How To Not Solve A Problem But Get The Public To Think You Did

Just redefine the problem as being something small and trivial and decidedly not the problem, but something you are capable of "solving."

The problem we're seeing in the Middle East is manifold. Not all of this is Obama's fault, and further, many of the problems are not even capable of being "solved," as most people would define solved.

The real problem is that there is a core of extremist Islam which wishes to impose its values on the West -- and the whole world -- and will continue doing so until they are either killed or discredited.

That's a tough problem to solve. It's certainly not going to be solved by preemptive surrender to the Islamists.

So what does Obama do?

He, and his media allies, redefine the problem. The problem is not, in their telling, that a vicious, murderous strand of Islam is in great need of serious pushback, discrediting, and ultimately reform. That's difficult, that would involve unpleasant things like championing the ideals of the Enlightenment (which, it now turns out, are racist), and that certainly could not be accomplished on the 50 day schedule Obama needs it accomplished on.

So he redefines the "problem" to be something trivial. Something he could actually manage.

He redefines the problem as the video.

Now, "success" will judged if he can use threats to the freedom and physical security of the flimmaker to get him to pull the film, or denounce it.

If he can -- if his media allies can continue drawing a big map showing MURDER TARGET IS HERE, and his agents in the federal "law enforcement" community can threaten him with prison (another place he'd likely be killed, incidentally) -- they can claim "victory."

Then the Islamists will say they are appeased -- for the moment! -- and, in a transaction which benefits both Obama and the Islamists, order their minions to stop protesting. Oh, they'll be doing the same thing over Charles Krauthammer in a year (which is why this is such a dangerous precedent), but Obama doesn't care what happens in a year, and he doesn't really care about Charles Krauthammer either.

What is important to him is chalking up a "victory." Not a victory for American values or interests or the Constitution. But some kind of deliverable to show he "did something." He sicced the feds on a guy making a movie, that guy got scared for his life, and took down the movie. And the Islamists stopped burning things (for the moment).

That's a "win." Or it will be a "win" as the media tells the tale. Overlooking the fact that this "win" consists of Obama, via unilateral executive action, imposing anti-Islamic blasphemy laws in the US.

And that's how it's done. If you can't solve the actual problem, claim the problem is some other "problem," something easily accomplished. Even at the expense of a US citizens' right to free speech (and, um, life and liberty). Even if the "solution" is worse than the problem you set out to solve.

Just solve that narrowly-defined "problem," the easy thing, and claim victory. And then sit back and wait for the hoseannas from the "Watchdogs in the Media," the "Fourth Estate" of government, the class which makes its livelihood due to the First Amendment.

More: Treacher has more on the State Department Stonewall.

Oh: To really drive it home that This Is Not America, watch the video at the end of Nolte's piece.

Here, a minion for Obama gleefully says that a man who actually has not committed a crime -- except the non-crime of blasphemy -- is "lawyering up."

posted by Ace at 03:15 PM

| Access Comments