Stupidity and Disingenuity As Policy

From NBC:
"The Nat. Republican Congressional Cmte. yesterday issued a provocative fundraising email that hit President Obama on the issue of Iran and nuclear weapons. "Iran as a nuclear power. Does that sound appealing to you?" the email asked. "Because it does to President Obama, who, according to The Washington Post, believes that a country flush with oil, '…has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations.'"

The NRCC, however, omitted Obama's following statement that he wants to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Here is Obama's full quote, per his interview with the BBC: "Without going into specifics, what I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region."

TW: How many times have you heard Chicago is the 2nd largest Polish city in the world? That was exactly the angle Obama was playing with his comment. But instead we get the above and Fox and Drudge not to mention the real wing-nuts getting their knickers in a twist about Obama's trip to the Middle East, his Islamic roots, etc.

I was not going to post on it because it is just a NRCC release and those type things (inc. some Democratic CC releases) can be over the top. But the Economist blogger (who btw is generally fairly conservative and no huge Obama fan) nailed the issues. These headlines and releases are just stupidity wrapped in disingenuity. The world is a very competitive place we NEED sophistication in our leadership not what the so many Republican leaders are pushing these days.

From Economist's Lexington blog:
"THE REPUBLICAN noise machine is making a lot of, well, noise, about Barack Obama's supposed claim that America is one of the world's biggest Muslim countries (what he actually said was that "if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world").

This is dumb as well as disingenuous. Mr Obama has rightly recognised that America's Muslim population is one of the country's most powerful weapons in its struggle against radical Islam. America can proudly claim that Islam can flourish along with Christianity, Hinduism etc in the context of a peaceful, pluralist society. He can also point out that American Muslims are a relatively prosperous bunch. I touched on the case for America making more use of the example of its Muslim population in my recent book, God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World. Pew also has an invaluable survey of American Muslims, pointing out that they are, for the most part, successful, integrated, pious and pro-American.

Once again, Mr Obama looks smart and his critics look dumb--and not just dumb but malevolently dumb."