Posted on 11/17/2015 7:20:14 AM PST by Kaslin
Is Vladimir Putin the new leader of the free world?
All we currently know is that the job seems open, and that Putin has seemingly sent in his resume, showing openness to the idea of an anti-Islamic State alliance with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
For contrast, see Barack Obama's demeanor while talking to the press at the end of an international summit meeting in Turkey on Monday. "Mr. Obama sounded weary and defensive as he repeatedly rejected criticism of his yearlong strategy ... to combat the Islamic State," reported The New York Times. Criticism of his strategy has intensified amid the general horror over the Friday night massacres in Paris.
Previous world gatherings held against such a backdrop would have finished with a show of unity and faith -- participants pledging solidarity with the leadership of the United States. Not this time.
The most that Barack Obama seemed able to promise was that "we have the right strategy and we're going to see it through," without any further troop commitments, and without really doing anything new or different. The president seemed put out with the skepticism of any who might hope for more than promises and self-administered back pats: some record, for instance, of promises kept in the past; some stepped-up action aimed at destroying ISIS' military capabilities.
Back home, the media and the Democrats -- assuming there's any difference between the two -- are usually happy to back up the president who promised we could keep our doctors and our insurance plans if we liked them, and may have meant it for the two seconds it took to say so. But it's harder to ignore the amateurishness of the supposed "leader of the free world" in the context of an international calamity.
France's president declared the Paris attacks to have been "an act of war." On Monday he directed airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria.
America's president -- the heir of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, to name two early predecessors in the job of free world headship -- can't come up with an emotion more honest than irritation. The outcomes never quite match up with the rhetoric he deploys, yet he's frustrated that anybody might consider him weak, ineffective or irresolute.
At a dangerous and inflammable moment in world history, the president of the United States reminds us he doesn't understand how to be president of the United States.
Barack Obama, it seems, has a condition that makes him confuse words with deeds. He thinks it suffices that he opens his mouth. There probably is a name for that affliction, but it need not detain us. The larger need -- at a moment when Vladimir Putin seems a more promising foe of the Islamic State than does Barack Obama -- is to steer the presidential campaigners toward serious consideration of what it means to lead the free world. That's assuming we once again acquire the title.
Of the three Democrats still in contention only Hillary Clinton looks as though she might conceivably understand the dimensions of the problem -- the dimensions, but not necessarily the means of achieving a solution. Her husband might help her in these respects.
The Republicans are saddled for now, in front-runner terms, with an Obama-like self-promoter and a doctor who, though mettlesome, doesn't seem overburdened with knowledge about foreign affairs. Marco Rubio seems genuinely to understand the world's need for American leadership, as does Jeb Bush. Either man could probably step up convincingly to the plate and begin to win back respect for American competence.
The key is recognizing that France's President Francois Hollande is on the right track. France is at war. France's allies, the United States among them, are therefore involved in a kind of war new in its global scale and its perpetrators' mercilessness. If George W. Bush failed to grasp fully the implications of a full-dress war on terror, Obama has gone to the opposite extreme, pretending all we have to do is give peace a chance. Yes. The kind of chance a slumberous city was giving it last week when out of hell popped the devil.
Since Rubio has exhibited little leadership as a Senator why
does this writer think he qualifies?
Because he bases the outcomes on his "feeelings" rather than anything based in reality.
Well obuma isn’t so I guess that leaves Putin...
When Trump gets into office, he will once again bring America back up to the top of the World, where She should be!!!
And he dismisses Trump as a buffoon and doesn’t mention Cruz at all. Definitely an establishment putz.
If you like your religion, you can keep your religion.
If you like your head, you can keep your head.
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Bump
Like it or not, but Trump is a buffoon.
My vote goes to Nigel Farage ...
Contained within this statement, whether one applies it to Cruz or another candidate, is the most significant and essential quality we must attempt to discern as we examine the Republican candidates.
Re-read our Declaration of Independence and the prolific speeches and writings of those who formed and framed America's documents of liberty.
The dominating theme of America's courageous Founders was their acknowledgement of the role of Divine Providence in the nation's affairs.
In the Year 2016, no man or women, no matter how talented, can lead America out of the tyrannical attacks on the Constitution of the United States, from both within and without, and adequately explain the ideas which underlie its power as the supreme law governing all, without their willingness to be humble and submissive to the Power by which we became a nation.
Humility, not arrogance, is a qualification not to be minimized or overlooked.
We've had enough of the latter.
George Washington First President of the United States"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”
– George Washington
Netanyahu.
Putin may be the leader of the free world but he is not of the free world.
I didn’t say that did I? I said right now he might be but after Trump is POTUS, he won’t be...because Trump will take America to the top where She belongs....
Yes, Putin is. All other leaders are whimpering in the corner playing with their toe jam.
Russia is not and has never been part of the free world. So no.
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