Obama's European Vacation

I think Chevy Chase would have represented America better than President Obama.

When is this man going to figure out that he is the President of the United States, instead of the panderer in chief and blamer-of-others-especially-Bush in chief.

To wit:

Krauthammer’s Take On Obama’s European tour:

Where does one begin? Obama says in America there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.

Maybe that's because when there was a civil war in Europe's doorstep in the Balkans and genocide it didn't lift a finger until America led.

Maybe it's because there was an invasion in Kuwait it didn't lift a finger until America led.

Maybe it's because with America spending over half a trillion a year keeping open the sea lanes and defending the world, Europe is spending pennies on defense.

It's hard to appreciate an entity's leading role in the world when it's been sucking on your tit for 60 years as Europe has with regard to the United States, parasitically….

And then he goes on and calls America arrogant, dismissive, and derisive regarding Europe. "The London Telegraph," a correspondent in Strasbourg, said this was the most critical remarks he had ever seen a president give on foreign soil, and I think he's right.
When Kennedy arrived in Paris, he did not attack Eisenhower and the United States. When Obama's elected president, he is president of all of the United States, including Americans who opposed him, and he owns American history, including a past he may not have wanted to engage in.

I think what he did is, in order to gain the adoration of the crowd, he denigrated his country in a way that I think is disgraceful.


"Yes, We Can!’ Is Diplomacy, Borrowing is Stimulus . . . [Victor Davis Hanson]

. . . and we all live happy ever after.

I think Obama has mastered a sort of two-step that will win as many accolades in the short term as it will eventually grate in the long run: Here at home we’ve become used to the doublespeak that the sober cure for past massive debt, spending, and cheap money is the tough future medicine of more massive debt, spending, and cheap money. Now abroad we’re seeing the same sort of two-step from Obama:

(1) A “they did it” habit of faulting America’s recent past (and George W. Bush in particular) for everything from causing the financial meltdown to being gratuitously insensitive to Europe — almost immediately followed by constant magnanimous qualifiers like, “I’m a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.”

(2) Acquiesence to the fact that Europe’s combat troops will soon be out of Afghanistan, that Germany won’t be stimulating anything, that France will be seeing a transnational financial regulator, that Russia won’t have to worry about Eastern European missile defense (or much of anything else), that Turkey has legitimate concerns over the Danish failure to censure the free expression of its citizens — all while dressing up this lack of international leadership in the therapeutic language of a new sort of American “multilateralism,” “diplomacy,” “listening,” “dialogue,” and “consensus.”


Obama in Turkey [Michael Rubin]

There is nothing wrong with outreach. However, Turkey should be treated as a democracy, not just as the representative of the Muslim world. Indeed, the phrase "Muslim world" is troubling, as it assumes a uniform Muslim identity and betrays those who seek individual or national identity. President Obama also misunderstands, again, some of the problems. Difficulties in the past, have not been for lack of listening. We have listened, and both sides understand the problems. This does not mean the difficulties are bridgeable just through listening or respect. Indeed, if a conflict exists between Western liberal notions of freedom of expression and Islamist sensitivity, we should not undercut our freedoms simply for the sake of respect. Rather, we should stand firm in our principles, and demand the same respect for them as some Muslims demand for Islamist precepts.


Obamania! [Andrew Stuttaford]

Here's Iain Martin writing in the Daily Telegraph: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_martin/blog/2009/04/05/barack_obama_really_does_go_on_a_bit

Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact.

His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though I welcomed, moderately, his victory last year as offering the possibility of a fresh start and a boost to confidence.Yet, we are told that he is a great orator and in one way he certainly is. He does have a preternatural calm in the spotlight and a mastery of the cadences we associate with the notable speakers in US history - such as JFK and MLK. But beyond that, am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled - his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn't he go on a bit?

Read the whole thing .




Iran: "United States Capitulates" [Michael Rubin]

Dennis Ross is a skilled diplomat and often argues that diplomacy is the best tool to utilize with Iran, but, to protect U.S. national security, Washington should lay the groundwork so that U.S. diplomats can negotiate from a position of strength.

So far, though, the Obama administration has done the opposite. Ray Takeyh, Ross's Iran advisor, told the Iranian press early last year that “Iran has the right not to suspend [enrichment]” (Source: Etemaad, Jan. 30, 2008), a statement which undercuts Ross's negotiation position if, indeed, the Obama administration is serious about holding the Islamic Republic to three U.N. Security Council Resolutions demanding a halt to Iranian enrichment.

Now, citing President Obama's statements that he's not opposed to Iranian enrichment, on April 4, Resalat headlined: "The United States capitulates to the nuclear goals of Iran."

So much for leverage. It's one thing to engage adversaries; it's quite another to have them laugh at us.


Obamanschluss [Andrew Stuttaford]

Here's Obama responding to a question from an Austrian reporter:
At a news conference afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced him that “political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate,” where he served before entering the White House. “There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics..

Tricky language, Austrian.