Category Archives: Elections

Playing Second Fiddle on Foreign Policy

In the vice presidential debate, Paul Ryan took the place Barack Obama had occupied a week earlier: that of loser. (Or, relative loser. BHO was an absolute loser against Mitt Romney.)

To the extent tonight’s debate revolves around foreign policy, expect a similar outcome. Unless Mitt Romney does a wickedly smart flip flop on foreign policy, articulating a patriotic, non-interventionist plan—he’ll be playing second fiddle to Barack Obama. Obama has killed Bin laden, doubled down in Afghanistan and continues to eliminate innocent Yemenis through drone action.

Yet the media has depicted the president as a thoughtful killer, agonizing over his kill lists with excruciating care.

Romney will not have that luxury. He’ll stand a chance of standing apart from BHO only—and only—if he changes course.

UPDATED: Republicans Desperately Need To … Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy (Entrenched, Un-Rothbardian Meta-Perspective)

Democrats, Elections, Just War, libertarianism, Liberty, Middle East, Military, Old Right, Political Philosophy, Politics, Republicans, War

Democrats and Republicans are warring over who won last night’s vice presidential debate. Democrats say Joe Biden; Republicans Paul Ryan.

While I agree with Daniel Pipes’ impressions of Biden’s repulsive demeanor (excerpted below); to the impartial observer, the outcome was clear. This time around, Ryan took the place Barack Obama occupied last week: loser.

Or, rather, relative loser (BHO was an absolute loser).

Ryan, of course, was never as bad a loser as Obama, as he is far more intelligent, studious, and quicker on his feet than the president. But overall—and during most of the bickering—Ryan lost.

Here’s Pipes on “Joe Biden’s smirk”:

Actually it was not just the smirk – it was also the false hilarity, the 82 interruptions of Ryan, the finger pointing, the preening arrogance, and the talking down to the audience – that overshadowed all else in the debate. Not until the last fifteen minutes did Biden talk like a normal human being, and then he became quite effective. Before then, however, his ugly demeanor overwhelmed his words, leaving a powerfully unpleasant impression. In contrast, Ryan spoke earnestly and respectfully, even while getting in a couple of sharp elbow jabs.

Dr. Pipes and I diverge over the nature of the principles mentioned, but Pipes correctly points to the absence of any in the debate, writing that, “With only a few exceptions, both candidates (as was also the case in the presidential debate) stayed aloof from principles, preferring to make the case as to who is the more competent manager. … those endless numbers and the disagreements over small facts meant the discussion verged on the tedious.”

Particularly painful (to longtime observers vested in an Old-Right, non-interventionist foreign policy) was Ryan’s deer-in-the-headlights look under Biden’s relentless barrage of,

“You gonna go to war (Iran)? You’d rather Americans be going in doing the job instead of the [Afghan] trainees? You wanna send our soldiers to the border with Pakistan; let the Afghans step-up. We’re leaving! Let them step-up. The last thing America needs is to get in another ground war in the Middle East …”

I’ll say this much: Poor Paul Ryan knows his Afghan mountain passes.

His boss’s behind Biden saved.

The debate dovetailed with “Desperately Seeking A Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy,” this week’s column, now on RT. It pointed out that “in fact, there is little daylight between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, as far as foreign policy goes.”

UPDATED (Oct 14): ENTRENCHED, UN-ROTHBARDIAN META-PERSPECTIVE. In reply to the Facebook thread, and Myron Pauli’s entrenched meta-perspective.

Myron, you mean you would not wish to hear and see Republicans commit to not launching wars and leaving all foreign bases? What kind of libertarianism is THAT!? Not Murray Rothbard’s. He was a tireless political junky, never one to sit on the fence lazily and feign disinterested piety. Alas, we have this debate every week, Myron. It’s not a debate. You adopt the same meta-perspective on politics; I cut and paste a characterization of your response, and it is this: “… We libertarians must not comment on policy, for it compromises our precious libertarian purity. We must not apply the mind to the issues of the day to enlighten our readers and bring them closer to liberty, for no enlightenment other than the immediate and absolute application and acceptance of the non-aggression axiom can be entertained.

Man-Of-The People Myth

Democrats, Elections, Government, The State

In what deluded universe can it be said that Vice President Joe Biden is a champion of the working class? Notwithstanding Biden’s alleged humble origins, the man has been a pampered member of the “oink sector” (government) since 1972.

To be fair, it’s not Biden who insists his roots are in the working class; it’s his acolytes across the media. Not much has changed since 2008, when Steve Chapman debunked the man-of-the people myth:

…the legend of Joe Biden, born in a welding shop, dies hard with political reporters, who find it easier to romanticize a gritty, hardscrabble childhood than a conventionally comfortable one.
The facts are there for anyone who wants to look at them. When Joe Biden Sr. died in 2002, his obituary in the News-Journal of Wilmington reported that when he married in 1941, “he was working as a sales representative for Amoco Oil Co. in Harrisburg.”
It went on, “Biden also was an executive in a Boston-based company that supplied waterproof sealant for U.S. merchant marine ships built during World War II. After the war, he co-owned an airport and crop-dusting service on Long Island.” Upon moving his family to Delaware, the News-Journal said, Biden “worked in the state first as a sales manager for auto dealerships and later in real-estate condominium sales.”
Executive, co-owner and manager? Those titles identify the jobholder as solidly middle class, if not better.
They fall in the category of white-collar occupations, not blue-collar.
And Biden Sr. clearly knew the difference. In his book, “Promises to Keep,” Biden writes that his father was “the most elegantly dressed, perfectly manicured, perfectly tailored car sales manager Wilmington, Del., had ever seen.”
Biden notes that he himself could have gone to the best public high school in Delaware. Instead, he enrolled at Archmere Academy, a Catholic prep school that made him think he had “died and gone to Yale.” He took a summer job to help pay the steep tuition, which today amounts to $18,450 a year.
…So where did he get his working-class reputation? Partly it comes from Biden’s streetwise demeanor and his preoccupation with the fact that his family wasn’t as well-off as some of the people he knew — which seems to have given him a permanent chip on his shoulder. Partly it comes from his frequent tributes to blue-collar folks, such as the firefighters who took him to the hospital when he suffered an aneurysm.
But mostly it reflects journalists’ weakness for simple, vivid narratives. It’s easy to write about a statesman who worked his way up from a log cabin. It’s easy to write about a leader who came from great wealth. But someone growing up the son of a sales manager is a bit lacking in color and drama.

‘Floating Like A Butterfly, Stinging Like A Bee’

Barack Obama, Elections, Intelligence, Media, Republicans, The State

Irrespective of what you think about Mitt Romney and his positions (and I disavow Mitt’s “repeal-and-replace statism“), what he is in the process of demonstrating in this first of 3 debates, at the time of writing, is his superior intelligence, his ability to store immense amounts of information and apply it to bolster his arguments.

Abilities his rival, Barack Obama, manifestly does not possess. Romney has just demolished Barack Obama.

Ann Romney knows of what she speaks when she said, “One Thing I Know About Mitt. He Doesn’t Fail.”

This picture (of Obama, in particular) says it all:

The media, however, will prove blind to the effects of Mitt Romney’s superior intelligence in this demolition of a debate because they are rooting for the one candidate.