Gorka & Rubin Discuss PC culture and foreign policy

One of president Trump's early and vocal supporters, Sebastien Gorka visits the Rubin Report to discuss political correctness and foreign policy, as well as other things. Rubin's interviews are so good that I've included all of the Gorka videos here as they are all worth the watch.

Video II:



Video III:

Diving into the RCP presidential job approval for Trump

I'm not a huge fan of much of the polling that goes in terms of job approval. During the run-up to the election I dissected a lot of polling that felt suspect to me.  I argued that the election was not going to be a Hillary Clinton blowout and that it was going to be close, because there was a lot of skewness embedded in the polling results.  I wasn't confident in my opinion because the poll internals were not always available.  But I was right.

So, here we go again. A 2018 projection based on what the polls say right now.

Full disclosure, I used to follow president Obama's job approval ratings from Rasmussen Reports very regularly during his first term, but heading into his second term, I started questioning the polling, many of which had him winning re-election but many of which had him losing to Mitt Romney. That's when my trust in the polls started to falter - 2012.

Where the presidential job approval from RealClearPolitics is interesting now though, is a different matter.  Yes, the polls are mostly done on registered voters or all adults rather than likely voters (where he performs better, albeit still underwater). But the site allows for an approval rating on the economy versus on foreign policy, versus overall.  That caught my attention today.

Overall, the averaged polls by RCP show president Trump's job approval is underwater by 17 points, at roughly 40%. The skewness aside, let's assume that's the baseline.  You'd expected the drill downs on the issues of foreign policy and the economy to reflect that level and display some correlation to that number.

Foreign policy does reflect that. President Trump is almost 19 points underwater on foreign policy job approval at ~38% approval.  ISIS has been decimated but there are a number of factors that might explain that - liberals virulently opposed to the Jerusalem decision or improved illegal immigration effectiveness.  But Iran is a looming problem and North Korea is an existential threat viewed as a Trump problem as it is flaring up on his watch and not his ineffectual predecessor's.  And there is a media mob mentality on the Russia issue.  So while less than reflective of reality, the foreign policy approval might be skewed in the polls, but it's still feasible that there is validity in those numbers (to a degree).

Here's the puzzling piece.  President Trump is underwater in job approval on the economy.  But just barely.  Despite the hysterical claims that the president is blowing up the economy, things are actually pretty good.  This before the tax cuts are being seen on people's take home pay.  The president is only 2.5 points underwater at this point.

That portends a sound performance in 2018 in the midterms if the economy does as well as expected.  The president will move into positive territory on job approval re: the economy.  You'd expect that to move the dial overall as well over the course of 2018.  Yet there's an odd finding in this - why is the president's job approval seemingly tied more closely to foreign policy than it is to the economy? After nearly a decade of  an anemic economy, you'd think "It's the economy stupid." would never be more apropos.

Either the polls are flawed or skewed, or there's a Bradley Effect at play that's under-counting president trump's support.  Or perhaps the economy has been de-coupled from presidential approval.  Perhaps there's an overriding concern about a lack of presidential demeanor that overshadows the good he has done on the economy.  I doubt that, or at least that it's so strong as to drag a -2% to a -17%.  But that doesn't pass the smell test.  Something is clearly off on these polls.

Obama's willful blindness on the international stage.

This WaPo piece from Jackson Diehl sums up the Obama approach to the world quite well:

An enduring characteristic of Barack Obama’s presidency has been his determination to implement the ideological agenda with which he arrived in office without regard for conditions in the real world. He imposed timetables for “ending the wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq unlinked to military progress. He insisted on pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, even though the leaders of both sides were manifestly unwilling. He began his second term by seeking a new nuclear arms deal with Vladi­mir Putin, despite abundant evidence that Putin was preparing for confrontation with the West.

Now, six years into his presidency, Obama has launched, as his first significant initiative in Latin America, detente with Cuba. It’s a torch that many liberals have carried for decades. Once again, however, the president has acted with willful disregard for current events...

Obama ignored the slowly mushrooming crisis that triggered Castro’s distress and that ought to be the focus of U.S. energies in Latin America. That is the slow but potentially catastrophic collapse of Venezuela, a major U.S. oil supplier with three times Cuba’s population that, as 2015 begins, is well on its way to becoming a failed state.

Some people never learn.

Foreign policy quick notes

I was never a big fan of Chuck Hagel.  The man the president picked to be his Secretary of Defense, a Republican, has abandon ship Obama. But I don't think I should be surprised he lasted this long.  

And on a related topic, if you think there was no smoke or fire in the Benghazi scandal, you should read this.

Thursday Hillary Bash - The Weight of Her Words

John Podhoretz sums up the implications of Hillary Clinton hitting Obama, and hitting hard. Secretaries of State, sitting or gone, do not hit their president like she has. The weight of her words are actually pretty stark:

"Hillary Clinton is the most popular politician in America now...And she has decided, for all intents and purposes, to go into opposition.

That was the meaning of the extraordinary interview she granted Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic over the weekend. It was the annunciation of her separation from you and your legacy...

The key sentence is this: “Great nations need organizing principles,” Hillary told Goldberg, “and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

She distances herself from the bad decisions or Syria and Israel pretty forcefully in the interview. She is going on offense against Obama because his job approval in the area of foreign policy has become abysmal. She sees this as an opportunity to hammer a lame duck, with no possibility of any serious blowback. She sees it as an opportunity to elevate her own foreign policy credibility. She sees it as an opportunity to subtly provide an I-told-you-so to 2008 voters about her 3 a.m. call message in the primaries. She is elevating herself at the expense of president Obama at a time when he is down. There is blood in the water and make no mistake, she is a shark. This is an opportunity for her, and not an opportunity to stir up controversy and sell more books (though that may happen to some modest degree), it is an opportunity only because she fully intends to run for the presidency in 2016. If she weren't she would demur on the tough questions. While she might not praise the president for areas in which they disagree, she would at least have the decency to avoid criticism and ride off into the sunset as a not bitter woman.

Nope. Podhoretz theorizes, and rightly I believe:

Last year, when it looked like Obama might maintain his popularity, Hillary was ready to run as his confidant, adviser and friend.

Now, as the world comes crashing down upon him, along with his poll numbers and the increasingly disastrous prospects for his party in the November midterms, Mrs. Clinton has laid a bet.

She is betting she has two years to set herself up not as Obama’s natural successor but as his sadder-but-wiser replacement — the one who saw it go wrong, the one who watched as the mistakes were being made, the one who sought to mitigate or reverse those blunders to no effect, the one best able to take inspiration from a more successful, more centrist Democratic presidency.

The only thing wrong with that is that she's not really a centrist. But hey, what the voters think, is far more important than the truth. That's Clinton 101.

President Obama's Foreign Policy Pivot Fails on Many Levels (Part 1)

The president today made a speech at West Point today to a graduating class that was full of problematic statements. The speech was so full of...misinformation, that I've been forced to break down my breakdown of it, into more than one part. in this part I will focus on the president's cherry picking of facts in his speech.  But that's just the starting point.

In order to support his positions, the president, no stranger to cherry-picking facts to support his positions, did not disappoint in this speech, if cherry picking is something you were looking forward to hearing.

Here's the first example of cherry picking his facts:

Al Qaida's leadership on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated, and Osama bin Laden is no more.

True - but al Qaida is still an existential threat worldwide. The president has selected a narrow window to define success, because beyond that window, the problems are nowhere near being fixed.  Of course, the president tries to minimize the geo-political threats, because it helps justify a minimized military, enabling more social engineering programs.

In fact, by most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise, who suggest that America is in decline or has seen its global leadership slip away, are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics. Think about it. Our military has no peer. The odds of a direct threat against us by any nation are low, and do not come close to the dangers we faced during the Cold War.

He has parsed his words carefully -"rarely" been stronger. Yet relative to China, America is losing it's military superiority advantage. And while no nation has any reason or power to invade the United States, North Korea and Iran are both working diligently towards long range nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States. Russia and China still do of course. The threats faced today are not the same as they were during the Cold War.

Wasn't it president Obama who chided Mitt Romney when he stated that the 1980's called and wanted their foreign policy back during the presidential debates? Mitt Romney was of course right that Russia is the biggest geopolitical threat (you could argue China is a bigger threat now). And while Russia is poised to indulge in a nefarious landgrab in the Ukraine, Obama argues that the world is a different place. Well, if it is, then comparing the dangers of today to the different dangers of a different era is most definitely cherry picking.

But there's more egregious examples.

And when a typhoon hits the Philippines, or schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine -- it is America that the world looks to for help.

Exactly what is America doing about the kidnappings in Nigeria or the violent unrest in the Ukraine? Effectively, zilch.  The world may have looked to America, but with missing leadership from an American president, that is not likely to continue.  At least it will not until someone else comes along who can create a sense of global leadership that an apology tour and obvious disinterest didn't do.

When the president bases his speech on selectively choosing facts, or portions of the whole picture to act as a foundation for whatever else it is he has to say, you know his arguments have started on shaky grounds.

Next I'll take a look at the implications of the president's pivot and vision for America's future beyond Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bonus Thursday Hillary Bash - Wrong on Syria circa 2011

It's never too early to dredge up the past on the de facto next president, because she does not deserve an uncontested coronation.

Via Weasel Zippers, 2011: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Describes Syria’s Assad As A “Reformer”… . Really? Why Hillary - what evidence supported that?

Hillary Clinton cannot handle the fabled 3 .a.m. call any more than her 2008 primary opponent Barack Obama could. She claims to have foreign policy credibility but she was wrong on the Russian rest, wrong on her own flight into Bosnia and wrong on Assad.  She has no foreign policy credibility. None.

Thursday Hillary Bash

Is he holding a joy buzzer or something?

Today's edition of Thursday Hillary Bash (an on-going attempt to poke holes in the rationale behind the coming coronation of Hillary Clinton as the next president in 2016) comes via Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner at National Review. The topic concerns Hillary Clinton's foreign policy short-comings;

I elaborated on Mrs. Clinton’s pronouncement in a Corner post a little over a year ago, citing to what Madame Secretary was telling the Arabic press (al-Ahram reporting) and tying it into the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood implementation of Erdogan’s strategy in Turkey: gradually impose sharia by exploiting Western progressives’ hostility to military governance – which is the only kind of governance in which Western liberalism has a chance to take root in a majority Islamic-supremacist society...

Here’s what Mrs. Clinton is telling the Arabic press:

Egyptian military authorities must cede power to the winner of the country’s first post-Mubarak presidential elections, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted Wednesday.

“We think that it is imperative that the military fulfill its promise to the Egyptian people to turn power over to the legitimate winner,” Clinton said in a discussion hosted at the State Department.

Some of the actions by the military leadership in past days were “clearly troubling,” Clinton said, sitting with former secretary of state James Baker at the event to support the creation of the first US museum for diplomacy. ”The military has to assume an appropriate role which is not to interfere with, dominate or try to subvert the constitutional authority,” she warned.

That’s the Turkey strategy in small compass. Erdogan exploited the bleating of American and European progressives to weaken Turkey’s pro-Western military — transferring control to the Islamist civilian government he controls, and installing Islamists loyal to him in place of the Kemalist military officers he has sacked. Interestingly, Mrs. Clinton does not have much to say about “subvert[ing] the constitutional authority” when Erdogan — who Obama hails as his closest regional ally — jails political opponents, military officers, and journalists.

The secretary of state paid lip-service to the need for the Brotherhood’s New Egypt to support “an inclusive democratic process, the rights of all Egyptians, women and men, Muslims and Christians, everyone has to be respected.” I’m sure Coptic Christians are very impressed, as are the smattering of authentic democrats whom the administration helped the Brotherhood steamroll.

Foreign policy expert? Ready for the 3 a.m. call?  Not by a long shot.

Obama's Middle East Policy - Does It Exist?

With Israel using an Iron Dome to halt the rainfall of missiles into Tel Aviv, and Egypt seemingly set to step in on the side of Hamas, with Iran so close to nuclear capability, one has to wonder if president Obama not only slept through the 3 a.m. phone call, he may have slept through the entire foreign policy portion of his presidency.  Obama's Middle East policy does not exist, everything he's done so far has been static isolated, flat-footed reaction to events moving at a pace he can't cope with.

The real question isn't whether Obama has a Middle East policy, but rather whether he can develop one before events in the region get out of hand.  Actually, I'm being overly harsh; the president has stated some policy on the Middle East.  What's missing, is strategy.

The final presidential debate

The final presidential debate goes tonight.  The topic is foreign policy.  This is supposed to be an Obama stronghold and months ago they were probably thrilled that this topic would be the closer of the debates.  But now I'm sure they are a bit worried.  The over under on Obama mentioning getting Bin Laden is about 11, because really, that's all they've got.  He may also try to spin the Arab Spring as one of his successes.  Reality however, flies in the face of his supposed strength.

The quick skinny on a number of foreign affairs.

Mitt Romney foreign policy speech

October 8th, Mitt Romney speaking at VMI - Virginia Military Institute.

What once was a strength is now a weakness

The president's foreign policy record, abysmal as it has been, has for over a year, been papered over by the killing of Osama Bin Laden. It has provided him cover for a series of fatal foreign policy flaws that have led to yesterday's embassy stormings and killings.

The simple truth is that killing Bin Laden is not foreign policy nor should it confer foreign policy credentials to the president. And let's not forget that Hillary Clinton should not emerge unscathed by this. This is enough of a clusterfrak that there is plenty of blame to go around here.

It has been an abysmal failure of foreign policy and it's time it gets turned on the president with the searing intensity the truth demands.

Avoiding the nightmare scenario

I just posted about Mitt Romney's defense of the indefensible.  I was thinking there'd be nothing worse than Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee.  Of course that's wrong on a number of levels.  Ron Paul would be worse, because he'd be eaten alive by the press in the general election.  But there's an even worse scenario.  Regardless of the name of the eventual GOP nominee, Robert Reich outlines the real worst-case, nightmare scenario.  It's worse than four more years of president Obama.

GOP foreign policy debate: No real winner

In the first hour of the South Carolina GOP candidates debate, there was no clear winner. In the bonus on-line time, there wasn't much difference. Everyone did well, and as Newt Gingrich pointed out, everyone on that stage would be an improvement over president Obama.  Everyone handled themselves as expected, and there were no real surprises.

Coming Soon - Candidate Viability

I was planning on providing some thoughts on a number of different elements regarding the GOP candidate field.  A long time ago I provided a candidate review on the top GOP candidates post 2008 (early 2009 actually).  The landscape has certainly changed, but the factors in assessing a candidate really haven't.  They come down to foreign policy, economic policy, social policy, experience and whether the candidate is electable. This time I'm going to do the comparisons issue by issue rather than assessing each candidate on all the issues as a candidate-standalone.  The comparisons will be head-to-head by issue.

Let's all pretend Obama is tough now.

Yes, I'm this great.

Let's assume for the sake of discussion that President Obama's new found toughness is real and not a re-election tactic designed to fool semi-aware voters. Even if he is suddenly a tough guy, it doesn't make his foreign policy and foreign relations effort any less inept.  But that won't stop the White House and a complicit press from trying to spin the yarn about a tough guy President - an image they feel he needs for re-election in 2012.

Obama Foreign Policy: Debacles

Just a quick recap. Remember a couple of months back, all those media reports about how wonderful Obama's foreign trips and speeches apologizing for America were? In truth it was bad. And now it's gotten worse. Obama's been leveraging his community organizer past to try to organize a world community. He's got his "we're all in this together" philosophy and he's trying to share it with Hamas and Chavez, and Ahmadinejad and others.

The problem is - we aren't all in this together. There are those who would gladly see the US destroyed, or Israel wiped off the map. That is not together-hood. The do not see a chance for reconciliation - they see weakness and reluctance, and they are taking advantage of it.

Let's do a little exercise in comparing Obama then to Obama now.

THEN:

(Just a sample)

-We've got to close Guantanamo

-Saying during the apology tour, that the US has committed acts of arrogance

-We should not have gone into Iraq

-We need to go further in Afghanistan

-Not following the proper etiquette with the Queen of England

-Bowing before the King of Saudi Arabia

-A feeble response to North Korean nuclear tests and rocket tests

-Joe Biden will be my foreign policy guy

AND NOW:

-Thugocracy in Iran killing protesters in the streets and a weak response from the leader of the free world
-North Korea missiles aimed at Hawaii and they're threatening to harm the US if attacked (including apparently, having the sanctions enforced while they try to sell illegal arms to others).

-Chinese ships playing chicken with American ships.

-China and Russia trying to take the US dollar off the world stage as the world's currency reserve.

-Al Qaida admitting they would use nuclear weapons on the US if they could just get their hands on them in Pakistan

Guess what Mr. President, it's a dirty world and there are same bad, bad people out there who don't have your country's best interests at heart. To call your foreign policy anything other than a debacle would be being generous.

Let's do another quick compare and contrast:

-Bush managed to free Iraq from the oppression of Saddam Hussein. Obama's premature withdrawal has sparked an uptick in violent action in the country

-Bush removed the Al Qaida supporting Taliban from power in Afghanistan, Obama's going to try a surge to prevent them from regaining power in the region, in this case by taking parts of Pakistan and their nuclear weapons.

-Bush tried to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians. Obama is trying to dictate the conditions to it's ally.

-Bush kept Americans safe from attack after 9/11 for over 7 years. Obama has done so for 5 months. So far so good, but it's got a long way to go to prove his approach will be effective as President Bush's approach actually was.

Those who had derided Bush's foreign policy stance as arrogant or 'cowboy diplomacy' can not argue with the relative successes of Bush compared to Obama. And the excuse that Obama inherited a mess won't wash - EVERY President has inherited a very difficult and often dangerous foreign relations situation because the world is a dangerous place; always was, always will be.

To try to not take ownership 5 years in is no longer acceptable. You won the job Mr. President, the responsibilities are yours now. So just do your job and stop the PR tour, stop the blame game. Just do your job.

Biden has answers for Iran. No really.

Think back a ways, beyond the election of President Obama on November 4th, 2008. Think back to the election campaign itself. Specifically, think back to August 25th, 2008. The day that then candidate Obama, chose Joe Biden as his running mate.

The conventional wisdom, was that this was indeed, wisdom, because Joe Biden brought some much needed experience to the Democratic ticket.

“Joe Biden is that rare mix -- for decades, he has brought change to Washington,
but Washington hasn't changed him,” Obama said.

“He's an expert on foreign policy whose heart and values are rooted firmly in the middle class. He has stared down dictators and spoken out for America's cops and firefighters. He is uniquely suited to be my partner as we work to put our country back on track.”

Biden, 65, has represented his small mid-Atlantic state for 36 years. Best known for his international relations and national security experience, Biden chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has a powerful role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. He has traveled to many countries as a U.S. senator, most recently to Georgia, where he met with the country’s president.

Biden sought the presidency himself in 1988 and again in 2008, when he withdrew from the race after the Iowa caucuses. Political experts considered him a likely vice presidential contender, noting that Biden’s foreign policy resume may alleviate concern among some voters that Obama does not have enough experience to handle difficult international issues.

[emphasis added]

So now that we have a bit of a situation in Iran, I have only one question. Where are they hiding Joe Biden? Seriously. Surely he has all the answers President Obama needs but seems to be unable to find on his own.

Well, it turns out Politico has the answers for us. apparently he feels "there's some real doubt" on whether Ahmadinejad won the election. But on Meet The Press, he felt it was too soon to render a more definitive judgement. This a day after images out of Iran were showing youths battling what amounts to Iranian storm troopers.

[insert sound of crickets chirping]

So this explains the cautious approach taken by the White House. Joe Biden has declared, with his wealth of meaningful foreign policy experience, that it's too early to be decisive. It explains the tepid non-responses from the President and Press Secretary Gibbs.

I know personally, I feel a whole lot better knowing that with the wealth of foreign policy experience Joe Biden brings to the table, the President is taking the smart course of non-action. This is why he was chosen. He's sure earning his keep now.

Can anyone say Zbigniew Brzezinski?

Don't forget what got us here

THEN: Obama the candidate - foreign policy experience from living abroad.



NOW: Obama flubbing on the world stage; shaking hands with Chavez, bowing to the Saudi King but not the British Queen, welcoming dialogue with the Castro brothers, getting the anti-American lecture from Ortega to name a few flubs;



You get what you vote for, don't you?