Samuel Goldman at TAC on the purported radical-in-chief: “Forget what [George] Will and his sources say about the subterranean influence of the Progressives. The most important feature of this election is that Obama is running as a ”œconservative.””
Also, re: “there are plenty of reasons to oppose Obama’s re-election,” Noah Shactman takes a look at POTUS’ recent statements on US drone warfare to CNN’s Jessica Yellin: “His comments may have been the president’s most extensive so far on robot warfare. They were also total baloney, outside experts say.”
Update: …not to imply that there aren’t plenty of equally valid reasons to support Obama’s reelection — many of those reasons being Bush-Cheney’s Romney’s foreign policy advisers.
“What I found most striking was his claim that legitimate targets are a ‘threat that is serious and not speculative,’ and engaged in ‘some operational plot against the United States,’ That is simply not true,†emails the Council on Foreign Relations’ Micah Zenko, who has tracked the drone war as closely as any outside analyst. “The claim that the 3,000+ people killed in roughly 375 nonbattlefield targeted killings were all engaged in actual operational plots against the U.S. defies any understanding of the scope of what America has been doing for the past ten years.â€
It comes from Woodward’s new book, and it quotes Larry Summers who is comparing Obama’s negotiating style with the Republicans to Clinton’s negotiating style:
“Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to Obama who also served as Treasury Secretary under President (Bill) C. , identified a key distinction that he said impacted budget and spending talks.
“Obama doesn’t really have the joy of the game. (Bill) basically loved negotiating with a bunch of pols, about anything,” Summers said. “Whereas, Obama, he really didn’t like these guys.”
Good for Obama, I say. What’s there to like about Boehner or McConnell, Cantor, or Ryan?
I’d agree with you if Obama’s not liking was like, say, Eliot Spitzer’s not liking — beat the bastards good. Unfortunately, Obama’s not liking seems to come down to, “whatever, just end the discussion. Take what you want and leave me alone.”