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The politics of self-abasement
FT.com ^ | Christopher Caldwell

Posted on 06/06/2009 5:50:13 AM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies

With his speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University on Thursday, Barack Obama put a new face on American foreign policy, or at least a face that the world has not seen since the 1970s. This is America’s penitent, humbled and even sycophantic face.

President Obama seeks a “new beginning” to US-Muslim relations through frank self-examination and mutual respect. The US is locked in a battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims, whether it likes it or not. Self-examination can be a sign of strength. But we should not delude ourselves that the Muslim world sees it as such. The Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks for many when he says that it is “the power of Muslims which [has] made the new US administration try to portray a new image”. And there is another problem: the politics of national self-abasement, from Jimmy Carter to Mikhail Gorbachev, is not popular with voters. It cannot be practised for long because it entails a huge – usually fatal – drawing down of political capital.

...

But the key point of the speech was to downgrade the US alliance with Israel, to shift US support from the Israeli position to the Muslim one. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements [in the West Bank],” Mr Obama said.

(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhusseinobama; chairmanmaobama; maobama; selfabasement

1 posted on 06/06/2009 5:50:13 AM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

Instead of a new beginning I would like to see a new ending.


2 posted on 06/06/2009 5:53:52 AM PDT by Piquaboy (Military veteran of 22 years in Navy, Air Force, and Army.)
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To: Piquaboy

0bama needs to apologize for his own birth (wherever that may have been) and for his lack of transparency about it.


3 posted on 06/06/2009 5:55:01 AM PDT by Paladin2 (Big Ears + Big Spending --> BigEarMarx, the man behind TOTUS)
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To: Piquaboy
With his speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University on Thursday, Barack Obama put a new face on American foreign policy, or at least a face that the world has not seen since the 1970s. This is America’s penitent, humbled and even sycophantic face.

0 is giving them a Carter flashback moment.

4 posted on 06/06/2009 5:57:42 AM PDT by balls
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To: Paladin2

“0bama needs to apologize for his own birth (wherever that may have been) and for his lack of transparency about it.”

Is BHO ever going to apologize that his mother didn’t have him terminated in a late-term abortion? That would be a statement that should make both his supporters and critics happy.


5 posted on 06/06/2009 6:03:47 AM PDT by ReformationFan
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

Don’t apologize in my name!

You don’t speak for me!


6 posted on 06/06/2009 6:08:24 AM PDT by NaughtiusMaximus (RESIGN NOW, Napolitano! You are a national disgrace!.)
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

7 posted on 06/06/2009 6:09:09 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Suppose you were a clueless, idiot, and suppose you were Barack Obama; but I repeat myself)
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To: SonOfDarkSkies
And there is another problem: the politics of national self-abasement, from Jimmy Carter to Mikhail Gorbachev, is not popular with voters.

I don't know about that. People here seem to be eating it up.

8 posted on 06/06/2009 6:09:17 AM PDT by livius
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

Excellent post and the entire article is a valuable read . This type of analysis is not available in our state controlled media.


9 posted on 06/06/2009 6:13:53 AM PDT by balls
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To: livius

One might think so when coverage is filtered through the state controlled media.


10 posted on 06/06/2009 6:27:01 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: ReformationFan

That’s my thinking, but I wasn’t going to go there in print. LOL


11 posted on 06/06/2009 7:04:47 AM PDT by Paladin2 (Big Ears + Big Spending --> BigEarMarx, the man behind TOTUS)
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To: SonOfDarkSkies
"...the photos of Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, in a headscarf; the invitations extended to members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo."

WTF? I haven't seen or heard of any of that.

12 posted on 06/06/2009 7:10:59 AM PDT by Paladin2 (Big Ears + Big Spending --> BigEarMarx, the man behind TOTUS)
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To: Paladin2

H! belongs in a burka.


13 posted on 06/06/2009 7:11:25 AM PDT by Paladin2 (Big Ears + Big Spending --> BigEarMarx, the man behind TOTUS)
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To: Paladin2; All
Check this out...
In part it was the president’s oratorical tics: the greeting of assalum alaykum; describing the Middle East as the region in which Islam was first “revealed” (a formulation usually used by believers

14 posted on 06/06/2009 7:22:47 AM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies (Obama: "Enough about me, let's talk about you...what do you think of me?")
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