| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty August 14, 2014 The Great Reset: Liberals Suddenly Realize Their Ideas Don't Work After All Suddenly, we're experiencing the "Great Reset." No, not this one . . .
 We're experiencing the one where America's largely liberal political elites suddenly realize a lot of hard truths that many voices on the right have been saying all along: A U.S. troop presence in Iraq could help prevent chaos and genocide. Islamists want to reestablish a caliphate. Vladimir Putin is not a reasonable guy. The United Nations is useless. The worldview and policy solutions expressed by Barack Obama during his rise in 2007 and 2008 were hopelessly naïve. Any day now, they'll suddenly realize Iran wants nuclear weapons and isn't likely to give them up at the negotiating table! Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times breaks it to his readers that no, the Iraq War didn't really end; it just went on hiatus, and the American sabbatical just ended: The Obama Doctrine, which has evolved through painful trial and error (see Libya and Syria), says the United States won't use military force except when vital U.S. interests are threatened. But the "vital interest" exceptions Obama has cited include international terrorism, other threats to U.S. citizens and genocide -- and all three are present in Iraq . . . Indeed, the stakes in this war are immeasurably larger than the safety of Americans in Kurdistan (they could have been evacuated) or even the lives of thousands of Iraqi Yazidis on a mountain (although, yes, they deserved rescue too) . . . Even without American boots on the ground, Obama has entered the United States in its fourth Iraq war. It won't be over quickly. As the president said, this is going to be a long-term project. So if a U.S. presence in Iraq does turn out to be vital to U.S. national security and basic human decency requires us to do more than just stand by during a genocide . . . then maybe George W. Bush wasn't such a crazed warmonger after all, huh, liberals? Ali Khedery attempts a pep talk for the president: As a U.S. official, and now as an executive doing business in the Middle East, I have heard the same sentiment echoed privately by regional leaders for years. The reality is that your intended policy of benign neglect has actually proven to be one of malignant neglect and only strengthened our foes. But you still have 30 months left in office and there are vital American interests that need to be safeguarded -- and not just on a remote mountaintop filled with desperate, fleeing Yazidi civilians. It is time to put the pivot to Asia on the backburner and to refocus on the unfinished business at hand. It is time to reengage in the Middle East, lest its widening chaos destroy what is left of your presidential legacy. Here's the problem: the Democratic base is functionally isolationist. Large swaths of Democratic primary voters do not want money spent overseas or troops deployed anywhere near Iraq. All of the Democratic officeholders' opportunistic demonization of the Iraq War from 2003 to 2008 has caught up with them; their base actually believed all of that stuff about neocons and oil companies and Halliburton and "imperial hubris." For the better part of a decade, Democrats insisted U.S. troops could leave Iraq and things would turn out fine for American interests. As Ace put it, "Obama is essentially now in the position of fighting a war while pretending to not be fighting a war, because of The Base. That should go well for all of us!" Here are Khedery's comments to Jake Tapper: They don't take the threat of transnational jihad seriously enough, as demonstrated by President Obama's assessment of ISIS a few months ago, calling them the JV team," said Ali Khedery, referring to comments Obama made to The New Yorker magazine, comparing the militant group to a junior varsity basketball team. "In reality, ISIS represents the most virulent form of Islamic jihad the planet has ever seen. These folks are not Muslims, they are animals, frankly. They are a group that is so vicious, and so blood-thirsty, and such a death cult, that even core al Qaeda leadership -- bin Laden's successors namely -- have disavowed them," Khedery said in an interview with CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper." "And by doing nothing about it for months now, despite repeated warnings from the American intelligence community, what's happened now is the cancer has metastasized, and we have a major problem on our hands, a problem that threatens regional stability, and thus threatens global stability," he says. "You don't need access to CIA and NSA (intelligence) to know that they are coming, and that another 9/11 is imminent unless we act decisively, quickly, and do it right now with our allies," said Khedery. Well . . . damn. Oh, and even the French appear to be cracking jokes about Obama's vacations: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has a message about Iraq for Barack Obama: Get back to the White House and do something. 'I know it is the holiday period in our Western countries,' Fabius told a radio interviewer Tuesday in France,' but when people are dying, you must come back from vacation.' Full-time workers in France are guaranteed a whopping five weeks of paid vacation every year, making his plea all the more urgent. Obama is on a family and golfing holiday in a ritzy neighborhood of Martha's Vineyard but says he will come back to Washington briefly on Tuesday before returning to fun, sun, and more golf. Ferguson, Missouri, Illuminating Long-Brewing Concerns about Militarized Police Forces The militarization of police forces just became a big national issue. God knows what happened the night that set off this boiling controversy, but the pictures coming out of Missouri suggest a local police force is greeting an upset populace with an appearance and methods right out of a war film: 
"Remain calm! All is well!" You know, Ferguson, Missouri SWAT Team, maybe that approach is just pouring gasoline on the fire. I like cops. They have a really tough job. But at a time when the locals are upset about a police shooting, don't trust the local authorities, and fear their local law enforcement have itchy trigger fingers . . . does this approach make the situation better or worse? Or how about arresting several reporters? During this time, we asked the officers for badge numbers. We asked to speak to a supervising officer. We asked why we were being detained. We were told: trespassing in a McDonald's. "I hope you're happy with yourself," one officer told me. And I responded: "This story's going to get out there. It's going to be on the front page of The Washington Post tomorrow." And he said, "Yeah, well, you're going to be in my jail cell tonight." Once at the station, we were processed, our pockets emptied. No mug shots. They removed our restraints and put us in a holding cell. Ryan was able to get ahold of his dad. I called my mom, but I couldn't get through. I couldn't remember any phone numbers. We were in there for what felt like 10 or 15 minutes. Then the processing officer came in. "Who's media?" he asked. We said we were. And the officer said we were both free to go. We asked to speak to a commanding officer. We asked to see an arrest report. No report, the officer told us, and no, they wouldn't provide any names. I asked if there would ever be a report. He came back with a case number and said a report would be available in a week or two. "The chief thought he was doing you two a favor," he said. S.M. imagines how Ferguson would be covered if Mitt Romney were president. Missouri's governor Jay Nixon is . . . quiet, to the point of absence. Democrats Bet All Their Chips — Well, Almost All — on North Carolina Here's the bad news: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee just committed more than $9 million dollars to help Senator Kay Hagan in her reelection bid in North Carolina -- a big, big sum for a national committee in one state. Here's the good news: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee just committed more than $9 million dollars to help Sen. Kay Hagan -- meaning she must need it. You don't spend a sum like that willy-nilly. The ad buy, the largest so far in North Carolina, would be paid out through the end of the campaign. It reflects both the outside interest in a race that will help decide control of the Senate and, some say, concern about Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan. "It tells me a couple things," said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the Washington-based Cook Political Report. "One, that she really is in trouble. They're not going to spend that kind of money defending an incumbent who's in reasonably good shape. "Two, they're going to do the negative ads because I don't think her approval ratings can take any more hits." Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the buy signals that Democrats have hit the "panic button." "The DSCC very clearly believes that if Kay Hagan loses North Carolina, their majority is gone," he said in a release. If you're the type who likes giving to campaigns, maybe you can throw some bucks at Thom Tillis, and help balance out the DSCC's big spending. ADDENDA: My publisher reminds me that I haven't nagged you to buy the book in . . . hours and hours. I could use a nice little burst in sales as I ready my proposal for another book to the good folks at Random House. The Weed Agency is . . . $9.97 on Amazon, $7.99 on Kindle, $9.97 at Barnes and Noble, $9.99 on Nook, and IndieBound can steer you to an independent bookseller near you. One reader asked if I had anything against Books-a-Million, and I don't, I just forgot to look it up there: $11.41 over on that site, $9.99 for the e-book.
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