The first is a piece published in The New York Times last Tuesday, by Joe Becker and Scott Shane. It depicts President Obama shuffling Al-Queda intelligence briefings "like baseball cards"while deciding who to drone strike.
The second is an opinion piece by Charles Krauthammer, impressively picked up and run by the Plain Dealer on Sunday. In it, Krauthammer questions the legitimacy of placing the Times story on the front page, and also Obama's foreign policy legacy. Krauthammer argues, "The Obama-slayer card having been vastly overplayed [with reference to Osama Bin Laden], what to do? A new card: Obama-drone warrior."
The third is a CNN web page from three hours ago. CNN claims "Abu Yahya al-Libi's death is one of the biggest blows to al Qaeda since Osama bin Laden was killed."
The last few year's, we've heard the word "drone" introduced seamlessly into the media sphere. Drone's have gone from a little known secret intelligence weapon on the Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield, to an impressively precise stealth weapon overseas, to backyard barbeque paparazzi.
George Lucas must be wondering what could have been. Drone Wars, anyone?
As baffled as Obama backers have been the past fours years while accepting his about face on foreign policy and terrorism, they must really be scratching their heads now.
He's somehow managed to go from the likes of Luke Skywalker battling to save (he Hoped) the Empire, to...the Empire.
It's been coming on longer then this week, but in the span of just seven days, the right wing media has managed to paint their nemesis as Dark Vader. Imagine that. Romney, the evil slasher of jobs ("I kinda like being able to fire people"), has become Old Ben Kenobi - while somehow still being seen as tougher on foreign policy!
But the worst part of this week's White House staff gaffe is the fact that this word - drone - is increasing being pumped into the media alongside the word's "invasion of privacy."
The recent revelation that drone manufacturers are pumping up production to sell perhaps as many as 18,000 of these remote controlled units to small town police departments is disturbing. New Yorkers want to catch the bad guys, for sure. But they also want to do so knowing that Mayor Bloomberg isn't watching from above to see if they are serving 22 ounce sodas to their friends at a picnic on Memorial Day.
Obama has had an image problem since the first few months in office when he ordered more troops overseas in order to facilitate the end of the wars more quickly. That one one still makes me wonder.
I don't know who this guy is anymore. The bad part for Democrats, neither do they.
No comments:
Post a Comment