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Clinton supporters started the Obama “birther” movement

May 5, 2016

The level of ridiculous rhetoric is now going to rise in the US and it will be difficult for Clinton to match Trump. Yesterday he proclaimed (again) to the electorate that she had started the Obama “birther” movement. We can expect much more from Trump and Clinton’s staff may be hard put to keep up. In battles of exaggerated rhetoric, tempo is of critical importance. The person who makes the first claim always has an advantage. It is having the white pieces in a chess game.

But on the birther story, this certainly originated during the Clinton / Obama battle. There is still not much love lost between Clinton and Obama. The birther story was started, if not by Clinton, certainly by one or more of her supporters, and it was in 2008 during her primary battle with Obama.

The right wing is quick to point this out.

Hillary Team Started Birther Movement

  1. More than a full year before anyone would hear of Orly Taitz, the Birther strategy was first laid out in the Penn memo.

  2. The “othering” foundation was built subliminally by the Clinton campaign itself.

  3. Democrats and Clinton campaign surrogates did the dirtiest of the dirty work: openly spread the Birther lies.

  4. Staffers in Hillary’s actual campaign used email to spread the lies among other 0225_obamaturban_460x276Democrats (this was a Democrat primary after all — so that is the only well you needed to poison a month before a primary).

  5. The campaign released the turban photo.

  6. Hillary herself used 60 Minutes to further stoke these lies.

But even an objective review of the history does show that this narrative is essentially correct. The article reblogged below was published by FactCheck in July 2015, just after Trump had announced his intention to run for President.

Was Hillary Clinton the Original ‘Birther’?

 by , Posted on July 2, 2015

Two Republican presidential candidates claim the so-called “birther” movement originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. While it’s true that some of her ardent supporters pushed the theory, there is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with it.

In an interview on June 29, Sen. Ted Cruz said “the whole birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008,” and earlier this year, Donald Trump claimed “Hillary Clinton wanted [Obama’s] birth certificate. Hillary is a birther.”

Neither Cruz nor Trump presented any evidence that Clinton or anyone on her campaign ever questioned Obama’s birthplace, demanded to see his birth certificate, or otherwise suggested that Obama was not a “natural born citizen” eligible to serve as president.

For those unfamiliar with the controversy over Obama’s birthplace, it refers to those who contend that Obama was born in Kenya and ineligible to be president.

At FactCheck.org, we have written about the issue of Obama’s birthplace on multiple occasions — indeed we were the first media organization to hold his birth certificate in our hot little hands and vouch for the authenticity of it. But facts have done little to squelch the conspiracy theories that continue to bounce around online.

The issue arose again this week in an interview with Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Yahoo News’ Katie Couric asked Cruz if he thought that was going to be an issue for voters.

“It’s interesting, the whole birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008 against Barack Obama,” Cruz said (at about the 25:25 mark). Cruz then went on to say that he believes he clearly meets the constitutional requirement for a president to be a “natural born citizen.”

The claim about Clinton’s tie to “birthers” was made earlier by Donald Trump in February at the CPAC event (at 24:20 mark). Trump — who has a history of pushing bogus theories about Obama’s birth —  said, “Hillary Clinton wanted [Obama’s] birth certificate. Hillary is a birther. She wanted … but she was unable to get it.”

We asked the Cruz campaign for backup, and it pointed us to two articles. The first ran in Politico on April 22, 2011, under the headline, “Birtherism: Where it all began.”

Politico, April 22, 2011: The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama.

According to the article, the theory that Obama was born in Kenya “first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.”

The second article, which ran several days after the Politico piece, was published by the Telegraph, a British paper, which stated: “An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.”

Both of those stories comport with what we here at FactCheck.org wrote  two-and-a-half years earlier, on Nov. 8, 2008: “This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.”

Claims about Obama’s birthplace appeared in chain emails bouncing around the Web, and one of the first lawsuits over Obama’s birth certificate was filed by Philip Berg, a former deputy Pennsylvania attorney general and a self-described “moderate to liberal” who supported Clinton.

But none of those stories suggests any link between the Clinton campaign, let alone Clinton herself, and the advocacy of theories questioning Obama’s birth in Hawaii.

One of the authors of the Politico story, Byron Tau, now a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, told FactCheck.org via email that “we never found any links between the Clinton campaign and the rumors in 2008.”

The other coauthor of the Politico story, Ben Smith, now the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, said in a May 2013 interview on MSNBC that the conspiracy theories traced back to “some of [Hillary Clinton’s] passionate supporters,” during the final throes of Clinton’s 2008 campaign. But he said they did not come from “Clinton herself or her staff.”

Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said Cruz’s claim is false. “The Clinton campaign never suggested that President Obama was not born here,” Schwerin wrote to us in an email.

It is certainly interesting, and perhaps historically and politically relevant, that “birther” advocacy may have originated with supporters of Hillary Clinton — especially since many view it as an exclusively right-wing movement. But whether those theories were advocated by Clinton and/or her campaign or simply by Clinton “supporters” is an important distinction. Candidates are expected to be held accountable for the actions of their campaigns. Neither Cruz nor Trump, whose campaign did not respond to our request for backup material, provides any compelling evidence that either Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with starting the so-called birther movement.

— Robert Farley

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The US choice is now high risk with Trump or low gain with Clinton

May 4, 2016

It is politically incorrect to see any good in Donald Trump. Even many of my Republican friends (and all who are Democratic) are dismayed at the thought of a President Trump, who – they assume – will inevitably lead the US to catastrophe.

I am not so sure.

After 8 years of a lack-lustre and indecisive, risk-averse Barack Obama who promised much only to deceive, Hillary Clinton offers “more of the same”. She is as “establishment” as it is possible to be. She represents the safe choice. There is no chance of any kind of greatness, only of a slight improvement or a gentle decline. She removes the possibility of a “high gain” scenario.

But I see two possible outcomes with Donald Trump. The first is that he will be the unmitigated disaster that the media and the politically correct expect. In this scenario, the US will become a harder, more bigoted country, less tolerant of minorities and less compassionate. It will become divisive in domestic affairs and inept and dangerous in its foreign policy. It will become a sin to remain poor.

But there is a second scenario and I think there is nothing in-between. The second scenario is that US domestic and foreign policy will become entirely “trade” oriented. International friendships and alliances will have  to have a cost-benefit analysis. Public spending and government jobs will be drastically down-sized. Bureaucrats will be subject to performance indicators. It will not be a sin to be rich. The ideological shift will be to “people as they deserve” rather than to “people as they desire”.

Trump versus Clinton

In November, the US electorate are going to be faced with the safe choice of Hillary Clinton with no great upside or any catastrophe, or a highly risky choice of Donald Trump who could lead to disaster or could conceivably lift the country to new highs. It is high risk with Trump versus low gain with Clinton. I generally tend to associate socialistic Europe with low-risk (low gain) policies and the free-wheeling capitalism of the US with high risk (high gain) policies. Not unlike the distinction between Clinton and Trump.

I suspect that Trump’s chances against Clinton are being written off a little too soon. His chances are certainly better than the 5000:1 odds of Leicester City winning the English Premier League. Every pundit has so far grossly under-estimated the strength of the anti-establishment wave. That could be a tsunami for Trump in November.

If Leicester City could win the Premier League, Donald Trump could be elected President of the US.

 

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Donald Trump has to choose a woman and Hillary Clinton cannot

April 30, 2016

As the Republicans begin to accept, albeit reluctantly, that Donald Trump is going to be their candidate and as it becomes clear that Sanders has been eliminated, the choice of possible running-mates is coming to the fore.

It is pretty obvious to me that Hillary Clinton cannot chose a woman as her Vice Presidential pick. To be elected as the first woman President is already a risk. To have another woman as her running mate as well would be going over the top. She would risk alienating all the patriarchal minorities she is going to depend upon. A two-woman ticket, in the US of today, would almost certainly lose. It would be far too risky and Clinton just does not take risks.

Second, and more importantly, Clinton cannot afford, and will not tolerate, another woman who takes the feminist spotlight away from herself. Clinton’s feminist credentials are rather weak. She needs the comparison when juxtaposed with a man to get up to be just passable. Any woman she chose as her VP would almost certainly have stronger feminist credentials and would hog the feminist limelight. Clinton’s ego would not, could not, intentionally allow her to accept a position in the shadow of someone else.

Clinton needs to project an image of strength and resolve (which she does not naturally do). For this she requires a man as her running mate. She needs him to be perceived as being strong but subservient to her. In fact, all her closest advisors need to be men for the image of her strength to be enhanced. Not unlike how Indira Gandhi or Golda Meier or Margaret Thatcher chose in their heydays.

Just as Hillary Clinton has no choice but to avoid a female running mate, Donald Trump is, I think, forced to have a woman as his. His weakest support is with women and that support is necessary. But interestingly he needs an intelligent, feminine – rather than a feminist – partner. I merely observe that “intelligent and feminine” always trumps “feminist” (no pun intended) and even overrules “attractive”. A “feminine” female never needs to fight all the battles that a feminist does. “Feminine” always makes “feminist” look envious. She will need a track record for “smartness” and pragmatism. She will therefore have to be an experienced politician but feminine enough to eclipse Hillary Clinton. She will have to be feminine enough to make the feminist attacks seem like sour grapes or just envious “whining”. Trump has a track record of appointing women to high positions in his business empire and the voters will need to be reminded of that.

Ted Cruz has announced Carly Fiorina as his VP pick, but it seems a desperate bid for publicity against a rampant Trump. Fiorina herself would not qualify to be a Trump running mate. Sarah Palin’s name has been mentioned but I suspect she carries too much baggage. Condoleezza Rice has also been mentioned but she carries even more baggage. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (nee Nimrata Nikki Randhawa and of Sikh origin) is not impossible and neither is Cathy Rodgers, a five-term Republican congresswoman. Susana Martinez is the Governor of New Mexico and in addition to being intelligent and feminine is also of Hispanic origin. Joni Kay Ernst is the junior Senator from Iowa and a combat veteran who has seen service in Iraq.

Trumps Picks

My guess would be that whoever he picks, in addition to being intelligent, feminine and with a track record in politics, will also probably represent an “immigrant” constituency. Which would take Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez to the top of the possible list.

 

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Obama caves to Saudi pressure (what else?)

April 19, 2016

It was only to be expected.

Saudi Arabia did not like proposed legislation which would have allowed the government of Saudi Arabia to be sued in US courts for possible 9/11 involvement and would, in turn, have allowed US courts to attach Saudi accounts and assets in the US. So they made some threats of selling off their US assets. And the President of the United States, in good democratic style, caved in to the demands of a dictator. President Obama wasted no time in telling the legislators that he would veto any such legislation.

The Hill: The White House on Monday signaled President Obama would veto legislation to allow Americans to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for any role officials played in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. ……

The legislation drew widespread attention after Saudi officials reportedly informed the Obama administration that they would sell off $750 billion in U.S. assets if the bill became law, a threat that carries widespread economic consequences if the Saudis follow through.

Earnest appeared to strongly caution the Saudi government against taking such a step.

“A country with a modern and large economy like Saudi Arabia would not benefit from a destabilized global financial market, and neither would the United States,” he said.

The fierce debate over the legislation has bubbled up at a precarious time for Obama, who is set to land in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to meet with King Salman.

 

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US warship playing in Russia’s backyard is buzzed by Russian aircraft — what else?

April 14, 2016

The US Navy and a compliant press corps in the US and in Europe are making a great to-do about Russian aircraft buzzing a US warship playing war-games, in the Baltic. A long way from home and in the Russians’ backyard.

What's a US warship doing in the Baltic?

What’s a US warship doing in the Baltic?

What did they expect?

If a Russian warship was carrying out exercises just off the US coast, the US military would be castigated if it did not challenge such games.

NATO – after Turkey and Ukraine and Libya – is proving to be irresponsible. In Syria they could not do in 5 years what the Russians seem to have done in 6 months.

Baltic Sea Region

Baltic Sea Region

The Swedish military and the defence industry are pushing for Sweden to join NATO. I suspect that could be just the provocation needed for the Russians to do to the Baltic what the Chinese are doing in the South China Sea. Take over a few islands, build some airstrips and military bases and redefine the extent of domestic waters. It may not be Gotland in the first instance but Sweden joining NATO will increase the risk in the Baltic – not reduce it.

NATO expansionism creates a greater risk of WW3 than Russian aggression in Russian dominated areas of the old Soviet Union.

US Navy Press Release:

A United States Navy destroyer operating in international waters in the Baltic Sea experienced several close interactions by Russian aircraft April 11 and 12.

USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) encountered multiple, aggressive flight maneuvers by Russian aircraft that were performed within close proximity of the ship.

On April 11, Donald Cook was conducting deck landing drills with an allied military helicopter when two Russian SU-24 jets made numerous close-range and low altitude passes at approximately 3 p.m. local. One of the passes, which occurred while the allied helicopter was refueling on the deck of Donald Cook, was deemed unsafe by the ship’s commanding officer. As a safety precaution, flight operations were suspended until the SU-24s departed the area.

On April 12, while Donald Cook was operating in international waters in the Baltic Sea, a Russian KA-27 Helix helicopter conducted circles at low altitude around the ship, seven in total, at approximately 5 p.m. local. The helicopter passes were also deemed unsafe and unprofessional by the ship’s commanding officer. About 40 minutes following the interaction with the Russian helicopter, two Russian SU-24 jets made numerous close-range and low altitude passes, 11 in total. The Russian aircraft flew in a simulated attack profile and failed to respond to repeated safety advisories in both English and Russian. USS Donald Cook’s commanding officer deemed several of these maneuvers as unsafe and unprofessional.

After Syria, there is some irony in the US military accusing the Russians of unprofessionalism. Or maybe I’m thinking of competence rather than professionalism.

 

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US media overwhelmingly against Trump, but yet …..

March 21, 2016

There is something strange in the mood abroad among the US electorate and it is something that the US media either do not understand or are deliberately ignoring.

That the liberal media oppose Trump is only to be expected. The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the LA Times, Politico and their ilk cannot be expected to support any GOP candidate at the best of times. But against Trump they are positively vitriolic. The “hard left” media (Slate, Salon, Huffington Post etc) are apoplectic when it comes to Trump. They have compared him to Hitler, Mussolini and even Kim Jung-Un. But now even the right of centre media (Wall Street Journal, Fox News….) are lambasting him. Even the hard right media (Breitbart, Drudge, Washington Times….) will not endorse Trump but just stay “neutral”.

And yet Trump’s numbers continue to rise. It is apparent that the media are failing to capture the mood in the country. I am sticking to my theory that Trump has activated an anti-establishment sentiment where all the mainstream media are considered “establishment”. And this gives the peculiar situation where any attack by an establishment figure only sustains the anti-establishment sentiment that Trump has tapped into.

Observing this from across the Atlantic has proven to be even more fascinating than my wildest expectations. But the anti-establishment sentiment is also abroad in Europe. It shows up in the BREXIT campaign and in the rise of parties which challenge the “politically correct” view. It is not just anti-immigration, far-right parties which are prospering but any party which occupies the “anti-establishment” space. That can be seen in Denmark and Norway and Sweden where mainstream centre-right parties are taking away some support from the far-right  by adopting somewhat “politically incorrect” positions.

I suspect that this is not just restricted to the US and Europe. I see in India and Africa the beginnings of something similar. It is a mood which has global dimensions and is, I think, something primal. A reaction perhaps to 3 decades of sanctimonious “political correctness” which has – or is perceived to have:

  • excused criminality and bad behaviour on genetic or social grounds
  • downgraded the victims of crime or bad behaviour
  • protected criminals and “bad people” in the name of human rights,
  • downgraded “family values”
  • promoted the bureaucracy against the individual
  • downgraded the individual
  • relaxed moral values
  • promoted deviation and deviants
  • demonised progress and economic growth
  • …….

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but the fact remains that the US media are missing something quite fundamental. i expect that to defeat Trump it needs someone to take his ground away from him – not just attack the ground he stands on. And that requires someone who is perceived to be just as “anti-establishment”. And there is no one on the GOP side who can do that and only Bernie Sanders among the Democrats comes close.

From the Reuters tracking poll:

Reuters tracking 18032016

 

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Obama opposition to Trump could increase the anti-establishment wave in his favour

March 17, 2016

My theory is that Trump has activated and is riding an anti-establishment wave. Whenever an establishment figure (politician or main stream media) comes out against Trump, it increases the anti-establishment support for him. Therefore – my theory says – the only way to defeat Trump is by taking his ground away from him, not by attacking him from an establishment position. So Sanders, in my opinion, would have had a better chance against Trump. Hillary Clinton is the epitome of establishment.

Obama image: Sean Gallup-Getty

Obama image: Sean Gallup-Getty

Now it is reported that Obama and his advisors are strategizing against Trump and will likely come out, not just in favour of Clinton, but aggressively against Trump. Firstly there can hardly be a more establishment figure than the POTUS. Secondly, Obama and strategy don’t really go together. He will likely over-analyse the problem and try to make rational arguments against Trump. Which would be futile. It will be far too easy for Trump to counter-attack after Obama’s strategic and tactical fiascos in Syria against Putin. That added to Hillary Clinton’s own Benghazi fiasco will just be playing in to Trump’s narrative.

Washington Post: ….. President Obama is plunging into the campaign fray, not only to help Democrats retain the White House but in defense of his own legacy in a political climate dominated by Trump. ………

….. Obama and his top aides have been strategizing for weeks about how they can reprise his successful 2008 and 2012 approaches to help elect a Democrat to replace him. And out of concern that a Republican president in 2017 — either Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) — would weaken or reverse some of his landmark policies, Obama and his surrogates have started making the case that it is essential for the GOP to be defeated in November.

Assuming it becomes a Clinton / Trump election, Clinton would be far better off with Obama being silent. She does not need his support to become a visible confirmation that she is the establishment candidate. Obama being openly and vocally against Trump will only cement the anti-establishment wave behind Trump. It could even convert the wave into a tsunami.

 

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The Obama is the cabbage to Putin as the King .. and pigs indeed have wings

March 17, 2016

Lewis Carroll

The Walrus and the Carpenter
    Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
    Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
    And waited in a row.

`The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
    `To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
    Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
    And whether pigs have wings.’

Putin started his Syrian intervention on 29th September, 2015, much to to the astonishment of the Obama and his overpaid, idiot advisors. “It won’t work” cried the Obama. “An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire …” They were even more astonished when, less than 6 months later, Putin ordered a withdrawal of Russian troops (while still maintaining his air bases and air-defense systems and enough troops to protect Russian assets).

cabbages and kings (Northern Echo)

cabbages and kings (Northern Echo)

But pigs have wings in Syria and Putin is proving himself to be the King to Obama’s cabbage.

Why — and how — Russia won in Syria

A day after Putin announced a Russian withdrawal from Syria, it’s clear that his gamble has turned into a major win for Moscow. Here’s what Russia achieved — and why it was so successful.

First — and most importantly — Russian bombing turned the tide of the war in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s favor. When the Russian military deployed to Syria, Assad was in serious trouble, …….. Five months later, …. Assad clearly holds the military upper hand. ……“the Russian reinforcement has changed the calculus completely.”

……. Second, Putin recently achieved an important diplomatic objective by forcing the United States to acknowledge that Russia plays a key role in determining Syria’s future. …… The most recent ceasefire beginning on February 27, however, was negotiated in Geneva directly between the United States and Russia. Both sides agreed to act as equal guarantors for the ceasefire, and Obama concluded negotiations by speaking directly to Putin. As icing on the cake, Moscow recently forced Washington to renounce its position that “Assad must go,” with Secretary of State John Kerry stating “the United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change,” and that the focus was “not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad.”

Third, Putin responded to Turkey’s shoot down of a Russian jet by humiliating Ankara, an emerging rival in the Middle East and Central Asia. Russia deployed advanced S400 surface-to-air missiles near Turkey. ….. Putin also grievously wounded Turkey’s key rebel allies and close ethnic cousins, the Syrian Turkmen. Turkmen rebels reportedly killed the Russian pilots shot down by Turkish jets, and bombing the Turkmen allows Putin to both avenge these deaths — thereby playing to Russian public opinion — while degrading the effectiveness of one of Assad’s enemies.

Putin also hit Turkey where it hurts by playing the “Kurdish card” against Ankara. ……… Russia, though, plays on Turkish fears by providing air support for YPG efforts to fully control the Turkish-Syrian border, ….

Finally, Putin’s Syrian campaign has contributed to weakening the European Union. …….. Russia “weaponizes” refugees by bombing civilian targets and supporting Assad’s troops, thereby causing a substantially greater inflow of refugees into Europe — up to 100,000 from the city of Aleppo alone. Meanwhile, resentment toward Germany’s open-door refugee policy produces rising anger across the EU, ……….

……. Washington’s Syrian policy, meanwhile, remains a hopeless muddle. At various points the Obama administration insisted that “Assad must go” — and that Assad can stay. ……. The United States’ search for moderate rebels led it to support the Free Syrian Army. But FSA militias sometimes tactically ally with al Qaeda’s Syrian branch — effectively putting Washington on the same side at times as the perpetrators of 9/11.

Washington’s Sunni allies have not exactly been trouble-free either. Vice President Joseph Biden publicly accused the Turks, Saudis and Qataris of arming Syrian militants, ………. 

The Obama administration’s proxy strategy epitomizes this confusion. One Pentagon program spent $500 million on a train and equip program …… and even then, the few trainees actually sent into Syria promptly turned their weapons over to al Qaeda.

……….. As Moscow exits the Syrian morass, the five-month-long military campaign represents a clear geopolitical win for Vladimir Putin. 

At least Obama will not be called upon to deal with ISIS in Libya. That is going to be left to Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton is more likely to be another cabbage and Donald Trump could be a total disaster but he has a tiny chance of turning out to be a King.

 

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Pots & kettles as Obama criticises Cameron over Libya

March 11, 2016

It seems a bit rich for Obama with his utter shambles in Syria to be criticising David Cameron for the shambles in Libya. Not that Obama (and Hillary Clinton) didn’t mess up in Libya as well but the UK and France were taking the lead there.  And while it may have been the fall of Libya which unleashed the weapons and fanatics who morphed into ISIS, they would not have expanded as they did without Obama and Kerry dropping the ball in Iraq and Syria.

The Russian strategy seems to be actually forcing ISIS back, but plan B for ISIS seems to be to setup headquarters in Libya if they are eventually squeezed out of Iraq and Syria. The UK and France have to take their share of the blame for their sanctimonious but ill-thought out “regime change” in Libya, but the real frustration for Obama is that he has compounded the failed end-game in Libya and multiplied it in Syria.

BBC:

David Cameron became “distracted” after the 2011 intervention in Libya, US President Barack Obama has said. Speaking to the Atlantic magazine, he said the operation went as well as he had hoped, but Libya was now “a mess”. The article also said he had warned the PM the UK would have to pay its “fair share” and spend 2% of GDP on defence. …..

…. BBC North America editor Jon Sopel said the unsolicited statement put out by the White House suggested Downing Street had reacted angrily to the article. “It’s like we’ve seen a curtain drawn back on the unspun thoughts of President Obama, complete with frustration as well, and what we’ve seen tonight is the White House trying to close the curtain as quickly as it can,” he added. …….

……. The toppling of the Gaddafi regime in Libya – following UN-backed air strikes designed to protect civilians – led to a power vacuum and instability, with no authority in full control. The intervention was led by the UK and France – and in his interview, Mr Obama reflects on “what went wrong”, saying: “There’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.” Mr Cameron, he said, became “distracted by a range of other things”.

He also criticised former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying he had tried to claim the spotlight. The former French president, he said, “wanted to trumpet the flights he was taking in the air campaign, despite the fact that we had wiped out all the air defences and essentially set up the entire infrastructure” for the intervention. President Obama said the intervention “averted large-scale civilian casualties (and) prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict”. But he added: “And despite all that, Libya is a mess.”

Trying to pass on some of the blame onto Cameron and Sarkozy is not unjustified but it does not put Obama’s utter fiasco in Iraq and Syria into any better light. It really does not help the pot when it calls the kettles black.

 

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The “Oh God! Anybody but Hillary” effect could take Trump all the way

March 3, 2016

The US Presidential election is getting to be extremely entertaining and well beyond my expectations. It looks like it is going to be Trump (85%) versus Hillary (98%) in November. An additional and quite unexpected source of entertainment has emerged as Republicans become contortionists to escape from their previous criticisms of Trump and find a convoluted way to align themselves behind him.

(I note also that many of Trump’s critics in Europe are beginning to realise that it might not be very healthy to be too loud in their criticism and disdain of somebody who could be the next President of the US. The Pope has already backtracked. Some Scottish Nationalists are also becoming intellectual contortionists.)

The Republican “elite” are in abject disarray it seems (but they have been in disarray ever since the Tea Party gained ground). As an opposition they have been pathetic. Even with a resounding majority in the House their establishment chinless wonders (guess who I mean?), have been remarkably ineffective.  “Stop Trump” is their new game, but they can’t. They can – possibly – dislodge him from being the GOP nominee but then he goes independent and then the GOP disintegrates.

For a Trump – Clinton battle in November, all conventional thinking is going to be of little use. The play-book for that game does not yet exist. It will be written from now on. It would, I think, be quite wrong to assume that the Trump then (in the mind’s eye of the electorate) will be the Trump we see now. It will be the perceptions he creates from now on, not those he has created so far, which will turn out to be decisive. Trump is turning out to be a rather smart – and clever – operator, in a clown’s clothing. He is becoming the champion of common sense and seems immune to attacks from “liberal McCarthyism” and from the tyrants of “political correctness”.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Hillary Clinton would beat Trump easily. Her grass-roots organisation and the “Clinton brand” would, it is thought, rally the hordes to her cause and Trump would be wiped away. But I think conventional wisdom will turn out to be conventional folly in such a battle. Even on the feminism front, Clinton does not appear to have any decisive edge over Trump’s over the top support of being “feminine” (as opposed to feminism), which is sexist only to the most ardent of feminists. Clinton versus Trump will not be about ideologies but will be a battle of perceptions engendered and the emotions that are aroused. Clinton versus Trump will be black-and-white TV versus colour, it will be Blackberry versus the iphone, it will be – put simply – boring but known versus exciting if unknown. Normally unknown would be frightening – but not if the status quo is even more hopeless.

I have a sneaking suspicion that in a Clinton – Trump match-up, Clinton will defeat herself. Boring but known has its attractions when things are going well and the voter wants the status quo to be maintained. But for an electorate wanting “change” there will be little enthusiasm for Hillary. She projects the antithesis of “change”. She represents the worst of the establishment entrenched in their towers of elitism. Even adopting some of Bernie Sanders’ socialist ideas does not lift her up from “boring”. Obama promised “change” and “hope” and delivered neither. “American values” which made America “great” seem to have been diluted by too many years of wishy-washy liberalism.

“Oh God! Anybody but Hillary” and an anti-establishment tsunami could make Donald Trump President of the United States.

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