The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Media’s Ukraine Hocus-Pocus

Posted on | March 4, 2014 | 71 Comments

How many times do you have to watch the same magic trick before you start getting wise to the fact that the rabbit was never in the hat to begin with? The media’s approach to any controversy or scandal involving President Obama begins with two basic premises:

  1. Everything Obama does is right and good;
    and
  2. Any critic who says otherwise is wrong and bad.

This has been the way with everything from the 2009 “stimulus” bill to ObamaCare to Benghazi to the IRS scandal, and now we’re seeing the same method applied to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Don’t listen to Obama’s Ukraine critics: he’s
not ‘losing’ — and it’s not his fight

Michael Cohen, Guardian

No, American Weakness Didn’t Encourage
Putin to Invade Ukraine

Peter Beinart, The Atlantic

Translation: “That thing you thought you saw did not actually happen.”

In the initial reaction to Putin’s Crimean invasion, everyone saw it as an obvious embarrassment to Obama.

Then the clever liberals went to work, re-arranging the facts. Within a few days, they will have convinced us (a) that anyone who criticizes Obama for what happened in Ukraine is a neocon chickenhawk who wants to start World War Three, and (b) that Obama’s leadership in this crisis has been faultless, praiseworthy and arguably even heroic. Because in the eyes of liberals, it could never be otherwise.

 


Comments

71 Responses to “The Media’s Ukraine Hocus-Pocus”

  1. SnivelingNeoCons
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:14 am

    What’s amusing is all the neo-conservative dipshits talking about Obama’s “weakeness” and foreign policy blunders when they dragged us into a poorly planned, and now, lost war in Iraq, and Georgia suffered a full scale military invasion by Putin on their watch. This is just bullshit politics to make the GOP look like they know what they’re doing on foreign policy matters when in reality our foreign policy under them was probably the worst in American history.

    YOU’RE WELCOME!

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:16 am

    So do you think the Chinese are weighing going into Taiwan right about now?

  3. scarymatt
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:20 am

    It might be accurate to say that American weakness didn’t encourage it, but it also seems accurate to say that American strength didn’t discourage it. I could see a case to be made that more American strength in the region (e.g., missile defense in Poland) could have encouraged Russian aggression, but we’ll never know.

    It’s very difficult to know what we can and can’t (or should and shouldn’t) influence about Russia…

    “Gay propaganda”: YES
    “Unopposed arrivals” : NO

  4. Kirby McCain
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:29 am

    Our poor economic clout probably has more to do with it. That can be laid squarely at the feet of our cash for clunkers President.

  5. Stogie Chomper
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:38 am

    Thank you for that highly objective and unbiased analysis. And yes, you are welcome.

  6. Stogie Chomper
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:43 am

    I agree that the Ukraine is not our fight. Putin no doubt correctly calculated that his aggression does not directly threaten us nor has the Ukraine strategic importance to us. The main thing our dipstick president did wrong was to pose and posture about red lines. The only appropriate US response to Russia’s aggression is diplomatic and economic. Of course, having a clown for a president does not lend much prestige or credibility to the USA, and we lose moral authority as a result.

  7. Stogie Chomper
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:43 am

    Ugh. That is a real possibility.

  8. scarymatt
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:52 am

    Good thing we didn’t elect Romney and start another Cold War, then!

  9. JeffS
    March 4th, 2014 @ 11:56 am

    What you’re really saying is that the left knows thar Obama is no better than Bush, but just won’t admit it.

    You’re welcome!

  10. Finrod Felagund
    March 4th, 2014 @ 12:23 pm

    Go die in a fire, idiot leftist troll.

  11. Da Tech Guy On DaRadio Blog » Blog Archive » Ukraine Obama Media defense Plan A: Deny Deny Deny
    March 4th, 2014 @ 12:45 pm

    […] Update: Great Minds & etc… […]

  12. G Joubert
    March 4th, 2014 @ 1:16 pm

    Dood. Iraq was won hands down when the little mohammed wannabe took power, and he went out of his way to intentionally give it back to his al Qaeda buds.

  13. CrustyB
    March 4th, 2014 @ 1:30 pm

    The buck stops with Sarah Palin, apparently.

  14. SnivelingNeoCons
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:18 pm

    Go hang yourself, stupid, conservative, blockhead.

  15. Shawny
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:19 pm

    What the press isn’t covering is that Obama and this administration are the reason Putin was forced to respond. It’s just community organizing 101 on a global scale. This nation has gone in to save people and democracies in other countries before. But that’s not what this president or administration is doing. They are destabilizing and creating chaos. That’s what they do and they don’t care who gets harmed or killed doing it. The Egyptians survived it and threw off the Muslim Brotherhood Obama supported and it looks like Syria may fight off the terrorists we’re funding against Assad, but Libya did not and Putin called us on the same game he saw Obama playing in the Ukraine. The leader of the Ukraine may have been a thieving asshole who didn’t do what he promised to get elected, but he was democratically elected. If that’s grounds for a coup with outside help then we need to give them a call.
    http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2014/01/29/wtf-victoria-nuland-kiev/

  16. SnivelingNeoCons
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:20 pm

    yeah, because the opinions of the idiot right are always objective and unbiased. face facts, the same people complaining about Obama are the one’s that fucked up the world to begin with. And yes, you’re welcome.

  17. scarymatt
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:27 pm

    Fascinating…so, when did all these problems begin?

    The “idiot right” (I imagine we have different definitions of this) surely says some dumb things (they’re idiots, after all), but they seem to have a better grasp on reality than you do.

    I believe there are legitimate criticisms of pre-Obama foreign policy. I’ve yet to see legitimate defenses of Obama’s foreign (or other) policy, however. But keep trying to change the subject. That’s pretty much the only way to avoid noticing the disaster of this president.

  18. Rosalie
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:38 pm

    “Any critic who says otherwise is wrong and bad.”
    You forgot – raaaaacist!

  19. Dave Mears
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:41 pm

    Putin’s moves in the Ukraine is political calculus. Our potential response is one variable, among many. It is not a dominating term, relative to the opinion of the Russians themselves. If the political payoff vs the political cost outweigh inaction, then action is required.

    In the US, military action has a relatively high cost, and things which can be seen as Imperialist a very high cost. Many policy makers assume that is true elsewhere.

    A strong president would delay Putin’s actions somewhat, but not by much. a weak one would bring his actions sooner. Obviously, there was little delay here, so one must assume that Putin sees Obama as a weak president. A president he fears a response from may put it off indefinitely, though that is not assured.

    The main takeaway is that international policy based on the relatively American notion that any military action on the part of foreign nations would be unpopular at home, or would be with a slight amount of US pressure, is naive. There are military actions that would increase the popularity of various local governments, if they were successful. If you think that Obama was too weak, and he has shown weakness, or if you think that Pulin would have invaded just as surely under Romney or McCain (or Bush) as he did under Obama, it doesn’t change the one take home aspect of the entire affair.

    The US President, his advisers, and the press, the analysis of international affairs, which the public is supposed to rely, are observably naive. It really doesn’t matter what they can claim the president could do or not do. The box has been opened, the wheels set in motion, and they can’t claim that they foresaw it. Farther, and more annoying to them by far, the right saw the possibility and was belittled for it. They won’t lose much for having been wrong in this instance, but they will lose something, and they can only lose but so much before the public at large doesn’t trust them at all.

  20. SnivelingNeoCons
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:44 pm

    if they had a better grasp on reality than I do, they wouldn’t be doing endless rounds of Fox News declaring how weak and incompetent the current administration is in light of their far worse foreign policy blunders. We can point at many things that have hurt our foreign policy going all the way back to the 50’s, but our current situation essentially started as soon as Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, and their cronies at the American Enterprise Institute came into power in 2000. And I’m not an Obama supporter, and he’s really done nothing more than beef up the failed policies of the last crew of gangsters that ran the government. All the BS’ing by Lindsay Graham, John Bolton, John McCain, etc. is just domestic politics. Their foreign policy prescriptions are even worse.

  21. JeffS
    March 4th, 2014 @ 2:52 pm

    Interesting in how selective you are in who you respond to. It’s as though you don’t want to answer the question, or offer a counter to the counterpoint.

    Imagine that.

  22. The media’s as usaul covers Obama's ass during the Ukraine crisis
    March 4th, 2014 @ 3:13 pm

    […] the world. Obama’s foreign policy of of the late 1970′s is Jimmy Carter on steroids. Robert Stacey McCain exposes the media Obama licking as yet again they try to save his […]

  23. Stogie Chomper
    March 4th, 2014 @ 3:55 pm

    Blatant nonsense. Like most knee-jerk liberals, you are long on criticism but devoid of any specifics or details. What foreign policy prescriptions are worse? In what way? And how are Obama’s an improvement?

  24. NeoWayland
    March 4th, 2014 @ 4:10 pm

    Oh it goes much further back than that.

    Woodrow Wilson. Russian Civil War.

    Those Soviet general staff officers in WWII had good reason to be paranoid. They were soldiers during WWI and knew exactly what “American intervention” meant.

    Bet you didn’t know a progressive American President started the Cold War, did you?

  25. JeffS
    March 4th, 2014 @ 4:32 pm

    PS, Dear Leftie Asshat Troll:

    Someone should note that Stacy’s article is about the media, not directly about Obama, even if they do go out of their way to kiss his ass.

    But it’s nice of you to point that Obama owns this problem.

    You’re still welcome!

  26. @RonanFarrow, ‘Reluctant’ TV Star, May Be Right… | Regular Right Guy
    March 4th, 2014 @ 4:36 pm

    […] The Media’s Ukraine Hocus-Pocus […]

  27. concern00
    March 4th, 2014 @ 4:52 pm

    Poor lefties are hyper-sensitive and defensive about their president. The entire credibility of the left and their fawning media sycophants hangs on Obama’s credibility.

  28. Kirby McCain
    March 4th, 2014 @ 5:02 pm

    Western Europe’s dependence on Russian gas neutralizes their response…

  29. Adjoran
    March 4th, 2014 @ 5:14 pm

    Well, if the Euro-weenies would wake up, there’s a new kid in the gas biz, and he waves a star-spangled banner. Russian gas isn’t the monopoly concession it used to be.

    And Ukraine has reserves of their own, newly discovered which, will some investment, will be online in a few years.

  30. Cube
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:05 pm

    So the media and Left (redundant, I know) have nothing to hang their credibility on. Wait, what credibility?

  31. Cube
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:09 pm

    That 3AM phone call may go a little differently than expected…

  32. Shawny
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:17 pm

    Well, it would have to go better than Benghazi. At least I’m betting someone would take that damn call. But I don’t think the U.N. “Responsibility to Protect” would apply here IYKWIMAITYD.

  33. RS
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:20 pm

    Lent begins tomorrow. May I suggest you give up imbecility?

  34. Shawny
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:20 pm

    ……they can only lose but so much before the public at large doesn’t trust them at all.
    Familiar with the song “I’m already there”?

  35. Shawny
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:23 pm

    P.S. Does anyone wonder whether this was what Obama meant when he told Medvedev that after the election he could be more flexible? Or do you think he was planning on betraying Putin just like everyone else he’s made promises to?

  36. lemang01
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:32 pm

    “Obama emotionally stupid because he didn’t realize @netanyahu could be his friend but Putin, Morsi & Erdogan never could.”
    Roger Simon of PJmedia

  37. joethefatman
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:36 pm

    McCain I’ve got a couple of questions for you.

    If, as many in the chattering class say, Crimea is technically Russian because they share language, should our southern border states expect the Mexican army soon? Should we invade Canada? Except for Quebec that is, I think France would have first dibs on that cluster.

  38. joethefatman
    March 4th, 2014 @ 6:39 pm

    *golf clap*

  39. Shawny
    March 4th, 2014 @ 7:05 pm

    Pretty quick to send a billion in tax dollars to a minority, interim leadership which just overthrew it’s own elected government instead of waiting until the election in May? Or is it that like the MB in Egypt, these are the guys we wanted in power?
    Congressional support builds for $1 billion Ukraine aid package http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/04/royce-1-billion-ukrainian-aid-package-welcome-news/?wprss=rss_politics&clsrd

  40. TC_LeatherPenguin
    March 4th, 2014 @ 7:36 pm

    “…Peter Beinart…”
    You had to go THERE…. (shakes tiny fist)

  41. TC_LeatherPenguin
    March 4th, 2014 @ 7:40 pm

    Momma dropped you when she dropped you?

  42. Adobe_Walls
    March 4th, 2014 @ 7:44 pm

    Do not attribute to ”malicious Momma” that which can be explained by lead paint.

  43. Quartermaster
    March 4th, 2014 @ 7:45 pm

    I’m sure the usual neocon chickenhawks are holding forth. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong, however.

  44. Adobe_Walls
    March 4th, 2014 @ 7:53 pm

    Obama thinks “soft power” means yammering endlessly. A strong economy, surplus oil and gas production and driving down prices would put a dent numerous bad actor nations ability to cause mayhem. That kind of soft power could push against Putin’s use of oil and gas as hard power. But we would have to have thought ahead.

  45. Quartermaster
    March 4th, 2014 @ 8:01 pm

    Zer0 is weak. This isn’t the only danger he has caused for us and we’ll be reaping the harvest of shame for quite some time.

  46. RS
    March 4th, 2014 @ 8:06 pm

    No applause; just throw money. : )

  47. richard mcenroe
    March 4th, 2014 @ 8:22 pm

    Here at this remove from the actual situation, the thing that makes me maddest in all this is not Putin and not even the a-hole trolls. It is that I cannot look at a mainstream media headline or story and trust that what they are telling me is actually what is happening.

  48. WaltPimbley
    March 4th, 2014 @ 9:36 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM The Media’s Ukraine Hocus-Pocus http://t.co/jFCgm2c7qg #TCOT

  49. DaveO
    March 4th, 2014 @ 9:06 pm

    Another perspective: since January 2009, the nations across the Earth have rated President Asterisk a success when he followed Bush’s plan. Likewise, since January 2009, the nations across the Earth have rated President Asterisk a failure whenever he deviated from Bush’s plan. There are not Democrat versus GOP assessments – just observation of other countries and how they react to a POTUS they suspect stole the election. Peoples who have for generations been America’s enemy support President Asterisk, while peoples who have been America’s friend mourn the day Obama was elected.

  50. Garym
    March 4th, 2014 @ 9:15 pm

    They might as well get it over with. No one will stop them.