On Palin, Obama, and “weakening America.” A reply to Jennifer Rubin

**Posted by Phineas

Over the weekend, Sarah Palin gave an interview on the Laura Ingraham radio show in which she said that President Obama is “hell-bent on weakening America.” Governor Palin made this comment in regard to raising the debt-ceiling*, citing an Obama statement from 2006 in which he opposed an effort back then to raise the ceiling as harmful to America, yet now it is something he supports. Palin took this as evidence that he wants to weaken the US economy, hence her observation to Ingraham.

In a Right Turn post today, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin took great exception to Palin’s accusation, calling it “outlandish and insulting:”

Lost in the shuffle was an utterance for which Palin should be held to account. Last week, she accused the president of intentional weakening the economy. (And this is the voice of someone seriously contemplating a presidential run, mind you.) This is crazy talk and should be rejected.

Conservatives generally think President Obama’s policies are terribly wrong and that he unwisely placed other priorities above the economic recovery. But is he intentionally sabotaging the economy? No. That suggestion is baseless and illogical. (He wants to sink the economy so as to improve his re-election chances?)

Contra Rubin, I agree with the former governor that President Obama is deliberately weakening the United States. Not, of course, in some cartoonish conspiracy that has Barack Obama twirling a fake mustache and cackling with evil glee, but as the deliberate policy choice of someone who sees American hegemony as a source of the world’s problems and thinks the solution is American decline to the point where it is just one nation among equals.

Governor Palin is not the first to make this observation, by any means. In a 2009 essay** for The Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer surveyed the foreign and domestic policies of the then-new Obama administration and concluded “Decline Is a Choice:”

The New Liberalism will protest that despite its rhetoric, it is not engaging in moral reparations, but seeking real strategic advantage for the United States on the assumption that the reason we have not gotten cooperation from, say, the Russians, Iranians, North Koreans, or even our European allies on various urgent agendas is American arrogance, unilateralism, and dismissiveness. And therefore, if we constrict and rebrand and diminish ourselves deliberately–try to make ourselves equal partners with obviously unequal powers abroad–we will gain the moral high ground and rally the world to our causes.

Well, being a strategic argument, the hypothesis is testable. Let’s tally up the empirical evidence of what nine months of self-abasement has brought.

With all the bowing and scraping and apologizing and renouncing, we couldn’t even sway the International Olympic Committee. Given the humiliation incurred there in pursuit of a trinket, it is no surprise how little our new international posture has yielded in the coin of real strategic goods. Unilateral American concessions and offers of unconditional engagement have moved neither Iran nor Russia nor North Korea to accommodate us. Nor have the Arab states–or even the powerless Palestinian Authority–offered so much as a gesture of accommodation in response to heavy and gratuitous American pressure on Israel. Nor have even our European allies responded: They have anted up essentially nothing in response to our pleas for more assistance in Afghanistan.

The very expectation that these concessions would yield results is puzzling. Thus, for example, the president is proposing radical reductions in nuclear weapons and presided over a Security Council meeting passing a resolution whose goal is universal nuclear disarmament, on the theory that unless the existing nuclear powers reduce their weaponry, they can never have the moral standing to demand that other states not go nuclear.

But whatever the merits of unilateral or even bilateral U.S.-Russian disarmament, the notion that it will lead to reciprocal gestures from the likes of Iran and North Korea is simply childish. They are seeking the bomb for reasons of power, prestige, intimidation, blackmail, and regime preservation. They don’t give a whit about the level of nuclear arms among the great powers. Indeed, both Iran and North Korea launched their nuclear weapons ambitions in the 1980s and the 1990s–precisely when the United States and Russia were radically reducing their arsenals.

This deliberate choice of strategic retreats to engender good feeling is based on the naïve hope of exchanges of reciprocal goodwill with rogue states. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the theory–as policy–has demonstrably produced no strategic advances. But that will not deter the New Liberalism because the ultimate purpose of its foreign policy is to make America less hegemonic, less arrogant, less dominant.

In a word, it is a foreign policy designed to produce American decline–to make America essentially one nation among many. And for that purpose, its domestic policies are perfectly complementary.

(Emphases added)

Hmmm: “…diminish ourselves deliberately,” “…less dominant,” “…designed to produce American decline.” I’d call all those synonyms for “weakening,” wouldn’t you? It seems to me Governor Palin is making much the same point as Dr. Krauthammer, only in a more plain-spoken manner and in the informal setting of a radio interview. If Sarah Palin is being outrageous and insulting, as Rubin accuses, then isn’t also Charles Krauthammer?

One reason Rubin gives for dismissing Palin’s comment is that Obama would have to be nuts to want to weaken America, given that would harm his chances for reelection. But that assumes Obama really cares about reelection. Sure, he’s taking steps now to gear up for 2012, but don’t forget his press secretary has said he is willing to be a one-term president to get health-care passed. While Allahpundit was dismissive of Gibbs’ assertion (and, let’s face it, it’s easy to dismiss Gibbs), I’m not so sure…

Bear in mind that Barack Obama is a lifelong Socialist, and that part and parcel of his ideology is the belief that the world’s problems are caused by the unequal distribution of wealth and power and that America’s very success is the poster-child for this. Redress demands a redistribution — spreading the wealth around, to recall the President’s own words in another context. In this case it is a redistribution of geopolitical power –military as well as economic– that can only be achieved by a weakening of America, making her no more exceptional than any other nation.

And Barack Obama is not just a Socialist, but specifically, as Kurtz has shown, a follower of the Alinsky method of incremental yet irreversible change that leads to eventual Socialism. An Alinskyite is willing to accept short or medium-term setbacks and hardship in order to achieve that long-term goal. While Rubin finds it unbelievable, the President may well have thought (perhaps only recently changing his mind) that being defeated in 2012 was worth achieving the goals he and his ideological allies share: not just universal health care and the socialization of America, but also her diminishment –weakening– until she is no more than one among the many nations of Earth, thus righting what they see as great wrongs.

To return to Jennifer Rubin’s outrage, then, I find it mistaken and that Governor Palin was indeed right when she said President Barack Obama is “hell-bent on weakening America.”

And that makes his defeat in 2012 essential.

NOTE: Lest anyone think I’m bashing Ms. Rubin here, I’m not. She’s one of my favorite conservative analysts and I strongly recommend following her. I do, however, suspect that she, in common with other Washington-centric analysts such as Dr. Krauthammer, have a blind-spot when it comes to Sarah Palin that keeps them from seeing the truth when she speaks it. Why, I don’t know, but it’s definitely there.

*For the record, this is one of the few instances where I disagree with Governor Palin. I think not raising the debt ceiling would be a fiscal and economic disaster. Republicans should agree to raise it, but only after extracting serious concessions on spending and the budget process from Democrats.

**This is a brilliant essay, and I urge everyone to read it to get a clear understanding of where the Democrats want to take us.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)