{"id":127900,"date":"2015-09-08T06:37:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T12:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/08\/so-do-they-want-america-to-lead-or-not.html"},"modified":"2015-09-10T09:49:59","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T15:49:59","slug":"so-do-they-want-america-to-lead-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/08\/so-do-they-want-america-to-lead-or-not.html","title":{"rendered":"So do they want America to lead, or not?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The GOP has been consistently (at least rhetorically) critical of "lack of world leadership" by the Obama Administration. The world doesn't trust us, they say, because Obama isn't making bold moves and flexing American power to demonstrate commitment to powerful policy goals.<\/p>\n

Which is why, of course, the GOP Congress is working to compromise any working agreement the US might negotiate at the Paris meetings in December, promising to try and block them at home and warning foreign negotiators that the provisions will not be binding on any future Republican president.<\/p>\n

NIce encouragement of world leadership, folks!<\/p>\n

The fact is, of course, that the GOP doesn't want<\/i> Obama exercising US leadership, because they don't want Obama exercising anything.<\/i> In their opinion, since the day Obama was elected, presidential leadership at home and abroad is something to (a) sabotage and block and then (b) criticize over a lack of.<\/p>\n

And it's not even leadership about policies that they dislike, like talk of "climate change" (eek!). Is there any doubt that if Obama was running around invading countries like a Bush<\/del> mad-man, the Republicans would be criticizing that, too?<\/p>\n

If world leadership from the US has diminished over the last seven years (an arguable assertion), a large part of that can be directly laid at the feet of the GOP opposition, who have made doing much of anything of substance an impassable mine field. And the precedent they set will (unfortunately) come back to haunt them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nGOP to attack climate pact at home and abroad<\/a><\/span>
\nAn aide to Mitch McConnell has been informing foreign embassies about GOP plans to oppose Obama’s strategy on global warming\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GOP has been consistently (at least rhetorically) critical of "lack of world leadership" by the Obama Administration. The world doesn't trust us, they say, because Obama isn't making bold moves and flexing American power to demonstrate commitment to powerful policy goals. Which is why, of course, the GOP Congress is working to compromise any … Continue reading “So do they want America to lead, or not?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,748,10,380,358],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-weather-and-climate-change","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-nationalism-exceptionalism","category-poor-citizenship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129838,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/15\/on-appointments-to-the-supreme-court.html","url_meta":{"origin":127900,"position":0},"title":"On appointments to the Supreme Court","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-Feb-16 7:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"A good article looking at some of the numbers, facts, and figures that keep being bandied about regarding the replacement of Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court.The bottom line is that the GOP -- be it candidates on the campaign trail (who have an obvious conflict of interest) or the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16627,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/30\/where-has-this-president-been-the-past-year.html","url_meta":{"origin":127900,"position":1},"title":"Where has this president been the past year?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 30-Jan-10 1:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The House GOP thought they were being clever in inviting Obama up to their lobbyist-sponsored strategy retreat.\u00a0 They thought they were being even more clever in taking up the White House's Br'er Rabbit offer to televise the 90 minute discussion.\u00a0 They were sure that the opportunity to stand up, preface\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13608,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/05\/why_didnt_mccain_win.html","url_meta":{"origin":127900,"position":2},"title":"Why didn’t McCain win?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Nov-08 10:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"It was interesting listening to the talking heads over the evening, especially the GOP analysts (when they weren't being rude and bitchy to the reporters, like John Bolton was on...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130363,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/05\/let-the-people-decide-again.html","url_meta":{"origin":127900,"position":3},"title":"Let the People Decide! (Again!)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Apr-16 4:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"GOP posturing on an Obama SCOTUS nomination continues to escalate, as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) admits that, well, yeah, maybe the People elected Obama to do things like nominate SCOTUS justices in 2012 (for a second tie ... but clearly elected yahoos like Cotton in 2014 to stop Obama from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31102,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/01\/what-will-a-second-obama-term-look-like.html","url_meta":{"origin":127900,"position":4},"title":"What will a second Obama term look like?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Nov-12 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Probably not much different than the first. \u00a0The Dems will have a thin (and non-lockstep) majority in the Senate, most likely, and the GOP will continue to hold the House for at least two years (more likely four), and the fact is that Obama is pretty much of a centrist,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25031,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/02\/blaming-others-for-ones-misdeeds-gop-2012-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":127900,"position":5},"title":"Blaming others for one's misdeeds (GOP 2012 Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Jan-12 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It will be fascinating to watch the GOP blame Obama for not being \"post-partisan\" and healing the nation and bringing everyone together in Washington to find common answers for our various challengers ... when he's (a) been opposed tooth-and-nail by GOP leaders who very baldly stated that their number one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127931,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127900\/revisions\/127931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}