JOURNALISM AND OBAMA’S MIDEAST DEBACLES:

Fortunately for President Obama’s short-term peace of mind, but tragically from the standpoint of Middle East peace, the plight of the Syrians and the President’s historical standing, the press is sticking to its standard “don’t connect the dots” approach when it comes to reporting on President Obama’s failures in office. That is, the mainstream, instinctively pro-Democratic media is reporting on the unfolding disaster in Syria as it must, but it isn’t doing to Obama’s Middle East failures what it did to George W. Bush’s. That is, while a growing number of well-respected reporters are becoming increasingly concerned by the evidence of strategic collapse, the press as a whole isn’t building up and relentlessly hammering home a picture of comprehensive strategic and policy failure and aggressively blaming the White House for the consequences of its fumbles. The White House isn’t facing the kind of national uproar a GOP president would face in a comparable situation of strategic meltdown, and so the President and the small clique of ultra-loyal aides who have gathered around him in the twilight of the second term can continue to shield themselves from the full awareness of the trouble they are in.

That is too bad. If the White House faced the firestorm of criticism that its Syria policy deserves, there would be a better chance for the kind of reappraisal and regrouping that America’s Middle East policy so desperately needs.

This is why, if you value competent foreign policy, you should vote Republican. Even if you don’t thing that Republican presidents are any better at it, they get more scrutiny.