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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Black Jimmy Carter / Bust out the cardigans

Bust out the cardigans

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Not to pat ourselves on the back, but we’ve been talking about this idiotic meme for weeks:

Like every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy, President Obama is battling the perception that he’s a wimp on national security.

It’s not just coming from Republicans (for example, Dick Cheney’s accusation that Mr. Obama is trying to pretend that the country isn’t at war). Now barbs are coming from the center too. This week’s Foreign Policy magazine has a provocative cover: Mr. Obama next to Jimmy Carter with — gasp — an “equals” sign in the middle. New York Times/CBS polling shows that public approval of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy dropped 9 points to 50 percent between last April and November. Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the Daily Beast blog two weeks ago that Mr. Obama needs to toughen up with his adversaries. “He puts far too much store on being the smartest guy in the room,” Mr. Gelb wrote. “He’d do well to remember that Jimmy Carter also rang all the I.Q. bells.”

Personally, I’m not sure how CFR qualifies as centrist, or why anyone takes the group seriously at all: Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s plenty of smart people there, but you’re only as serious as your craziest senior fellow, in my book.

Update. CFR probably does qualify as centrist. Its president, Richard Haas, was fairly anti-Iraq war (mostly after the fact, but still).

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  3. 3.

    Garrigus Carraig

    Clinton was smart too. Then he bombed the bejeezus out of Serbia. How many mf’s does Obama have to bomb until he’s not a wimp? Inquiring minds wanna know. I wanna know. GC+7.

  5. 5.

    Face

    9 point drop from April to November? Clearly attributible to the Fruit of the Loom Fruitcake. Ignore the calender, libtard.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    @Garrigus Carraig: Only every place the neo-cons desire, or all the brown people on the planet. This of course would have to include himself so a good white straight male could take the Presidency then lose to Bible Spice in 2012.

  9. 9.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    Leslie H. Gelb wrote two weeks ago that Mr. Obama needs to toughen up with his adversaries.

    Sounds good to me. Call out Dick Cheney! If you’re not too busy cutting back-room deals with bankers and pharma companies, that is.

  17. 17.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    Are Alicia Keys and Anetta Keys related? They look alike, and are both in show business.

  20. 20.

    Jim

    this is the current head of CFR

    From January 2001 to June 2003, Dr. Richard Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell. […]
    Dr. Haass has extensive additional government experience. From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George H. W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council.

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    Helene Cooper @ NY Times:

    Now barbs are coming from the center too. This week’s Foreign Policy magazine …

    FP is the center?

    All of which raises the question of what, exactly, it is that Mr. Obama has to do by the end of the year to turn around the impression that Democrats are cream puffs on foreign policy.

    Ooh, ooh, pick me, I know this one: Shoot Dick Cheney in the face!

    Also, just to be pedantic, shouldn’t the raised question possess a question mark? Times copy editor, easiest fucking job in the world.

    .

  23. 23.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    All of which raises the question of what, exactly, it is that Mr. Obama has to do by the end of the year to turn around the impression that Democrats are cream puffs on foreign policy.

    If the answer is “call for the invasion of a foreign country”, America really does deserve a Republican government. Fuck it all.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    @JGabriel:

    Ooh, ooh, pick me, I know this one: Shoot Dick Cheney in the face!

    Don’t forget the most important part: making Dick Cheney call a press conference so he can publicly apologize to Obama for making him shoot him in the face.

  25. 25.

    JGabriel

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:

    If this is true, then the American people really do deserve a Republican government.

    I don’t see why we deserve a Republican gov’t just because Helene Cooper is a weak, cream puff, asshole.

    Yes, I found Helene’s use of the phrase “cream puff” in that context particularly offensive. C’mon, Helene, just come out and say what you really mean:

    How could anyone ever, possibly, turn around the impression that Democrats are fags?

    Nice, objective, analysis there, Helene.

    .

  26. 26.

    Mark

    Doug,

    I have a good friend at CFR and I think it qualifies as centrist. The problem is that Richard Haass could hire whoever he wanted (you don’t get interviewed and approved by a larger group like you might in a normal workplace) and he picked hacks like Michael Gerson and Amity Shlaes, who have both humiliated the place with their stupidity. IMHO.

    Gerson was fired recently. Shlaes, well, who knows? But basically, it’s a large distributed organization where the left hand may not agree with what the right hand is doing but there aren’t many options except to wait things out.

  27. 27.

    kay

    @The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:

    There’s no real impression that Democrats are cream puffs on national security.

    The writer cites a poll that shows Republicans with a 4 point edge on “stronger on terrorism” which is basically within the margin of error.

    Further, the writer cites a poll that shows Democrats with a 10 point edge on “making wise decisions on foreign policy”.

    They’re hoping it sticks. It hasn’t happened yet.

    I’m sort of proud of rank and file America’s reaction to the attempted bombing, actually. They held up a hell of a lot better than media, who were completely traumatized, apparently.

  28. 28.

    dave

    it would be Serious of Obama to kick john mccain’s face in, and to bitch slap every other member of the WH press corps.

  29. 29.

    Mike G

    Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the Daily Beast blog two weeks ago that Mr. Obama needs to toughen up with his adversaries.

    Shorter Leslie Gelb:
    I am more comfortable with a stupid, over-aggressive asshole as president. Obama’s deliberation and intelligence scare me.
    Also, I am so insecure, impotent and pathetic that I live vicariously through American military action.

  30. 30.

    asiangrrlMN

    Gah! #$%$%@%^%%@(@$@$%@^@#^$#%@!

    That expresses how I feel right now, except I need to throw this in as well: Fuck all the idiots and their “Dems are soft on terror” meme with a rusty pitchfork twelve billionty ways of Sunday.

    And, as for Cooper, her end graf:

    For Mr. Obama, that may also mean talking tough more often, Mr. Rothkopf said. “If you’re going to be president of the United States in the early part of the 21st century, you’re going to have to look like you’re tough on terror

    is the weakest shit of all. Her big dramatic conclusion is that Obama has to be mean to the baddies in order to be perceived as being ‘tough on terror’ or whatever the bullshit meme is this weak. Fuck you, too! With a rusty Garden Weasel.

    Let’s Roto Rooter ’em all.

  31. 31.

    Steeplejack

    @DougJ:

    [. . .] you’re only as serious as your craziest senior fellow, in my book.

    Words to live by. FTW.

    I think someone–well, everybody–needs to start pushing back with the litany of Republican fail from the Bush-Cheney administration, e.g., Sullivan’s recent gutting of Cheney and the “Terrorball” post at Lawyers, Guns & Money. Keep saying it and keep it front and center.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Fuck all the idiots and their “Dems are soft on terror” meme with a rusty pitchfork twelve billionty ways of Sunday.

    “Billionty”? Really? What, did you bring that home from Taiwan?

    Good to have you back stateside. I have been wondering who you left in charge of keeping your arsenal of pitchforks and garden weasels (and now, apparently, Roto Rooters) at the proper ratio of rustiness/effectiveness.

  36. 36.

    Mark S.

    @Jim:

    Three days before the invasion, he told The Associated Press: “I’m in favor of this . . . . It’s the best medicine for anti-Americanism around the world I can imagine.”

    Anyone who said something this stupid should not be listened to about, well, anything.

    I would also agree that while centrist may not be the most apt description of the CFR, to call it a wingnut welfare outfit isn’t right either. It’s mostly consensus groupthink of the foreign policy establishment, so it’s a mixed bag. Gelb sounds like a neocon, but most of the group is more of the neoliberal school, which also hasn’t made us very lovable around the world either.

  37. 37.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: No, I got billionty from this blog, actually. I’ve been using it for quite some time. And, my boys (my kittehs) keep my garden weapons of mass destruction in perfect rusting condition while I’m gone. I just don’t ask how they do it.

  39. 39.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Plus one bottle of champagne, but mostly just high on the fact that my workweek at the Big Box Bookstore is over and I’m starting my belated weekend. Yee-haw. Plus this week was fucked up because I had mostly day shifts. WTF?! I was almost like a normal person, in bed by midnight–okay, one o’clock–getting up at 7:00 a.m., and I wasn’t killing all the Balloon Juice threads with multiple unanswererd posts at 3:00 in the morning (like I am now). It’s good to be back on the nightside.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    P.S. I’m serious about the moles. I ever have a big yard, moles can come and just tunnel the shit out of it. People be walking around, falling into holes and spraining their ankles–too fucking bad. Mole preserve, bitchez!

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    You carry your weight. True dat.

    Got to go back through the threads from this week tomorrow and find a reference to the rusty implements that was particularly good. Shoulda bookmarked it at the time. Damn.

    Finally, I don’t want to go all JK stalker on your ass, but watch Yi Yi, damn it. I read some of your blog posts from Taiwan, and I think the movie will really hit you. That’s all I’m going to say. My lips are sealed. Let’s talk about moles, or mole rats, or something. (Where has JK been, by the way?)

  45. 45.

    Steeplejack

    @The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:

    “When they came for the squirrels, I didn’t say anything, because I don’t like squirrels. When they came for the woodchucks, I didn’t say anything, because I don’t like woodchucks. When they came for the moles . . .” — Reinhold Niebuhr, Vermin and Genocide, 1953.

  49. 49.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: Oh my god. That’s too sad. I have to see this movie now. The little girl in Somewhere I Have Never Travelled was hauntingly good. The teen girl (different actor, of course) was good, too, but not quite as good. See it if you can.

    @Steeplejack: Ooooh, weird. A friend of mine has linked this song for me twice because it reminded him of me. Thanks! Night. I’ll see you on the flip side.

  50. 50.

    bob h

    Has anyone sampled opinion among the Al Qaeda leaders along the Af-Pak border who are getting Hellfire missiles rained down on them at increasing rates, and are departing for other venues? The problem is that this CIA war is supposed to be a secret, and cannot be talked about openly.

  51. 51.

    numbskull

    @Mark: I appreciate your input since you certainly have more knowledge of CFR than I do, so can you tell us more about it? Having a friend there is useful for this conversation, but I don’t understand from your statement how CFR is politically central. By your statement, the old Hannity and Colmes show was centrist.

  52. 52.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Cooper uses the Jimmy Carter quip to pivot off of Gelb’s piece to make hers entirely about foreign policy. No where in there does she make the claim that the answer is: Kill More People. While Gelb does address foreign policy his is a more general observation of Obama’s first year. I suggest anyone criticizing Gelb go read the Daily Beast piece being quoted here. He’s got some pretty good advice for the President. I don’t agree with all of it but this bit jumped out:

    To make this all work, Obama will have to be a lot tougher both at home and abroad. Until now, his critics have been able to beat up on him at no cost to themselves. Opponents will have to start fearing him; and friends will have to start accepting his discipline. If Republicans continue to scorn everything he does and refuse all reasonable compromise, he should pick out five of their prominent legislators and cut off their spending favorites. If Congress won’t do that, the White House can just refuse to spend the money. The offenders will soon get the message.

    (My emphasis) That would actually go against the grain of Obama’s attempts at bi-partisanship. He’s made many attempts to include, and indeed has included, the GOP in the decision making process of some important legislation. (Stimulus, HCR are the best examples) I see no problem with getting tough with Republicans.

    Gelb makes a very fair point about mixed messages coming from Team Obama (and I agree with that assessment):

    He also has to impose message discipline. One top economic counselor, Larry Summers, said that the economy and jobs are rebounding. Another top economic counselor, Christina Romer, said that they aren’t. His Vice President Joe Biden says that U.S. troops will start leaving Afghanistan on July 2011, and his senior military advisers say that it “depends.” Jimmy Carter drowned his power in such inconsistencies.

    Spot on, innit?

    Like it or not, the perception could easily become that Obama is the Black Jimmy Carter. It won’t be Helene Cooper’s fault if that perception sticks. It will be the fault of Team Obama. They did a great job of message discipline and eschewing all manner of crazy labels during the campaign. They haven’t done as good a job this first year. Message discipline is very important in the 24/7/365 news cycle.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    How did the Republicans even earn a reputation for being tough on national security?

    –Talking tough is not a substitute for actually being tough. Talking tough certainly hasn’t stopped any of our enemies in their tracks.

    –We’ve seen over the past couple of weeks how the security system they set up was not so effective.

    –The only war they’ve won in the past 100 years has been Granada.

    How does this make them “tough”?

  55. 55.

    debbie

    —The only war they’ve won in the past 100 years has been Granada.

    And even if you give them Iraq, it took them 6 years to show any “success” — how is that being tough?

  56. 56.

    JD Rhoades

    Well, part of the perception problem is that, when it comes to pushing back against the lies, the Administration IS being wimpy. It’s almost like they’re reluctant to point out that we’re actually making some progress against terrorists. Why won’t they point out that the Undiebomber’s botched attempt is a clear sign of how degraded Al-Quaeda’s capabilities are? They used to be able to mount multiple coordinated strikes with well-trained operatives against huge targets. Now they’re reduced to sending a half trained kid with explosives in his underwear that he’s incompetent to set off. And look at this list of Taliban and Al-Quaeda commanders killed in November and December alone. Why the hell aren’t these names being mentioned every goddamn day? I mean, I know they’re hard to pronounce, but still.

    Damn it, we’re finally starting to win this war, and if Obama or the Democrats dare say so, what are the Republicans going to do? Say ‘no, we’re losing?” THAT’ll play well.

  57. 57.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Look, here are a few opinions from my peers (who’re centrists, trust me) and they say Obama is a wimp on foreign policy!

    One of them even mentions Jimmy Carter! Ooo, burn! Also!

    Ergo, the center thinks Obama is a wimp on foreign policy!

    QED!

  58. 58.

    Gene

    CFR wants America to bomb muslims. On a regular basis. It is simply another arm of the Israel lobby. Equating Obama with Carter is a sotto voce smear of Obama, if you’re receptive to the smears against Carter coming from that quarter.

  59. 59.

    Paul L.

    Mr. Obama needs to toughen up with his adversaries. “He puts far too much store on being the smartest guy in the room,” Mr. Gelb wrote. “He’d do well to remember that Jimmy Carter also rang all the I.Q. bells.”

    If Obama is sooooooooo smart why wouldn’t he release his college transcripts?

    I remember the progressive touting that John Kerry was intellectual.
    Until we found out (after the election) that George W. Bush got better grades than John F. Kerry.

  60. 60.

    WereBear

    The right wing has their way of handling it, which is always wrong, and so we don’t do it that way, which is good, but they whine about it.

    A play in one act. It looks like more, but it’s just one, really.

  61. 61.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    By the standards of American discourse CFR is centrist and waging drone wars in four or five countries means you are weak on foreign policy. That’s what we’re up against. And by the way, Jimmy Carter began Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy about a year and a half before Reagan took office.

  62. 62.

    BeccaM

    We tried the “tree-stump stupid alcoholic” for President. Didn’t really work out so good — and his lack of interest in actually doing the work of BEING president gave his Veep all the room needed to take over and go nuts with it.

    I want a President who’s a frickin’ genius — smarter, more able, and a harder worker than me. And someone with more emotional control than a five year old.

  64. 64.

    Mark

    @numbskull

    Well, my friend is a party-line Democrat who I don’t believe ever expressed support for the Iraq War and was critical of Bush when he had a 90% approval rating. He was a Clinton supporter for pres early on. He basically said Haass started bringing in hacks who left the GWB administration in 2008. Prior to that point, I think the staff was pretty centrist.

    Let me be clear: to work in the think tank arena, you have to be tolerant of and willing to work with Republicans. Not tolerant of James Inhofe, but tolerant of people who are otherwise thoughtful individuals but still voted for GWB in 2004 and possibly McCain in 2008. I think such people have a mental disease and I have no problem letting them know. But they’re still not Sean Hannity.

  65. 65.

    CalD

    “He’d do well to remember that Jimmy Carter also rang all the I.Q. bells.”

    So Jimmy Carter, a very smart person, made foreign policy mistakes. Therefore Obama, another very smart person, will also make foreign policy mistakes and for similar reasons owing to his smartness. With all due respect to the author, that sounds like a classic fallacy of irrelevant evidence; transference would probably be the closest match.

    Consider that all presidents make foreign policy mistakes, regardless of their intellectual powers. We could also point out that Carter’s foreign policy blunders actually compare pretty favorably to those of some of our dumber presidents in retrospect, both in number and magnitude. George W. Bush, comes to mind.

  66. 66.

    Bob In Pacifica

    Hmm. By the best accounts the CIA/military shot JFK. They were the ones calling him a wimp. LBJ gave them their war. Carter tried to clean house at Langley and got the October Surprise. Not as messy as shooting the President in the middle of the street, but as effective. Guess who supplied Carter his intel, and who planned and carried out the hostage rescue mission and who had business arrangements for the next decade with the regime in Tehran?

    Clinton essentially gave them what they wanted. Hell, when he was governor of Ark CIA pilots were dumping bags of cocaine in Mena. He’s probably had a professional relationship with them for decades.

    So now someone now includes Obama on the list of Demo wimps? Yawn.

  68. 68.

    CalD

    __

    Update. CFR probably does qualify as centrist. Its president, Richard Haas, was fairly anti-Iraq war (mostly after the fact, but still).

    I was actually about to add that until fairly recently there was always a saying in our government that partisanship stops at the water’s edge. It’s never been entirely true of course — we’re still talking about people after all — but relatively speaking, career foreign policy people have always inhabited something of an ivory tower where they could disagree strongly but with an expectation that they would do so primarily on the actual merits of their arguments and positions.

    Before the Bush/Delay/Frist era, you didn’t necessarily see the same kind of knee-jerk assumptions of malice and guilt by association based on party or ideology applied in the foreign policy sphere that are so common in electoral politics. Even in congress, people from both sides of the aisle who sat on those committees tended to keep the gloves on a little more, even in public for the most part. So when reading scholarship on foreign policy, particularly from people who have been doing it for a while, you probably don’t want to view all criticism through quite the same lens of suspicion that might arguably be appropriate for politics in general these days.

  69. 69.

    Mike G

    He’s made many attempts to include, and indeed has included, the GOP in the decision making process of some important legislation. (Stimulus, HCR are the best examples)

    And in return they have refused to vote for the legislation they helped write, threatened to fibuster it, and pissed all over Obama in private and in public.
    Bipartisanship does not mean giving away a valuable something for nothing. Sometimes when you are dealing with thugs you need to get tougher and meaner.

  70. 70.

    Mike D.

    God, you’re just piling on the wrong. CFR is absolutely centrist — just read Foreign Affais. It’s centrist. But Haass most definitely was NOT anti-Iraq War. He was just studiously uncommitted. Skeptical would be a charitable description. And he was in the Administration at the time.

  71. 71.

    SadOldVet

    Obama and all democrats ARE weak on defense!

    We know this because the Villagers tell us so.
    The Villagers know that this is so because it is what they tell each other.

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