Can Our Forces Bomb an Outhouse in Syria without Presidential Approval?
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Morning Jolt September 18, 2014 Can Our Forces Bomb an Outhouse in Syria without Presidential Approval? The U.S. military campaign against Islamist militants in Syria is being designed to allow President Barack Obama to exert a high degree of personal control, going so far as to require that the military obtain presidential signoff for strikes in Syrian territory, officials said.
Welcome back to Vietnam, and General William Westmoreland’s experience: Somewhere, some Baby Boomers are chuckling about what happens once you elect a president too young to have served — or, it seems, remember — Vietnam. Remember Obama’s boast, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.” I guess he thinks he’s a better general than his generals and a better bomber than his bombers. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” notes President Obama commenting on drone strikes, reportedly telling his aides that he’s “really good at killing people.” Oh. So he really does think he’s an expert at killing people. How the heck did we end up in this mess? Through tight control over airstrikes in Syria and limits on U.S. action in Iraq, Mr. Obama is closely managing the new war in the Middle East in a way he hasn't done with previous conflicts, such as the troop surge in Afghanistan announced in 2009 or the last years of the Iraq war before the 2011 U.S. pullout. In Iraq, Mr. Obama had delegated day-to-day management to Vice President Joe Biden. Oh. Well, that explains a lot. In other news, Mr. Vice President, look out for that bus! The Midweek Great Big Polling Roundup At least the polls are coming rapidly now, instead of the one-a-month schedule we endured this summer. A slew of polls hit the public late Wednesday. Kansas: A bit of relief for Republicans: A Fox News poll finds incumbent Senator Pat Roberts at 40 percent, and “Independent”-who’s-really-a-Democrat Greg Orman at 38 percent. As a couple analysts have noted, it’s Kansas, and while Roberts survived a brutal primary, Kansas voters are not in the habit of tossing out Republicans in favor of options to the left. Republicans ought to keep this one on the radar screen, but a decent get-out-the-vote effort from the Kansas GOP should keep this one safe. Check back in early October. Louisiana: Fox News puts Landrieu at 31 percent in the open primary, 38 percent when head-to-head with Republican Bill Cassidy. This is the worst poll for Landrieu in a while, but it’s not that much worse; she’s consistently been on course for a runoff and then trailed the head-to-head matchups for a runoff. Of course, national Democrats will spend every last dime they have to save her in a runoff. Colorado Senate: Right after NRO posts my lengthy piece on how Cory Gardner still has a shot for a narrow win in this state, USA Today/Suffolk drops a poll showing Gardner ahead by 1. The guy needs money, he needs the outside conservative groups to come in and blast the airwaves, he needs to keep targeting those casual voters who are sour on Obama and the direction of the country, and he needs to chip a few percentage points off incumbent Democrat Mark Udall’s numbers among rural Democratic voters. Regarding the Gardner/Tillis strategy, one reader responded, “This mining for votes is a timid strategy that Karl Rove used to eke out two extremely narrow victories for a dismally poor politician . . . Try to win big, try to win over large swaths of voters to your side. Talk about Obamacare, the IRS scandal, Benghazi. Call your opponents out on these issues. Make them answer for their pro-abortion extremism rather than cowering in fear lest you have to talk about the issue at all.” I’d really like to live in a world where a Republican candidate can win big in a state like Colorado by talking about “Obamacare, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, and pro-abortion extremism.” But I’m about 99 percent convinced we don’t live in that world. The Coloradans who care about Obamacare, the IRS scandal, Benghazi and pro-abortion extremism are already voting for Gardner. We have yet to find a surefire way to get the low-information and low-interest voters to care about these sorts of issues; it’s not merely a matter of getting conservatives and GOP candidates to talk about these issues more. Colorado Governor: Take your pick. Either incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper is ahead by 2, or he’s trailing Republican Bob Beauprez by 10. For what it’s worth, the poll with Beauprez ahead big has a much bigger sample. Either way, Hickenlooper’s got good reason to work like he’s trailing. Wisconsin Governor: Rasmussen puts Scott Walker up 2, Marquette puts him up 3. As ominous as that sounds, remember that this is a state Walker won 52-46 in 2010. Ron Johnson won the Senate race that year with 51.9 percent. A Republican candidate is going to have a hard ceiling of about 52-53 percent here. Yes, Walker won the recall election by a bigger margin, but he enjoyed the benefit of some voters who opposed the concept of the recall election and voted “no” on that basis — a factor not around in this routine election year. Florida Governor: Survey USA puts incumbent Republican Rick Scott ahead of Charlie Crist, 44 percent to 39 percent. I feel like the national coverage of that race hasn’t really noted how consistently Scott has been ahead -- usually by a small margin, but ahead nonetheless:
What A.O. Scott Really Noticed: The Critics’ Love Affair With Dark Cable Dramas Lots of good reader response to this week’s section of the Jolt on adulthood and pop culture, spurred by A. O. Scott’s essay in the New York Times. You’ll recall I contended that Scott’s diagnosis of “the death of adulthood” was wildly inaccurate; most of us out here in the real world still grow up and reach genuine responsible adulthood and aren’t Judd Apatow characters. What Scott is noticing is that television networks don’t make as many shows about “grown ups” and Dads anymore, and when they do, the kind of people who review film and television for the New York Times aren’t as interested. Morning Jolt reader Joe pointed out that plenty of the network television hits feature indisputably “grown up” male characters: There are plenty of grown-ups on TV and in films if you watch the right movies. Tony Stark may want to be a teenager, but events always force him to act like a grown up when push comes to shove in the Marvel movies. (Captain America and Nick Fury have never been anything but.) The one adolescent on NCIS, Tony, is likewise a grown up deep down, and he’s mocked by the other characters when he isn’t. None of these characters is married with children, but even the ones without kids often play the father/protector role, and their back stories often involve families lost or the chance for them sacrificed. See Gibbs on NCIS or pretty much everybody in Person of Interest. Then there’s maybe the greatest collection of grownups on TV (in arguably the most conservative network show), the Reagans (!) of Blue Bloods. Not a goofy wannabe teen in the bunch. Even the teenage daughter of prosecutor Erin is more of an adult than pretty much everyone in the typical modern romantic comedy! NCIS has been television’s highest-rated drama for the past five years, and Blue Bloods ranked between 10 and 22 overall in its past four seasons. But they’re unmentioned in Scott’s piece and largely ignored by the critics. Dare I say that only a certain style of show gets rave reviews from the critics and generates culture-media buzz? (This is an entirely separate debate from the one about whether or not those shows are good shows. Some folks on the right might contend “a lot of television critics are liberal and only give good reviews to liberal shows,” but that oversimplifies this discussion. I don’t think you can safely classify Breaking Bad, Homeland, or Game of Thrones, to pick some critically-acclaimed examples, as straight-up liberal television shows. Then there’s FX’s Justified. Good luck convincing Nick Searcy that he’s working on liberal propaganda.) One-hour dramas from premium pay cable networks seem to lead the way in terms of reviews, discussions, and blog posts in the entertainment media. Besides the ones mentioned above, recent critical darlings include Showtime’s Masters of Sex, Shameless, and Ray Donovan; AMC’s Mad Men; HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and True Detective; and FX’s The Crossing. If a comedy gets loud critical acclaim these days, it’s probably “edgy” and dark: FX’s Louie, HBO’s Girls, and arguably HBO’s “Veep.” The creative class seems convinced that if your show is dark, critics are more likely to praise it as deep, symbolic, and thought-provoking. (It’s a bit like the runaway “grim and gritty” trend of comics of the late 80s and early 1990s.) HBO’s newest big series, the relentlessly grim The Leftovers, may be the most vivid example of the trend going way too far. If we set out to create a one-hour cable drama aimed to get critical acclaim, we would start with our protagonist. He (or she) should rarely smile. Eeyore McGloom awakes every morning to a long list of problems, and by the end of the day they’re mostly worse. If McGloom has a family present, it must be a source of constant woe and stress. He must be divorced, about to get divorced, or trying persuade his wife to not divorce him. If he has kids, the kids are screwed up and at some point in the season they’ll be in danger. We’ll show some sex and nudity, but just about nothing in terms of loving relationships. Menaces and threats abound; violence is sudden and brutal. Relentlessly sadistic antagonists will be present, but complicated circumstances impede our protagonist from taking direct action or seeing that justice is done. Periodically we’ll pan out to show the rest of modern American society is as screwed up as our protagonist Eeyore McGloom, (Maybe we’ll periodically glimpse a nice, seemingly happy gay couple up the street.) Notice this is premium pay cable. On TNT, the bad guys usually get caught by the end of the hour. (Thanks, Adam Baldwin!) USA Network used a thoroughly effective Madlibs-esque formula for a while: Michael Weston/Hank Lawson/Neal Caffrey/Harvey Specter/Kate Reed /Shawn Spencer is the best spy/doctor/reformed thief/litigator/legal mediator/fake psychic detective in the business. But he/she doesn’t always play by the rules or follow orders from authority. He/she trusts his/her gut, and doesn’t always listen to others. But even when it really complicates his/her day, he/she goes the extra mile to help out that innocent person who needs help. He/she is helped by bickering, lethal sidekicks/a bumbling brother and competent physician assistant/ a grumpy FBI agent/a young genius with a photographic memory/a wise-cracking assistant/a skeptical best friend and even more skeptical local police detectives righting wrongs in glorious setting of Miami/the Hamptons/Manhattan/a different part of Manhattan/San Francisco/Santa Barbara. The result is rarely great television, but it’s almost always watchable television. ADDENDA: Caleb Howe reports: To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com
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