By addressing these issues, it is apparent that when it withdraws from Iraq, the

“United States will be leaving a country more divided than the one it invaded – thanks to a strategy that has systematically nourished domestic rivalries in order to maintain an illusory short-term stability” (Simon, 2008: 70).

And so it goes. Notwithstanding the apparent departure of al-Maliki (photo below from AFP/Getty via Foreign Policy blog The Cable), the situation in Iraq likely will remain unstable through the next presidential election. There will be no avoiding the issue for either side and it is no more likely the GOP presidential candidate or congressional candidates will blandly refer to "circumstances" than the Republican Party will assume blame for lighting the fire itself in Iraq.

Bob Corker's statement is an outlier. Complexity is as foreign concept to its side as the nation of Iraq itself. John McCain is paving the way for Republican candidates in at lest the next two election cycles to pound on the themes of premature withdrawal, "inaction," or "weakness," It's how they play the game, and the canard of Republican strength and Democratic weakness dies hard.

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Occupying Ferguson

You can see this one coming from a mile away.  The Justice Department has promptly jumped launched an investigation into the police riot in Ferguson, Missouri (first photo below from Reuters/Mario Anzuoni, the following two from AP/Jeff Roberson). Police Chief Thomas

Jackson held a press conference on Wednesday, curiously at the same time as a peace march nearby. He said the Justice Department and local NAACP are coordinating a meeting between Ferguson police authorities and the Brown family.

“Race relations is a top priority right now,” Jackson said. He later said he was open to guidance on how to improve tensions within the Ferguson community: “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it”...

Brown’s shooting at the hands of a yet-to-be named officer, identified as a white man by a witness to the shooting who spoke with msnbc, unearthed decades-old tensions between the Ferguson community and the police department, which is 93% white.

Black residents say officers routinely harass them and that and old-boys network has kept the department from hiring more officers of color.

Jackson said that he has worked to improve the diversity of the department and that he has raised the base level of pay for officers, worked to improve equipment and create a welcoming culture to entice black applicants.

He said when he first took the job here after 31 years with the county police, about 10% of department staff were minorities or women. That number has slipped in recent years.

“Whatever we’re doing is not enough. We’re trying but obviously it’s not good enough,” Jackson said on Tuesday night, following a town hall style meeting at a local church, where he joined Gov. Jay Nixon, Ferguson mayor James Knowles and various community leaders in pleading for peace.

That's a good start which, likely will lead to improved race relations, hence community relations, in Ferguson, although it appears most of the mischief has emanated from St. Louis County police rather than from local law enforcement.But it isn't enough, and isn't the primary problem, as ex-San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara understood as early as November, 2006, when he wrote (in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal no longer available without a subscription but excerpted here by Digby)

Simply put, the police culture in our country has changed. An emphasis on "officer safety" and paramilitary training pervades today's policing, in contrast to the older culture, which held that cops didn't shoot until they were about to be shot or stabbed. Police in large cities formerly carried revolvers holding six .38-caliber rounds. Nowadays, police carry semi-automatic pistols with 16 high-caliber rounds, shotguns and military assault rifles, weapons once relegated to SWAT teams facing extraordinary circumstances. Concern about such firepower in densely populated areas hitting innocent citizens has given way to an attitude that the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed.

Yes, police work is dangerous, and the police see a lot of violence. On the other hand, 51 officers were slain in the line of duty last year, out of some 700,000 to 800,000 American cops. That is far fewer than the police fatalities occurring when I patrolled New York's highest crime precincts, when the total number of cops in the country was half that of today. Each of these police deaths and numerous other police injuries is a tragedy and we owe support to those who protect us. On the other hand, this isn't Iraq. The need to give our officers what they require to protect themselves and us has to be balanced against the fact that the fundamental duty of the police is to protect human life and that law officers are only justified in taking a life as a last resort.

Updated in response to the death by firearm of 18-year-old Michael Brown and ensuing protests in Ferguson, Paul Szoldra explains

While serving as a U.S. Marine on patrol in Afghanistan, we wore desert camouflage to blend in with our surroundings, carried rifles to shoot back when under enemy attack, and drove around in armored vehicles to ward off roadside bombs.

We looked intimidating, but all of our vehicles and equipment had a clear purpose for combat against enemy forces. So why is this same gear being used on our city streets?...

Putting aside what started the protests for a moment, it's worth discussing the police response to the outrage. In photos taken Monday, we are shown a heavily armed SWAT team.

They have short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles based on the military M4 carbine, with scopes that can accurately hit a target out to 500 meters. On their side they carry pistols. On their front, over their body armor, they carry at least four to six extra magazines, loaded with 30 rounds each.

Their uniform would be mistaken for a soldier's if it weren't for their "Police" patches. They wear green tops, and pants fashioned after the U.S. Marine Corps MARPAT camouflage pattern. And they stand in front of a massive uparmored truck called a Bearcat, similar in look to a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, or as the troops who rode in them call it, the MRAP.

When did this become OK? When did "protect and serve" turn into "us versus them"?

"Why do these cops need MARPAT camo pants again," I asked on Twitter this morning. One of the most interesting responses came from a follower who says he served in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division: "We rolled lighter than that in an actual war zone."

Let's be clear: This is not a war zone — even if the FAA banned flights under 3,000 feet. This is a city outside of St. Louis where people on both sides are angry. Protesters have looted and torched a gas station, and shots were fired at police, according to The Washington Post.

The scene is tense, but the presence of what looks like a military force doesn't seem to be helping.

"Bring it. You fucking animals, bring it," one police officer was caught on video telling protesters. In Ferguson and beyond, it seems that some police officers have shed the blue uniform and have put on the uniform and gear of the military, bringing the attitude along with it.

In Afghanistan, we patrolled in big, armored trucks. We wore uniforms that conveyed the message, "We are a military force, and we are in control right now." Many Afghans saw us as occupiers.

And now we see some of our police officers in this same way. "The militarization of law enforcement is counter-productive to domestic policing and needs to stop," tweeted Andrew Exum, a former Army infantry officer.

If there's one thing I learned in Afghanistan, it's this: You can't win a person's heart and mind when you are pointing a rifle at his or her chest.

There will be righteous outrage in the political class over an overwhelmingly white police force applying excessive force against a black community and (as it appears now) an unnecessary killing of a young black man by one of those white officers. But notwithstanding criticism from Senators McCaskill (D-MO) and Paul (R-KY) and Attorney General Holder, it will be more difficult to alter significantly the Pentagon program  in which local law enforcement agencies have used the drug war as an excuse to be armed and outfitted to the teeth.  

The policy must be changed; for If they buy it, they eventually will use it, especially as the sunk cost fallacy sets in.  And that will happen across the country, and not only in black communities.

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A Little Intelligence, Please

Can't they just kiss and make up?  Wait, they have- though from the looks of it (below, photo from Getty), neither is comfortable, which is to the credit of each.

Politico ignores, as Politico does (after all, it's not named "policy-o") the policy and speculates about the politics:

Hillary Clinton called President Barack Obama on Tuesday to “make sure he knows that nothing she said was an attempt to attack him” when she recently discussed her views on foreign policy in an interview with The Atlantic, according to a statement from a Clinton spokesman.

The statement comes amid tension between the Clinton and Obama camps in the wake of the interview. It also comes as Obama and Clinton, his former secretary of state, are due to cross paths at a social gathering Wednesday night in Martha’s Vineyard.

In the interview, Clinton dismissed the Obama administration’s self-described foreign policy principle of “Don’t do stupid stuff.” And while she also praised Obama several times, Clinton nonetheless called his decision not to assist Syrian rebels early on a “failure.”

Earlier Tuesday, longtime top Obama aide David Axelrod took a swipe at Clinton on Twitter, writing: “Just to clarify: ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision.”

Was this really necessary? Probably not, when

The statement from Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill noted that although Obama and Clinton have had disagreements, she has discussed these differences publicly before, including in her memoir, “Hard Choices.”

“Secretary Clinton was proud to serve with President Obama, she was proud to be his partner in the project of restoring American leadership and advancing America’s interests and values in a fast changing world,” said the statement, shared with POLITICO. “She continues to share his deep commitment to a smart and principled foreign policy that uses all the tools at our disposal to achieve our goals. Earlier today, the secretary called President Obama to make sure he knows that nothing she said was an attempt to attack him, his policies, or his leadership.

It continued: “Secretary Clinton has at every step of the way touted the significant achievements of his presidency, which she is honored to have been part of as his secretary of state. While they’ve had honest differences on some issues, including aspects of the wicked challenge Syria presents, she has explained those differences in her book and at many points since then. Some are now choosing to hype those differences but they do not eclipse their broad agreement on most issues. Like any two friends who have to deal with the public eye, she looks forward to hugging it out when ... they see each other tomorrow night.”

Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is not President Obama's foreign policy, reduced to "Don't do stupid stuff." In the medical profession, that's referred to as "first, do no harm" and has proven unassailable (albeit slightly contrived) as a motto, though in practice violated regularly. It is unknowable what would have followed if the President had audaciously opted for Clinton's neo-conservative approach rather than his more cautious angle.

Asked whether "we could have built up a moderate Syrian opposition," Clinton first conceded "well, I don't know the answer to that" before adding "I know that the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad... the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled."

By contrast, in an interview with New York Times' columnist Tom Friedman conducted after The Atlantic's interview with Clinton (but made public later), Obama argued

This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.

But there is a more important issue relating to the U.S. government which the media is missing. The former Secretary of State believes there is a reasonable chance the USA could have accurately identified a credible, moderate rebel group(s) but Obama is far more skeptical. In an apparently- but not actually- unrelated story, The Washington Post reports

The U.S. government has begun to funnel weapons directly to Kurdish forces fighting Islamist militants in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday, deepening American involvement in a conflict that the Obama administration had long sought to avoid.

The decision to arm the Kurds, via a covert channel established by the CIA, was made even as Pentagon officials acknowledged that recent U.S. airstrikes against the militants were acting only as a temporary deterrent and were unlikely to sap their will to fight.

“I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained, or that we are somehow breaking, the momentum of the threat,” said Army Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The reporters add

American officials have tried to expedite the transfer of arms from the government in Baghdad to Kurdish fighters in the north. But that process has gone slowly, prompting Washington to open a direct pipeline to the Kurds via the CIA, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the spy agency has not publicly acknowledged the operation. The CIA declined to comment.

A U.S. military official said that the Pentagon and the State Department are discussing other possible ways to deliver weapons to the Kurds through open channels, but that they would need the legal authorization to do so. U.S. arms sales normally are restricted to sovereign or central governments. 

In what is probably a good cause, the CIA is sending weapons to another party on a covert basis.  Digby recognizes "that's the CIA for you. It used to be an intelligence service. Now it's a secret army.  But without all those unpleasant military rules.  And it operates with a secret budget. Very convenient."

Perhaps if the Central Intelligence Agency were still an intelligence service instead of a military force, we would know whether in Syria "we could have built up a moderate opposition" or we would have been sending weapons to doctors, farmers, and pharmacists.

So instead of obsessing over the difference between a center-left foreign policy and a center-right orientation, the media might consider two issues that actually matter. A United States Senator, popular with that same media, recklessly asks of the President of the United States "Do you really want to let America be attacked? and little notice is taken.  Little light has been cast also upon why the Central Intelligence Agency is an agency and centralized but at least in the Middle East, apparently delivering relatively little intelligence.
 

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Graham Following The Playbook

If you're a Republican there no longer is any penalty you will pay for making outrageous, irresponsible remarks.  Appearing on Fox News Sunday on- wait for it- Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham commented (video, below)

I'm saying Iraq and Syria combined represent a direct threat to our homeland. The day the president raised his right hand to become president for a second time, his constitutional responsibility as commander-in-chief trumps any political promise.

What is going on in Washington when the FBI director, when the head of national intelligence, the CIA, the homeland security secretary tells every member of Congress, including the president, we're about to be attacked in a serious way because of the threat emanating from Syria and Iraq?

His responsibility as president is to defend this nation. If he does not go on the offensive against ISIS, ISIL, whatever you want to call these guys, they are coming here. This is not just about Baghdad. This is not just about Syria. It is about our homeland.

And if we get attacked because he has no strategy to protect us, then he will have committed a blunder for the ages.

According to the South Carolina senator, it's Obama's fault because "three years ago, Mr. President, you were told by your national security team,get involved, armed (sic) the rebels because this problem will grow. You said no."  But far more responsibility is owned by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Condoleezza Rice, and the rest of the Bush gang. As I quoted Max Fisher a few days ago

The American weapons the US gave the Iraqi army totally failed at making Iraq secure and have become tools of terror used by an offshoot of al-Qaeda to terrorize the Iraqis that the US supposedly liberated a decade ago."

When ISIS invaded northern Iraq from Syria in June, the Iraqi forces deserted or retreated en masse. Many of them abandoned their American equipment. ISIS scooped it up themselves and are now using it to rampage across Iraq, seizing whole cities, terrorizing minorities, and finally pushing into even once-secure Kurdish territory. All with shiny American military equipment.

So the US air strikes against ISIS are in part to destroy US military equipment, such as the artillery ISIS has been using against Kurdish forces.

The absurdity runs deep: America is using American military equipment to bomb other pieces of American military equipment halfway around the world. The reason the American military equipment got there in the first place was because, in 2003, the US had to use its military to rebuild the Iraqi army, which it just finished destroying with the American military. The American weapons the US gave the Iraqi army totally failed at making Iraq secure and have become tools of terror used by an offshoot of al-Qaeda to terrorize the Iraqis that the US supposedly liberated a decade ago. And so now the US has to use American weaponry to destroy the American weaponry it gave Iraqis to make Iraqis safer, in order to make Iraqis safer.

Obviously, though, that's not the major problem with Graham's rant, for everyone is allowed his/her own opinion.  His major sin is frightening people for political profit.  They are coming here. Be very, very scared.

But irrespective of the rise of ISIS or President Obama's policy, there always has been a threat to the USA. That's why there is a Department of Homeland Security.This is a Republican game.  Under a Republican President (or this one), Democrats did not raise the bloody flag for political fun and profit, not even when President Bush was informed "Bin Laden Determined to Strike inside U.S." and went about his business clearing brush on the ranch.  A terrorist attack inside the nation is an ongoing possibility, as it is- to a far greater extent- to our European allies, which Graham notably ignores.

With the Senator raising the specter of an attack on American soil "because he has no strategy to protect us," Steve Benen recognizes

In this case, Graham seems to be laying down a marker: if members of the Islamic State, at some point in the future, execute some kind of terror strike on Americans, Lindsey Graham wants us to blame President Obama – because the president didn’t stick to the playbook written by hawks and neocons.

The tipoff may be that Graham lacks the courage to predict we'll be struck, instead cowering behind "if we get attacked."  If there is no attack, he can't be criticized for being wrong.  Similarly, Repubs long ago gave up defending the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq and instead hold up the surge as a success in American foreign policy, notwithstanding that both strategies set into motion the current disaster there. Though wrongheaded, it coincides with Beltway wisdom and allows the GOP to blame Democrats for the conflagration in the Middle East.

And that really is the objective, isn't it? Approvingly quoting Benen, Steve M. adds

Notice who all but disappears from this line of argument? Notice whom Senator Graham all but absolves from guilt if an attack happens?

The people actually doing the attacking.

Whether or not it's realistic to believe that ISIS could attack America in the foreseeable future, Senator Graham, if it happens, wants you to blame President Obama before you blame ISIS -- or perhaps instead of blaming ISIS at all.

But that's no surprise. I've said this on the blog since the Bush years: Republicans despise their domestic political enemies far more than they do any international enemy. Ginning up anger against a foreign enemy used to be an indirect way of rousing the populace against allegedly evil peacenik/appeaser/fifth-columnist Democrats and liberals. But now Republicans barely take the trouble to demonize foreign foes. Those guys are just acting in accordance with their inner nature. It's Obama who has agency, so he's the bad guy who's endeavoring to get us all killed.

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Obama Thinks It's Real. Kilgore Called It The "Phony War."

If one is running for a Democratic nomination for governor, it is wise not to offend a large swath of potential primary voters by blasting the President of the United States of your own party.

And so Zephyr Teachout, running a righteous campaign against the legally endangered but politically powerful and popular governor, Andrew Cuomo, avoids picking a fight with President Barack Obama.

Of course, picking a fight with President Obama is not the danger; Obama is loathe to strike back at his enemies. But there are still many Democratic primary voters who believe he really, really is a Democrat, just as they believe in Bill Clinton and the tooth fairy.

Teachout aims to stop the anti-consumer, anti-worker acquisition by Comcast Cable of Time Warner, "at least in New York," and notes her opponent "takes a lot of money from large powerful interests and then hands out tax credits to them. It's a Reagonomics model of financial monopoly capitalism." But then she excludes Obama, probably wisely, from her list of co-conspirators when she remarks

But the problem here isn't just Cuomo, it's that people like Cuomo dominate the Democratic establishment. Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and so on and so forth, these people believe in a world where powerful economic interests control our lives and fate through monopoly power,and their partners in government help structure those monopolies. Political corruption and economic monopoly are two sides of the same coin- too much concentrated power in too few hands.

The phrase "political corruption and economic monopoly" defines the Cuomo Administration about as well as does anything, and the Cuomo Administration as well as any other.  So, too, as Zephyr obviously understands, have Emanuel, Geithner, Summers, and Rubin damaged the lower and middle classes. And they all have connections to both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, though more so to the latter. Nonetheless, President Obama is capable of recognizing, as he did in an interview early this month with the Economist, that when

corporate CEO's come and they have lunch with me—which they do more often than they probably care to admit (laughter)—and they’ll say, you know what, we really care about the environment, and we really care about education, and we really care about getting immigration reform done—then my challenge to them consistently is, is your lobbyist working as hard on those issues as he or she is on preserving that tax break that you’ve got? And if the answer is no, then you don’t care about it as much as you say.

But then he adds

Now, to their credit, I think on an issue like immigration reform, for example, companies did step up. And what they’re discovering is the problem is not the regulatory zealotry of the Obama administration; what they’re discovering is the dysfunction of a Republican Party that knows we need immigration reform, knows that it would actually be good for its long-term prospects, but is captive to the nativist elements in its party.

Undoubtedly, Barack Obama knows why corporate heads "step up" on immigration reform, and it's not because they have an Emma Lazarus-like vision of a multicultural nation. As Sam Ro of Business Insider (in a different context) notes

Ever since the financial crisis, corporations have managed to deliver robust profit growth by offsetting the drag of weak sales growth with widening profit margins. These fatter profit margins come from cutting costs, which usually means getting more productivity out of a fewer number of workers.

Income growth of these dwindling number of workers has stagnated as the labor pool has grown. It's really quite simple, for workers in a wide array of industries know there are others behind them waiting to pounce on any available job. The motive of (many corporations) in supporting immigration reform, is not merely academic because as Congress seeks compromise, business leaders, unlike the left, may urge legislation that provides legalization without citizenship.

The agenda of those corporations Obama enjoys doing lunch with is laid bare when the supportive President adds

And the same I think goes for a whole range of other issues like climate change, for example. There aren’t any corporate CEOs that you talk to at least outside of maybe—no, I will include CEOs of the fossil-fuel industries—who are still denying that climate change is a factor. What they want is some certainty around the regulations so that they can start planning.

Back in April, 2011 Paul Krugman took on the "economic uncertainty" myth when he explained

The reasons that business are not investing is that they have tons and tons of excess capacity. There is a very clear relationship historically between the amount of unemployment and the amount of business investment. When unemployment is high capacity is low, investment is low. There’s nothing. All of this stuff about uncertainty is just myth being made up to blame this on Obama. There’s nothing in there. It is exactly what you would expect.

It may seem a paradox that the charge of economic uncertainty is used to blame President Obama, who now de facto endorses the notion of regulatory uncertainty. But then the President also has promoted the myth that a lack of skills contributes more to the unemployment problem than does a lack of jobs.   And that a large federal workforce, and deficits in an economic downturn, are harmful.

Nevertheless, the larger message from Obama, who touts the acceptance of immigration reform and climate science among corporate chieftains, is that the latter are really a whole lot different than the populist base of the Republican Party, those pitchfork-wielding, uneducated masses. They don't even call him a Kenyan or a Muslim!   But Ed Kilgore (nearly two years ago) saw through this conceit, pointing out

Yes, years from now conservatives will sit around campfires and sing songs about the legendary internecine battles of late 2012, when father fought son and brother fought brother across a chasm of controversy as to whether 98% or 99% of abortions should be banned; whether undocumented workers should be branded and utilized as “guest workers,” loaded onto cattle cars and shipped home, or simply immiserated; whether the New Deal/Great Society programs should be abolished in order to cut upper-income taxes or abolished in order to boost Pentagon spending. There’s also a vicious, take-no-prisons fight over how quickly to return the role of the federal government in the economy to its pre-1930s role as handmaiden to industry. Blood will flow in the streets as Republicans battle over how to deal with health care after Obamacare is repealed and 50 million or people lose health insurance. Tax credits and risk pools or just “personal responsibility?”

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About Syria

At first read Hillary Clinton (photo below from Jonathan Ernst/Reuters), in an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, strikes a hawkish note and one not very favorable toward President Obama.  Responding to two separate questions about Syria, the former Secretary of State remarked

Well, I did believe, which is why I advocated this, that if we were to carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, number one, have some better insight into what was going on on the ground. Two, we would have been helped in standing up a credible political opposition....

I know that the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.

They were often armed in an indiscriminate way by other forces and we had no skin in the game that really enabled us to prevent this indiscriminate arming....

But she also hedged her bets, pulled her punches, and hesitated to mince words (end of cliches).  She added "I totally understand the cautions that we had to contend with, but we’ll never know. And I don’t think we can claim to know."  Asked whether- given her advocacy within at State of a more active role supporting Syrian rebels- whether the Obama administration has been "one of underreach," Clinton recognized "You know, I don’t think you can draw that conclusion. It’s a very key question. How do you calibrate, that’s the key issue. I think we have learned a lot during this period, but then how to apply it going forward will still take a lot of calibration and balancing. "

She's right on both:   the USA probably should have more precisely identified the pro-western rebels in Syria and armed there. Nonetheless, as Clinton explained the prevailing sentiment inside the Administration, "It's messy, it's complicated, we're not sure what the outcome will be."

Clinton observes "I think we’ve learned about the limits of our power to spread freedom and democracy. That’s one of the big lessons out of Iraq." However, she should have stopped there before adding "But we’ve also learned about the importance of our power, our influence, and our values appropriately deployed and explained." And a moment later, she would compare the lack of an "overarching" foreign policy under Obama with "what we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it."

But the world has changed, a reality Mrs. Clinton is reluctant to concede and which most Repubs completely refuse to acknowledge.  Clinton rips Obama's "Don’t do stupid stuff” as "not an organizing principle," then claims it is "a political message. It’s not his worldview."

There are, however, worse worldviews than "don't do stupid stuff" for a world that isn't bipolar.  In what he views as a "symbol of how disastrous the last 15 years of US Iraq policy have been," Max Fisher explains

....  in the decade since the 2003 US-led Iraq invasion, the US has spent a fortune training and arming the Iraqi army in the hopes of readying it to secure the country once America left. That meant arming the Iraqi army with high-tech and extremely expensive American-made guns, tanks, jeeps, artillery, and more.

But the Iraqi army has been largely a failure. When ISIS invaded northern Iraq from Syria in June, the Iraqi forces deserted or retreated en masse. Many of them abandoned their American equipment. ISIS scooped it up themselves and are now using it to rampage across Iraq, seizing whole cities, terrorizing minorities, and finally pushing into even once-secure Kurdish territory. All with shiny American military equipment.

So the US air strikes against ISIS are in part to destroy US military equipment, such as the artillery ISIS has been using against Kurdish forces.

The absurdity runs deep: America is using American military equipment to bomb other pieces of American military equipment halfway around the world. The reason the American military equipment got there in the first place was because, in 2003, the US had to use its military to rebuild the Iraqi army, which it just finished destroying with the American military. The American weapons the US gave the Iraqi army totally failed at making Iraq secure and have become tools of terror used by an offshoot of al-Qaeda to terrorize the Iraqis that the US supposedly liberated a decade ago. And so now the US has to use American weaponry to destroy the American weaponry it gave Iraqis to make Iraqis safer, in order to make Iraqis safer.

It keeps going: the US is intervening on behalf of Iraqi Kurds, our ally, because their military has old Russian-made weapons, whereas ISIS, which is America's enemy, has higher-quality American weapons. "[Kurdish forces] are literally outgunned by an ISIS that is fighting with hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. military equipment seized from the Iraqi Army who abandoned it," Ali Khedery, a former American official in Iraq, told the New York Times.

More: One reason that ISIS has been so successful at conquering northern Iraq is that it has a huge base of operations in Syria, where it had exploited the civil war to overtake huge swathes of Syrian territory. One reason that ISIS was so successful in Syria is that the US refused to arm moderate Syrian rebels, for fear that the weapons would fall into ISIS's hands. So that made it easier for ISIS to overpower the under-funded moderate rebels, and now ISIS has seized, in Iraq, much better versions of the weapons that we were so worried they might acquire in Syria. So now we're bombing the guns that we didn't mean to give ISIS because we didn't give guns to their enemies because then ISIS might get guns.

This demonstrates also the complexity of foreign policy alternatives- especially, but not exclusively, in the Middle East. The U.S. intervened in Iraq on the side of Shiite Muslims, overthrowing Sunni tyrant Sadaam Hussein and fighting the Sunni forces of al-Qaeda. Partly as a result, the offshoot of al-Qaeda, ISIS, has grown in strength and threatens western interests in the Middle East.  Arming anti-Assad rebels may have prevented this- but it also may have triggered the law of unexpected consequences.  It appears that "don't do anything stupid" may be both wiser- and more difficult- than it is politically correct to acknowledge.

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