Newt Gingrich, Fox News, Dinesh D’Souza: Shockingly Outrageous

I don't know how I came across this report, but I hope that it's all wrong. I hope that I've fallen into the trap of believing some outrageous stuff from the internet, so outrageous I shouldn't even read it. Please, help me, tell me it ain't so! Gingrich, per this account, says that we understand Obama by understanding that he has a "Kenyan, anti-colonialist outlook". (Newt, the "thinker" and "intellectual" apparently having forgotten the U.S. has a long history of anti-colonialism. Hm, Newt, wonder why? My ancestors (well, some of them) were anti-colonialists, then called "patriots". But of course, all of this has nothing to do with Obama. Really, who buys this kind of slipshod B.S.? BTW, D'Souza is cited as the source of this "insight" in an article published in National Review. Really, can't we have some thoughtful, honest conservatives in this country?

This kind of nonsense, along with anti-Muslim attitudes and other growing attitudes, suggests a new era of McCarthyism? I wish—I hope—that such a thought is too extreme, but some of this stuff is genuinely shameful.

Stephen Walt on Obama’s Failures—Or Are They?

Stephen Walt sounds off in his Foreign Policy blog about the many complaints about Obama that come from various locations on the political spectrum. He argues that many forces are simply beyond Obama's—and implicitly—any president's control. A bloated military, foreign policy inertia, vested interests of elites, client states, and so on, make changing policy very difficult. The electorate wants to change policy and outcomes as quickly as a motor boat wheels around on a large quiet lake, while in reality, changing American policy is more like trying to guide the Titanic through North Atlantic waters—you just can't often make turns quickly enough.

The more I read Walt, the more that I like him. He seems to have his head on straight.