Megan McArdle: Gee, Obama Sort of Went Out of His Way to Insult People Whose Support He Sought, Huh?

Via JeffB., it was pretty noticeable, it turns out.

After he had spent a few minutes stumbling through the war-is-peace argument, he turned to persuasion-by-insult:

"And so to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might with the failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.

"To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough."

Maybe this convinced some left-wing Democrats, though you wouldn’t know it from my Twitter feed. But only at the expense of backhanding Republicans. His argument was, in essence: Republicans, you may not care about the freedom and dignity of foreigners, or children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor. But you sure do love war and the military! We’re going to restore dignity, freedom and life to some foreigners by bombing them -- couldn’t you overlook the fact that foreigners will benefit, as long as we get to blow some stuff up?

I don’t think that argument is what he meant to make. That’s why it’s so breathtaking. Presumably our tin-eared president, and his blinkered speechwriting staff, didn’t even hear him juxtaposing people who care about freedom, dignity and dead children, on the one hand, and bitter clingers who are committed to military might, on the other.

She also notes:

Keep that in mind as the revisionist history begins emerging from some quarters -- i.e., our patiently brilliant president once again demonstrates his mastery of n-dimensional policy chess.

Watching him blunder on easy, gimme moves makes me doubt he's playing 2-dimension chess, nevermind the n dimensional variations.

posted by Ace at 03:36 PM

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