Althouse: "Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron."

April 29, 2011

"Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron."

"Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned."

43 comments:

Patrick said...: I heard this clown (Lizza, not Krauthammer) on NPR two nights ago, and I had no idea who it was. He was so grovelling and so obsequious toward Obama, that I assumed he was an administration flack. I literally laughed out loud when Terry Gross said he was a writer for the New Yorker. That's how bad, and sniveling this fellow was. Of course, Gross failed to challenge him in any meaningful way. She can't do a political interview well, she is ok on pop culture type stuff, especially with Gene Simmons (heh heh); 4/29/11, 9:35 AM
MayBee said...: Ryan Lizza got kicked off the Obama campaign plane the first go-round. He can't afford to risk that again.

Even though his article was obsequious, it was nonetheless revealing. Sometimes its good to read what people say when they think they are complimenting themselves.; 4/29/11, 9:39 AM
Ipso Fatso said...: The 2012 campaign has begun, you can bet that all of the MSM dupes will be getting in line to promote their saviors re-election. This is just the start.; 4/29/11, 9:42 AM
Anonymous said...: That pretty much explains the 2010 election.

"Forward!", he said from rear
and the front ranks died.; 4/29/11, 9:43 AM
edutcher said...: Leading from behind is another way of saying he's still voting, "Present".; 4/29/11, 9:47 AM
dbp said...: It has been pretty common to compare Obama to a Vulcan, maybe he is really a Pierson's Puppeteer; 4/29/11, 9:49 AM
Patrick said...: Maybee, you are correct. Those articles are very revealing about the writers, even if less so about the subjects (ironic, isn't it?). But, it inadvertently says something (else) about the subject by showing the type of people who fawn over the subject like that. Irony abounds.; 4/29/11, 10:04 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Empire in denial.; 4/29/11, 10:06 AM
DADvocate said...: It's like the group of kids trying to get up the courage to go into the scary, haunted house. The one kid keeps urging any other to go first with "I'll go if you go." Yet, then, claims to be the leader. The other kids know he's the blowhard coward.; 4/29/11, 10:06 AM
madAsHell said...: Once again Obama's unique experience as a community organizer shines through!!; 4/29/11, 10:09 AM
Anonymous said...: In enterprise of martial kind,
When there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind;
He found it less exciting.

But when away his regiment ran
His place was at the fore-oh:
That celebrated, cultivated, underrated
Nobleman, The Duke of Plaza-Toro!

-- W.S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers, 1889; 4/29/11, 10:10 AM
Murph said...: Odd how quickly the media fawns over Obama who has insulated himself from actual criticism. President Rainbow Unicorn has morphed into Richard Nixon's evil twin.

In the same vein, check out this story from the SF Chronicle - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=87978; 4/29/11, 10:12 AM
traditionalguy said...: Obama is exactly like the 4 new airplane pilots who tricked their way into cockpits on 9/11. Their only goals were to 1)displace the real pilots and 2) to fly the planes and their passengers into horrible destruction. Therefore, our only rational response to pilot Obama is "Let's roll". Or is that a rascist reaction to Arabs and an evil assertion that pilots who were never taught to take off or land are Arab affirmative action hires.; 4/29/11, 10:27 AM
sonicfrog said...: The unofficial GOP slogan from this day forward:

"Leading From Up-Front!"; 4/29/11, 10:40 AM
Anonymous said...: I'll never understand the basic disconnect between conservatives who on the one hand want to chop the government to pieces, and on the other hand want the government to barge around the world throwing other governments up against the wall, America F'Yeah style.

Most of them, I suppose, are too dumb to formulate their own foreign policy ideas, or even reasonable opinions about what should be done. It's so much easier to just declare everything that the Obama administration does to be terrible and wrong.

Luckily, most Americans aren't that dumb. And Obama will be reelected.; 4/29/11, 10:41 AM
Anonymous said...: At least the Al-Qaeda pilots trained in actual 7n7 simulators.

Obama flew the little airplane plugged in outside of the five and dime store, and moved directly to a jumbo jet with 330 million passengers.

While some are busy with their beverage service and listening to the pilot point out various prominent sights, those of us with experience on how things get done are clutching the seat in front of us and screaming "we're all gonna die!"; 4/29/11, 10:42 AM
Richard Dolan said...: It was one of Krauty's better columns. His thesis is that "leading from behind" reflects the world and America's role in it viewed from the perspective of the faculty lounge. Sounds right to me.; 4/29/11, 10:54 AM
rhhardin said...: I'm sticking with the moron hypothesis.

Obama is a moron.; 4/29/11, 10:58 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: "Leading from behind"?

How stupid must that WH flack be to [a] dream that up as a savvy presidential doctrine and [b] think anyone will buy it as a brainy doctrine?; 4/29/11, 10:59 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Quayle said:
"Obama flew the little airplane plugged in outside of the five and dime store, and moved directly to a jumbo jet with 330 million passengers."

Haha good one.; 4/29/11, 11:02 AM
Valentine Smith said...: Obama gets to be in his favorite position—sticking it right up our asses!; 4/29/11, 11:19 AM
mc said...: When the TX legislators ran away I thought exactly what I thought when Mrs. Meade's legislators ran away.

Leave it to a liberal to confuse running away with making a stand.

For Obama sniveling sabotoge of this country is high heroics.; 4/29/11, 11:23 AM
Issob Morocco said...: Leading from behind is another way to describe cowardice.; 4/29/11, 11:43 AM
Anonymous said...: Remember, you have to get behind somebody to stab them in the back.; 4/29/11, 11:57 AM
Titus said...: I love the Kraut.; 4/29/11, 11:57 AM
TMink said...: "I'll never understand"

There, I edited your post for clarity.

It is OK, we understand, and you will be safe with the adults in charge. Don't worry, be progressive.

Trey wv = imbillis, ain't that the truth; 4/29/11, 12:17 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: It's so much easier to just declare everything that the Obama administration does to be terrible and wrong.

Well that's because he makes it so easy to do.; 4/29/11, 12:29 PM
ricpic said...: You have to be pretty effing smart to coin the phrase leading from behind, pretty effing credentialed up the wazoo.; 4/29/11, 12:50 PM
Wince said...: The corollary to "leading from behind" is "talking out your ass."; 4/29/11, 12:57 PM
Anonymous said...: You have to be pretty effing smart to coin the phrase leading from behind, pretty effing credentialed up the wazoo.

It takes a little while, but eventually the dense carpet, thick carpet pad, and $100 a quart dutch oil based trim paint of the White House works its way into your brain, and you start to realize you're a genius capable of such remarkable understanding and wisdom.

Either that or you're a complete horse's ass.; 4/29/11, 1:00 PM
Anonymous said...: You have to be pretty effing smart to coin the phrase leading from behind, pretty effing credentialed up the wazoo.

Almost as smart as you need to be to come up with the slogan "Win The Future" - n'est-ce pas?; 4/29/11, 2:24 PM
Methadras said...: Sycophanty is all the rage these days with incompetent-in-chief. Hah!!! Leading from behind. Is that what they call his 'leadership' now. This president is an abject trainwreck for this country. He has zero leadership skills. I don't know why leftards can't see that. Well, I do, I'm just being rhetorical.; 4/29/11, 2:29 PM
Original Mike said...: I assumed that "leading from behind" was coined by a critic. It came from a WH advisor?!?!?!; 4/29/11, 2:32 PM
Synova said...: "“Obama came of age politically,” explains Lizza, “during the post-Cold War era, a time when America’s unmatched power created widespread resentment.” But the world did not begin with the coming to consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep."

How old is Lizza?

Obama is a couple of years older than me. It's odd to me to realize that a whole lot of people simply do not remember the cold war. But to say that someone born in 1961 is part of this post-cold-war group of people is ridiculous. The USSR shot down the Korean passenger plane in 1983 (on my birthday! I didn't realize that). The Berlin Wall didn't come down until 1987.; 4/29/11, 2:45 PM
puddlepirate78 said...: The Berlin Wall fell November, 1989. It was an ugly thing to see.; 4/29/11, 2:59 PM
Synova said...: "I'll never understand the basic disconnect between conservatives who on the one hand want to chop the government to pieces, and on the other hand want the government to barge around the world throwing other governments up against the wall, America F'Yeah style."

I think you could have stopped at "I'll never understand."

Your premise is in error, so of course it doesn't make any sense.

Libya is on the Democrats, on Powers (IIRC) and Clinton. Certainly on Obama. It was his decision, even if he tries to imagine he was *following*. He doesn't get to follow.

Democrats are no more reluctant to enter into foreign entanglements than Republicans are. Not a bit. They just suffer under the delusion that dropping bombs on people isn't actually war and that it will actually work.

Maybe they think it will work because their hearts are pure. Who the hell knows.; 4/29/11, 2:59 PM
Original Mike said...: "They just suffer under the delusion that dropping bombs on people isn't actually war and that it will actually work."

It's not war, it's some kind of kinetic thingie.

"Maybe they think it will work because their hearts are pure. Who the hell knows."

I think that's exactly what they think. And it's not limited to war, but extends to domestic policy, too.; 4/29/11, 3:07 PM
Synova said...: I looked it up and misread - 1987 was the year of Reagan's speech in Berlin.

Solidarity was formed in 1980? My high school years were very much about wondering what was going to happen in Eastern Europe. But I was an unnatural child.

But even someone who didn't pay attention to politics was inundated by popular culture, by "mutually assured destruction", by "star wars", by television show episodes about nuclear holocaust, by the movie "War Games", by Sting singing "Russia"... 99 Red Balloons...

Nadia Komenich defecting.

Obama is not young enough to be "post-cold-war", even if he was only interested in girls and sports between 1878 and 1989.; 4/29/11, 3:10 PM
Synova said...: 1978... bleh.; 4/29/11, 3:12 PM
Anonymous said...: Democrats are no more reluctant to enter into foreign entanglements than Republicans are. Not a bit. They just suffer under the delusion that dropping bombs on people isn't actually war and that it will actually work.

Remember the late season Mash episodes (ever creeping left and becoming more and more sanctimonious) where Hawkeye went all indignant on the immorality of dropping bombs on people that you can't see.

Since Clinton it has become the moral way to wage war for lefties.; 4/29/11, 3:16 PM
Synova said...: I don't think it's immoral (as war goes) to drop bombs on people you can't see, but it is something to seriously ponder. It doesn't make anyone more moral if they only shoot when they can be shot back at, but it does make it easier to decide to take action when the promise can be that we aren't *really* involved, no boots will be on the ground, and no Americans will die.

It upset me when Clinton did it in Bosnia. I'm enough of an Air Force partisan to advocate air power and tactics, but it has to be because it's the best choice, not because it's not *really* war after all and American citizens won't approve of anything that gets our guys shot at.

And eventually we were on the ground there anyway. We just escalated by stages. Bit by bit.

It seems to me that the Air Force and Navy have some Very Big Guns, and starting out with them as supposed inoffensive baby-steps into conflict, a sort of military-lite, is starting at the ass end of the horse and calling it beautiful.

I have no idea what Obama is expecting to accomplish in Libya.; 4/29/11, 3:38 PM
Franklin said...: Krauthammer is my favorite columnist. He absolutely, unequivocally, mercilessly demolishes whatever ridiculous idea the Left is smitten with this week.; 4/29/11, 3:42 PM
Franklin said...: I love the Kraut.

I call him The Hammer.; 4/29/11, 3:43 PM