Roger’s Rules

October 7th, 2009 6:37 am

Philip Larkin has a Lesson for Barack Obama

Over at The Weekly Standard blog, Bill Kristol has a short but deadly post on Obama’s dithering non-policy about the war in Afghanistan. Bill reports that at a recent meeting with Congressional leaders, Obama gravely pointed out that every thousand troops sent to Afghanistan would cost about a billion dollars a year. A billion dollars a year! Call Senator Dirksen. Would they, Obama is said to have queried the Congressmen, would they really be prepared to support $40 or $50 billion in additional spending?

Rich, what? Or rather, poor. I mean, here’s the $12 trillion President fretting — that is, pretending to fret — over $40 or $50 billion. That’s school lunch money for the Democrats.

Of course, the issue isn’t money. It’s morality. That’s to say, it’s about what really matters to Obama. He’s willing to demand $800 billion now, today, to shore up his support among the auto unions and other Democratic interest groups. But the war of terror? He can’t even bring himself to pronounce the phrase. Indeed, one of the first things he did upon assuming office was to rebaptize the war on terror “overseas contingency operations.” (No, I am not making that up.)

Barack Obama traipses around the world, apologizing for America, telling the IOC all about himself and why the 2016 Olympics should come to his dysfunctional home town, coddling dictators. Even the French are appalled: Nicolas Sarkozy has made no secret of his exasperation at Obama’s naive and immature multicultural posturing.

Meanwhile the bad guys — and the world contains many really, really bad guys — are swelling with anticipation and feeling their oats. Ronald Reagan made no bones about calling the Soviet Union “the evil empire.” George W. Bush described North Korea, Iraq, and Iran as an axis of evil and promised to “smoke out” terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Barack Obama doesn’t know what to do. When it comes to the world stage, he is like a babe in the woods. It reminds me of a comment made by a well-meaning liberal who attended a dinner for the distinguished writer David Pryce-Jones in New York a week or so ago. Aghast that those around the table should be criticizing the Europeanization of the United States, he delivered himself of a few potted words lambasting Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and the war on terror. What we should have done after 9/11, he said, was to have spent some of those billions of dollars we spent prosecuting a war in Iraq on bringing our enemies to the United States and educating them about our way of life. Then they would come to understand and love us. I thought of Dostoevsky’s observation in Notes from the Underground:

Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own real interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else. . . . Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child!

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42 Comments

1. The Philip Larkin Boomlet Conitnues | The Latest Conservative Blogs:

[...] Kimball has some very interesting thoughts provoked by Bill Kristol’s short post from last night calling attention to Philip Larkin’s [...]

Oct 7, 2009 - 10:30 am 2. Pajamas Media » Obama on Afghanistan: Naive, Indecisive, Immoral:

[...] Read the entire article here. [...]

Oct 7, 2009 - 10:58 am 3. Sherab Zangpo:

With all due respect:
NAIVE MY A** !!!
Obama is the TYPICAL communist agit-prop, who never lived-worked a day out of the front organizations of the subversives: and these guys JUST WANT to make America weak and defeated.
They know that America is THE Country that drove to failure their communist dreams (well, nightmares for the hundreds of millions of victims)all over the world and they know that they have no political future if the free economy is allowed to cause the take off of all the poor countries.
They MUST destroy America’s power to allow the thugs and dictators they love to gather more power.
They MUST destroy America to stop the wonderful economic and technological progress that is taking ALL the world out of poverty.

They will do anything to achieve their dreams of destruction and subversion.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:28 am 4. billslayer:

The lowest form of stupidity is weakness. Obama is weak. Obama is stupid.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:43 am 5. Proud_Kafir7908:

Yeah, George Bush named those three countries, Iran, Iraq and North Korea, an axis of evil, but he forgot to include Saudi Arabia among them, probably “deliberately forgetting” to do so because of how he had his head up King Abdullah’s cavity where the sun don’t shine. Buraq Arafat Saddam Hussein Osama, on the other hand, through his apologies, declarations of surrender and other assorted displays of foreign-policy weakness and shameless cowardice, is making Bush’s failure to name all of America’s enemies for what they truly are seem a less grave mistake by the day. That’s even scarier when one considers that Hussein hasn’t even served 25% of his first (and hopefully last) term (unless he is impeached before January 2013, that is.)

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:47 am 6. Jim Rockford:

“Obama on Afghanistan: Naive, Indecisive, Immoral”

This sums it up perfectly.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:48 am 7. Jack in Silver Spring:

I’m using someone else’s line here, but I think the best title for Obama is, Hamlet.

Oct 7, 2009 - 12:05 pm 8. Sebastian Shaw:

President Obama is playing politics with National Security; to him, it is simply playing chess to improve his position among the status quo. He does not care for the troops. President Obama is soaked in hippy juice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU

Unfortunately, this is Obama’s real policy aside for the fact he will not lead given he is not a leader. He’s a fool.

Oct 7, 2009 - 12:20 pm 9. genghis:

I don’t believe that Obama is naive. Quite the contrary, he is quite focused and deliberate about what he is doing. It was abundantly clear prior to the election that he was woefully ignorant of history and international affairs. Since his entire backround was insulated and parochial, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was also obvious from the get go, that his primary interest was the remaking of American society. Everything else is subsdiary to that. Evidence his approach to ending this recession and unemployment….his measures have little to do with recovery, and everything to do with a reordering of America. It is domestic politics 24/7, with national security, Iraq (thankfully stabilizing) and Afghanistan as mere distractions. Either he is too stupid to recognize the risks this negligence entails, or he is supremely cynical. But not naive.

Oct 7, 2009 - 12:32 pm 10. Paul -Indiana:

Are we witnessing some ‘taqiyyah’?

Oct 7, 2009 - 12:57 pm 11. Steverino:

“What we should have done after 9/11, he said, was to have spent some of those billions of dollars we spent prosecuting a war in Iraq on bringing our enemies to the United States and educating them about our way of life. Then they would come to understand and love us.”

It worked so well before 9-11, didn’t it? Bringing our enemies to the US and educating them about our way of life.

And just enough about how to fly an aircraft so they could pull off the job.

Oct 7, 2009 - 1:01 pm 12. Cybergeezer:

Anybody telling the White House Dunce that there are bus loads of black voters going to Afghanistan to meet their death?

Oct 7, 2009 - 1:13 pm 13. Cybergeezer:

10. Paul -Indiana:
You got it, bud; Lying for The Obama God!

Oct 7, 2009 - 1:48 pm 14. Cybergeezer:

Obama’s cashing in, big time, on the “U.S. RACE INDUSTRY”, just like Rev. Wright, Farakhan, J. Jackson, Sharpton, Rangel, etc.
One of the fastest growing industries in America.

Oct 7, 2009 - 1:52 pm 15. lefroy:

It’s an easy shot, but this reminds me of the preposterous comparison with John F Kennedy, made by some adoring democrats.

JFK, of course, said: “Let every nation know, whether they wish us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of freedom”.

Can you imagine the President saying anything as downright *embarrassing* as that?

Oct 7, 2009 - 2:26 pm 16. Poor Citizen:

Of the eight or so “trap door” issues handed this young president, Afghanistan is one of the toughest. Remember, this is the one conflict (bush had several, hot and cold)that the former president thought he could win. Even if only a few other countries bothered to send a couple hundred troops, bush considered this west meets east and in his fragile mind…the west always won. Will this be the “one” we will win?…who knows?..after all, if he does the change thing…we just might.

Oct 7, 2009 - 3:05 pm 17. misanthropicus:

Obama sees his role as a US president as a funeral director of sorts, or foreclosure-in-chief-person of a hopeless, if not toxic property (America), turning off lights, padlocking, placing “For Sale” signs around…

Oct 7, 2009 - 3:45 pm 18. MasterP:

That’s a really subtle poem, but there seems to be somethng missing in the first stanza. I think this version makes a little more sense:

Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home

For lack of money, and it is all right.

Places they guarded, or kept orderly,

Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly.

We want the money for ourselves at home

Instead of working. And this is all right.

Oct 7, 2009 - 4:02 pm 19. JED:

So is it what you are trying to say is that there is more than a quantum leap of character between community organizer and commander in chief?

Oct 7, 2009 - 4:10 pm 20. Yes We Did:

This is just another cowardly, racist attack on our new Leader.

In case you didn’t notice, we had an election last November. We won, you lost, and you will never get another chance.

President Obama, who is loved and respected by the great majority of progressive Americans, will lead us onward into a new world of peace and justice. It is long past time for you racist white men to shut up and go away. Your time is past – gone and never to return.

Oct 7, 2009 - 4:53 pm 21. Mike:

Let’s try an experiment.

Let us recall and think about all of Obama’s and his administration’s decisions regarding Islam and Israel including his speeches, both domestically and intenationally.

Let us for one minute imagine that somehow an Indonesian Muslim had become President of the U.S.

Would these policies regarding Islam and Israel from the perspective of an Indonisian Mulim President of the U.S. then look naive and dumb or would they make perfect sense?

Where’s The Birth Certificate?

Oct 7, 2009 - 4:53 pm 22. Mike Blackadder:

#20: You forgot the sarc/off at the end of your comment. You need to be careful or people might think you’re being serious.

Oct 7, 2009 - 5:59 pm 23. Sallie:

At the rate Obama is tearing us apart, I doubt we will even be able to leave our children money.

Yeah, we’ll go away…and we’ll take your welfare checks with us.

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:42 pm 24. BC:

Hmmmm….so Obama’s actually listening to his generals and considering all his military options before deciding on putting however many thousands of young American lives at risk in a fat-off, strange, hostile land….yeah, I can see how right wingers like that friggin malicious idiot, Bill “Mr. PNAC” Kristol, would be all upset at this odd, new way of thinking. Well, actually they would be just furious at the whole notion of “thinking” in general.

If you guys had even the teeniest bit of ethics and analytical skill, you would be highly, HIGHLY grateful that Obama is not running foreign policy like Bush and his crew did.

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:42 pm 25. jharp:

No matter what you say about Obama at least he hasn’t started a second war against someone that was no threat to us and diverting valuable resources away from Afghanistan. And in the process getting 4,500 killed, 30,000 maimed, and blowing a trillion taxpayer dollars for nothing.

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:42 pm 26. Leo:

Yup. The first stanza is misquoted. Why? Because it was cut-and-pasted from some online archive and the thousand hands that have been passing it on are not the most literate, clearly, and not only are they unfamiliar with the original poem, they missed the total shambles the omitted line makes of the first stanza. The kicker, of course, is that the line is the most relevant to the point being made.

Forgive me for saying so, but Kimball and Kristol never struck me as being the most naturally poetic of souls. It’s this kind of laziness and sloppiness and total absence of rigour and self-appraisal that got us into this mess, and I guess it’s going to keep us there too.

Oct 7, 2009 - 7:12 pm 27. Anon:

Mr. Obama´s national security policies and other policies, as well, for US is foremost driven by a deep rooted hatred for America, intertwined with an egalitarian worldview as a socialist, in conjunction with the political correctness doctrine, therefore he let Iran to become a nuclear state, and therefore he let the Afghan War to be a future defeat, as well.

The time to impeach Mr. Obama is long overdue.

Oct 7, 2009 - 7:50 pm 28. ahem:

Yes, etc..

“…you will never get another chance.

So, you’re admitting you’re a garden variety fascist?

Oct 7, 2009 - 7:55 pm 29. Mark Anderson:

Please read Richard Engel rather than a hopelessly morose dead British poet. Facts are hard things to wrap your poetics around. Also loose the tie.

Oct 7, 2009 - 8:36 pm 30. MIKE in ATL:

Troll alert!!!!

Oct 7, 2009 - 8:53 pm 31. RAP:

The British spent the better part of a century obsessing about Afghanistan. When the real war came in 1914 Afghanistan’s part in it didn’t amount to more than a dog turd. This is typical of late empires. They focus on the lesser and ignore the greater. The real threat to the U.S. is not terrorism but economic collapse due to too much spending and not enough production. Getting out of Afghanistan would make the U.S. stronger not weaker.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:05 pm 32. progressoverpeace:

I think a lot of people really don’t understand The Precedent. This dithering IS his policy. He is the contra-positive of his buddies in Iran, who love to use negotiations to buy themselves time to finish their project. The Precedent intends to just dither. For him, negotiations that achieve nothing, in essence, are his goal, because the US gets hurt in the process – and that is what he wants. He only speaks up about having decided to do something when he has to, then not doing it as long as he possibly can, or deciding to re-review or alter the plans he just announced. He stretches this all out as long as possible, but it is the non-action leaving us vulnerable and weak that is what he wants.

The Precedent is motivated by nothing more than his desire to exact revenge on the US and the West, for having, in his mind, shamed his people (the third world) with our productivity, growth, freedom, and advancement. You see this feeling spread all over Central and South America, and I think that Indonesia grows the same sort of attitudes. All he wants is to bring us pain. This is what he means by “social justice”. It’s akin to his “economic justice”, which had him saying that he would still raise capital gains taxes, even if overall revenues were hurt by it, because “it’s a matter of fairness”. He doesn’t care about redistribution. All he cares about is punishing the successful. And America has been very, very successful.

Once people grasp that this is the main motivation behind all The Precedent’s decisions, his actions begin to make more sense. He’s still a moron who couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag (thank G-d) but he doesn’t have to. All he wants to do is cause damage and punish the successful, and that’s pretty easy. He dithers on Afghanistan because that hurts the US. Because it leaves our military hanging. But, just wait until you see what he finally decides to do. It’ll make the dithering look great, by comparison.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:46 pm 33. ken buxton:

Larkin has another poem that has some relevance to the current American President in which he writes “It’s your parents fuck you up’.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:51 pm 34. Leo:

He does not write “it’s your parents fuck you up”. Dear me, this place is flagrantly unpoetical, painfully. “Almost true” just will not do! Read the damn poems for chi sake!

Oct 8, 2009 - 6:04 am 35. Cybergeezer:

20. Yes We Did:

This is just another cowardly, racist attack on our new Leader.

In case you didn’t notice, we had an election last November. We won, you lost, and you will never get another chance.

President Obama, who is loved and respected by the great majority of progressive Americans, will lead us onward into a new world of peace and justice. It is long past time for you racist white men to shut up and go away. Your time is past – gone and never to return.

Oct 7, 2009 – 4:53 pm

YOU GOT CUT OFF AT THE PASS;
12. Cybergeezer:

Anybody telling the White House Dunce that there are bus loads of black voters going to Afghanistan to meet their death?

Oct 7, 2009 – 1:13 pm
14. Cybergeezer:

Obama’s cashing in, big time, on the “U.S. RACE INDUSTRY”, just like Rev. Wright, Farakhan, J. Jackson, Sharpton, Rangel, AND MANY FOLLOWERS, etc.
One of the fastest growing industries in America.

Oct 7, 2009 – 1:52 pm

Oct 8, 2009 - 1:42 pm 36. Cybergeezer:

When they open the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the stock of USRI (U.S. Race Industry) on the NYSE, I’ll be first in line to buy a thousand shares!
Google, look out!

Oct 8, 2009 - 1:56 pm 37. Rancher:

Obama has decided to accept the politically expedient course of taking the middle road, being moderate, by splitting the difference on whether to send General McChrystal the 40,000 troops he says is vital to wining in Afghanistan. At first I hoped McChrystal had highballed his estimate in the number requested in anticipation of just such a cowardly response from Obama. Now we learn he actually lowballed his estimate by 10,000 troops, he actually feels we need 50,000 troops. What he gets remains to be seen but I quarantine it won’t be enough. Or soon enough.

Oct 8, 2009 - 3:27 pm 38. Rancher:

Guarantee not quarantine; forgive my overreliance on spell-check.

Oct 8, 2009 - 3:32 pm 39. Class Clown:

Oh that one is rich. Here are two absurdities about that statement:

1. The guys who perpetrated 9/11 had already been living “our way of life” in the U.S. for quite some time. Apparently they enjoyed it, but it didn’t exactly win their affections.

2. Since the Left already hates American culture, would they really want the Islamists to love it? Hell, you can’t get through a day without hearing some liberal complain about the American “way of life”.

That’s a Leftist for you… When Islamists hate America, they apologize for them (if not actively support them). If Islamists were to suddenly start loving America, Lefties would start holding them in the same contempt that they hold all the “fly-over” people right now.

Oct 9, 2009 - 2:43 am 40. Dicta & Contradicta » “Obamis é da paiz”:

[...] mais importante, pois Philip Larkin, o poeta inglês mais rabugento do mundo, nos deixou uma futura lição: Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places [...]

Oct 9, 2009 - 3:32 am 41. Now and Then:

4. Layer of Bill:
“The lowest form of stupidity is weakness. Obama is weak. Obama is stupid.”

So, does that make him weakerer than stupidy?

Oct 10, 2009 - 3:20 pm 42. Edmund Burke:

Hey, # 25 JHARP you said:

“No matter what you say about Obama at least he hasn’t started a second war against someone that was no threat to us and diverting valuable resources away from Afghanistan. And in the process getting 4,500 killed, 30,000 maimed, and blowing a trillion taxpayer dollars for nothing.”

Up through 2003 Saddam was killing 40,000 of his own citizens a year, so those US soldiers gave their lives and limbs to save 240,000 Iraqis and still counting, and to kill about 60,000 or more foreign jihadis who streamed to Iraq to make trouble, and they put 12 WMD scientists permanently out of business who all confirmed that Saddam ordered them, on pain of being thrown feet first into a plastic shredder, to reconstitute their evil programs, any one of which could have killed millions. And Kaddafi gave up his nuke program. And Justice was served with the Master of the Rape Rooms, who paid people $25,000 to become suicide bombers, dancing at the end of a rope with his two evil sons returned to dust. So next time don’t forget to mention those great accomplishments of our Brave Soldiers. You disserve those brave men and women when you forget to mention what they accomplished by freeing 50,000,000 men, women and imprisoned children, for which the Kurds ultimately layed flowers at their feet.

Oct 11, 2009 - 8:04 am