RALEIGH— During the great campaign of 2008 a historic moment was achieved in November. The United States had just elected the least qualified citizen to office in her history and the world applauded. But looking back it is painfully obvious that Mr. Obama’s short resume was not hand-picked by the United States as a flyer on a shooting star as much as it was a pass on a falling dud.
Mr. McCain was well on his way to winning the presidency after picking Mrs. Palin as a running mate. In fact, looking at the polls he looked unstoppable after that moment. When she spoke to the nation at the Republican National Convention, Mrs. Palin lifted Mr. McCain from the gutter up to the stage. Unfortunately for both of them, Lehman Brothers collapsed and America tossed the votes towards anyone but the man who bragged of walking lock-in-step with Mr. Bush and subsequently quit his campaign.
Mr. Joe Biden was chosen by Mr. Obama as the Vice-Presidential running mate so as to “remove” the foreign policy critique against the man running for President. Nevermind the irony of picking a plagerizer to remove a critique against you, the moment Mrs. Palin entered the scene Democrats hooted that now, more than before, any critique of Mr. Obama was moot. The message was clear, while Mr. Obama didn’t stand up against a baffled old man with a record for being unreliable (Mr. McCain spun that as “rogue” before the “rogue” sash was bequeathed to Mrs. Palin), he certainly was at the least, better than Mr. McCain’s running mate.
So on that wonderous day in November the country was finally safe. There was no need to worry about a potential national defense issue getting butchered by a vice president.
Now here we are, nearly a full calendar year from that moment, and our allies in the war of self-defense from jihad are questioning, nigh, they are thoroughly critiquing, the poor judgement and timing of the new president.
“The president is dithering,” says a minister in the British government.
It is a valid point. Mr. Obama has pondered what to do for months on end. All that has occurred is victory after victory for our enemies.
Perhaps you do not agree with defending this nation from jihadis, but you must agree with the need to supply those Americans who are on the front lines the necessary means for maintaining their own safety. Even if it is only long enough to formulate an official retreat and surrender moral superiority to the enemy, just keep our boys safe.
No such luck. This administration has stumbled through this process and apparently reached the conclusion that the “irresponsible” actions of Mr. Bush and his “surge” in Iraq are indeed the best possible actions for Afghanistan.
Hopefully the final, and official, decision will come before it is too late.
TennesseePaul
Stephen VanNuys
Brooklyn Daniel
The Freedom Thinker
“stumbled through this process” is a generous evaluation, indeed. Rather than making decisions through leadership (since he has no capacity in that arena) Obama has held endless confabs with his “advisers” in an effort to come to conclusions that will appease his far-left critics while appearing to actually take steps to improve the situation in Afghanistan.
As usual, his pronouncements are illusory and should be taken with a bucket of salt.
I suspect that the “running up the flagpole” of the concept of how would people feel about a new tax to finance the “expansion” of the efforts in Afghanistan is the most accurate indicator of Obama’s leanings – the almost sure rejection of such an action would provide him with the needed “wiggle room” to default on promises to give the military the added assistance that they are requesting.
From bad to worse …. and I see no improvement on the horizon from this group incompetent ideologues.
Reports are coming out in the press that Obama is going to authorize about 35 of the 40 thousand troops that were requested.
If this is a fact, this is nothing but a case of brazen self-promoting politics at the expense of our troops. It means that Obama had always intended to more-or-less provide what was requested, but needed time to make a case to his liberal anti-war left. If he had filled the request immediately he would have gained the praise of the center and right, but would have immediately been seen as a turncoat by his liberal, code pink, constituency.
By waiting, at the expense of our Warfighters, he can now at least make the argument that he is doing this as a reluctant liberal, which will play well to his pacifist base.
By giving the General less than the requested amount of troops he also shows his liberal base that he has the intellectual high-ground over his commanders and that he will not cave to the military right.
Wouldn’t it be interesting though if he came out next week and announced that he was sending 60 thousand troops…or 100 thousand. That would be interesting.
Unfortunately, everything points to this being nothing but political gamesmanship while our troops are fighting – and it is reprehensible.
This one, concerning “self promotion” and illusory pronouncements, cracked me up. George wrote it so well.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/223821
“But looking back it is painfully obvious that Mr. Obama’s short resume was not hand-picked by the United States as a flyer on a shooting star as much as it was a pass on a falling dud.”
LOL
MaineNowandThen said:
“Obama has held endless confabs with his “advisers” in an effort to come to conclusions that will appease his far-left critics while appearing to actually take steps to improve the situation in Afghanistan.”
This was my biggest fear of all with Obama during the election – the man doesn’t have a gut instinct to go with to save his life and puts everything up to Committee. For all of Dubya’s failings in most American’s eyes, he at least acted and accepted/equivocated for any mistakes that came out in the wash. Obama, well he just doesn’t act when it comes to matters that are out of favor with his base and no mistakes/blood are on his hand. It was a nice thought to be President when you can go around giving nice speeches and so forth, as well as criticizing everything the US has done in the past. It’s awfully hard though when you actually have to close that prison you talked about.
100% Strategy/Theory
0% Ability to Execute