I have to say, though, that in the realm of havoc-wreaking political awfulness, Trump would have a hard time reaching the pinnacle of awfulness that John Podhoretz describes here:
The storyline [the administration] peddled was that the Iran deal had been negotiated in a furious round of back-and-forthing in 2014 and 2015, with the United States getting far better terms out of Iran than it expected due to the flexibility of a newly moderate government in Tehran.
It was . . . a deliberately misleading narrative. The general terms were actually hammered out in 2012 by the State Department officials Jake Sullivan and William Burns, rooted in President Obama’s deep desire from the beginning of the administration to strike a grand deal with the mullahs.
Why on earth was such conduct remotely acceptable? Because . . . Rhodes and Obama believe they’re the only sensible thinkers in America and that there’s no way to get the right things done other than to spin them. “I mean, I’d prefer a sober, reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take a vote,” [said Rhodes]. “But that’s impossible.”
Impossible? There was a sober, reasoned public debate over the Iran deal. Its opponents were deadly serious. In the end, 58 senators voted against it on sober, reasoned grounds. . . .
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Obama is the worst.[T]he Obama administration chose to attempt to get its way not by winning an argument but by bringing an almost fathomless cynicism to bear in manipulating its own clueless liberal fan club.
Update: Victor Davis Hanson says--and I wholeheartedly agree with him--that Obama paved the way for Trump. That's something that doesn't even occur to Paul Berman. He attributes Trump's rise to the breakdown of our culture, but fails to consider Obama's pivotal role in the collapse.
Update: Bill Maher, too, gets the Trump phenomenon wrong. He accuses Trump of being a "pussy" when, in fact, those who support him see him as the biggest Alpha Male of 'em all.
But then, I bet Maher thinks Obama fits that description.
Forget the hair and the bluster; Trump has tapped into the anger of white, middle class voters who see the country being invaded by foreigners, who see manufacturing being sent off shore, who see America involved in foreign wars for no reason and who see Washington to be a corrupt sewer of special interests. For these reasons, you too should be a Trump supporter.
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