Obama More 'Hawkish' Than Bush, Yet Better at Carrying Out His Policies Say 'Morning Joe' Pundits
Is Obama more hawkish and yet more charming than his immediate predecessor? Apparently so, claimed Times Mark Halperin and MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on Thursday’s edition of Morning Joe.
Halperin believes that President Obama has been more cavalier than his predecessor, and Brzezinski thinks that although Obama has extended many of Bush’s unpopular policies, he brings a different “characterization” to the table.
The panel harped on the irony of Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize despite his inexperience in the White House at the time (less than a year) and the fact that he has continued American wars overseas and started a third one in Libya. Liberals Mike Barnicle and Mika Brzezinski both admitted to having been taken aback by the 2009 decision to bestow the prize on the president in his freshman year in office. (Interestingly enough, this recalls an episode in 2009 when co-host Joe Scarborough mocked the Nobel committee’s decision on the Morning Joe set.)
Halperin chimed in that Obama, ironically, has been more “hawkish” than President Bush even though the Nobel committee awarded him the peace prize “because he wasn’t George W. Bush.” Halperin labeled Obama a “muscular executive” due to his continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the present military action in Libya.
“By almost every metric you can use in terms of being a muscular executive – acting alone without congressional authority, extending the Bush policies overseas, particularly in the War on Terror and Afghanistan and Iraq – hes been more hawkish than George Bush,” Halperin remarked.
via Obama More ‘Hawkish’ Than Bush, Yet Better at Carrying Out His Policies Say ‘Morning Joe’ Pundits.
