Michele the loudmouth

Michele Bachmann, despite her usual nuttiness and occasional deranged commentary, won re-election as a congresswoman from Minnesota. Apparently that emboldened her, along with her success as a rabble-rouser; and now she's floating the possibility of running for president.

One of her favorite memes is the "Obama is weak" one. She outdid herself over the weekend, according to the Spartanburg (SC) Herald Journal:

"Our Peace Prize-winning president is very busy bowing these days to kings. He is bending down to dictators, and he is brown-nosing the elites that are in Europe, and he's babying the jihadists who are following Sharia-compliant terrorism. He is callow and confused and inconsistent in his response to the Egyptian crisis, and to the uprisings in Iran, and to the terrorist threats. . . .And he's accomplishing something nobody thought even possible: He's making Jimmy Carter look like a Rambo tough-guy."

Do we really want Michele in the White House making the decisions about how to respond to the populist uprisings in the Middle East? Taking the 3 AM phone call? Given the apparent success of the Egyptian peaceful revolution, isn't it just possible that Obama did exactly the right thing?

I'm not sure what she thinks our president should do when the delicate balance between two conflicting national interests of ours -- (1) freedom and democracy for all vs (2) stability and keeping Islamic extremists from seizing power in the powder keg of the world -- begin to tip out of balance.

Most serious thinkers give Obama credit for supporting the people's autonomy and condemning violence used against peaceful demonstrations, without leaping into the fray and actively calling for the overthrow of a flawed ally -- until we see that a responsible alternative is available.

We know that, in the Egyptian crisis, Obama did all that could have been productive to pressure Mubarak personally to step down and allow a democratic government to be formed. He did it without flaunting it, so of course he didn't look like Rambo. Nor should he.

But Michele and her rabble-rousing ability know nothing about complexity. It's just the Rambo mentality that excites them -- the strong/weak dichotomy, and of course we have to be the strong one.

Never mind that it was the Bush administration that weakened our position in the world in every way (economically, morally, diplomatically, and even militarily). It's all Obama's fault because he doesn't bang drums and rattle sabers on the world stage like a 12 year old playing war games but, instead, uses wisdom and restraint and does the necessary work behind the scenes.

Ralph