After being branded as too liberal by conservative GOP activists four years ago, Romney aligned himself with Bolton and other neocons in 2012 to protect his right flank. Today there’s little daylight between the candidate and his most militant advisers.
…”œI can’t name a single Romney foreign policy adviser who believes the Iraq War was a mistake,” says Cato’s Preble.
Obama’s military interventionism, dressed up as it is in neoliberal humanitarian sheep’s clothing, is bad enough. Putting people like John Bolton, Dan Senor and Eric Edelman back in charge of America’s foreign policy would, I have to admit, be even worse by an order of magnitude.
Still, it’s not enough to seduce me to calls of “the most important election EVAH!” any more than the realization that Republican social and economic policies are far worse for the nation than the already bad Dem ones. On the one hand, despite being in power at least half the time, Republicans haven’t completely destroyed the nation yet. (Nor have Dems, of course, if you’re looking at it from the other side of the aisle.) On the other, I do think there probably has to be a foul-up so awful that it destroys one half of the two-party system before there’ll be meaningful change, and the GOP are for sure the party most likely to deliver that.
to rationalize the ouster of Paul Martin & the rise of the Harpercons (destroy to rebuild, purge the [neo]Liberals, etc).
Like many transformative projects, the results rarely takes shape as we planned/hoped.
If Ginsburg weren’t so frail, I’d say have at it and let the GOP swine burn the goddamn place to the ground, once and for all. But SCOTUS — probably the most consequential branch of US government long-term, in that it exists outside the election cycle while remaining a pivotal political actor — is already hanging by a bare progressive thread under Roberts. To me, until the Court is better insulated from a full-on far-right/Federalist takeover (with taking down Roe v. Wade at the top of the wingnut agenda), ceding authority to the GOP is out of the question.
Sometimes you have to be willing to get a little shit on your hands to avoid ending up to your neck in it.
The problem is that it is not all so clear which way Obama’s future nominees to the Court will swing. It should be pointed out that Kagan has already joined with the conservatives in a recent outlandish search and seizure decision and, although the “liberal” four justices hung together in the strip search case Obama’s justice department joined (they didn’t have to) in arguing for such searches.
As to the many pro-corporatist decisions coming out of the Court, it is not in the least clear which way the “liberals” are going.
Please remember as well that Cass Sunstein was and probably remains on Obama’s short list. The perfect candidate to allow for Senatorial kabuki while allowing, ultimately a nominee perfectly acceptable to the right. It is true that Obama’s nominee or nominees won’t be quite as wild eyed as Romney’s would be but whoever we would get from Obama will not courageously stand up to the slow accretion of far right law in the Court.
Although I take Roe v. Wade very seriously it is only one amongst many, many points of attack. None of which (including Roe) Obama is prepared to defend.