{"id":626,"date":"2010-04-11T22:55:56","date_gmt":"2010-04-11T22:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/04\/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-co.html"},"modified":"2010-04-11T22:55:56","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T22:55:56","slug":"the-decline-and-fall-of-the-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/04\/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-co.html","title":{"rendered":"the decline and fall of the Conservative Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

a few days ago, commenting on the absurd and desperate<\/a> attacks on Obama by the Right for, of all things, his utterly conventional and reasonable nuclear policy, Daniel Larison asked the not-quite-rhetorical question,<\/p>\n

\n

One wonders where Republican hawks can possibly go from here. They have almost three more years of an Obama Presidency to endure, and already they have gone mad with alarmism, hysterics and overreaction to fairly ho-hum policy decisions<\/a>. Obama needs a credible, sane opposition to keep him in check and challenge him when he is actually wrong. Right now, he doesn’t have that, and all of us will suffer for it. His own party will not hold him accountable, because a President’s party never does, but in any contest between an erring Obama and a mad GOP the latter will keep losing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Where can they go from here? Cue Redstate.com’s Erick Erickson, blaming Obama<\/a> for not issuing condolences to Poland soon enough.<\/p>\n

\n

This shouldn’t be a partisan point. I am genuinely curious. Why the delay? Did the President sleep through the 3 a.m. phone call? If you think it is unfair to ask, just imagine if it were George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Actually, Obama issued a statement just hours<\/a> after the accident.<\/p>\n

If they really were just embarassing themselves<\/a>, it would be amusing. But there’s a reason that conservatives once upon a time used to say “politics stops at the water’s edge.” This puerile nonsense is harming America’s interests abroad.<\/p>\n

And as far as Obama’s nuclear policy goes, it’s heartening to see him smack down<\/a> the ignorant nonsense personally. For an excellent summary of the new START treaty with Russia and the details of the changes to America’s nuclear weapon policy, check out this briefing post<\/a> and this photo essay<\/a> at Daily Kos.<\/p>\n

And this commentary by Jon Stewart is simply a must-view:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart<\/a><\/td>\nMon – Thurs 11p \/ 10c<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Big Bang Treaty<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
www.thedailyshow.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a few days ago, commenting on the absurd and desperate attacks on Obama by the Right for, of all things, his utterly conventional and reasonable nuclear policy, Daniel Larison asked the not-quite-rhetorical question, One wonders where Republican hawks can possibly go from here. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}