Saturday, November 07, 2009
Premature missions
Yeah, we've noticed:
The Obama administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular, seems to have developed a bit of a "mission accomplished" problem when it comes to diplomatic breakthroughs....
I agree with Dan Drezner, that no one with reasonable expectations of what U.S. foreign policy can accomplish should be shocked by the fact that the Obama team hasn't achieved major breakthroughs on any of these challenges, but it would be nice if they didn't keep telling us we were witnessing history in the making.
That's Joshua Keating, one of the editors of Foreign Policy. Just sayin'.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Nov 07, 11:07:00 PM:
Clinton and Obama are legends in their own minds. How could they possibly think anything they did was less than an historic breakthrough?
By 
JPMcT, at
Sun Nov 08, 09:16:00 AM:
Obama's leadership style seems to center about one recurring strategy:
1. Pick (or create) a problem.
2. Allow the media to lather it up until it is a cultural icon.
3. Simple declare the problem solved...as long as the government enjoys added tax revenue in the process.
4. Move on to the next crisis.
The problem with this strategy is that REAL problems tend to get in the way and create nasty diversions.
That's why the wholesale control of the media is a key element.
The frightening thing is that it's ALMOST working!!
