Rand Paul believes Obama is the "worst president ever"

I've noticed a number of conservative ads popping up in my FB feed. One of them is an ad for Senator Rand Paul, claiming that Obama is the "worst president ever".

Really?

I was already disappointed by your complete lack of self-deprecation in attempted comedy at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner. (Anthony Weiner was nearly as bad.)

I thought you were kind of a prick about a routine patdown at the Nashville airport. Yes, I get that you're a libertarian standard bearer. But a patdown isn't a police state. And that you made such an announcement after it happened to you -- it's been going on for quite a while -- is at best opportunistic showmanship and, perhaps less charitably, a self-centered, selfish view on personal liberty. I'm willing to grant the more charitable possibility, because you appear to have been consistent -- wrong, but consistent.

But "worst president ever"? Do you even know American history?

Are you aware that Grant basically took bribes during his presidency?

Are you aware that Teapot Dome scandal crippled the Harding administration and brought down several cabinet members?

Are you aware that, despite generally being a remarkable President, FDR presided over the largest forced relocation of American citizens in the 20th century that disrupted hundreds of thousands of lives, including those of my grandparents? Or tried to pack the Supreme Court?

Going back to the 19th century, are you aware of the Trail of Tears? What about the causus belli of the Mexican-American war?

Are you aware of American imperialism in the early 20th century, or the middle 20th century, or the late 20th century?

Are you aware that Kennedy behaved very dangerously and recklessly toward Cuba and general US-Soviet relations in the Bay of Pigs, the assassination attempts, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and campaigned on a fake missile gap that Eisenhower did not argue against because it would reveal the extent to which America was able to monitor Soviet activity?

Are you aware that Johnson pushed an escalation in Vietnam even after it became evident that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was due to erroneous sonar readings and jittery nerves, and not a Vietnamese attack?

Are you aware that, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, the debt was a higher proportion of GDP and expanded far more rapidly than this current one? Also, do you remember Iran-Contra?

Uh, WATERGATE?

Now, I don't have reason to question your intelligence. After all, your father is a longtime Republican representative from Texas, and you have the blessings of a privileged upbringing, complete with a good education.

But I am left with an unpalatable choice: either you don't know these things, and are guilty of gross ignorance of American history, or you do know these things, and are just cynically ignoring them to make your political points and fight your political battles.

Again, I feel charitable, and am willing to go with the latter, which makes you a douche, not a moron. Congratulations.

Now a rhetorical post with an empty chair doesn't really matter that much -- Rand Paul doesn't give a shit about what I think, and I don't give a shit about what he thinks. 

What does matter is that I find he is influential in the belief system of a number of people I know and appreciate. And not all of those people may have the blessings of a solid history background, or at least historical perspective.

Proportionality is important. "Worst" is a high threshold -- it means that, in sum total, that Obama is more corrupt, more ignorant, more incompetent, more malicious, more dictatorial, more violent, and more fiscally irresponsible than all of his predecessors. 

All of them. 

Men who were not bound by a large and mostly free press. Men who did not have to deal with modern communications technology and information disseminators. Men who owned slaves. Men who authorized the use of the US Army against unarmed civilians (see The Bonus Army), which, as a close student of law, you would know is (or at least was) particularly illegal. Men whose religious faith informed their foreign policy views and whose legacy still poison our policy with their particular brand of Presbyterian messianism. 

Proportionality is the first thing that jumps in my head when I hear people argue about Benghazi, or Fast and Furious, or federal debt, or Solyndra, or any of the other charges leveled at this president. 

It hasn't been a perfect presidency. And there's some blame that needs to be owned, and probably is. The case of Shirley Sherrod was a horrible, horrible mess. Guantanamo is still open. Gays and Latinos feel rightly disappointed that what they thought they were getting was not quite what they got, in the form of gay marriage/DADT and immigration reform, respectively. I think this is partly due to unmanaged expectations, but partly due to some real lost opportunities and poor trade-offs.

Benghazi was one consulate attack; there were seven attacks on embassies, consulates, and other major diplomatic missions under George W. Bush. I don't remember anyone raising an outcry then that the deaths of five, or ten, or a hundred people invalidated the Bush doctrine. I already wrote my thoughts on Benghazi here.

Debt has gone up because revenues have gone down, and not because spending has increased appreciably. And in the near-term, it's the right policy -- raising taxes or cutting spending is bad for the economy, and short-term growth is, given the current bond market and the European experience, generally a good idea.

Fast and Furious is a serious matter. But does it deserve this proportionate response? It's not Iran-Contra, either in its scope or its breach of American laws.

Solyndra is being investigated, but at this point, it looks like a way to attack government support of [non-ethanol based] alternative energy without attacking alternative energy directly.

The problem for many conservatives is that Obama's administration, oddly enough, has been an odd combination of competent and lucky. The raid for Osama Bin Laden could have gone down like the botched Tehran embassy attempt that basically killed Carter's reelection chances. Attacks against Somali pirates could have gone more poorly. The Libya campaign could have resulted in combat casualties. There have been no major terrorist attacks on the homeland. The Republican leadership has proven poorly equipped to effectively engage with voters and to manage its own radical elements. 

I think it's precisely because things have worked pretty smoothly that we get histrionics about things that are important, but not as significant as the outcry warrants. We are arguing louder about smaller things, and small politics by small people have diminished all of us.

This post has already gone on too long, but in short, here's what I'd like to say to my libertarian friends: it's damn good to be concerned about civil liberties. It's damn good to investigate drone strikes, or extrajudicial killings. "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend with my life your right to say it."

But if you want to be taken seriously, bear in mind the principle of proportionality. I saw a lot of madness leading up to the election, and it hasn't completely gone away. I'm open-minded, but I'm not a masochist, and will not suffer ridiculousness indefinitely.

Benghazi in context

I have the luxury of being unimportant; therefore, I'll say something probably offensive.

Am I missing something? As I reexamine the foreign policy record of President Obama, I see a number of successes. Failures may depend upon your beliefs about "just wars", and perhaps less visible concerns regarding trade. (It's unclear what the long-term effects will be with fights with China over tires and other issues.)

From what I have read, the assault on the consulate at Benghazi appears to have been an intelligence failure. I don't know, and I may never know, precisely how, or why, additional security was not provided. These intelligence failures have existed before - does anyone remember the attacks against US Embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania in 1998? These attacks killed many more people. September 11 was a tremendous intelligence failure -- but I don't recall people calling for the resignation of the President.

Can we wait for the investigation to conclude? If there was such an egregious miscarriage of justice involving the President and senior officials, I'm certain Congress will be happy to embark upon yet another impeachment hearing.

The Benghazi attack was a tragedy. It also led to the death of four people. These were four good people; but they were four. A sane nation cannot afford to make reckless claims about policy reversals and even war for four citizens. Even a great nation cannot afford to be so reckless.

Some perspective: the US and its allies saved thousands of lives, and, depending on how things go, Libyan democracy. It did so without a single American casualty. It did so with Britain and France exercising, at least in recent memory, unprecedented leadership in resources and risk. It may go down as a textbook case of how American interests, ideals, and capacity align, and how measured commitment can produce better (though not perfect) results.

It took thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and many years for the majority of Americans to even begin to start questioning the justice of the Iraq War. Now, the intervention in Libya, and the overall approach of measured foreign policy of the last years, is seen as illegitimate because of four deaths in Benghazi?

How is this at all proportional?

I accept judgment that to count American lives reeks of the worst of armchair generalship. I accept that the United States has a responsibility to its citizens, and that its diplomatic corps is especially vulnerable and especially valuable.

But it just isn't computing for me -- unless I consider one possibility.

Benghazi has been amplified and magnified because it's difficult to assail the foreign policy record of this administration. Libertarians that believe in zero military intervention, or Niebuhrians/humanitarian interventionists that believe action was merited in Syria (and perhaps Iran in 2009).

Drone strikes are a more valid critique. But they aren't being criticized and magnified because, quite frankly, the killing of civilians in Pakistan by American drone strikes don't matter to the vast majority of constituents in either party, except in the abstract. At best, they are seen as the necessary price of waging a war against Al-Qaeda and terrorism in a state increasingly incapable of providing security to itself or its neighbors.

And there remain issues in Iran. But I don't see how Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shroud would be alive if Tehran had been bombed. Remember them? Was their release after years of incarceration a failure or a success of US diplomacy?

Remember Somali pirates? Remember Osama Bin Laden? Remember the release of hostages in North Korea?

What about the soft power coordination with the European Central Bank to stave off the recession?

Benghazi matters, but not for the reasons so many think.

It matters because it reveals how little effective criticism can be laid against the administration by its GOP opponents, possibly because it is indistinguishable from a realist GOP foreign policy. (It is quite distinguishable from a neoconservative foreign policy; some of the rhetoric suggests a Romney administration would have a chance of exhibiting the former, but the constituency of his foreign policy advisors suggests the latter.)

And it matters especially because it has revealed the tremendous gulf between me and others I know and respect. Their emphasis on Benghazi, ignoring the wider context of Libya, much less four years of foreign policy, makes me question their judgment and objectivity, at least in analyzing these issues.

If someone can explain, reasonably and coherently, how Benghazi invalidates an approach of scaling military responses to a situation and depending upon soft power wherever possible, I will gladly listen, and possibly even change my vote. You can refer me to an article or video, but I'll be far more likely to take your argument seriously if you articulate it yourself.

A note: I'd ask those who feel that military intervention is never justified, or are arguing from a primarily humanitarian interventionist position (esp. re: Syria) to alert me to such in the beginning. I'm not addressing this to you - our assumptions and metrics for acceptable vs. unacceptable intervention may just be too far apart for any fruitful discussion. Just letting you know ahead of time that I may not invest time to deflect those critiques. In all cases, please make sure your assumptions about the ethical nature of the use of force are clearly outlined so I can follow your chain of logic, even if I don't agree with your starting point.