Jackson Diehl on Obama three weeks ago:
Washington has spent the past couple of weeks debating whether Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda and political strategy are more comparable to those of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Oddly, hardly anyone is talking about the ways in which Obama is beginning to resemble the man who just vacated the White House.
[…..]So Obama hasn’t strayed far from Karl Rove’s playbook for routing the opposition.
Jackson Diehl on Obama today:
For many around the world, Obama’s diplomacy will certainly look like a refreshing change from that of George W. Bush. Yet in Washington, some may compare it to his handling of early domestic legislation, where he has allowed congressional Democrats to take control and set priorities. Is the new president shrewd and pragmatic about using his power at home and abroad — or too passive, even weak? That’s a question worth weighing as he heads back to Washington.
So he’s gone from Rovian power monger to passive weakling in three weeks? He was too much like Bush last month and now he’s not enough like Bush?
Only in Georgetown…
Comrade Kevin
So when will there be a "Blogs DougJ Reads" section on the right side of the page?
TenguPhule
Remember, in Media World, All Democrats are Quantom.
They are always in a state of flux between spineless pussies and raging liberal facists.
TenguPhule
Isn’t that already under "Blogs we monitor and mock as needed"?
robertdsc
This lack of consistency on the part of many commentators bugs the hell out of me.
MattF
All you need to know: Diehl is second-in-command to Fred Hiatt on the Post editorial page. I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to read a column he’s written, and you shouldn’t either.
Radio One
haha…jesus. If Jackson Diehl wasn’t typical of the Washington media, I probably wouldn’t comment. But he is, and here we are.
Ailuridae
Dadid Frum was making these same point on Bill Maher tonight. Sam Donaldson and Maher spent most of the night looking at him like he had two heads and Reihan Salam (the co-author of Grand New Party) spent a lot of the night trying to make sense of what Frum was saying.
This is eerily reminiscent of the campaign when every two weeks McCain’s messaging was shifting to and fro and often contradicting itself.
Thankovsky
Both of those articles are laughably divorced from reality, but the second one I find particularly egregious. I’m especially struck by his claim that "U.S. officials readily acknowledge [that] strategic arms control is of much greater interest to Russia — whose nuclear arsenal is rapidly deteriorating — than it is to the United States." I’m a career arms control wonk myself, and I’d certainly be interested in hearing who exactly these officials are. From what I’ve seen, most U.S. officials who actually work in a defense-related capacity acknowledge that the threat of nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of warheads and fissile material is the gravest threat to American national security today.
He goes on to suggest that Obama’s willingness to talk about strategic arms reduction comes at the expense of the U.S. pushing Russia to crack down on Iran. Uh, excuse me? Has this imbecile simply not read a single news article about Russo-American relations for the past five years? This shouldn’t be that difficult to comprehend: Russia’s Iran policy is an attempt to balance out U.S. unilateralism. Our government would have no hope of defusing that particular issue, without showing itself to be a little more open-minded than the previous government about serious strategic issues. And yes, Virginia, those would include arms reduction treaties. Like the historic one set to expire at the end of this year, which provides the international legal basis for verification of disarmament.
Long story short: if you want to talk to Russia about Iran, you need to start talking turkey about bilateral arms control first. And yes, that includes that ridiculous white elephant missile shield on Russia’s border with Poland.
He later cites the bogeyman of shifting "the global economy toward continental norms." Is this guy for real? Is anyone outside of the Deep South or rural Alaska really swayed by the "EUROPEAN SOCIALISM ZOMG!" strawman anymore? I should hope not, but it’s possible I’m being naive on that issue.
Finally, I find it particularly hilarious that he decided to cite Sarkozy’s threatened walkout. Evidently Mr. Diehl is one editor who is above reading the headlines of the newspaper for which he writes, to say nothing of the headlines of other publications. Otherwise, he might have noticed that President Obama seems to have little trouble when it comes to making peace between Sarko and whoever he’s badgering at any given moment, as evidenced by Obama’s defusing of the heated exchange between the French Prez and Hu Jintao.
I love irony. It’s proof to me that God has a sense of humor.
Grace Nearing
Gonna have to pour barrels of syrup on that waffle.
Col. Klink
Diehl and David Ignatius should get a room together on the island of ‘centrist*, self-important punditry’.
* Centrist = The GOP is probably right on almost everything, (because they’re old, outdated, rich, crusty and white like me!), and in the meantime I’ll use my exceedingly mundane real estate at the Post to wrap myself in DC’s cherished centist garb. Speaking of which, what time are Broder and Applebaum meeting us for drinks in Georgetown tonight anyway?
Michael D.
@Comrade Kevin:
There won’t be. He only reads the Washington Post.
Common Sense
Well it ain’t like the LAT is worth a damn either. Here’s Andrew Malcolm transcribing Governor Patterson’s press conference yesterday:
He then reminds the governor of 9/11, which was obviously more tragic.
Now here’s what the Governor actually said (I assume the odd punctuation is from some autotranscription device. There is video confirmation at the link — from Fox no less):
Note the difference in the statements? And why one might reasonably state that 9/11, awful as it was, was not a tragedy specific to Binghamton? And how big of a douche Malcolm actually is?
kommrade reproductive vigor
I still can’t get past the fact that anyone can write so badly and get paid to do so.
And some may compare Jackson No Diehl to a giant pile of lightly toasted bullshit. Some may compare the Capitol building to the space ship that abducts them every Thursday.
Where the flaming fuck is the meaning in a speculation that certain people in a particular city MIGHT make a comparison?
Balconespolitics
Ahh – change the meme to fit the scare tactic.
I mean – it worked with Saddam, right? On one hand he was a ruthless cynical evildoer who sought only to consolodate and hold his power, ostensibly with the goal of passing the reign undemocratically to the devil spawn Uday and Qusay … on the other he was a lunatic radical Islamist who could not be contained and would someday launch nuclear tipped anthrax filled unmanned drones around the world to attack Israel and western targets despite the inevitable immolation Iraq would suffer in response.
To the right wing, the biggest fear domestically is that Obama is strong … the biggest fear internationally is that Obama is weak. Since Obama is the sum of all their fears, they have no problem embracing both those positions at once.
And sadly, there’s an awful lot of evidence that you have a much greater job security in the punditocracy echoing the fears of the right wing, than echoing the fears of the left.
Balconespolitics
huh – duplicated
Bootlegger
I’ll take shrewd and pragmatic with a hint of badass.
Last week I mentioned Villagers changing which hand they are masturbating with and Mr. Diehl is definitely ambidextrous.
El Cid
Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl are both simply ludicrous toadies.
Cerberus
They’re frightened.
If they can’t maintain the illusion of a dynamic two-party system needing "clear-headed" "moderate" voices to moderate the conflict in defense of conservative frames, then people will start asking for real looks into the issues and how we got here and then the magic pony circus ends. At that point either the news structure is abandoned completely or has a massive round of layoffs as it goes back to the investigative roots. Either way, it’s bad personally for the Georgetown set.
Hence the flailing.
bayville
Mood changes? I’ll give you mood changes. This was said 5 months ago, today:
And one more.
http://hometownsource.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6914&Itemid=29
harlana pepper
Many moods? Try untreated journalistic bi-polarism I.
Krista
It would be irresponsible NOT to speculate, right? I have to confess, I am getting mighty sick of this lazy-assed, semi-slanderous method of journalism. "Is Obama really a werewolf? It’s a question worth examining/weighing/asking/pondering."
Bullshit. When a question is based upon absolutely nothing more than your own weaselly desire to "get" someone without having to sack up and actually make a declarative sentence about your own opinions, then no, it’s not a question worth asking.
Dennis-SGMM
What a forthright declaration. If the Obama administration is a success then Diehl can point to this prescient editorial. If the Obama administration is a failure then Diehl can point to this prescient editorial.
Bill
The "Chicago Thugs" theme was popular for a while until they remembered that America admires strength and despises losers.So now they have to switch gears and fret about Obama’s troubling signs of weakness.
someguy
It’s silly. I liked his apology for everything America has done in the last eight years. He really didn’t go far enough, we have a hell of a lot more to feel guilty about and to apologize for, but at least it’s a start.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
@Common Sense:
Thanks for that heads-up. I went over to his blog and posted a comment telling him to check the linked Fox video because the word was "city", not "state". It wasn’t posted right away because apparently all posts there are moderated.
I just went back now and found that my comment still wasn’t posted, but there was this edit: "(UPDATE: A re-examination of the news conference tape shows that Gov. Paterson did, in fact, say "in the history of this city" not "state" as originally published here.) "
But it’s immediately followed by the same quote — this time with the right geographical term — and his same snotty statement about 9/11, which now makes no sense in context. It sounds like he’s trying to remind anyone who might have forgotten that something bad happened in NYC, too. Just being helpful, you see.
What a bozo.