ATLANTA— The speech in Cairo was bold. Declaring that Iran has a right to peacefully pursue nuclear power and that Israel has no right to continue expanding settlements in the West Bank was bold, new ground in foreign policy for an American president.
Mr. Obama did denounce international terrorism. And he reaffirmed the strong bond between the United States and Israel- one he claimed was unbreakable. But over the upcoming months, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, despite all the evil he represents, was right: actions will speak louder than words.
I have mentioned before on this site my belief that Barack Obama’s approval ratings have a very real chance of taking a precipitous drop. Until 2008, Barack Obama was a fringe American politician. Unknown by many, and viewed suspiciously by many more.
His unusual background and the elitism communicated through his rock-star following increasingly distanced him from the average American voter during last summer’s campaign, in my view. To me, he owes as much credit to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 as he does to any specific aspect of his campaign for allowing him to win the presidency. Those same factors still linger with him today and I do not believe they have been fully resolved.
We stand with a highly unusual president, whose foreign ventures to this point put him at odds with many of his predecessors. In my opinion, they put him at odds with many Americans.
I do not know if someone born and raised their entire life in mainstream America would be so willing to globe-trot and apologize for perceived American belligerence in capitals so foreign as Ankara and Cairo.
Many Americans view our past and present conflicts as struggles for freedom. Fights we have fought in foreign places and on foreign lands, whose benefits have been for people we will never see or touch. We have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of loved ones towards these ends. Many Americans feel a certain sting when what they view as having been an effort to free oppressed people is in turn twisted as being an act of brazen American hegemony.
So it is, that our very president is affirming these views of America. Telling the world America can no longer impose her values on other nations (when many Americans interpret those values as being democracy and the right to free speech). Telling the world America is at fault for many past sins that we have still not healed fully from (when many feel the tremendous good we do in this world is all too often overlooked).
So it is with the speech in Cairo, that Barack Obama has firmly planted himself as distinctly different from past presidents. And frankly, in my view, he has planted himself as different from many Americans.
By playing to the muslim world, he risks distancing himself from America- and Israel.
The Muslim world is a vast and complex community, with only the appearance of homogeneity. Most Muslims truly are peaceful, and eschew the more radical teachings of their religion. I will admit: most Americans do not understand it.
But there is a significant minority that have truly dangerous beliefs. And that many Americans view now as a threat, in the context of 9/11. And that Israelis fear even worse.
So when does this distancing of Obama from his countrymen begin to be reflected in the polls?
When things go wrong.
When Iran announces it has a nuclear bomb and when Israeli air raid sirens turn on for real.
When the rouge armies of Hezbollah and Hamas rise up on her borders and declare the Zionists day has come.
All the overtures, speech-making and outstretched hands of Obama will amount to nothing. They will forever place his name in history beside that of Neville Chamberlain: a well-intended man, too naive to properly assess the unintended consequences of his actions.
Such is the danger of his speech in Cairo.
In all honesty, I hope I am wrong.
TennesseePaul
Stephen VanNuys
Brooklyn Daniel
The Freedom Thinker
You know what get’s me most in this whole speech at this time (I’m still analyzying it) it’s when he says,
I left a blockqoute open. Only the following should have been qouted:
Stephen, first things first, I love you for saying this:
It re-affirms something I have been screaming about since 14 Sept ’08 (Actually 16th after GS Quarterly results)… Anyways the facts of that incident were quite clear, it required $20 Billion to stay afloat, and if it went under the collateral damage was 1 trillion minimum, the math was quite simple, and the only reason to not bail them out was to get an electoral advantage. Its unfortunate that McCain jumped onto the bandwagon on the last day. I am completely against bailouts of any sort, unless it is absolutely necessary, when the risk was so darn high!
Anyways what does this have to do with the current issue, frankly everything, while I’d sincerely like to believe that Mr. Obama’s intentions are good, I have to say I cannot trust him, since he contributed and purposely helped Lehman fail, for personal gains, disregarding the best interests of the American people as well as those of the world.
Secondly, he never accepted his mistake with Lehman, and hypocritically spent trillions of dollars without saying a word of truth and out rightly blaming all the problems on others, but in this situation he will need to do the same for his ‘good intentions’ to work. They will have to reduce security, they will have to stop excessive screening etc of anyone they think maybe a threat, and this is not necessarily a bad thing (like bailing out Lehman), some of those things did come of as racist etc, and yes the majority of the people that will benefit are truly are peaceful, and eschew the more radical teachings of their religion.
But majority does not mean all, unfortunately it makes me ask the question, what is the unknown collateral damage this time?
Frankly its not unknown to the world, the first for America though, but can we go all the way through the peace thing, and open our doors to the handful who are capable of major disasters, or can we keep our doors closed and still come of as trusting individuals?
FT: interesting point. That is a bold move for him to go that far on Islam. I think there are some stereotypes that are unfair, but in all honesty, I think Muslims need to work towards reform in their own communities more than us needing to fight stereotypes. Some fighting of stereotypes is good, but they have a lot to clean up in their own houses. Anyway – that’s a complicated question.
I’m not sure this speech resonates well with a majority of Americans (assuming they were even paying attention).
I hope nothing bad happens in the upcoming several years, in terms of new terrorist attacks, etc. I think the backlash against Obama would be extremely severe- so much that it could threaten our national stability.
Seeing him recklessly close down Guantanamo without putting enough thought into it, seeing him globe trot to the Muslim world to put America down, seeing him appear to take the side of radical elements in Palestine over Israel, having still some questions outstanding about his origins and his own background: all of this would rush to the forefront. It could be ugly.
In reality, I wish him the best with this speech. If it does tear down misunderstandings and if it does further peace in the region, then he will deserve much credit for breaking down barriers.
But my unfinished thought in the above missive is that I think many in the Muslim world who view us suspiciously will demand action, not words. Meaning, I think they want Obama to follow the speech up by withdrawing our troops and to stop supporting Isreal, to stay out of the way in Pakistan, etc. To the extent that he does not do any of these things, they will dismiss this speech as a mere platitude.
Couple this dismissal with the real chance this could drive a wedge b/w Obama and a big majority of Americans and you’ve got a powderkeg, waiting to explode, in my view. That’s the danger of this speech and similar overtures by Obama.
FTSOE:
Thanks for dropping back by and continuing the discussion. I’m actually curious about your point about Obama assisting in the Lehman decision. How do you draw that link? I had not heard that before.
I though the Lehman decision was pushed largely by Hank Paulson, over and against the advice of Bernanke and Geithner.
I’m a radical and probably differ from you here, but I would have been for letting Bear Sterns fail the previous March. It would have brought the crisis forward six months and if it was evident the government wasn’t going to step in, I believe (perhaps naively) that other institutions would have done more to capitalize themselves and reassess risk differently.
…maybe we could have avoided the scourge of TARP, PPIP, etc.
That’s my radical, libertarian view.
Well to first pick up the bear sterns, yeah I would have not minded them going under as well, but lehman was almost inevitable, frankly I along with 99% of the traders, career investors (long term traders), analysts were pretty darn sure it would have been lehman the first time round, fuld was always a grade a jackass when it came to handling risk, and making screwups.
Anyways about how Obama shared a majority of the responsibility for lehman, (frankly I would like to say 70% Obama, 20% McCain for jumping on the band wagon, and 10% Paulson and friends for getting pressurized)…
Circa 10-13th September 2008 – The fact that lehman was going to go under was already quite well known a couple of days prior, also the possibility and probability of being bailed out was quite high and quite well vocalized by the PPT (mythical name for the Presidents’ Working Group on Financial Markets, i.e. The Plunge Protection Team).. Back to the dates in question: (the beginning of the end of McCain’s marginal lead in the potential votes that begun when he chose Palin for vice-president)..
Anyways back to the course of action before – at and after the lehman filing for bankruptcy (I will give a brief outline, and add links to any of the articles I can find the rest is out there somewhere so its not going to be a biggie to catch hold of… very time consuming though)
*Circa 10-13th September: Obama speaks againg a public bailout of lehman, and stresses that if at all it should be done via private means ( http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/13/obama-opposes-lehman-bailout/ )
*Around the same time Obama used the approximately these words, quite extensively “The gov’t should not bail out Lehman. It sends the wrong message to speculators and shareholders alike. The failure of a company focuses everyone like a laser beam on the problem. The only way to take care of a problem is to see exactly what it is.”
*Circa 12-13th Sept.: McCain pressurized by reduced appeal agrees to the ‘no bailout’ view of Obama. ( http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN1340721520080913 ) very subtly mentioned by a McCain aid that a govt.-bailout is definitely not the first option.
“Bank of America, worried about the risk of buying an ailing financial institution like Lehman, want the government to step in with a package similar to what was offered to J.P. Morgan when it bought Bear.”
“Paulson indicated he wants to avoid putting taxpayer money behind Lehman” — The term taxpayers money was derived from the electoral campaigns, it was also quoted in one(more, I read one) of the news releases where the PPT (Paulson, NY Fed, Bernake, SEC etc) agreed that the two most likely future candidates were not in favor of it, hence most public was not in favor of it, and in two months the fate would be in their hands anyways.
At this point the probable loss of Lehman was $5-7 Billion, and they BOA needed them to gurantee upto $20 billion (if i remember correctly!)
Circa Sept. 14 2008: LEHMAN Files For Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Circa Sept. 15 2008: “Sensing a chance to regain his lost momentum, Obama has told crowds they should look at the way McCain is handling the market tremors, citing his Republican rival’s Sept. 15 comments that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Yesterday, Obama used McCain’s call for SEC Chairman Christopher Cox’s firing to tie his rival to the Republican establishment. ” ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aW5ESjYfjzKs ) I wonder if McCain’s mistake was to use those word first… but then changing the course of the election wasn’t the motive of letting lehman fail.. or was it?
Also, the credit markets haven’t yet frozen!! The Keyword being Yet (its unrelated rally).
Circa Sept. 16th 2008: 8.30 am, Goldman Sachs results, beat estimates by a mere 10% (market.. not analysts.. not all at least.. expected 100-300%).. Hell Freezes Over!!
Perhaps, people would like to say the Obama never believed the american people and the fundamental of the american economy were never good, perhaps McCain never was in favor of a bailout, perhaps McCain wasnt trying to defend a mistake he made in changing sides a couple of days ago.. perhaps… perhaps… perhaps!
Did the world and the financial markets conspire in the favor of Mr. O a week prior and after to Lehman, did he teach shareholders a lesson like he wanted to and then him a lesson too overnight.. did he just use an opportunity when it presented itself?
Unfortunately, while I always thought the Mr. O was a brilliant Orator, an a true demagogue at heart! In all my experience, of anything to do with the markets(and Poker.. since I will mention it in the next few lines), I have never seen as well played hand as this.. He had pocket aces (i.e. the mob that governs the market.. the literal mob, not the mafia!!) he kept calling and checking letting the markets believe that the biggest hand was probably a K pair, until the opposition went all-in and he called!!
Do I believe a guy who was against bailing out a significant company, because it hurt the people, and that he did not have a plan ready to support AIG a couple of days later with 4x the amount, that he did not have a plan of action similar and worse than the lending window that the FED had in place, and that he did not know the damage that would be inflicted, that he was just speculating with the Leh bankruptcy, that he did not have an hidden agenda… that he did not mean to create and exponentially grow the cognitive dissonance, and play his cards to sneak by as the cognitive dissonance was all set.
If he did not know these he was not worth of the Presidency, and if he did, it should go down in the pages of history, that while he did not hold complete responsibility for Lehmans collapse, he was a major instigator, and either ways a mistake was made.
Correction (Typo):
“Perhaps, people would like to say the Obama never believed the american people and the fundamental of the american economy were never good,”
to:
“Perhaps, people would like to say the Obama never believed the american people and That the fundamentals of the american economy were EVER good,”
Interesting perspective, FTSOE. I had not heard that view before, but you may be on to something. Interesting indeed…
Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your post seem to be running off the screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Thanks
Debra,
I use Safari but I don’t have any problem with words running off the screen. Are you using a Mac? I haven’t tried American Missive on an iPad or an iPhone. I’ll try that.
One thing that bothers me is the writer of this very missive uses fully justified copy and appears to double-space between sentences This causes unsightly tight and loose lines and giant gaps between sentences. Also the computer doesn’t know what to do with the extra space, so if the sentence ends on the right side, the computer puts the extra space at the start of the next line so there’s a tiny one-space indention.