QOTD

[randy_byers]

From the comments on a Ta-Nehisi Coates post on (sort of) the Cheney Regency:

Who could have predicted that surrounding an incompetent boob of a figurehead president with Machiavellian shitheads would end poorly?

Posted by ed | January 16, 2009 9:39 AM

Have you read Machiavelli?

Cheney et. al. thought they could get away with cliff-notes Machiavellianism. Fox's 24 is not the best guide to The Prince or The Discourses.

To be frank, I support Obama partially because he has read Machiavelli, and digested him partially in Niebuhr's company.

Posted by Carrington Ward | January 16, 2009 10:16 AM

I would just add that one of Obama's appeals to me from the very beginning was the feeling I got that he was going to take apart the Republican coalition -- specifically, that he would pull enough of the moderates away from the wingnuts to leave the wingnuts powerless. That was the true meaning and intent of his post-partisanship and "there are no red states or blue states." It was an attempt to frame wingnut partisanship as anti-American, but in the guise of appealing to American greatness and unity. That's also how I perceive his invitation to Rick Warren to say a prayer at the Inauguration: it is an attempt to drive a wedge between one group of homophobic, misogynistic Christians and another (e.g., James Dobson) by favoring one group over the other. The goal is to weaken the Christian Right as a political movement, but in the guise of embracing some of them.

That, to me, is Obama's Machiavellianism.

Well, it's a theory anyway.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

They do seem to be politicians with a very similar style in a lot of ways, with a fairly similar ideological position on the world. And a similar style of keeping their opponents down by keeping them well supplied with enough rope, rather than direct attack.

There are some worrying signs that both are a bit weak on environmental issues (Rudd with his very weak emissions trading proposal, Obama with his fairly dud choice for Transport secretary), possibly because both realise it is one area where it is always going to be easy for them to be better on the issues than their right wing counterparts.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

It's hard to know what to make of Obama's cabinet picks. Many of the high profile ones (in the economic area too) are questionable, but the next level down and the odd nooks and crannies are chock full of great people. It'll be interesting to see what happens when this administration starts making policy proposals.