Bitter Harvests to Come [Victor Davis Hanson on 0bama UN speech + Bolton and Krauthammer]

NRO Corner ^ | 9/24/2009 | Hanson, Krauthammer; Bolton

[Tolik]

Bitter Harvests to Come   [Victor Davis Hanson]

If one were to sum up the Obama speech, it is the same old, same old formula: "I am a uniquely post-American fresh start; the era of Bush and our dreadful past is over; and because this is our moment, you, the world, owe me attention and support for my redefining America more to your tastes."

The problem with all this is endless:

(1) most existing problems predated Bush and transcended him, as Obama is discovering with Iran, radical Islam in America, North Korea, Russia, etc.; 

(2) By separating himself from the past, Obama sends the implicit message to allies (like Israel, India, Columbia, the Maliki government, eastern Europe, Sarkozy, Merkel, etc) that there must have been something wrong with them to have allied themselves with the U.S. during the Bush years — and to enemies and belligerents that their anti-Americanism is perhaps understandable given a shared antipathy for the Bush regime;

(3) By staking out the messianic, prophetic ground, and his strident anti-Bush credentials, observers are going to note his serial hypocrisies, such as keeping the Patriot Act, rendition, tribunals, Predator attacks, the Petraeus plan in Iraq, wiretaps, intercepts, etc., and in fact anything that smacks of a transnationalist protecting U.S. interests first, and global ones, second.  

(4) By throat-clearing every speech with "Bush did it" and his own historic ascension to the presidency, Obama has given hope to unsavory characters — as the likes of everyone from a supportive Chávez to Castro have enthusiastically noted — that the United States has now "flipped," moving away from a Britain or Israel and more closely aligning itself with revolutionary figures on the West Bank or the exiled Zelaya, and thereby giving the impression that the prior regional order was flawed, and necessary change either will not, or cannot, be stopped by the U.S. — and indeed may be silently encouraged by America. In hopes of sowing short-term good will to Obama himself, the president is sowing long-term problems ahead for his country, the United States. There are lots of areas — Iran and its environs, the free former Soviet Republics, Taiwan, the 38th Parallel, Venezuela/Colombia, the borders of Israel, Cyprus, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, etc. — where tensions are scarcely restrained, and major aggressive players could easily try to change the existing order, if any thought the United States either did not care to intervene, could not intervene, or supported their efforts.

The key question is at what point will the American people sense that the Obama feel-good magic comes at the expense of long-term American interests — and that making some unsavory characters like our president now, will mean only trouble ahead for the country itself and its friends abroad.

09/24 01:37 PM

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Bolton: ‘A Post-American Speech By Our First Post-American President’   [Robert Costa]

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tells NRO that President Obama’s address to the U.N. was “a post-American speech by our first post-American president. It was a speech high on the personality of Barack Obama and high on multilateralism, but very short in advocating American interests.”

“It was a very naïve, Wilsonian speech, and very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy,” says Bolton. “Overall, it was so apologetic for the actions of prior administrations, in an effort to distance Obama from them, that it became yet another symbol of American weakness in the wake of the president’s decision to abandon missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and his recent manifest hesitation over what to do in Afghanistan.”

“The most significant point of the speech was how the president put Israel on the chopping block in a variety of references, from calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegitimate to talking about ending ‘the occupation that began in 1967.’ That implies that he supports going back to 1967 borders,” says Bolton. “Obama has a very tough road ahead. He is frequently taking the side of the Palestinians, who don’t have a competent leader who can make hard decisions and compromises in the future.”

Also noteworthy, Bolton says, was how Obama highlighted “just how much of American foreign policy that he wants to run through the U.N.”

“Usually presidential speeches at the U.N. are ‘state of the world’ addresses. Obama’s speech was filled with talk about U.N. bodies, U.N. treaties, and sending Secretary of State Clinton to a conference on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which would be an incredible waste of time for her. The president’s speech showed a fascination with U.N.-centric issues. Obama talked about getting past ‘balance of power’ politics. He talked about the interests that unite us rather than divide us.”

Bolton’s conclusion: “It was all extremely naïve. The president did everything he could to say: ‘Can’t we all just get along?’”

09/23 02:09 PM

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Krauthammer's Take   [NRO Staff]

From last night's Fox News All-Stars:

 On President Obama’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly yesterday:

This speech hovered somewhere between embarrassing and dangerous. You had a president of the United States actually saying: “No [one] nation can or should try to dominate another.”

I will buy the "should try to" as kind of adolescent wishful thinking. But “no [one] nation can dominate another”? What planet is he living on? It is the story of man. What does he think Russia is doing to Georgia?

But the alarming part is what he said in the same paragraph where he said that it makes no sense anymore "the alignments of nations that are rooted in the cleavages of the Cold War."

Well, NATO is rooted in the cleavage of the Cold War. The European Union is rooted in the cleavage of the Cold War. Our alliances with Japan and Korea and the Philippines, our guarantees to Taiwan and Eastern Europe are all rooted in the cleavage of the Cold War. (Interesting noun, incidentally.)

So he is saying that is all now irrelevant. What does he think our allies are going to think who hear this?

Obama's speech is alarming because it says the United States has no more moral right to act or to influence world history than Bangladesh or Sierra Leone.

It diminishes the United States deliberately and wants to say that we should be one nation among others, and not defend the alliance of democracies that we have in NATO, for example, or to say — as [did] every president who goes before Obama — that we stand for something good and unique in the world.

And it [NATO] is not the equivalent, for example, of the alignment of Chavez with Ecuador and Bolivia and Nicaragua and Russia and Cuba and Iran….. 

This one was worse: When he [Obama] boasted about how he had reversed the course of America, and those who doubt our character should look at our actions, among the actions he cited was our joining the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is led by the worst human rights violators on the planet. It is an Orwellian, farcical organization. The idea that we should be on it is regrettable, but the idea that we should be boasting about it as an American achievement is a scandal.

On the war in Afghanistan:

I think the Obama administration announcing that it's trying to change its strategy because it has just discovered corruption in Afghanistan is almost comical. Everyone has known. It has been around all along. It is not a new fact.

What is happening here we have, on the one hand, advice from our commander on the ground who wants more troops and who sees a strategy which is the only strategy that he thinks will work.

On the other hand, the advice of the vice president, the sage of Wilmington, the man who proposed splitting Iraq into three, who wants a minimalist strategy of attacks by drones and a kind of hands-off warfare.

It's exactly the minimalist strategy that got us into the dire circumstance we now have in Afghanistan. It's the minimalist strategy that the Democrats attacked and demagogued for year after year and said it was inadequate. And it's a minimalist strategy that McChrystal, who is the world's expert on the kinds of hands-off drone attack, which he did in Iraq, has said has zero chance of succeeding in Afghanistan.

Who are you going to believe: our commander on the ground or Biden?

09/24 11:59 AM

[ClearCase_guy]

The community organizer from Chicago finds the world to be larger, more complex, and more challenging than he anticipated.

Who could have predicted that? [/s]

[Buckeye McFrog]

uhh....that’s why they call it Bush DERANGEMENT Syndrome!!!

[OpusatFR]

He’s not even zero anymore.

We have President Obozo.

Houston, we have a problem.

[Uncle Miltie]

See tagline.

0bummer is right on track.

[Ulysse]

Dangerous lunatic!
“I’ll make everything new” Jesus-Christ

Robespierre or Mao-tse-toung tried also with a lot of death...And they pathetically failed.

Its time to name the lunatic a lunatic

[BornToBeAmerican]

We need to zero and fast, before we lose everything

[RexBeach]

Wonderful post. Thank you.

Mr. Obama is either the dumbest president we’ve ever had; or he is the biggest megalomaniac I have ever witnessed. He has a fundamental misunderstanding of people, politics and history.

I can barely wait for the GOP to retake the House in 2010.

It would be superb to have the adults in charge of something again - instead of these whining children who think all time and history ended in 1968.

[Scythian]

Too bad the GOP aren’t the Adults ... I think folks need to examine the GOP and realize the team they’ve been for has been and will continue to lead them down the road. What did Bush do in his 8 years, honestly? Save us from an attack? That’s it?

[RexBeach]

I meant new GOP House members. :)

[SMARTY]

“It diminishes the United States deliberately and wants to say that we should be one nation among others, and not defend the alliance of democracies...”

If “O” was seen licking the toilet seats in the UN men’s room, he could not have more thoroughly diminished his own standing or dishonored and BETRAYED Americans…and his speech was in fact a perfect and entire betrayal of the United States of America.

[Tolik]

Combined ping to the Hanson's and Nailed It! ping lists

Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.)

I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention.

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[SonOfDarkSkies]

One might expect that Obama would be ever so slightly matured by the weight of the office but his speeches show no sign of it.

The UN speech (from the accounts of Krauthammer, Bolton, and VDH) reveal his still overwhelming obsession with himself more than the office he holds.

It is one thing to be narcissistic--or even to suffer from malignant narcissism--but Obama seems to suffer from something that gives a whole new meaning to self worship.

I am beginning to wonder if he doesn't believe that he really is THE messiah and savior of the world. It is one thing to try to sell that bullsh!t to others...but to serious believe one is divine is a whole new order of delusion. Folks that deluded usually occupy a room in a sanitarium.

[La Lydia]

AWESOME post, Tolik.

[Tolik]

Speaking about adults:

Netanyahu Slams U.N. for Giving Ahmadinejad Forum: ‘Have You No Shame?’

[Texas resident]

Saw this crap coming. Remember his speech in Berlin?
Claimed to be a citizen of the world. Great.

[Tolik]

Thank you!

UN is un-democratic institution

To cozy-up to Chavez and such IS embarrassing and will achieve nothing good.

[N. Theknow]

0bama = The UN-citizen

[Tenacious 1]

He has a fundamental misunderstanding of people, politics and history.

He is not the only one, but you are absolutely correct. And it is simply explainable. At some point in his "young life" he decided to become a politician. This was, like many, a career goal for him. Since then, he has been pigeon holed in a bubble of liberal eletist acadamia. Since he was about 18, his existence has only known a small sliver of a minority of this population. Every bit of education and actual work experience he has was for the eventual cause of his career.

He has no real grasp on what life in America is like or all about for most Americans. It is common for the career politicians and upity coasal dwellers to regard the "flyover" states with either disdain or complete apathy. The middle of the country certainly does harbor a much different culture than the coasts.

[griswold3]

Remember his speech in Berlin?

That’s when my 88y.o. German mother called him ‘Dangerous’.
We are in for tough times, my FRiend.

[ModelBreaker]

“Mr. Obama is either the dumbest president we’ve ever had; or he is the biggest megalomaniac I have ever witnessed. “

These alternatives are not mutually exclusive.

[Tenacious 1]

What did Bush do in his 8 years, honestly? Save us from an attack? That’s it?

I will agree there is not a staunch conservative record for the Bush legacy. But amid the collapse of Tyco, Enron and the World Trade Towers, he also cut taxes from historic highs to lead a speedy recovery in 2002. I would not minimumize the point you make about defending this nation. It is a big deal. He took the fight to our enemy after a long American slumber of Apathy dating back to the 1980's when Reagan last took some action.

Say what you will but Afganistan and Iraq drew our enemies into a battle we could fight and certainly has impacted the effectiveness of these swiny cockroaches that are Muslim Extremist Terrorists.

If you are a man/woman of measure, it is important to note that on top of not being attached again, we thwarted dozens of sophisticatedly planned attacks here as well based on intelligence gained over there. Bush aggressively pulled out all the stops to keep us safe. Let's not diminish the things he did well.

He was not perfect, Lord knows. He did not embrace smaller government or many conservative policies (or at least did little to advance them).

[rcrngroup]

0bozo is an incompetent, asshole fool, who demeans & disparages America everytime he opens his mouth. It will never cease to amaze me that 5% (or 53%, whatever the precise number) of fools & idiots in America (including my dumb ass younger brother and his even dumber ass wife) voted for this usurper socialist-fascist-commie pig to be our pres___ent. Unfortunately we all have to suffer under this pig until hopefully he will be thrown out even BEFORE 2012.

[Canadian Outrage]

You better pray that this Fraudulent commie pig is thrown out in the next few months!! I’m telling you the guy is undoing America so fast that each day is a ticking time bomb!! Something has gone seriously awry in America. Even by 2010 if he is left unchecked, there will be no way to remove him without a true Revolution backed by the US Military. Even the 2010 elections will be suspended by his manufactured crisis. Just watch!! SOMETHING BIG is gonna happen. CO

[bcsco]

Mr. Obama is either the dumbest president we’ve ever had; or he is the biggest megalomaniac I have ever witnessed.

The man is not dumb. He is a megalomaniac, absolutely, and worse. His anti-American hatred drives all he does. His understanding is a combination of scholastic socialism and street bias. A very dangerous combination.

[Sparko]

OK, right now this is my favorite recent Krauthammer’s observation. He has a bunch:)

Here is Charles Krauthammer on the letter signed by former CIA directors asking Obama not to investigate into the interrogations. I will highlight the best in bold.

KRAUTHAMMER: I agree with Mara that it is a decision meant to placate the left wing of his party. So it's political. It's not about national security or about justice.

This letter was signed by every living CIA director with one exception, Gates, who is now in the cabinet, so he couldn't sign it, and one other exception, Leon Panetta, who we know opposes these prosecutions and is in the Obama cabinet.

So what you have in total is eight of whom half were appointed by Democrats, and they all oppose it.

And what does Obama say when asked about this letter? He said yesterday “I can understand how these men would want to look after the agencies which they helped to build.”

He doesn't even credit them with looking after the nation using their experience in these agencies, but, [Obama] as always, he impugns a personal and parochial motive to anybody who opposes him and only he stands above it and speaks with truth and justice.

It's the way he does business. He can at least acknowledge that these men who were acting in the name of the nation and not in protecting agencies that they once had a stake in.

That'd make a good tagline if it would fit:

[Obama] as always... impugns a personal and parochial motive to anybody who opposes him and only he stands above it and speaks with truth and justice. --Charles Krauthammer, September 22, 2009

[loveliberty2]

Naivete and arrogance, a dangerous combination!

[rcrngroup]

0bozo is an incompetent, asshole fool, who demeans & disparages America everytime he opens his mouth. It will never cease to amaze me that 52% (not 5% as I mispoke in my earlier post) or 53%, whatever the precise number, of fools & idiots in America (including my dumb ass younger brother and his even dumber ass wife) voted for this usurper socialist-fascist-commie pig to be our pres___ent. Unfortunately we all have to suffer under this pig until hopefully he will be thrown out even BEFORE 2012.

[bustinchops]

Tolik, thanks for sending that. Great stuff.

:)

[rcrngroup]

I agree 100% on all points...... something needs to happen & fast. I think Am Rev II or CW II is a foregone conclusion. There is no way that socialism will EVER retreat or retract on its’ own, without armed force to back. Hopefully socialism will be pounded so deep into the ground that it will never raise its ugly head again!!!

[loveliberty2]

Today's line before the UN about an obvious desire of every rational human being--that the world could be rid of nuclear arms--does not reflect things as they are. Nor does it reflect the kind of understanding of the Framers of our Constitution. Theirs was a recognition of human nature as it is--not as one might "dream" it to be. Thomas Paine of that era stated it this way:

"The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside . . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them . . . the weak will become prey to the strong." - Thomas Paine (1727-1809)

Realism in the presence of such a gathering of thugs might have been the better choice for today.

[bustinchops]

I think nothing crystalizes ostammer’s world political view better than his position on Zelaya.

[oldbrowser]

Mr. Obama is either the dumbest president we’ve ever had; or he is the biggest megalomaniac I have ever witnessed.

I thought he was a socialist/communist academic of some sort.

He is much worse than that. This guy is a barking moonbat.

[bustinchops]

And we thought Bubba was a narcissist. He’s a piker by comparison to ostammer.

[Canadian Outrage]

I too would like to see the sucker powdered to dust!! (Socialism that is). CO

[Tolik]

Worth repeating:

“And what does Obama say when asked about this letter? He said yesterday “I can understand how these men would want to look after the agencies which they helped to build.”

He doesn’t even credit them with looking after the nation using their experience in these agencies, but, [Obama] as always, he impugns a personal and parochial motive to anybody who opposes him and only he stands above it and speaks with truth and justice.

It’s the way he does business. He can at least acknowledge that these men who were acting in the name of the nation and not in protecting agencies that they once had a stake in.”

[Tolik]

Oh, Zelaya!

Another fearless leader:

http://www.miamiherald.com/1506/story/1248828.html

Honduras' fallen leader told The Miami Herald he is being subjected to mind-altering gas and radiation -- and that `Israeli mercenaries' are planning to assassinate him.

One's got to be absolutely blinded by ideology not to see the insanity of all this.

[Sparko]

I had TIVO'd that clip of Charles Krauthammer. He hit the nail on the head with that assessment of Obama.

[Obama] as always... impugns a personal and parochial motive to anybody who opposes him and only he stands above it and speaks with truth and justice. --Charles Krauthammer, September 22, 2009

[WayneM]

Se;f-ping for later

[Sparko]

It was from Fox All Stars a few days ago.

Charles Krauthammer was speaking on the letter signed by former CIA directors asking Obama not to investigate into the interrogations.

KRAUTHAMMER: I agree with Mara that it is a decision meant to placate the left wing of his party. So it’s political. It’s not about national security or about justice.

This letter was signed by every living CIA director with one exception, Gates, who is now in the cabinet, so he couldn’t sign it, and one other exception, Leon Panetta, who we know opposes these prosecutions and is in the Obama cabinet.

So what you have in total is eight of whom half were appointed by Democrats, and they all oppose it.

And what does Obama say when asked about this letter? He said yesterday “I can understand how these men would want to look after the agencies which they helped to build.”

He doesn’t even credit them with looking after the nation using their experience in these agencies, but, [Obama] as always, he impugns a personal and parochial motive to anybody who opposes him and only he stands above it and speaks with truth and justice.

It’s the way he does business. He can at least acknowledge that these men who were acting in the name of the nation and not in protecting agencies that they once had a stake in.

[bustinchops]

On the other hand, one can certainly hope his fears are well-founded.