The erudite Paul Rahe’s mind boggled when he read, in the September issue of American Conservative, a piece by Alfred W. McCoy, titled “The Quiet Grand Strategy of Barack Obama.” According to Mr. McCoy, the current president is a patriot and a far-seeing statesman:
In ways that have eluded Washington pundits and policymakers, President Barack Obama is deploying a subtle geopolitical strategy that, if successful, might give Washington a fighting chance to extend its global hegemony deep into the 21st century. After six years of silent, sometimes secret preparations, the Obama White House has recently unveiled some bold diplomatic initiatives whose sum is nothing less than a tri-continental strategy to check Beijing’s rise. As these moves unfold, Obama is revealing himself as one of those rare grandmasters who appear every generation or two with an ability to go beyond mere foreign policy and play that ruthless global game called geopolitics. …
But let’s give credit where it’s due. Without proclaiming a presumptuously labeled policy such as “triangulation,†“the Nixon Doctrine,†or even a “freedom agenda,†Obama has moved step-by-step to repair the damage caused by a plethora of Washington foreign policy debacles, old and new, and then maneuvered deftly to rebuild America’s fading global influence.
So what is this ridiculous hallucinatory liberal tripe doing in a journal of supposedly conservative opinion? Commenter Douglas (sixth comment down) nails it, and nails “The (So-Called) American Conservative” good and proper.
First off, there’s often little conservative about The American Conservative. No branch or tradition of conservatism is extolled there. It’s not conservative by old Tory standards, it’s not conservative by the standards of the old American Right, and it’s not conservative by the standards of the modern American Right. It’s “conservative†by the standards of people that argue progressivism is really a form of conservatism, and that Barack Obama is the most conservative president in generations. Mainly because he dislikes Israel as much as writers at AmCon do. The only virtues of the place anymore are admonishments to mind our own business and to be distrustful of the GOP.
While I’m sympathetic to much that Pat Buchanan argues, when he created that magazine, he surrounded himself with a bunch of nonsense-peddlers. They occasionally have the excellent article, but mostly are swamped by the nonsense these days.
So, the assertion in the article… that Obama is some kind of uber-wise, next level grandmaster at 3D chess really isn’t surprising. It’s right in keeping with the kind of stuff AmCon prints lately. The key to understanding most positions AmCon writers will take is “if it screws Israel, praise it, if it helps Israel, damn itâ€.
GoneWithTheWind
In the 10th grade our English teacher would hold class debates. The students got a couple of days to prepare and were expected to debate their position in class against other students. After a few weeks of doing this our teacher would announce just as the debate was about to begin that each debater had to take the other side. For some reason this appealed to me. Maybe I should ave been a lawyer or a political advisor because it was very comfortable for me to do this. Many well known ‘conservatives’ seem to be comfortable doing this as well. Not just Rinos but conservatives who openly switch sides and those who don’t switch sides but seemingly argue more for the other side. I don’t trust some conservatives pundits and I’m just not sure where their head is. It seems too easy for them to take the other side.
Bill Cook
I subscribed to American Conservative when it first came out way back when, mainly because of Taki and his writings. It didn’t take long to figure out that the content didn’t match the title.
JimBobElrod
The Jew hatred at AC has been obvious since it started. Looks like they can’t take criticism though as Douglas’s comment was apparently deleted.
JDZ
No, it’s still there. Just count down six comments.
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