It would be best for Chuck Todd not to dabble in foreign policy commentary since it's clear he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Appearing on Jose Diaz-Balart's show this morning to pimp Sunday's Meet the Press, Todd chose to echo right-wing talking points rather than actually offer some analysis of his own.
After demonstrating his lack of geographical knowledge by reversing eastern and western Europe, Todd went on to clearly show his lack of understanding of foreign policy.
"And this goes to the larger issue today. We’re going to hear today from Susan Rice about how sort of an overall foreign policy strategy — national security strategy — that right now doesn’t seem to exist in the Obama Administration," Todd declared.
"They're struggle-- you know -- even Russia, which you could argue, the tactics that they used on sanctions -- they've had the impact that they hoped they would have economically in Russia but they haven't changed Putin's behavior."
Actually, Chuck, the purpose of sanctions isn't to change Putin's behavior. It's intended to create an environment where the people change their leadership for one less hostile to Western diplomacy. Sanctions do not generally lend themselves to the instant gratification Chuck's news-cycle driven show demands. Tough.
Well, then. Chuck Todd says there's no coherent policy because he hasn't gotten the instant gratification Americans can expect to receive when we rain bombs down on other countries, so therefore there must be no coherent foreign policy, at least in his eyes.
This is almost a verbatim repetition of right-wing talking points. Short right-wing version: If you're not killing people, your foreign policy is incoherent.
Here, for Chuck's edification, is a brief summary of what nuanced, less violent foreign policy looks like.
But he said the United States needed "strategic patience and persistence" as it does not have infinite resources and said many problems could not be resolved through military might.
"We must always resist the overreach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear," Obama said.
In the long run, he said U.S. efforts to counter the ideology behind violent extremism were "more important than our capacity to remove terrorists from the battlefield."
Susan Rice has this message for Chuck:
"We cannot afford to be buffeted by alarmism in a nearly instantaneous news cycle,"
Had our leaders been more reflective and less reactive in 2002 and 2003, we might not be dealing with this right now.
Chuck will be going "one on one" with Secretary of State John Kerry this weekend. Let's hope he educates himself a little better before then. If he doesn't, he's likely to be schooled instead.
