Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

The Day After

 One of the most infuriating examples of online nonsense that I am exposed to is people who blame Biden directly for the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza. Yes, he has not exercised enough constraints on Netanyahu, but again, look around the Arab World. There's not a ton of people playing the Palestinian card the way Western leftists are. Everyone kinda gets that Hamas needs to be dramatically weakened, if not destroyed.

The problem, as Josh Marshall points out, remains as it always has with Netanyahu himself. If Trump largely managed to not bring about a total catastrophe for the US (Covid was close, but he didn't start actively fucking things up until later), he is still a cautionary example of poor leadership in a crisis. Netanyahu is arguably worse. He directly helped create the threat from Hamas; his leadership threatens to make the situation in the West Bank similarly explosive; his constant need to stay out of prison means he will go to absurd lengths to stay in power; his political allies are fascists.

Frankly, one more broadside from a member of Netanyahu's rightist cabinet and Biden should drop the hammer on that son of a bitch. 

No comments: