March 11, 2016

How will America survived without adult supervision?

If you haven't already, find the time to read this yuge-ass article on Obama in the Atlantic:

In 2014, after she left office, Clinton told me that “the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad … left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” When The Atlantic published this statement, and also published Clinton’s assessment that “great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” Obama became “rip-shit angry,” according to one of his senior advisers. The president did not understand how “Don’t do stupid shit” could be considered a controversial slogan. Ben Rhodes recalls that “the questions we were asking in the White House were ‘Who exactly is in the stupid-shit caucus? Who is pro–stupid shit?’ ” The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid shit.

2 Comments:

Blogger The Other Front said...

"Don't do stupid shit" is a very good organizing principal. Quantitative risk expert (and noted crank) Nassim Taleb says: "People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up."

March 11, 2016 at 10:31 PM  
Blogger VMM said...

It's my current favorite, as a matter of fact.

March 12, 2016 at 12:22 AM  

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