Defining "Warmonger" Down

Conor Friedersdorf writing at The Atlantic:

Obama isn’t straddling a line between hawk and dove.

He is a hawk.

It’s terrifying that isn’t clear to everyone, because it suggests the neoconservative desire for even more foreign wars is skewing the way that Americans conceive of hawkishness and dovishness. It suggests we’re defining “warmonger” down.

…President Obama escalated a major war and sent tens of thousands more troops to fight it, even as he joined in regime change in a different country, ordered drone strikes in at least three others, and sent commandos into Pakistan, a list of aggressive actions that isn’t even exhaustive.

Damn straight we’re defining it down – although mostly the reason for that is that there’s plenty enough of desire for more war among the neoliberal interventionist VSP set Obama listens to, albeit cloaked in pretensions of humanitarianism.