Jonathan Chait, New Republic:
[T]his kind of judgment about an unfamiliar country's internal politics is just a guess, and it's a rebuttable proposition. What's remarkable to me is that those on the other side refuses to rebut it. Today's Washington Post op-ed page has two more columns lambasting Obama for failing to embrace the demonstrators. Today's offerings are by Charles Krauthammer and Paul Wolfowitz. Neither one of them even mentions, let alone answers, Obama's argument for why embracing the demonstrators would be counterproductive.
I don't understand how you could write a column without ever once addressing the primary argument for the proposition you're arguing against. The low quality of argument on this topic from the right is striking.
In other words, make some sort of damned logical point. If Barack Obama rhetorically attacks Iran, what are they saying will happen? So far, none of the criticisms I've seen of Obama have answered that simple and central question. Not one.
For all the empty-headed stridency and self-righteous posturing, the right is offering absolutely no reason to believe that this is anything other than an attempt to make Obama look "soft on Iran." It's not even back-seat driving, it's back-seat kamikaze piloting. If the whole thing goes all to hell, they won't have to take the blame -- Obama will -- so they're free to be as stupid and irresponsible as they want to be.
And, if you want an example of the stupidity and irresponsibility these guys are capable of, I give you the invasion of Iraq -- Wolfowitz was actually an architect, while Krauthammer and Goldberg were de facto propaganda ministers. To have this pack of idiots offering advice on foreign policy is a joke and the fact that they can get supposedly "serious" news outlets to treat them as anything other than clowns says a lot about the state of our media. Apparently, you can be wrong every single day, year after year, and still claim the title of "expert."
Why these guys can even get the time of day from the media is a mystery to me. If they can't make a single argument for their position, I don't see any reason why we should care what they think.
