Bill Kristol writes that Obama's U.N. address "was at times eloquently aspirational, and for the most part conventionally unobjectionable. But"--you knew that was coming--"there was one sentence that gave away the fundamental lack of seriousness of the Obama worldview: 'We have begun a transition in Afghanistan, and America and our allies will end our war on schedule in 2014.' "
Wrong thing to say, hombre, even though it helpfully reveals your whimsical, faith-based Weltanschauung, which, in turn, only underscores neoconservatism's rigorous realpolitik, which comes as news to us all. Per Kristol:
Isn't this statement almost a parody of wishful liberalism? Do we get to end our wars on schedule? It would of course be nice if the world allowed us to fight and end wars on schedule. But wishing doesn't make it so. Reality doesn't operate on our preferred schedule.
Got that, John Bolton? Doug Feith? Frank Gaffney? Condi Rice? Dick Cheney? Wishing doesn't make it--whatever it is--so, and reality is here to stay.
Kristol's working theory seems to be this: Provoking faith-based wars is OK--provoking them, entering them, but first imagining and promising their almost effortless dispatch--but once we're there, the long slog of bloody reality kicks in, as it should. And we should then dig in, even when that reality makes no more sense than did the senselessness of our faith-based entry into the war.
Got it?
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