Standing Athwart History, Yelling "Obama Sucks!"

I respect Steve Benen's patient explanation as to why Chuckles Krauthammer is full of crap for saying Obama is soft on terror because he doesn't use the phrase "war on terror."

Can we try being adults about this? The Obama administration agreed early on that the "war on terror" phrase was lacking. That was hardly shocking; one can't wage a "war" against a tactic. It also made strategic sense -- Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained the "war on terror" has "became associated in the minds of many people outside the Unites States and particularly in places where the countries are largely Islamic and Arab, as being anti-Islam and anti-Arab."

By moving away from the phrase, the president and his team came into line with the thinking of Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who banned the use of the phrase "Global War on Terror" back in 2007. Even Donald Rumsfeld rejected the phrase back in 2006: "[I]t is not a 'war on terror.'"

And as Matt Yglesias noted yesterday, none other than Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who's tried to get out in front of the confused lynch mob since Christmas, said as recently as 2008 that the phrase "war on terror" is the "dumbest term ... you could use".

If our discourse could rise above a junior-high level, "even the dimmest" would understand that the key to national security is the efficacy of the policy, not the semantics. And when it comes to counter-terrorism, Obama and his team have proven themselves quite effective at capturing, detaining, and occasionally even killing terrorists. If Krauthammer is unsatisfied with this, he'll have to do a far better job of explaining why.

But the reality here is that Benen has actually described a far more common phenomenon that easily explains Krauthammer's argument (or complete lack of one) where logic dictates taking an intelligent and reasonable course of action, where neutral non-partisan parties agree it's the correct action to take and even some Republicans have gone on record as saying it's the correct action for America to take.

However, if Barack Obama actually takes the above action, he is attacked for being anywhere from misguided to being outright stupid and some even go so far as Krauthammer implies here that Obama is actually weakening the country and inviting new attacks that may cost American lives.

Of course, this is the very definition of Obama Derangement Syndrome.  Chuckles here has been dancing around this level of irrational Obama hatred for months now, but this weekend's column puts him squarely into the Wingnut category.  This loony screed could have been cribbed from any Townhall or Pajamas column, but instead Chuckles is now the new voice of instability for the Washington Post.  Your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen.

2010 picks up right where 2009 left off.  It's much more useful to call ODS for what it is.