QOTD: Bill Maher

by digby

When he’s right, he’s right:

“Forget the Syria debate, we need a debate on why we’re always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we’re starting to look not so much like the world’s policeman, but more like George Zimmerman. Itching to use force and then pretending it’s because we had no choice.”

I do think President Obama deserves a little bit of credit here, though. He clearly wasn’t itching to bomb. (He’s more of a covert, drone war, kill list kind of guy.) It’s actually a bigger problem among the establishment politicians on both the right and the left. The right just likes to blow stuff up whenever possible. And once the establishment left starts wringing its hands over something it can’t think of any alternatives to some kind of shock and awe. You end up with some very manipulative, unctuous rhetoric that winds up sounding very much like the right wingers who like to blow stuff up. The first resort to bombing is a very bad habit on both sides. On this one I give the president credit for being willing to back off when the opportunities presented themselves. That’s not easy to do.

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