A Few Thoughts on FP’s 5 Reasons Obama Will Win

Jeremy R. Hammond

April 28, 2012

A few thoughts on Foreign Policy’s piece, “5 Reasons Obama Will Win in November”:

1) Describing Obama’s presidency, and Bush’s before him, as “imperfect and flawed” and that “Obama hasn’t been a great president” is the understatement of the decade, and saying that his “foreign policy has been very competent” is completely meaningless. After all, a murderer who never gets caught is “very competent” at what he does, but that’s hardly a praiseworthy quality.

2) He’s the incumbent. Yeah, we know. And we know Americans don’t like to change horses mid-stream, even if it means staying on the horse that’s crossing the stream so it can jump off a cliff instead of hopping on the back of one crossing the river in the opposite direction (I obviously mean Ron Paul, not Mitt Romney). Fair point.

3) He is “likeable” in the eyes of Americans, who apparently don’t mind a president declaring for himself the power to act as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, to assassinate American citizens at will; who don’t mind a president willing to violate his oath of office and send the military into hostilities without a Congressional declaration of war, who don’t mind a president declaring that it would be “legal” for the military to capture and detain American citizens on U.S. soil and detain them indefinitely; who are stupid enough to trust the man who claims that power while saying he would never, ever, actually use it, etc., etc., etc. Okay, so the point seems to be that Americans are either stupid or ignorant. Well, okay, fair enough.

4) Yes, “the gaps between the Republican base and the centrists are huge”. All I can say on this one is that Aaron David Miller doesn’t seem to have ever heard of this guy who exists, who is the other Republican candidate still in the running besides Mitt Romney, who goes by the name of RON PAUL.

5) Yes, “Romney vs. Obama” is like a “choice between liver and Brussels sprouts”. All I can say on this one is that Aaron David Miller doesn’t seem to have ever heard of this guy who exists, who is the other Republican candidate still in the running besides Mitt Romney, who goes by the name of RON PAUL.