The Academy Awards last night played out almost exactly as expected, with the favorites taking home trophies in every major category. And while 12 Years a Slave will one day be known as the film that stole the best picture trophy from the obviously superior Man of Steel—this year's How Green Was My Valley, if you will—it's a fine enough choice for now.
Some thought leaders were far more overwhelmed by its victory than I was. Indeed, they thought that 12 Years a Slave's victory was the signifier of something truly and deeply important about #ObamasAmerica. HuffPo's Howard Fineman could barely contain all his feels:
#AcademyAwards show diversity, tolerance, cultural creativity of US in Obama Era. Hard power matters, per Putin, but Oscars r as powerful.
— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) March 3, 2014
Remind me again: How many divisions does the Academy control? And how many will it dispatch to Ukraine to help deliver their from the oppression of a Russian autocrat hellbent on reasserting Soviet-era dominance over the region?
There are so many insanely stupid things about Fineman's tweet I don't even know which of them to single out for scorn. I will restrict myself to simply noting that the president has jack-all to do with the creative output Hollywood, that Hollywood has spent much of the last decade rewarding diversity and tolerance at the Academy Awards, and that the fantastic nature of Fineman's theory on international affairs endangers us all.
When I say "fantastic" I mean "based on fantasy." Just like Obama's foreign policy! Here's the Washington Post today, in an editorial titled "President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy":
FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which "the tide of war is receding" and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s "This Week" Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, "It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century."
That’s a nice thought, and we all know what he means. A country’s standing is no longer measured in throw-weight or battalions. The world is too interconnected to break into blocs. A small country that plugs into cyberspace can deliver more prosperity to its people (think Singapore or Estonia) than a giant with natural resources and standing armies.
Obama, like Fineman, thinks that feelings are far more important than actual power. Good intentions and stern words and "diversity" and "tolerance" will, in this view, trump little things like tank divisions and troop movements. This is, obviously, insane, as we can see from the more than one hundred thousand dead in Syria and the escalating Iranian nuclear program and a Nork dictatorship firing missiles into the ocean and a Chinese dictatorship laying claim to vast swathes of the Pacific and a Russian autocracy invading neighboring countries.
But hey. Soft power, man. It's totes gonna bring all that silliness to an end.