"Obama as a neocon"

[Zevico]

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/08/22/w-gets-a-third-term-in-the-middle-east/

It makes for interesting reading. Walter Mead's key contention:

The most irritating argument anyone could make in American politics is that President Obama, precisely because he seems so liberal, so vacillating, so nice, is a more effective neoconservative than President Bush. As is often the case, the argument is so irritating partly because it is so true.

President Obama is pushing a democracy agenda in the Middle East that is as aggressive as President Bush’s; he adopts regime change by violence if necessary as a core component of his regional approach and, to put it mildly, he is not afraid to bomb. But where President Bush’s tough guy posture (“Bring ‘Em On!”) alienated opinion abroad and among liberals at home, President Obama’s reluctant warrior stance makes it easier for others to work with him.

[Kidlicious]

Dp

[Kidlicious]

Bush isn't too smart. He thinks the world is just like Texas.

[giblets]

So basically, Bush is an idiot and Obama is not?

[Kidlicious]

So basically, Bush is an idiot and Obama is not?

What's idiotic about fooling people?

[HalfLotus]

A neocon is simply a Wilsonian foreign policy liberal who uses rootin' tootin' cowboy rhetoric to appeal to GOP conservatives. It's leftist warmongering with a bible-thumping twist.

Obama does what the contemporary American left always does: employ aggressive regime change policies with much more deft rhetoric and policies suited to their more academic voter base.

[giblets]

Obama is a lot smarter about it because instead of committing a hundred thousand American troops to a lengthy occupation he just has an opportunistic "kinetic action" done to tip the scales and bring about regime change. And he lets the Europeans feel important so that the US doesn't alienate any allies.

[HalfLotus]

Actually Obama has had more troops deployed in war than Bush ever did. However, he has had them fighting Afghanistan cavemen which is slightly more palatable to Americans than Bush's OMG WMDs war.

[Kidlicious]

War is more popular when a democrat commits us to it, because democrats and republicans will both support it, but when a republican is president the democrats will tend against the war.

[DaShi]

Zevico has a hardon for Obama.

[Dinner]

A neocon is simply a Wilsonian foreign policy liberal who uses rootin' tootin' cowboy rhetoric to appeal to GOP conservatives.

Can it be any more clear you have no idea what Wilson's foreign policies were?

[Ben Kenobi]

Good thing Wilson kept the US out of the First World war.

[Al B. Sure!]

Can it be any more clear you have no idea what Wilson's foreign policies were?

The fact that Oerdin responded so incredulously indicates to me that HalfLotus is correct.

I'm assuming HalfLotus is referring to Wilson's ideas about the obligation of America to spread democracy and self-determination around the world

[Al B. Sure!]

Common principles that are often described as "Wilsonian" include:
Advocacy of self-determination by ethnic groups
Advocacy of the spread of democracy
Advocacy of the spread of Capitalism
Anti-isolationism/ Anti-Imperialism, in favor of intervention to help create peace and / or spread freedom

Oerdin is always wrong, it's getting ridiculous.

[giblets]

The fact that Oerdin responded so incredulously indicates to me that HalfLotus is correct.

I'm assuming HalfLotus is referring to Wilson's ideas about the obligation of America to spread democracy and self-determination around the world

That's what I took from it, although neocons usually seem hostile toward the UN while Wilson advocated something similar to the UN.