THREE MARTINI LUNCH: MARCH 4, 2014

Jim and Greg like that a new poll showing far more Americans personally impacted by Obamacare are worse off than better off will help crush the Democratic defense of Obamacare, dislike Russia seizing the Crimea and Obama's weak response, and Jim responds to liberals suggesting conservative criticism of Obama on Ukraine is tantamount to cheering for Putin.



Sally Kohn: These Republicans are "undermining" Obama by criticizing him on Russia

Via Charles Cooke, who remembers being told that dissent, especially on matters of war, was the very height of patriotism. Note that, by the logic of the opening line here, it'd be fair to conclude that Democrats were cheering for Saddam Hussein because he gave them a new excuse to bash President Bush.

But never mind that. Explain to me how criticizing O for not being more aggressive in punishing Putin "undermines" him in any way. Some hawks used to accuse doves of undermining the Iraq war on the theory that the more dovish the public became, the greater the pressure there'd be on Bush to pull the troops out before the U.S. had accomplished its goals. Which strategy is being "undermined" in this case, though, by accusing O of not standing up to Putin? War-weary Americans may dismiss O as weak but they're not going to demand a confrontation with Putin just because the GOP's unhappy. And foreign leaders already have ample reason to distrust Obama independent of Republican grumbling, from abandoning longtime U.S. ally Mubarak in 2011 to the Syria "red line" fiasco last year. If anything, Obama's Republican critics want to give him more options to confront Putin, starting with the sanctions they'll be voting for next week. That's a strange definition of "undermining."

Also read:

No One Could Have Predicted This! Except Tom Clancy...

5 Reasons Putin Thinks He Can Outplay Obama