Under siege during the Christmas Day bomb incident, the Obami huffily insisted that they do too know we are at war and that they do too take it seriously. Their policy decisions and actions suggest otherwise. This report explains:
President Barack Obama’s advisers plan to remove terms such as “Islamic radicalism” from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.
The change would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”
It’s all about Muslim outreach, you see. Don’t want to identify whom it is we are fighting, because their co-religionists might take offense. That these co-religionists are often the victims of Islamic radicalism is irrelevant to the Obami. That this rhetorical mush is the sort of thing that prevents us from anticipating and preventing jihadist attacks like the Fort Hood massacre is also not of any apparent concern. It’s all about getting away from the Bush administration mindset: “That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo and promised a ‘new beginning’ in the relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terrorism and winning the war of ideas.”
So let’s focus on the really important stuff: global-warming training. We don’t want to say “Islamic extremism,” but we have a new team at the NSC that “has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terrorism, but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio.” We learn that when “officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming.” Nice.
All of this would be well enough if we didn’t face radical jihadists who are ideologically motivated to slaughter Americans. Nor is there the slightest evidence that this Muslim outreach is helping to solve the most urgent issues we face:
Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and former Bush adviser, is skeptical of Obama’s engagement effort. It “doesn’t appear to have created much in the way of strategic benefit” in the Middle East peace process or in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he said.
Obama runs the political risk of seeming to adopt politically correct rhetoric abroad while appearing tone-deaf on national security issues at home, Feaver said.
It is, like so much of what Obama does, the sort of thing you’d expect a college professor plucked out an Ivy League faculty directory to do if he were suddenly elevated to the presidency. Renounce use of nuclear weapons! Free health care for all! Change the subject from terrorism to cooperation! Unfortunately, we live in the real world, and all that runs up against hard truths and unpleasant facts. It is a dangerous time for such an unserious approach to the world.
I hope all this looking for a silver lining in a very bleak cloud is more than just trying to look past the obvious, that as things now stand there are more people enthralled with Obama’s aura than there are those who see past his baloney. I don’t think ignoring wounded soldiers will compare to his rhetorical logorrhia in front of the adoring throng in Berlin when all is said and done, unfortunately.
Dewey was The Man on the Wedding Cake. Barack’s a GQ coverboy, in the age of “Runway” and “America’s Next Top Model.”
I’m no Obamamaniac nor even an Obamacon, but does anyone really think Obama, who opposed going to war in the first place, is indifferent to the suffering of the wounded, as opposed, on this one occasion, to having a tin ear for political symbolism?
Love him or despise him, Obama’s an effective campaigner. McCain, a decent person, has become a laughably inept campaigner. I didn’t know Harry Truman, John, but let me tell you, Senator, you’re no Harry Truman.
I understand that most of the writers and commenters here don’t care for BHO. Hope against hope, if you’d like, but don’t grasp at straws. Be realistic.
Recreate ’48! Makes a nice bumper sticker… and premonition….
I think there’s an even better issue for McCain to pounce on. This morning on Fox, Bill Hemmer asked Obama about the Anbar Awakening. Hemmer said words to the effect, “I didn’t hear you talking about the Awakening when you opposed the surge back in January 2007″ Says Obama, “I don’t think anyone was talking about or anticipated the Awakening back in January or February 2007.”
This is wrong in several ways. Most importantly, Bush made a speech in January 2007 outlining his New Way Forward. In that speech he said, “Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists.”
McCain new advert:
Obama: “No one anticipated the Awakening in January or February 2007. … I think the surge might actually increase violence.”
GW Bush: “Local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. ..Our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. …I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops.”
McCain: I was one of the first to support the Surge.”
AP: “We are winning the war in Iraq thanks to the surge.”
Katie Couric (to Obama): “Do you ever doubt yourself?”
Obama: “Never.”
Narrator: Sure, Obama, no one anticipated the Awakening – except our Commander in Chief. Sure, Obama, no one thought the surge would work – Except John McCain. Even the media can’t help Obama to rewrite history.”
MacFarland back in July 2006 had already begun to use new tactics in Ramadi and Obama thinks that no one anticipated the Awakening in January, 6 months later. MacFarland recognized quite early the success of the new techniques and realized the opportunity to use them with great effect with the local tribal leaders. Bush recognized it was working and sent 4000 more troops to build on the effort.
And talk about condescending. In the Hemmer interview, Hemmer tried and tried to get Obama to say that the troop surge worked. Obama refused like the proverbial one who refuses to speak no evil. Obama said (paraphrase): “And you’re not going to hear me say that. That’s why we do interviews.”
His arrogance and condescension show more and more – and that’s the crack, the chink in the armor that McCain needs to dig and tear at until it becomes a gaping hole.
Truman lost no sleep over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You think he worried about hurting Dewey’s feelings? Maybe he wouldn’t have done so well against Tricky Dick. In comparison, McCain and Obama are a couple of fairies having a slap fight.
#5
That’s true. Truman was a tough campaigner and socked it to the “do-nothing 46th Congress.” He was funny, too.
There was a third and fourth party, too (Wallace and Thurmond). Barr and Nader are inconsequential by comparison.
Seth, you’re right. Although Truman got his start from the Democratic machine in St. Louis in much the same way that Obama’s a Chicago machine politician, Truman had some guts. Obama’s a wuss.
re: #7: It was Kansas City’s machine, not St. Louis, that Truman came from.
If voters paid attention and had any knowledge of political history, Obama’s credibility would be almost zero. I fear the presidential race has become an American Idol contest for way too many voters.
Truman proved he was more than a machine puppet as a US Senator while holding hearings on military wastefulness, by exposing fraud and mismanagement. He showed he was both tough and fair, b/c those hearings didn’t become the kind of media circus and pure grandstanding witch hunt like many of this era – he got results because he kept the process on track and really elevated his stature to a national level by actually doing something.
Obama, suffice to say, is no Truman.
“it’s true Obama is all about show”
But most people just see the show. I am a mother of two children, most of the mothers I talk to , don’t have time to read …all they see is the images and what MSM reports on TV. However, most women have more reservation about Michelle than Barrack. I guess Obama camp need to do a better “show production” for her.
Yes, Truman was tough in lambasting the Republican 46th congress as a “do nothing” group of hacks but he was a terrible speech maker who would go over as flat as a pancake in this media age. McCain, despite his problems in front of a teleprompter, is a barn-burning orator compared to Harry. As for Dewey, lessons in public speaking provided by Lowell Thomas, he of the mellifluous radio voice, made him far better in front of audiences in 1948 than 4 years earlier. But despite a fairly resonant voice Dewey still came across as a stilted speaker, though he was far superior, if less natural, than Truman.
Even today, long after the event, students of American elections still have not fully explained Truman’s improbable victory. Some point to an increase in agricultural prices weeks before the elections that helped Democrats in the Midwest. Others point to Dewey’s display of temper and condescension when he upbraided a train engineer for a foul-up involving his campaign train; Truman’s dogged whistle-stop campaigning is cited by others, and Dewey’s seeming nonchalance as the presumed victor in the last weeks of the election finds supporters as a key ingredient responsible for Truman’s victory. Some of the best explanations involve poor polling by Gallup, Roper and a few other organizations which undercounted Truman’s support and overstated Dewey’s. And the fact that Gallup ceased polling weeks before election day convinced of Dewey’s supposed insurmountable lead rendered unassailable by the fractured nature of the Democratic party (Wallace’s Progressive Party running to Truman’s left, Thurmond’s Dixicrats to his right) adds to the confusion. I think the best explanation for Truman’s victory is political inertia: The Roosevelt Coalition of labor, the Solid South, urban America, Catholics, and minorities simply held together for one more time only to slowly unravel in 1952 and 1956, with Eisenhower’s entrance upon the scene. It was a coalition that would disappear in the decades following when a new Democratic coalition began to form absent the South and urban Catholics, especially in national elections. But that’s another story.
Perhaps political inertia will work its wonders in 2008. I would not count McCain out at all given Obama’s failure thus far to close the case. He, like Dewey, may never do so.
I’m no Obamamaniac nor even an Obamacon, but does anyone really think Obama, who opposed going to war in the first place, is indifferent to the suffering of the wounded,>>
Insofar as they’re ‘typical white people’ from flyover country? Damned straight he is. Utterly.
R.B.,
after reading your comment my eyes were drawn to the photo of Obama on the left. (An apt spot.) He looks like he’s thinking about the suffering of the wounded.