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| 2010-06-03 |
| ...1979 followed two years of Carteresque utopian proclamations. Do we remember them all still? There was Cy Vance, in perfect aristocratic style, and in perpetual atonement for his earlier support of the Vietnam War, with his creased brow and sermonizing tone, bringing in the kinder, gentler order—resigning over the failed hostage rescue, replaced by a stoic Ed Muskie, an Andrew Young at the UN trying to be a sort of proto-Barack Obama, reaching out to the radical Palestinians, and so on. Remember the commandments? No more inordinate fear of communism; human rights governing U.S. foreign policy; no more nuclear weapons housed in South Korea which was to be free of U.S. troops; outreach to the terrorist/rebel/reformer Mugabe, and so on. In other words, it took a flawed world about 24 months to size up the new idealistic administration, and to determine that it either could not or would not continue U.S. foreign policy of the previous three decades. Soon the more daring then decided to make “regional adjustments'. Finally a panicked Carter was attempting everything from boycotting the Olympics and arming Islamicists in Afghanistan to threatening to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East and restoring draft registration to reclaim lost U.S. deterrence. Obama started out in similar fashion with his first al-Arabiya interview. Then followed the apology tour, the bowing, the Cairo mythmaking speech, the reach out to Ahmadinejad, Assad, Castro, Chavez, and Putin, the estrangement with Israel, the neglect of the brave Iranian dissidents, the phony deadlines over Iranian proliferation, the missile defense walk-back from the Poles and Czechs, the constant Bush-bashing reset-button diplomacy rhetoric, the serial humiliation of things British, the failed deal to appease Putin in hopes of Russian help in stopping Iran from going nuclear, the new loud commitment to the UN, the promises to end all nuclear weapons, the nuke deal with Russia that saw us give up sophisticated weapons to match dismantling of poorer Russian models—all amid a backdrop of massive U.S. spending and the highest two budget deficits in American financial history. We have sowed and now we shall reap, and so soon we shall endure our first postnational, postracial, Nobel Laureate president treated quite shabbily by those whom he was supposed to mesmerize. In places like Teheran or Damascus, Obama's racial heritage, his Harvard Review billet, his membership in the Trinity Church, his brotherhood with Wright and Ayers, all that and more mean less than zero. To such thugs, Obama is the face of America, and he is to be tested rather than worshipped. Hugo Chavez is not a Harvard dean; Putin is not a senior Newsweek editor. Their legs do not tingle when they hear the President, except perhaps in giddy anticipation of what they might wrestle from him. They are not impressed with identity politics; they care little for degrees or titles; they have no elite white guilt. Again, Obama is just an American President who must be analyzed, tested, and if need be dared and humiliated.... |
| Posted by:Mike |