There used to be a standard of conduct among politicians in this nation. Partisan politics should end at the coastline. This simply means you don’t attack your President when he is on the world stage facing a potential crisis. Both sides have violated this unwritten standard from time to time, but republicans have broken the bar on this occasion. Republicans have acted like giddy school girls mocking and berating the President over Putin and the crisis in Ukraine. They called his conversation with Putin weak, soft, and cowardly. The GOP blasting of Obama’s handling of the Ukrainian crisis is a carbon copy of the same smears they’ve issued time and time again against him on the issues of national security and foreign policy. With righteous indignation, the republicans have dusted off the script on every foreign policy crisis that has arisen since Obama first took office. From Somalia to Afghanistan, from Syria to Iran and of course Benghazi, each time they just change the names and use the same talking points. He’s weak, indecisive, and soft, and always there is the charge that his alleged weakness somehow puts the nation at risk. The Ukraine is no exception. Obama is being lambasted from the right for not taking any of a plethora of actions. Boycott the Sochi summit, eject Putin from the G8, suspend trade talks, create isolation and of course, slap any and every other imaginable sanction on Russia. The entire time they claim that every action Obama has taken in the past has somehow led us to this point. Putin is doing this because Obama’s perceived weakness has emboldened him. America is no longer viewed as strong. McCain calls him feckless. Lindsey Graham, of course, blames it on Benghazi. Hey someone was bound to. Republicans call Obama a king, a tyrant and a dictator in one breath, and call him weak and ineffective in the next. They praise Putin for his leadership and decisiveness, while decrying our President for his inability to do the same. I submit to you that this is more damaging than anything the President’s alleged inactions could ever do. If Putin is truly emboldened by his belief that America is weak, it isn’t anything Obama has or has not done. It is the fact that republicans tell Putin, through American media, every day, that he is a true leader and Obama is weak and indecisive. It is because time and time again they deride our president as soft on foreign policy and praise Putin for his ability to make timely and strategic decisions. The right loves to bestow victory on Putin over a President of these United States they claim to love so much. OF COURSE Putin is emboldened! ~ from the article
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 20:26:55 +0000
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