Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
"There have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive": The Apologizer-in-Chief's words actually sound like a description of the American history courses taught be leftists around the world today (both inside and outside the United States)…
During their meeting in Strasbourg, Nicolas Sarkozy refuses to send more men to Afghanistan — notice the difference in (what turns out to be) the rewritten title (Les sujets abordés par Nicolas Sarkozy et Barack Obama) and the initial one (shall we call the more descriptive title the "cruder" one, which more diplomatic editors toned down?), still visible in the article's URL (sarkozy-confirme-a-obama-son-refus-d-envoyer-des-troupes-supplementaires-en-afghanistan) — and there ain't much Barack Obama can do about it, now that the Apologizer-in-Chief been so busy raving on and on about America's arrogance and how his administration is a step in the direction of multilateralism and now that he has been so busy showing he is "eine Guttermensch" by reason of… his incessant smile.
(But, hey, what can he say; maybe Carla didn't appreciate the iPod or the 25 Zone 1 DVDs… In any event, the Daily Mail has a number of photos…)
Meanwhile, Investor's Business Daily tries to give the Apologizer- and Charmer-in-Chief a basic history lesson.
News reports quoted French men and women hailing the first African-American president of the United States as a hopeful sign for global racial reconciliation.
But is there another reason they're so smitten? Might they be imagining the decline of America and the rise of a Eurocentric multilateralism?
Barack Obama's words to the thousands of squealing young French and German fans at the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg certainly seem in harmony with such hopes.
"In America," the president claimed, "there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."
President Obama promised that "America is changing" and that there would now be "unprecedented coordination" in our policies.
He lamented that "we got sidetracked by Iraq"; he extolled the "social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn't exist in the United States."
And he described the G-20 summit he just attended in London last week as "a success of nations coming together, working out their differences, and moving boldly forward."
But is multilateralism really the great hope for the future that the president and his French and German devotees are convinced it is?
"We just emerged from an era marked by irresponsibility," the president claimed in reference to the global financial crisis.
But when he flaunts his "excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia" to begin the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles with the claim that working with Moscow will "give us greater moral authority to say to Iran, 'don't develop a nuclear weapon,' to say to North Korea, 'don't proliferate nuclear weapons,' " isn't he actually embarking on a new era of naive foreign policy irresponsibility?
The Russia and Communist China the president wants to "partner" with are directly responsible for giving Iran and North Korea the nuclear expertise and equipment that have empowered those two oppressive terror states to pursue the ability to incinerate a city.
And does the president really believe that Kim Jong-il or the Ayatollah Khomenei respond, as he put it, to "moral authority" the way civilized leaders do?
It's Europe that has things to learn from America, not vice versa.
Europe can learn that with an injection of U.S.-style market competition, French patients need not wait month-upon-month for heart bypass surgery. They can learn that Iran is a clear and present danger requiring force from a united free world, not talk.
While they're at it, they might also learn to express some gratitude for the $13 billion American taxpayers shelled out during the post-war years (over $100 billion in current dollars) to rebuild their countries — after the U.S. came to their rescue during the war itself, spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands to defeat Hitler.
The United States of America is the world's lone superpower — unless and until we choose to relinquish that responsibility.
The last thing our sometime friends and allies across the pond need is a U.S. president bemoaning America's role in the world and serving as an echo chamber to those in Europe who would like to see us weakened or irrelevant.
I think Romney did as well as could be expected in the second debate — although I keep wanting him to bring up the Russian microphone episode, along with Barack Obama's dissing of Russia and China's foes, Lech Walesa and the Dalai Lama — both of whom happen to be fellow Nobel Peace Prize recipients. (I mentioned all of the above several weeks ago during my televised debate with a member of the mainstream media — Newsweek's Paris Bureau Chief, no less.)
Indeed, what I really want the governor to do is tie the individual in with the general, and that means not only emphasizing the Benghazi debacle for the catastrophe it truly is, but tying an individual event like the Libyan attack in with Obama's foreign policy in general — to show it is not an isolated event but inherent in Obama's world view — as well as tying foreign policy (in general) in with economic policy. In other words, a winning strategy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would not simply be attacking specifics, but also pointing out the underlying patterns.
From bumps on the road on the issue of economic recovery to bumps in the road in America's Mideast policy through four Americans getting killed being not optimal and blocking out any noise
regarding Israel and Iran: All those quotes — especially the first two — ought to be put together in one nation-wide ad. And how about America being able to “absorb” another 9/11-sized attack? (See also Dick Durbin.) That choice of phrases show how unconcerned the Chicago politician really is about anything not linked to himself and to his leftist ideology and, indeed, how cold-hearted, as Ed Driscoll puts it, Barack Hussein Obama turns out to be.
You would not know it if you read the mainstream media, but far from rescuing the United States (or its reputation) from George W Bush's "disastrous" foreign policy and thus being the embodiment of Smart Diplomacy, Barack Obama's antics (or refraining from acting), have managed to snub one ally after another, time and again, from the British to the French, from the Poles to the East Europeans in general, and even from the Scandinavians to America's immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico.
What all this amounts to is obvious egotism whilerefusing to take the office of president of the United States seriously (beyond the left's own ideas of how to use it) and refusing to do the very basics (and not even unpleasant basics at that (double-date dinner in Paree with Carla Bruni and her husband?)) of one's duty as leader of the free world.
Of course, this all puts the left's world view on display (something Mitt Romney must pound home during the next debate and over the next couple of weeks):
Obama and the left must not submit to reality (yes, America has enemies, yes, diplomacy requires treating foreign dignitaries with basic courtesy, and no, you are deferential to noone — certainly not monarchs and autocrats and foes); reality must submit to Obama's leftist (and self-serving) view.
Because, in addition to all the above snubs (to America's friends), Smart Diplomacy
means that Obama has sucked up to Moscow and Beijing, along with régimes like Tehran's and that of Caracas. The Apologizer-in-Chief has been deferential — whether to autocrats like Saudi kings or to America's enemies. Because it turns out that in the leftists' fairy tale world, there are no enemies. At least, not as foreign nations; a criminal band like Al Qaeda, perhaps… But the Soviets, sorry the Russians, are not enemies — never have been, really — nor are the Chinese; after all, all of us on this planet are brothers under the skin. As are Iran's mullahs. And Hugo Chávez. Who can all live together, quite diplomatically — just like we all do among suit-wearing dipomats in the hallowed halls inside the United Nations…
We have seen many comparisons to America's 39th president. Indeed, Jimmy Carter similarly ignored the misdeeds of the West's traditional enemies, like the Soviets — who in fact, he (Carter) told us, were not our enemies (and whose misdeeds, if indeed they could so be called, were exaggerated) — in favor of weeding out horrific human rights offenders (real or alleged) among our allies (who in turn were not really our friends). Thirty years later, we — America, the world, and Iran's citizens — are still living with the results — which needless to say includes an Islamic Republic that is hostile to America and the West, a régime that sponsors terrorism while seeking nuclear warheads, and a government in Tehran that is more oppressive towards the Iranian people than the Shah ever was. (Sounds like something Obama may have duplicated in Egypt and perhaps in Libya…)
This is the leftist fairy tale: we are all friends and brothers under the skin, and given that "fact", if we (or if any of us) fail to see this in a fellow nation, the fault must lie not with their leaders but with us — or with those of us who see them as enemies, i.e., with conservatives. (Note: try taking the left's talking points to their logical conclusion…)
Thus, there is no real problem with Russia, China, Iran, or countries such as Venezuela, at least none that cannot be worked out by ever-deeper soul-searching — soul-searching on the American side, needless to say.
This has led to what Frank Gaffney called the Obama doctrine:
• Abandoning our allies,
• emboldening our enemies,
• and diminishing our country
The pretense of this fairy tale reality has gone to such lengths as hastily sending Russian spies to Moscow without garnering information about the Kremlin's spy ring beforehand and hastily announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden on the same day he was gunned down, before the documents discovered at his Pakistan home could be studied, and acted upon, by intelligence officers — never mind the Russian mike episode. Apologies have gone out to the Arab world, as we all know, but how many people realize that they even went out, before the Arab Spring, to Libya's Muhammar Gaddafi?
And then we get Benghazi: there are no enemies — unless it is us, ergo the murder of the ambassador must be due to the Mohammed-insulting videotape. Any other interpretation, unless of course it is due to Western hatred of and bigotry towards Muslims, can only amount to shameful politicizing.
To conclude: Mitt Romney must base his arguments on simple descriptions on the underlying premises and patterns of the Barack Obama administration and the leftists who embody them.
• A set of policies — foreign, domestic, and economic — based on leftist ideology, in other words, imaginary fairly tales
• Imagining that no country, large or small, is in the final analysis a foe, to America or to any of its allies — who aren't really that close friends anyway — and no disaster during the term of a leftists is really that big of a disaster anyway
• Anything going wrong in the world must somehow be the fault of America (or the West)
• A refusal by Obama to take his office seriously
• A lack of concern for anyone who doesn't support, directly or indirectly, his position and his (self-serving) world view or who can't be persuaded to jump on the bandwagon of supporters — for they can of course only be vile bigots and racists and other hatemongers.
But, of course, why should the Apologizer-in-Chief show any interest in the human rights situation in Russia or in any other place when the only thing that stirs the interest of leftists the world over, American or foreign, and gets them frothing at the mouth, is the unbearable, shocking, catastrophic, nightmarish situation in… capitalist America and the West?!
Vladimir Putin has no official opponent yet to accompany him on his planned victory march back into the Russian presidency next March
But from the look of things, he may be setting up Barack Obama as a notional fill-in.
…In terms of Russian politics and jacking up United Russia’s scores in the presidential election next year and in national legislative voting on Sunday, Mr. Obama and the United States were being held up to nationalist voters as the ugly opposition. This Russian audience (and plenty of foreigners, as well) has often heard from Mr. Putin, in line with a major policy speech he made in Munich in 2007, that an aggressive, overbearing United States is a central problem for the world.
… All the same, the threat to New Start is a first, endangering the arms treaty that Mr. Obama has called the most significant in two decades. The reverberations from the threat create a new mood of international tension going beyond a challenge to the wisdom of the administration’s reset with Russia and its insistence that Moscow is generally helpful.
Mr. Obama’s response? There has not been a word.
Rather, the White House staff has described as unfounded Russia’s concerns that the missile shield, designed as protection against Iranian nukes, could be used against Moscow’s ballistic missiles, and has repeated its willingness to discuss the matter.
But the problems with Russia are piling up just a couple of months before a U.S. presidential election campaign in which the reset was to be portrayed as a foreign policy triumph.
Here are just a couple of Russian-made points of confrontation that are meeting with Mr. Obama’s silence: Russia’s continued supply of weapons to a murderous regime in Syria, and Russian leaders’ revived talk about targeting eventual U.S. missile-defense sites in Europe with its own weapons.
… Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO under both the Obama and Bush administrations, said: “If Putin wants to destroy missile defense, he can play the German card. That is, pushing Germany to resist it because, ‘If Russia is upset, the reason is NATO and the United States are doing something wrong.’ Putin did it in 2007 with some success, and he can make that move again anytime.”
… In her Senate confirmation hearing in 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking of what appeared to be Russia’s goal to create a Europe dependent on Gazprom’s natural gas exports, said, “It is certainly a security challenge that we ignore at our peril.”
These days, while Germany has chosen to abandon nuclear energy, a major German utility is currently negotiating a deal with Gazprom that would give Russia a foothold in Europe’s downstream business, and Gazprom is achieving end-user access through its first purchase of a German supplier. The French energy consulting firm Capgemini estimates that Russia’s present 26 percent share of the European Union’s natural gas supply will be 50 percent by 2030.
… Against this background, and with Mr. Putin’s government needling Mr. Obama with threats about renouncing New Start, can Mr. Obama respond in a way that both better defines the Russian leadership the United States is dealing with and makes clear that the U.S. president is not a pushover for it?
A possibly effective method might be Mr. Obama telling the world what he has left unsaid but what is obvious and incontrovertible: that the “election” returning Mr. Putin to the presidency is an opaque exercise that the United States, for the sake of the Russian people and their human rights, bemoans — or, even more to the point, condemns.
I asked David Kramer, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights, and now president of Freedom House, an organization that supports the global expansion of freedom, whether he thought such a declaration was likely. His answer: not very.
“Beyond a speech in 2009 by President Obama, he personally has shown almost no interest in the human rights situation in Russia,” he said. “When the United States says something, Russians particularly care who is saying it — and it hasn’t been the president.”
Barack Obama … feels like he has been successful in ensuring other world leaders that "there are no senior or junior partners — we are simply partners."
Note to the apologizer-in-chief: no, all nations are not equal; a republic is not on the same level as a dictatorship!
Not least — Not least (!) in the minds of the strongman's victims, whether they be the intimidated and/or silenced dissidents; the jailed opposition members; the murdered opponents; or simply the citizens who are prevented from finding (and taking) a job of their liking, or their kids a school of their choice…
As he did on a recent trip to Europe, Obama stressed in Latin America that the United States is a willing partner, "inclined to listen and not just talk," in trying to advance national interests.
"We recognize that other countries have good ideas, too, and we want to hear them," he said, adding that the fact that an idea comes "from a small country, like Costa Rica," should not diminish its potential benefit.
The whole problem with strongmen, on a domestic as on an international level, is that they are the ones who are not willing to listen — although they love to pretend they do — and that what they want Washington to listen to (without Washington saying a word, precisely) is, overtly or otherwise, for the state of human rights in their nations (i.e., the power of the citizen to be listened to, including if he is a critic of the strongman's government) to be ignored or belittled…
Regarding Obama's contention that "It's hard to believe we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States" by talking with Chavez since Venezuela has a defense budget about one-six hundredth the size of the United States', and owns Citgo, the oil company: and how does Caracas's offense (sorry, defense) budget compare with that of neighboring Columbia's?! And is Russia's placing navy vessels and long-range bombers in Venezuela to be ignored in estimating Columbia's defense budget?! This type of context-less quote is nothing more than a pass to always go and apologize, to always go and bow down, to always surrender your principles (gracias para Larwyn)…
As Peter Schweizer reported after Reagan's evil empire speech:
While pundits denounced the "evil empire" speech, political prisoners in Russia spread the word in their dark, damp cells. They tapped on walls and quietly talked through toilets to share what Reagan had said. Natan Scharansky remembers feeling energized and emboldened; Reagan had given them hope.
the great brilliant moment [was] when we learned that Ronald Reagan had proclaimed the Soviet Union an Evil Empire before the entire world. There was a long list of all the Western leaders who had lined up to condemn the evil Reagan for daring to call the great Soviet Union an evil empire right next to the front-page story about this dangerous, terrible man who wanted to take the world back to the dark days of the Cold War. This was the moment. It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell's Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union.
Then again, it is true that such a strongman attitude is precisely what more than a few have charged Obama with wanting to do to his opposition (cf the Rush Limbaugh controversy, etc)…
The liberals' viewpoint on the world — the place where everybody can be nice to each other and where everybody could live together and where everybody is friends and where there are no enemies… Except… EXCEPT for those pesky Republicans! EXCEPT for America's pesky conservatives!!
That is why defense budgets must fall during a Democrat administration, in favor of social policies! Because there are no real enemies — not abroad, at least (and so there is no real bowing, kowtowing, and "surrendering of principles").
The only real enemies are American conservatives, and they are the ones that must be fought, tooth and nail, and fought against with a federal budget that batters defense expenses while inflating all kinds of social spending!
In a twinkling [Barack Obama] has gone from a
weakling Jimmy Carter to a modern-day George III
writes The Economist's Lexington as he compares the Benghazi scandal to the IRS scandal, suggesting Republicans are opportunists.
Why must Republicans be targeted when a scandal, or three in this case, hits a Democratic president? Were Democrats painted as opportunists, enraged or other, during Watergate and the Valerie Plame affair (no deaths in either)? Were Democrats described as playing politics?
Lexington claims (Notes on three scandals, May 18) that it was a "dizzying turnaround" to go from depicting Barack Obama as "a weakling Jimmy Carter" in the Benghazi scandal to "a modern-day George III" in regards to the IRS misconduct.
The two positions are not incompatible, however, far from it. Au contraire. In the opinion of people on the right, Barack Obama is one more leftist who believes in the fairy tale that America, and the West, have no international enemies — none, at least, that are not of their own invention. America, it turns out, is its own worst enemy.
To the left, therefore, a good leader is someone who ignores or minimizes the misdeeds of foreign countries and who, with the simple power of the word, can heal the world — exactly as Obama has done with such states as Russia and China (conveniently ignoring such things as the imprisonment of opposition leaders, the killings of reporters, the delivery of missiles to Syria, saber-rattling in the China Sea, etc). All the while taking on the clueless traditionalists at home. Better yet, he is one who travels to countries around the world to apologize for America and the West.
After the Arab Spring (for which George W Bush and his overthrow of Saddam Hussein get not an iota of recognition) and after Ben Laden's demise (all the work indubitably of one Barack Obama), we were told that, thanks to "smart" diplomacy, the newly-"democratized" Arab states were now our friends as well, that Al Qaeda had been defeated, and that terror was a thing of the past.
When the phone call for help came from Benghazi, therefore, it proved the unthinkable — that the leftist fairy tale was defective — and the reaction of the apologizer-in-chief and his White House was first to freeze and later (I am being generous here) to twist the truth.
Moreover, the camaraderie that the apologizer-in-chief seems to enjoy with foreign leaders, from elected leaders to autocrats, does not seem to be mirrored in his relations with Americans who don't believe in the same avant-garde dreams that he he does.
Indeed, in this New Age mantra, as it happens, it is not true that there are no enemies; there is one exception — those in America (and in the West) who are so reactionary as to believe in enemies and to see through the other fairy tales — notably economic — of the left.
And the voices of these (conservative) Americans must be silenced, minimized, or ridiculed, insofar as possible, and if these people can't be silenced, they must be dealt with ruthlessly. And so it was that in this atmosphere, the operatives of IRS knew what targets to pick.
Thus it is that Obama appears — quite consistently — as a weakling abroad while a tyrant at home (they are two sides of the same coin), which in turn explains why he is described as someone who bears no love for his country, or for his countrymen, or rather for those countrymen who aren't sophisticated enough to subscribe to the left's self-serving fairy tales.
Republicans have duly pounced, and in doing so executed a neat pivot
away from their Benghazi rage. In essence, the real charge driving their
Benghazi scandal was one of dereliction of duty, and the insinuation
that Mr Obama is too weak (or does not love his country enough) to use
American might to keep his own envoys safe. Now Republicans have begun
calling him a tyrant, willing to use government power to crush freedoms
crafted by the founding fathers. In a twinkling he has gone from a
weakling Jimmy Carter to a modern-day George III.
That may be a dizzying turnaround, but it makes political sense. The
IRS row is, at a minimum, a gift to Republicans ahead of 2014 mid-term
elections, while the AP row deals a double blow to a president who has
disappointed supporters over civil liberties before, and suffers from
chilly relations with the press.
More broadly, calling Democrats weak on national security used to be a
vote-winner. Two costly wars have altered that. This may be the first
lesson of the scandals now lapping at the White House door. Spend months
attacking Mr Obama for using America’s might too cautiously, as in
Libya, and he shrugs it off. Attack him for government overreach, and he
is on the defensive. For supporters of an activist government, these
are perilous times.
What difference … does it make?! erupted Hillary Clinton during the Senate hearings on Benghazi.
The difference it makes, whether it was "simply" a protest or terrorism — a word the secretary of state carefully avoided — is fundamental. (Her exact words were: "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one
night and decided they'd go kill some Americans?! What difference, at
this point, does it make?!" Notice how the Al Qaeda option is carefully avoided, with the two remaining options sounding banally similar…)
Benghazi matters because — like so many other things — it puts the lie to Barack Obama's entire foreign policy outlook — the put-me-(or-keep-me-)in-the-White-House-and-everybody-will-love-us Foreign Policy.
It puts the lie to the entire leftist viewpoint that, regarding other nations, there are no enemies in the world, we are all brothers, and if anyone feels grieved — any nation, any group, any individual — the Apologizer-in-Chief will heal all matters.
And, in this day and age, the resort to the intervention of the armed forces will no longer be necessary.
No, of course, there are the terrorists — do not forget that Obama killed Bin Laden! — although
Obama, who hates the word, hopes to convince even them that he is, and
that his America is, their friend. And against those who will not be convinced, the White House is willing to send special forces such as the Seals, but only and invariably small detachments thereof. (Needless to say, the Apologizer-in-Chief had to be briefed three times before he consented to kill Osama.)
It is not that members of Barack "A decade of war is
ending" Obama's administration did not care about what was happening to Christopher Stevens, it was that they were too dumbfounded to react.
Democrats were so impregnated with the demonization (with their own demonization) of traditional America and its (shameful use of) armed forces — its Send the Marines mentality — that it was an option that either nobody thought of or that nobody would even consider doing. ("No no, this can't be happening!" Remember that by killing Bin Laden, Obamadecimated Al Qaeda.)
Obama apparently wasn't curious about what was happening in Benghazi
He wasn't too concerned either the next morning, when after the first
murder of a U.S. ambassador in 33 years, he jetted off on a four-hour
ride to a campaign event in Las Vegas. I don't think you have to be a
Republican partisan to consider that unseemly.
Obama's
odd response to the Benghazi attack and the efforts, surely
choreographed by his White House, to attribute it to a spontaneous
response to an anti-Muslim video, suggest that his first priority was
winning re-election — and that Benghazi was an irritant that must not be
allowed to stand in the way.
… "A decade of war is
ending," Barack Obama declared in his second inaugural. His response to
Benghazi, his decision on Syria and his nomination of Hagel suggest he
thinks he can draw down our forces and avoid military conflict.
But let's get back to the No Enemies in the World mindset.
This means there is no nation that is an enemy of America (which derives in turn from the State Department / United Nations / diplomatic atmosphere, where every other person you meet at the UN or in an embassy or in a foreign government ministry is a nice, chummy, suave, well-dressed diplomat — including even most leaders of the nations themselves — which allows for American, or for Western, diplomats to say those people aren't so bad, that people is relatively harmless, that nation can't be all bad (certainly those pleasant types we meet are just like us and can be made to listen to reason), while ignoring tales of oppression and thuggery and murder back in their home countries, and to say that one's own people must be bigoted).
Only the occasional terrorist group (and even they have their — more or less good, more or less understandable — reasons to think, and to react, and to act as they do.)
Because, basically, it turns out that there is one enemy in the world, for both America itself and for the world at large, and it is inevitably America (or the West) itself. Or, rather, its conservative parts, which must be tamed, which must be reeducated, which must be defeated, which must be outnumbered (cf. the left's immigration policy).
No compromise with these clueless haters and bigots — why on Earth should there be?! why should the O stoop so low?! — which explains Obama's Uncompromising Left-Wing Agenda.
Foreign policy must be subdued, so Barack Hussein Obama can go on with his radically transforming the United States.
that Obama–and Hillary Clinton, also–have the decency to be ashamed of themselves.
No, they don't — there is no decency for the left; only for the right — which conservatives never manage to fulfill. Or, if you prefer, being a leftist is proof of decency, of righteousness, of heroism in itself.
Mr. Havel is a fan of the Dalai Lama, who was among the first visitors
to Prague’s storied castle after Mr. Havel moved in there as president,
the final act in the swift, smooth revolution of 1989. A picture of the
Dalai Lama is displayed prominently in Mr. Havel’s current office in
central Prague.
Told that Mr. Obama had made clear he would
receive the Dalai Lama after his first presidential visit to China in
November, Mr. Havel reached out to touch a magnificent glass dish,
inscribed with the preamble to the United States Constitution — a gift
from Mr. Obama, who visited in April.
“It is only a minor
compromise,” Mr. Havel said of the nonreception of the Tibetan leader.
“But exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous
ones, the real problems."
The American president would do well to heed Mr. Havel’s warning that coddling of rights-abusing nations is a “road to hell.”
(Incidentally, at least four paragraphs of the International Herald Tribune version were omitted in the online version of Smale's Václav Havel report, including the final para with the "road to hell" quote.) Even Maureen Dowd has dropped her usual scorn and irony to say that
The
tyro American president got the Nobel for the mere anticipation that he
would provide bold moral leadership for the world at the very moment he
was caving to Chinese dictators. Awkward.
If there is one thing that frustrates me to the uttermost degree, it is the seeming unwillingness, or inability, of GOP contenders — and I suppose that to some extent it involves the dread of being called a racist — to go after the man in the White House and the policies that he has championed for almost eight years.
Even this year, when, thankfully, most of the hopefuls are bringing a stop to the GOP politeness game à la John McCain/Mitt Romney campaigns, they are not taking full advantage of the situation.
Even Ted Cruz (whom I've supported for the past few months) does not do this enough — although he has been doing it more than anyone else.
Even, incredibly, Donald Trump does not do this enough. (He attacks more the policy than the man behind them, as well as Hillary the candidate but much less so than the man who has presided over those policies since 2009.)
In short: Hillary Clinton (or whoever the Democrats' candidate turns out to be) and Barack Obama should invariably be lumped TOGETHER in whatever criticism is made of the Democrat party and its members' administration of the country in the past seven years.
Three recent developments that should be picked upon unceasingly— especially when the candidate or any of his competitors (!) are being attacked personally:
1) The insanity of Obama's Iran deal, with the offer of $100 billion to the ayatollahs (see an example at the bottom of this post), not to mention the apologizer-in-chief's attendant domesticpolicy;
2) the petulant and puerile outbursts of Obama — allegedly the most intelligent
man ever to run for the White House — his ugly mocking, which can be
called akin to juvenility and childishness (a puerility which makes the
GOP's remain-polite-to-Obama-at-all-costs game even more ludicrous);
3) and evidence of the double standards of the media (no recent development, this, but then, okay, neither was/is the ugly attitude of an extreme leftist nor was/is his smartdiplomacy).
Ben Carson went for the jugular during a press conference when the media kept asking him about the West Point controversy.
I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama,
when he was running, in fact I remember just the opposite, I remember
people just said, "oh we won't really talk about that relationship, oh, Frank Marshall Davis,
oh we don't want to talk about that, Bernadine Dorne, Bill Ayers, we
don't want to know about that, all the things Jeremiah Wright was
saying, ehh not a big problem.
Goes to Occidental college, doesn't do all that well, somehow ends up at Columbia University, I dunno.
His records are sealed." Why are his records sealed? You're not
interested in that? Can somebody tell me why? I'm asking you why are
they sealed? Don't change the subject. Will someone tell me please why
you have not investigated that.
Something with the words "a scholarship was offered" is a big deal, but
the president of the U.S. his academic records being sealed is not. Tell
me how there is equivalency there. Tell me somebody, please.
Because you see, what you're not going to find with me is somebody who
is going to sit back and be completely unfair without letting the
American people know what is going on; the American people are waking up
to your games.
Ben Carson should be taking on Obama all the time. As should all the others. But as far as I can tell, the surgeon stopped doing it.
They should also be getting to the root of an issue.
For instance, the only real news about the "controversy"
of Ben Carson's not advocating a Muslim for president is not the
content of that very statement, but — and any of the candidates could have picked up on this — the apparent dread of liberals and their media brethren to the horrific idea of
having a Christian, i..e., an average, everyday American (never mind an
evangelical Christian), for president.
Regarding a recent Donald Trump outburst, Paul Ryan intoned that
This is not
conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands
for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.
We need to aggressively take on radical Islamic terrorism but not at the expense of our American values.
First of all, with regards to Ronald Reagan's dictum on remaining united, offhand I do not have too much issue (relatively speaking) with attacks on fellow Republicans. But by all means, follow it up with an "on the flip side", with an attack on the Democrats — and by that I mean, not just on Barack Obama, and I mean, not just on Hillary Clinton (or on Bernie Sanders); I mean, follow it up with an attack on both of them, on all of them, together. (Actually, an attack means little more than a neutral and objective description.)
So Paul Ryan attacks Trump for not understanding what America stand for. Fine. By all means, do so. But, at the same time, follow up the above statement with something to this effect:
[To the credit of all our candidates, however — and I mean all of them — not one of them has referred to any member of the opposition party as terrorists or the equivalent of Iran's religious fanatics. Nor, indeed, has any of them mentioned the Democrats as the worst enemies of their career.]
An aside: Often I have wondered what was the best comeback — the best succinct comeback — on issues raised by liberals.
On the issue of gun control, and how well it works in those Western European countries we should always be seeking to emulate, I came up with one three or four years ago. Last week the New York Times published it as a response to their "Gun Epidemic in America" editorial.
Through the years, I have also often thought about what might be the best response to being called a racist, a bigot, a fascist, or a homophobe or being told "you are full of sh1t." (Thank the person. Profusely.)
Returning to our candidates: I would to say that the perfect candidate would
refrain, should refrain, as best as possible, from attacking his fellow
Republicans all the other candidate. Even if they attack him (or her),
he (or she) will look better to the voters if, au contraire, (s)he continuously defends all the others (Marco Rubio showed this brilliantly in his comeback to Jeb Bush (“My
campaign is going to be about the future of America, it is not going to be
attacking anyone else on this stage; I will continue to have tremendous
admiration and respect for governor Bush”).) Even if, to be entirely honest, no one can deny that there is some degree of weasel-ness involved… It may also have been Marco Rubio who stated that anyone on this stage would be better than Hillary Clinton or than any Democrat…
In any case, I have never loved Marco Rubio more than during the third Republican presidential debate when he pointed out that
the Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC. It's called the mainstream
media … And I'll tell you why. Last week, Hillary
Clinton went before a committee. She admitted, she had sent e-mails to
her family saying, "Hey, this attack at Benghazi was caused by Al
Qaida-like elements." She spent over a week telling the families of
those victims and the American people that it was because of a video.
And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest
week in Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was the week she got exposed as a liar. It was the week that she got exposed as a liar... But she has her super PAC helping her out — the American mainstream media.
It was brilliant.
Almost. Almost brilliant.
The Florida senator should have mentioned the apologizer-in-chief's name too, and should have hammered it home. Again and again. And again.
Witness the outburst, rewritten:
… the Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC. It's called the mainstream
media … And I'll tell you why. Last week, Hillary
Clinton went before a committee. She admitted she had sent e-mails to
her family saying, "Hey, this attack at Benghazi was caused by Al
Qaida-like elements." She [and Barack Obama] spent over a week telling the families of
those victims and the American people that it was because of a video.
And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest
week in Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was the week she [and Obama] got exposed as [liars]. It was the week that [they] got exposed as [liars]... But she [and Obama have their]
super PAC helping [them] out — the American mainstream media. [Obama and Hillary lied to the American people, Obama and Hillary lied to the international community (the apologizer-in-chief repeated the lie six or seven times in an address before the United Nations), and Obama and Hillary lied to you people in the MSM. And you know what? You couldn't care less. You didn't care then. And you don't care now.]
Or perhaps that meme should be turned around: Americans died, Obama lied.
How 'bout:
Americans died, Obama lied, Hillary denied.
If, like me, you have been made angry about Barack Obama's mocking Republican candidates as not being able to "handle a bunch o' CNBC moderators" and wondering what kind of comeback would be best to counter that childish behavior with, well, finally it struck me: the best thing would have been effectively to act — to have acted — preemptively.
How well would Obama's bogus charge have played, even with his own base, had Rubio mentioned his name as well every time he charged the media of being indifferent to Hillary's actions, actions which were not only failures but lies?
Would Obama even have dared make the mockery in the face of such a statement? (Quite possibly — given the media double standards — but it would have looked much less convincing to the average voter…)
Finally, with regards to the three points above, the sentence I would like to hear a candidate, several hopefuls, all contenders say a variation of over and over again (the Republican names in the sentence depend on who is speaking, obviously—indeed, this is one more thing that Paul Ryan could have, should have, added to the end of his bromide against Donald Trump):
[We keep hearing how Barack Obama was, is, one of the most intelligent people to enter the White House, and a man who keeps appealing to, and lecturing, the American people to use common sense solutions. I suppose that is because neither I [whichever candidate is speaking], nor Ted Cruz, nor either of the Bush brothers, nor even Donald Trump would ever dream of bestowing a gift of not $100 million, not $1 billion, not $10 billion, but $100 billion to the ayatollahs of a country whose leaders regularly lead the people in chanting "Death to America!" and "Death to the West!"]
Addressing Barack Obama with the familiar "tu" (nice how BHO's "new direction" is leading to more respect for the United States as well as for his own person, n'est-ce pas?), Le Monde's Hervé Kempf has figured out the reason why BHO won the Nobel Peace Prize: the Apologizer-in-Chief will be heading for Oslo, meaning that (since Norway is neighbor to Denmark) he will be right next to Copenhagen at the exact same time that the UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in the Danish capital — a summit to which he will invariably be invited — and having the moral obligation to go (back) there, he is likely to (in Hervé Kempf's words) "shake opinion in your country" and sign (on to) the global climate deal.
Les jurés t'ont décerné le Nobel de la paix pour que tu viennes à Copenhague, lors de la conférence mondiale sur le climat. Recevant le prix à Oslo, le 10 décembre, tu seras moralement obligé d'aller à Copenhague dans la foulée, et de signer l'accord. Les jurés d'Oslo t'invitent à forcer ta nature de compromis, à bousculer l'opinion de ton pays. Ils pensent que la paix du monde dans les décennies à venir va se jouer là, à Copenhague, et que les Etats-Unis, donc toi, en détiennent la clé.
“If the whole world comes to Copenhagen and leaves without making the needed political agreement, then I think it’s a failure that is not just about climate. Then it’s the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century. And that is and should not be a possibility. It’s not an option,” Connie Hedegaard tells cop15.dk in an interview.
She calls Copenhagen a “window of opportunity” which should not be missed, arguing that it may take years to rebuild the momentum.
“If we don’t deliver in Copenhagen, then I cannot see when again you can build up a similar pressure on all the governments of this world to deliver. So I think we should be very, very cautious not to miss the opportunity,” says Hedegaard, adding that “it would be irresponsible not to use the momentum now”.
The momentum would seem, deliberately or otherwise, to get the Apologizer-in-Chief involved by any and all means possible. As Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote, the
Nobel Prize is really Obama's payback for disciplining the unruly United States and taming it to be a member of the European family of nations. Europe wants to reverse the American Revolution and re-colonize us, and it sees in Obama a kindred spirit willing to do its bidding.
Is it possible that Obama's reluctance to interfere in the Libyan crisis has something to do with secrets?
asks fellow blogger Damien, for reasons that will soon become clear…
Instapundit quotes Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating as reporting on the Qaddafi régime's response to the French government's recognition of Libya's rebel forces.
Saif al-Islam: “Sarkozy must first give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people.”
If Muammar Qaddafi used his oil revenues to help finance a candidate in a French election, overtly or covertly, what are the chances that he at least tried doing something similar regarding an election campaign taking place inside the world's superpower? Today, that is little more than speculation…
But recall the transparency problems regarding how the Barack Obama campaign got its contributions and the fog surrounding whom exactly he got his money from (sounds kinda like the unions' way of raising funds), including from foreigners living abroad… To return to the accusations against France, Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating states, rightly, that
Saif isn't exactly brimming with credibility at this point, but this isn't the first time these sorts of accusations have been made against Sarkozy. … It will be interesting to see if Saif can back up his big accusations.
In the wake of the toppling of the Afghanistan and Iraq régimes, how far-fetched is it for people in some quarters of the world to prefer to have a man (or a woman) in the White House who would be less a Bush or a Reagan or a McCain (or a Palin) and more a head of state in the Jimmy Carter mold, such as the Democrats' Obama, who would indeed go on to prove, once he was in the Oval Office, to be less of a Commander-in-Chief than an Apologizer-in-Chief…
And, as it turns out, there is more than a little evidence to back up the speculation: back in June 2008, E-nough's Damien reported on a speech (broadcast and translated by Memritv), which was held by none other than the "Brotherly Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". (We will look away from Gaddafi's birther credentials, even though from his perspective, calling Obama a Kenyan, an African, and/or a Muslim is hardly a smear — far from it.)
There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.
The second year of President Obama's foreign-policy and national-security management continued the pattern of decline established in his first year
editorializes Washington Times as it turns out that the Obama administration is ramping up its secret war on terror and as the paper notes that the "total deaths in Afghanistan in 2010 are greater than the sum of the deaths suffered in the first seven years of the war, a period the president reflexively derides as a failure.".
The unbridled and naive optimism that ill-served the country in Mr. Obama's failed freshman outing gave way to a sense of policy drift in 2010. Even the president began to question whether the United States should maintain its primary global leadership role.
My only problem with this editorial is the language in the previous sentence, "Even the president began to question…" The whole point about a self-proclaimed (and proud) alarmist of Obama's bent is that his raison d'être is believing in the sins and in the guilt of America and/or the West, forming his entire outlook and making him tick in the first place, so that he can take on their illegitimate and unjust dominance over the rest of the world… Thus a leftist would not only "question whether the United States should maintain its primary global leadership role", he would outright oppose that role. Hence Obama's own role — as Apologizer-in-Chief…
…Now the White House is on the verge of declaring defeat and issuing an executive order affirming the unlimited detention of terror suspects. Mr. Obama is learning the price a president pays when lofty rhetoric meets hard reality.
Mr. Obama's unprecedented outreach to the global Muslim community has gone bust. Despite continued obsequious gestures in their direction, [the] effort has had no impact in reducing the threat of international terrorism and has engendered a sense of American weakness in the region.
…The Middle East peace process is no farther along than it had been a year ago. … Mr. Obama's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, which was characterized as "a down payment" for future achievement, remains frozen in escrow.
The war in Afghanistan continued with mixed results. … The total deaths in Afghanistan in 2010 are greater than the sum of the deaths suffered in the first seven years of the war, a period the president reflexively derides as a failure.
…The year saw no solid progress in dealing with the threats posed by the North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs.
…The politically wounded president enjoyed two last-minute victories when the lame-duck Congress flew to his rescue by ratifying the New START nuclear-arms treaty and repealing the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military. These were only victories for Mr. Obama on the domestic political scene. The START agreement will weaken the U.S. nuclear deterrent and hamper future missile-defense deployments. Having openly homosexual troops will be devastating to morale in the armed forces, and in practice the new policy's implementation will lead to the establishment of a privileged homosexual protected class with ramifications that will reach beyond military service.
…Other notable events include the administration's failure to rally the international community to impose global energy restrictions to counter purported global warming - a White House letdown that was a victory for everyone but climate alarmists - and continuing to expand the use of drone strikes against terrorists, a sensible policy that is generating low level murmurs of "war crimes" among Mr. Obama's disappointed former supporters in the peace movement.
During his trip to India in November, Mr. Obama acknowledged and accepted America's decline. "For most of my lifetime," he said, "the U.S. was such an enormously dominant economic power ... that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms." Now those days are over, which the president considers a good thing. Our nation also faces increased political competition from assertive rogue states, a resurgent Russia, looming China acquiring more U.S. debt and a variety of challenges the Obama national-security team has shown no ability to confront effectively. Mr. Obama would have us believe that American decline on his watch is inevitable, but he is as much its cause as its casualty.
I'm not a Donald Trump fan — far from it [update: this is something that will change, radically, after January 2017] — but don't you agree how sensational it is that Americans — that we all, all over the Western world
(how lucky we all are!) — have vigilant East Coast politicians,
along with vigilant European leaders and
the vigilant members of the mainstream media, both in America and abroad,
to warn us of all the threatening ways in which The Donald is akin to Adolf Hitler?!
Thank God we have these intelligent people to see that truth and to keep us dulyinformed!
Just like… throughout the early 2000s, we were lucky enough to be warned that Dubya was akin to Adolf Hitler…
Just like… in 1980, we were lucky enough to be warned that Ronald Reagan was akin to Adolf Hitler…
Just like… in 2003 and in the early 1960s, we were lucky enough to be warned that Arnold Schwarzenegger (in California alone) and Barry Goldwater, respectively, were akin to Adolf Hitler…
In 2007 and 2008, we were told that John McCain was one of the least extremist of the GOP's candidates — until Republicans dutifully chose him as the GOP's candidate, after which he too… became… Adolf Hitler.
Actually, it is not always, or not only, Adolf Hitler; it is also hateful, fear-mongering, dumb, and/or clueless (think of SarahPalin).
Back in the 1950s, a World War II general was by sought by both parties for candidate to president. Until the day that Eisenhower chose to join the Republican party. Overnight, by the strangest of coincidences, the war hero became a clueless illiterate doofus.
Have you noticed something odd? All the(se) Hitlers happen, by the strangest of coincidences, to come from one party — the Republican Party.
You know — I hate to admit this — but sometimes I get the impression — I don't know why — sometimes I get the impression that calling Republicans Adolf Hitler is not a factual, objective, non-partisan observation but simply an automatic response by Democrats and Europeans alike arising as automatons in calling whoever is a conservative Americans a clueless, racist, and fascist being of the foulest of sorts.
But… not to worry; then I remember that the people making those calls (both in America and in Europe) are the most intelligent people who ever lived, the most compassionate people who ever lived, the most tolerant people who ever lived, the people most open to debate and discussion who ever lived, and then I know that I should refrain from entertaining such baseless suspicions…
You know, America is always in danger of being overtaken by (neo-)fascists,
we constantly hear,
and listening to people like Barack Obama and/or his supporters,
I have come to understand what it will take to avoid that dismal fate.
• The Republican Party ought to be outlawed and banned — once and for all
(or, conversely, the party should be either rendered toothless
or filled with professional politicians who basically agree
on most issues with the reigning Democrats)
• In effect, America should become a one-party state
(not to worry, it would be a one-party state with the intelligent, compassionate,
tolerant members of the Democratic Party — and their counterparts in the at-best-now-toothless GOP —
ever finding new ways to make life better for the people)
• Barack Obama should become president for life
(why not? isn't he the most intelligent man — the most intelligent being — to ever enter the White House?
Just look at how lucky, over the past seven years,
Americans have been to have — finally — gotten:
as many laws and rules as the Europeans,
as many taxes as the Europeans, and
as many bureaucrats as the Europeans;
Just see how, thanks to the apologizer-in-chief's smartdiplomacy, much safer the world is in 2016 than in 2008
(remember the crazy clueless cowboy at a time when no one respected America?!),
with the Kremlin now tamed, Beijing no longer a threat to any neighbor,
and the Islamists of the Middle East now embracing civilized
values and engaged in showing mutual respect for the USA and the West)
• The — hateful — members of the (now defunct or now toothless) GOP should be barred from participating in elections…
• and,
in order to understand all the good that Obama (or whatever member of the Democrat Party
is in the White House) is doing for them, these hateful enemies of the people
(isn't that the best expression for them?!) should be forced, for their own good
(as well as that of their fellow Americans), out of American life and into reeducation centers; we're obviously talking about Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and everybody who would vote for them, as well as all people working at Fox News…
• And if that doesn't help, in order to get rid of their hatred and other mental disorders
(such as religion or the insane belief and obvious lie that the ordinary citizen
can get along fine through life without the intervention of the state's functionaries),
these enemies of the people should be (more or less forcefully) committed to various mental hospitals where,
even if their mental health is not improved, they will at least no longer pose a threat to the American population.
If all those things were to pass (if I understand correctly), then the United States will no longer be in danger of becoming a totalitarian state!
Update: Back in 2012, Newsweek Columnist Likened a Republican candidate's wife (!) — the "Insufferable" Ann Romney — to Hitler, Stalin
(thanks to Ed Driscoll)
… every Republican presidential candidate, from Thomas Dewey (smeared as a Nazi by no less than Harry Truman)
to the present will be attacked by the left in this fashion, no matter
his temperament, or his small government, libertarian bona fides. … In his 1944 State of the Union address, FDR smeared the laissez–faire Coolidge era of the 1920s as “the spirit of fascism”
"I should have focused solely on our concern about the term jihad, which has since been clarified by the Libyan government," Mr Crowley added.
"I understand my personal comments were perceived as a personal attack on the president," he said.
"These comments do not reflect US policy and were not intended to offend. I apologise if they were taken that way."
Perceived as a personal attack on the tyrant the president… That, in the 1980s, was exactly what Ronald Reagan intended and exactly what Gaddafi deserved (and… still does deserve)…
During their meeting in Strasbourg, Nicolas Sarkozy refuses to send more men to Afghanistan — notice the difference in (what turns out to be) the rewritten title (Les sujets abordés par Nicolas Sarkozy et Barack Obama) and the initial one (shall we call the more descriptive title the "cruder" one, which more diplomatic editors toned down?), still visible in the article's URL (sarkozy-confirme-a-obama-son-refus-d-envoyer-des-troupes-supplementaires-en-afghanistan) — and there ain't much Barack Obama can do about it, now that the Apologizer-in-Chief been so busy raving on and on about America's arrogance and how his administration is a step in the direction of multilateralism and now that he has been so busy showing he is "eine Guttermensch" by reason of… his incessant smile."In America," the president claimed, "there's a failure to appreciate
But when he flaunts his "excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia" to begin the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles with the claim that working with Moscow will "give us greater moral authority to say to Iran, 'don't develop a nuclear weapon,' to say to North Korea, 'don't proliferate nuclear weapons,' " isn't he actually embarking on a new era of naive foreign policy irresponsibility?
