The profound confusion of Barack H. Obama, aged 49 and 3/4
Ah, Obama, our muddle-headed philosopher-king. He strains valiantly, but he is deeply confused by the rupture between dream and reality. Take all that stuff about closing down Guantanamo, ending extraordinary rendition and so on. He meant it at the time, I’m sure, but never having had a real job or been responsible for much, he just didn’t understand how the world works. So later, he had to back down, and admit, confusingly, that all that Bush stuff he once hated was kinda cool after all. Or at least unavoidable.
Then there is his bizarre foreign policy which largely consists of pissing off allies and sucking up to enemies. Consider Iran (our enemy) for instance — riots for democracy over there and it took him over a week to say anything much, and it wasn’t much, and was loaded with unctuous references to the Supreme Leader. Consider Egypt (our ally) on the other hand — riots for democracy and it was: Mubarak go now, followed by — well maybe not now, followed by — oh alright then, if you have to.
See how confusing that is?
I know that Obama thinks that by being nice to enemies such as Iran they will be nice to us, but this is the reasoning of a naive child. What a fortunate boy he must have been, to never have encountered a bully in the playground! For he doesn’t understand the psychology of violence at all. Kindness displayed to those that despise you is regarded by them as great weakness; while betraying those that support you alienates all your other friends.Obviously.
Neither rule is hard to grasp, but our president doesn’t seem to have learned them.
And then there are the shenanigans over the bin Laden death photos. He dithered for 3 days, teasing us with the promise of maybe releasing them, before deciding not to release them. Why? Lest it inflame our enemies. As if shooting their hero in the head was not enough to inflame them, as if they were not already perpetually inflamed, by everything we do.
You see according to Obama’s logic, shooting a beardy jihad man in the head is very cool. However showing a photo of said man with a bullet in his head is in bad taste.
That’s a line I find difficult to draw.
Our president is a very confused man.
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Generally agreed except O has NOT admitted the unworkability of his own program and lockstep continutation of Bush’s security policies, he has just done it. To admit error, that would really be gutsy. Forget it.
Alot of innocents died because of the beardy jihad guy, alot of fighting men and women died or ended up disfigured trying to kill the beardy jihad guy and his buddies. Obama has no idea what it means to be in the military…… if he did he would release that picture. The beardy jihad guys buddies hate us and the Jews today, they will still hate us and the Jews if the picture is shown. Nothing will change other than people feeling immense satisfaction in seeing the beardy jihad guy finally dead. Semper Fi.
Daniel, is changing one’s mind such a bad thing? I suggest our President is hardly the first person to change his/her mind once they have reached – in reality – a point in their life/career that was at one time just a matter of speculation and conjecture.
Would you prefer that the actions of President Obama remained firmly bound by the rhetoric of Candidate Obama – regardless of the consequences for our nation? He’s learning that ‘the walk’ may be different from ‘the talk’ … and that’s true for many of us as we live, learn and grow.
Jeff- changing your mind in the face of evidence is undoubtedly a good thing, and his willingness to do so is one of Obama’s better qualities.
I’m less agitated by his u-turns on the issues you mention than I am by the total failure of the sycophantic media to notice or criticize- clearly their vitriolic denunciations of Bush had nothing to do with principle or the constitution. These supposed ‘journalists’ are men and women without integrity, less certainly than BO, who is usually sincere when he is wrong.
But that wasn’t really my point- my point is that Obama is consistently naive and muddle headed on foreign policy issues, and I find it amazing that he made it to the age he is without learning very simple facts about human nature, despite the fact that he travelled a lot as a kid and had first hand contact with developing nations.
I can only assume that he has spent his entire adult life in the company of a small circle of like minded friends, who share his disinterest in reality.