Saturday, October 15, 2011

Regret

John McCain has expressed regret that President Obama did not consult Congress when he sent one hundred troops to Uganda to help hunt down Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. You notice he didn’t express surprise. Part of that is because the President and Congress have been fighting about Presidential authority to take military action for a long time, long before Obama or Boehner or even McCain were anything close to relevant. Part of that lack of surprise, however, should be because of the way that this Congress has responded to overtures from the President. Since they seized control of the house, and gained enough seats in the senate to make the filibuster an effective weapon, the Republicans strategy has been to stick to a pretty radical agenda that has little connection to real solutions to problems and to reject most attempts by the President to seek compromise in the hope that the electorate will blame the President for the failure to get anything done. It seems to be working. Republicans seem poised to take back the White House. Compromise seems pretty close to impossible. It’s hard to blame the President if he thought that even the commitment of one hundred troops to a support role in the effort to capture a madman who kidnaps children and forces them to kill and rape their countrymen, neighbors, and relatives might come up against partisan opposition. This is where we are now. Even reasonable actions are questioned, and moderate positions like the ones voiced by Obama on everything from the financial crisis to health care become seen as extreme. If there is something McCain should be expressing regret over, it is that.

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