As Bismark long ago observed, God loves fools, drunks and the United States of America.
It’s not the glaring results of the Warlord’s obvious failure for which we owe thanks. Rather, it’s that he failed with blatant incompetence. His flame out allowed America to dodge permanent Christian Socialist Authoritarianism really by luck. Had the Warlord been even remotely more capable dealing with the Iraqi occupation or Katrina (by TARP it was too late), the regime’s overthrow on January 20th would not be or be quite different.
That’s the key we think most observers haven’t mentioned – either because it doesn’t occur to them or it is inconvenient to recall how recently they, too, were on the bandwagon. Americans overall in our view didn’t really reject the Warlord *because* of his Christian Socialist Authoritarianism; his and the regime’s incompetence became political kryptonite.* If he had only made the trains run on time . . .
The Boy King seems to grok this. His emphasis on competence first (even if irritating to his base) strikes a chord across the political spectrum. True, an economy in free fall helps unity. And his universal acclaim today exudes historic titanic inevitability. Yet how near a thing it is. Thin as the veneer of liberal republican democracy still remains.
Restoring faith in government demands the competence the Boy King offers. Restoring liberal democracy after the Warlord is actually a never ending task.
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*As we have noted in the past, incompetence and CSA are intrinsically linked as a matter of political morphology. The Warlord’s idiosyncratic ineptitude mercifully exposed that dynamic far earlier in the process.
Aldershot says
Heh. He really did make a fool of himself.
anon says
LOl – Kudlow was blushing the other day about the dinner at George’s:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/15/kristol-talks-obama-dinne_n_158148.html
Alex says
The Warhol administration; all surface no feeling.
Further, it was the same in Northern Ireland; everyone who actually thought about it knew that it was impossible to be certain of decommissioning, and indeed that the cell structure meant that even the IRA couldn’t be certain of it if they ordered it (quartermaster O’Brien might have died since he buried the guns, or might decide to keep a few for his own profit).
But it was politically necessary fan service for the Loyalists.
Comment says
Condi has so many pointless seeming moments like that – Year from now when the smuggling does not stop, we will hear or read that was not the *real* purpose of the memorandom. Yes, all diplomats have fictions – but it seems almost evrything Condi does is purely symbolic – but without a true meaning behind the symbolism.
Comment says
So Condi signs a memorandom of understanding witn Tzipi saying we will stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza – leave aside the dubious premise that this is actually Isreal’s real concern, think about the fact that we, the US, cannot control our own borders in any meaningful way.
Yes – there’s all sorts of insider/oriental coded reasons why this is different and we are mixing apples and oranges etc etc.
But, it is just such a strange leap. The USG could never stop the funding of the IRA or the drug trade or Bernie’s track record of 40 years of fake stock trades. The idea that we could shut off weapons smuggling on that border is just a sillly Condi moment.