No, not that Joe. Joe Scarborough.
I didn’t watch the clip because it had some obnoxious commercials on it, but the gist is that he’s accusing Republicans of pushing the president towards things they wouldn’t do if they were in his position, and which might lead to WWIII.
That seems true to me. Some Republicans have said some pretty stupid things. We’ve already mentioned (somewhere around here) Trump’s idiotic idea of bombing Russia with Chinese flagged jets. Lindsay Graham has called for Putin’s assassination.
But Scarborough is wrong to praise Biden’s response, which has been slow and inept. And when Scarborough praises Biden’s “experience,” I’m reminded of what Obama’s secretary of defense said about him — that he’s “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Not directly related to the post, I heard someone interviewed on a podcast last week make the point that the knee jerk reaction “this will start World War III” to every possible response to the situation is the fastest way to actually get to World War III. If a paralyzing fear of escalation stops us from doing anything, the bad actors of the world will just keep pushing out until WWIII is inevitable. Don’t assist Ukraine now? Okay, fine. Xi takes that as permission to annex Taiwan. Not our fight? Okay, great. What happens if he decides he wants Japan next?
The person I’m referring to was not saying, and I am not saying, that we don’t need to be mindful of risk and that some ideas are definitely worse than others, or that there is an easy answer. It was more along the lines of, “we can’t do this, that, OR the other thing because it risks making things worse, and we cannot tolerate that risk at any level” as the automatic response to everything is a very poor overall approach to a situation like this.
True, you can’t keep giving in to dictators in hopes of avoiding WWIII. Appeasement and weakness don’t work. And we can’t be cowed every time someone threatens world war. There are things that are worse than world war. (Like living under a commie dictatorship.)
It’s a no-win situation. If Biden doesn’t act…he’s weak and risk-adverse (Ukraine) . If he does act (per the commitment of his predecessor), he’s reckless and not prudent (Afghanistan). Of course, the inverse would be true with a Republican president…relative to their political opponents.
Unfortunately, the greater good has taken a back seat to gaining political advantage. The party out of power almost wishes a president from different party would make a mistake (so they can win the next election) instead of being a true advisor/support for the good of the country/world. Sad…but that seems to be the general state of the union these days.
I agree with your second paragraph. Both parties put party ahead of country, which is why the founders warned us about parties.
I wonder if many recognize this dynamic. If “we the people” collectively demanded different behavior we might see change. Yet, it seems enough of “we the people” are more invested in the on-going, fruitless fight.