Many of us have been struggling to make sense of Barack Obama’s erratic foreign policy. He says he doesn’t want to fight “dumb wars” and then goes and acts stupid in Libya. He constantly seems to be working to undermine the United States’ role in the world and bows to every foreign crowned head except Queen Elizabeth II, who he gives an iPod. He returns the Churchill bust. He bends over backwards to kiss up to Hu Jintao.
It makes you wonder.
Well, wonder no long. Over at the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza sums up the erratic foreign policy of Barack Obama and it is worse that you or either imagined.
In a very long piece, we are shown an adult Hillary Clinton having to prod Barack Obama who flips between realism and idealism hoping that if he flips back and forth he can blur the two.
Ultimately, you can figure out all you need to know from a Presidential advisor who describes Barack Obama’s foreign policy as “leading from behind.” Seriously.
Leading from behind is premised on two thoughts within Barack Obama’s head:
(1) We have been replaced on the world stage by China as the pre-eminent super power; and,
(2) Everyone else hates us.
To sum it up, Barack Obama’s foreign policy is based on the belief that we have surrendered or had taken from us our leadership role in the world. He’s operating intentionally as a failure.
Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.” That’s not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding. It’s a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world. Pursuing our interests and spreading our ideals thus requires stealth and modesty as well as military strength. “It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world,” the adviser said. “But it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”
» Will Obama Administration Hold Military Paychecks During Government Shutdown? – Big Government
As readers of Big Government know, an impasse over a few billion dollars in proposed spending cuts threatens to shutdown the federal government. (And, by a few billion dollars I mean, rounding error.) As regular readers should also know, I’ve come to embrace a shutdown, rather than fear it.
As this recent Congressional Research Service report explains, if the government were to shutdown, an OMB Directive issued in the 1980s (along with a handful of legal opinions) guide what parts of government continue to function and what parts must close down. Short story, all of the important functions of government, i.e national security, the military, air traffic control, border security, Social Security payments, etc., will continue to function. The parts that have to shut down…well, lets just say they are candidates for permanent cuts. I mean, if the country functions for several weeks without a few hundred thousand ‘non-essential’ employees, couldn’t we probably function without them forever? I’m not saying every one of these jobs should necessarily be eliminated…but it isn’t a good place to start?
Sensing the potential PR nightmare from this, it seems the Obama Administration may have decided to raise the stakes on a shutdown. According to draft guidance from the Pentagon, the Obama Administration will require military personnel to report to work…but, will hold their paychecks until the impasse is resolved. As Government Executive explained in a March 15th article:
Military personnel and exempt Defense Department civilian employees are required to continue working without pay during a government shutdown, according to guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
In a memo prepared earlier this month, Defense officials noted that service members and some civilian workers, including those involved in national security and the protection of life and property, still must report for duty but will not be paid until Congress appropriates funds to reimburse them for that period of service. All other employees will be furloughed, the memo stated.
Military personnel are not subject to furlough.
This is new.
During the last government shutdown, in 1995, troops continued to receive their paychecks. According to Federal Times:
When the government was shut down in 1995, military personnel continued to report to work and were paid, but the planning guidance sent to the services and defense agencies says a shutdown this time will be different.
“All military personnel will continue in normal duty status regardless of their affiliation with exempt or non-exempt activities,” says the draft planning guidance that was prepared for the services and defense agencies. “Military personnel will serve without pay until such time as Congress makes appropriated funds available to compensate them for this period of service.”
During the 1995 shutdown, the Clinton Administration followed the OMB guidance issued during the Reagan Administration. The Obama Administration, it seems, is tacking a different direction.
Let me be clear, the guidelines proposing to hold military paychecks are, according to the news reports, draft guidelines. It is possible the Obama Administration has abandoned these punitive guidelines. And, even if they implemented these guidelines, military personnel would most likely eventually receive their pay, once a budget agreement is reached. But, why even change the policy and subject our military to partisan political battles. The policy is certainly a change, but it doesn’t provide much hope.
Hopefully, they will clear this up quickly.
via » Will Obama Administration Hold Military Paychecks During Government Shutdown? – Big Government.
Don’t Let The Dems Hold Our Troops Hostage | Dick Morris
DON’T LET THE DEMS HOLD OUR TROOPS HOSTAGE
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on April 7, 2011
If the government shuts down will our troops be paid? The House Republicans are voting to pay them regardless but the Senate and Obama are refusing. They want to use our soldiers’ paychecks as leverage to stop Republican budget cuts.
The Democrats are holding our troops hostage!
These men and women are fighting for our country. Their families are struggling to get by in their absence. Let’s not make their pay a political football. Guarantee their pay regardless of the political squabbles in Washington!
Call your Democratic Senator at 202-224-3121 and demand that the Senate pass the House bill guaranteeing military pay!
Sign-up to follow Dick on Twitter – Go here!
Obama Destroys a Presidential Fly | James Pat Guerréro
Check out this video of President Obama swatting, killing, and destroying a fly. This reminds of the Saturday Night Live video on the parody of him giving a cool, defensive, speech, and then, walking off the stage in a stasis, kicking a door down. Some things do get him upset – a presidential fly, bullying, and an unhealthy diet. Flies need to eat, too.
KARL ROVE: 3 Disturbing Images of Obama – FoxNews.com
Last week was a bad week for America because it was a bad week for President Obama.
West Wing politicos may not share that opinion. They seem to think any week during which the president makes a speech or holds a news conference is a good week: Americans get to see the amazing, inspiring Mr. Obama. But three images of Mr. Obama from last week are hardly uplifting.
First, there was the president on Libya — dithering, indecisive, unreliable, and weak. As Qaddafi’s mercenaries and bombers brutally grabbed back momentum from the democratic opposition, all Mr. Obama could say was, “My national security team has been working…to monitor the situation…to prepare the full range of options…”
If America’s failure to lead allows Qaddafi to snuff out the popular uprising against his dictatorship and regain power, the consequences for the U.S. will be severe. Dictators will know the U.S. president is a pushover. Our allies around the world will be dispirited and our adversaries emboldened.
Then there was the on-going budget battle. The failure of Mr. Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to pass a budget before the start of the fiscal year last October 1 is an astonishing act of incompetence. They controlled the entire process with wide margins in both houses. Now we are reduced to funding the government of the world’s most powerful nation with continuing resolutions that cover two or three-week periods. And Congressional Democrats are whining it is impossible to cut $60 billion out of a budget that consists of $3.8 trillion dollars.
At a Friday morning press conference Mr. Obama called the failure to pass a budget “irresponsible” and said “the notion that we can’t get resolved last year’s budget in a sensible way…defies common sense.” But he was not passive observer. He’s the president who failed to get his own budget approved by his own party last year.
Then Mr. Obama went on to say of the budget that “it shouldn’t be that complicated…to get this completed.” This came after weeks during which Democratic Congressional leaders criticized the president for providing no leadership, then the appointment by Mr. Obama of Vice President Joe Biden as his personal negotiator on the budget, and Mr. Biden’s almost immediate departure for a weeklong foreign trip. Mr. Obama still refused to get his hands dirty by offering a possible solution.
Then there were the president’s remarks to members of the National Governors Association on Wisconsin, last month, where he cautioned, “I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified.”
This was a classic Obama straw man. Who exactly is “vilifying” or “denigrating” whom? The president’s intimation was that it was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, but Mr. Walker’s tone has been mild, even-tempered, restrained and entirely appropriate.
If there are people who needed a presidential admonishment about civility and respect, they are the protestors who broke into the Wisconsin capital building in a vain attempt to keep the legislature from voting, the protestors who compared Mr. Walker to Adolf Hitler, and the Democratic legislators who fled the state rather than do their duty. But those would be the president’s allies and admonition is only required of his opponents.
When Mr. Obama was in the Illinois State Senate, he had the annoying habit of voting “present” on controversial issues he felt might damage his future political ambitions. But at least Mr. Obama showed up then. The president’s refusal now to provide leadership on Libya or the budget and his readiness to score cheap political points with straw man attacks makes his days in the State Senate look like an era of true statesmanship.
Karl Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. He is a Fox News contributor and author of “Courage and Consequence” (Threshold Editions, 2010).
The Sputnik Moment | RedState
Barack Obama’s “Sputnik Moment” sums up his speech best. In fact, there is no reason to fully dwell on his speech in light of the sputnik moment. What do I mean? Consider this: Barack Obama declared that “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.” His reference was to the mobilization of the United States after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite. President Kennedy mobilized the United States to aggressively combat the Soviets with not just an arms race, but with a space race — a race to the moon.
President Obama declared our present economic climate our sputnik moment then proceeded to ignore NASA in his speech while defunding our space program. Nevermind that he did not identify an enemy hell bent on destroying us. He just wanted to use the metaphor without regard for its historic meaning — something this President all too often does.
Barack Obama’s bold leadership will not lead to a new race to space. Rather, in his own words, Barack Obama’s “sputnik moment” is . . . wait for it . . . no seriously, wait for it . . . “solar shingles that are being sold all across the country.”
Not exactly a John F. Kennedy oratory moment. But wait, it gets even better as Barack Obama announces his intention to return us to the 1950’s.
As much as the Democrats caricature the Republicans as hell bent on driving us back to 1950’s style culture, Barack Obama is hell bent on driving us back to 1950’s style economics where people work for large corporations that subsist on government program subsidies and the employees all belong to unions. In the history of the United States, that world view is very recent.
Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs — none of these people needed government subsistence to innovate. They did it on their own. And those, like Jobs, Gates, and others that built off of government inventiveness, the inventiveness on which they built off of came from technological advancements in national security and war — an area of the budget the President is willing to cut.
Barack Obama’s speech was a terrible speech. The only saving grace for him is that it will not be remembered by the American public. Paul Ryan had much more substance and, surprisingly enough, Michelle Bachmann had the best speech of the night with both style and substance.
All and all, Barack Obama’s “sputnik moment” should stand in American history for a great buildup without delivery. Barack Obama did not jump the shark; he sputniked.
The Preferred SOTU Speech by President Obama | James Pat Guerréro
If one would prefer another State of the Union (SOTU) speech by President Obama, then here’s one to dream by Jason Mattera:
“My fellow Americans, my presidency has sucked. Big time. My stint as your leader has been worse than the Matrix Revolution, and you know how awful that Keanu Reeves movie was. To the American public, I’m sorry. The job of being President has been above my experience. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and I still don’t. I’ve screwed over so many generations of Americans with the debt I’ve been racking up. So for the good of the country and because I’m tired of Michelle forcing me to eat organic arugula from the White House garden, tonight I am resigning. Take care America, and please don’t ever say that Jimmy Carter was a better President than I was, because that would really sting.”
Poll for Why President Obama Golfs So Much | James Pat Guerrero
The Condescender-in-Chief | RedState
Two years into the Obama presidency, and this kind of thing really shouldn’t be a surprise.
Obama told the several dozen donors that he was offering them his “view from the Oval Office.” He faulted the economic downturn for Americans’ inability to “think clearly” and said the burden is on Democrats “to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling.”
The President believes that we are not “thinking clearly,” and that our attitudes and behavior stem from “fear and frustration”. It is one thing for Obama to think that, but it is yet another for the President of the United States to say it out loud – about his own nation’s citizens.
But this is no surprise, is it? This is the same man who accused those who disagreed with him of being hyper-religious, violent xenophobes:
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Yes, we remember that one well, don’t we
Commentary: Back in 2007 when Barack Obama read the job description of the President of the United States, he interpreted the description of Commander-in-Chief to Condescender-in-Chief. Many unemployed Americans would have read the job description carefully to get a job. Even though Barack Obama got the job, he still did it differently from the the real job description.
Related Articles
- Progressives Bite Back At ‘Condescending’ Obama, Biden (towleroad.com)
- ‘Fear and frustration’ – Obama: ‘The country’s scared’ (politico.com)
- Obama Clings Again! Blames “Scared” Voters. (newsweek.com)
- Obama: Dems Are Losing Because Voters Are Irrational, Cowardly (minx.cc)
MTV Dude to Obama: “Why Should We Vote You Back In?” – HUMAN EVENTS
In what may be one of the best examples we’ve seen thus far that he’s losing his juice, Obama actually got grilled by an MTV crowd. MTV for Pete’s sake! After seeing this clip, here’s a hint of what your reaction will be: Adam Hunter for President, 2035.
“So, my question to you is: Why should we still support you going forward with your monetary and economic policies, and if the economy does not improve over the next two years, why should we vote you back in?”
A Conversation with President Obama on MTV
Naturally, Obama lays the economic clusterfark all on Bush’s lap, even though, as the precocious Adam Hunter pointed out, this President has racked up trillion dollar deficits for two years in a row, all with the promise that by spending such unseemly amounts of cash, the economy would stabilize. But that’s the Obama way: Blame Bush.
So there’s that.
How about the dumbest question at the MTV forum? I was debating picking the one from some chick who asked Obama what he was going to do to ban ‘Internet bullying,’ but I decided to go with this one instead:
From the twitter handle @melanirenee, “Dear President Obama, do you think being gay or trans is a choice?”
Um, seriously? You have one question for POTUS, and you ask him his thoughts on trannies?
Oh my.
Then there was MTV’s asking the audience to “tweet” their greatest fears and their greatest hopes with the possibility that it would be read on-air by one of the hosts. Hilariously, two of the “greatest fears” submissions that the network picked were complete slams on Barack.
“My greatest fear is that we’re turning into a Communist country,” went one. “My greatest fear is that Obama will be re-elected,” proclaimed another.
And these were read right to Obama’s face. Ha!
Hey, maybe the kids are right after all.
via MTV Dude to Obama: “Why Should We Vote You Back In?” – HUMAN EVENTS.
Commentary: Good man, Adam Hunter. Did President Obama get the message from the MTV? That he’s not doing his job, correctly?
ThursdayMan | el hombre del jueves 
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