Like Carter’s, Obama’s presidency will face complications. As a Nobel Peace Prize laureate whose most notable foreign-policy decision so far has been further committing the United States to a war in Afghanistan, Obama is well aware that U.S. interests don’t always correspond with a universally recognized moral standard. Carter had to face the fanaticism of Khomeini and an aroused Iranian people. Obama must deal with the Islamist extremism inspired by Osama bin Laden, and the temptation will always exist to address such problems through military action. Obama acknowledged as much in his Nobel address. But the prudent statesman, as Carter discovered, will know that the decision to use force always places a nation onto morally uncertain terrain in which power is limited and losses may sometimes have to be absorbed. Despite the many challenges that arose during his presidency, Carter avoided putting the United States in that position. This was not weakness; it was shrewd statecraft, and a worthy example for Obama to follow.
Tag: Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
The single most insulting remark made about blacks in my lifetime was Bill Clinton‘s announcement — after being caught in the most humiliating sex scandal in world history — that he was “the first black president.”
He did not call himself “the first black president” when liberals were dancing and singing to Fleetwood Mac at his inauguration. He did not call himself “the first black president” when he was feeling our pain and being lionized by the media. He did not call himself “the first black president” when he was trying to socialize health care or passing welfare reform.
Not until he became a national embarrassment did Clinton recognize that he was “the first black president.”
At least he could finally get his own coffee.
Quote of the day
Sorry, No PB pub tonight. Couldn’t quite find anything I liked, suggestions are always welcome….
A woman named Nancy Spagnolo who lives in Bethany, Connecticut e-mailed me shortly after I interviewed Hume. “Religion is such a deeply personal issue and it is wrong to discuss what another person should believe. Mr. Hume should have contacted Tiger Woods privately instead of taking it public.”
That’s not a bad point. I’m sure Brit Hume had noble intentions when he addressed the golfer publicly, but it was a deeply personal assessment of Woods’ predicament. We are all sinners. How many of us want to be told how to achieve forgiveness in a public forum?
That being said, Brit Hume has a perfect right to espouse what he believes is a healing tonic. The forgiveness Christianity offers has helped millions of human beings throughout history. The world would be a better place if every person on earth understood the basic philosophy of Jesus. Mr. Hume was simply exercising his free speech rights and the fact he is paid well to do that speaks to his intellect and insight.
Anti-religious sentiment is currently chic in America. You can see it displayed in the media almost everyday. Brit Hume sent some advice to Tiger Woods. He did so meaning well. Mr. Woods is free to take it or leave it. There was no harm in this.
Quote of the Day
I would say the greatest failure of the Church today is its unwillingness to say and do the unpopular thing. Too many Christians busy themselves these days trying to come up with new ways of being admired and desired by the world rather than simply being obedient to the Lord they claim to love.
With a self-sustaining focus on acquiring evermore results and relationships (i.e., “church growth”) by way of pragmatism and consensus, none of which is biblical, today’s Christians are, by and large, being persuaded and trained week after week to embrace surveys, marketing principles, public relations programs and people skills as their new commandments with dialectically-trained consultants and facilitators posing as prophets and preachers – people pleasers who know how to work the crowd and steer the herd while selectively applying the scriptures as needed to maintain a biblical appearance of righteousness and religiosity.
We’re essentially giving people what they want at church these days in hopes they will reciprocate with more participation and support. How is this “tactic” any different from those used on Wall Street and in Washington D.C.?
“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” – 1st Corinthians 1:18
Quote of the Day
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” –James Madison, Federalist No. 46
Quote of the Day
Fascist groups are now capitalizing on European concerns over precisely these types of issues because their own governments have refused to act. Politicians continue to stick their head in the nearest sandbox, perhaps aware that a problem created by a generation could not be solved overnight. Rather than beginning to rethink the policies that have resulted in so many Europeans turning to extremist groups, they seem to have reconciled themselves to the idea that they govern a continent of several million closet racists. If this attitude persists, we are in deeper trouble than we previously thought.
Seventy years ago, Europe had statesmen who achieved greatness by facing down fascism. It is time for this generation to take up the mantle. Islamism needs to be defeated. European politicians also need to face up to issues important to the majority, rather than cowardly elites or grudge-laden minorities. Do that — even try to do that — and support for white extremist groups will drain. Ignore it, and it is hard to be optimistic about Europe’s future.
Caldwell wonders if Europe can be the same with different people in it. The answer he clearly comes to is “No.” The question now is how long it takes Europeans to reach the same conclusion. And what they will do when they come to it.
Quote of the Day
Harkin, chairman of the Senate health committee, followed Baucus to the floor to explain why he added the provision that would help Iowa (and “a few other states”). “I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Harkin said. “I make no bones about having put that in there.”
Dodd, at a news conference, offered the dubious argument that the hospital provision he offered is “competitive” and could be won by another state, “although my state is very interested.”
But what about those who wouldn’t get the goodies? Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) walked away with little to show for her politically difficult vote.
“That’s what legislation is all about: It’s the art of compromise,” Reid said when asked about the fairness of it all. “So this legislation is no different than the defense bill we just spent $600 billion on.” That would be the bill with more than 1,700 pet-project earmarks. “It’s no different than other pieces of legislation,” Reid continued.
Quote of the Day
The real entitlements are never mentioned. The “defense” budget is an entitlement for the military-security complex about which President Eisenhower warned us 50 years ago. A person has to be crazy to believe that the United States, “the world’s only superpower,” protected by oceans on its East and West and by puppet states on its North and South, needs a “defense” budget larger than the military spending of the rest of the world combined.
The military budget is nothing but an entitlement for the military-security complex. To hide this fact, the entitlement is disguised as protection against “enemies” and passed through the Pentagon.
I say cut out the middleman and simply allocate a percentage of the federal budget to the military-security complex. This way we won’t have to concoct reasons for invading other countries and go to war in order for the military-security complex to get its entitlement. It would be a lot cheaper just to give them the money outright, and it would save a lot of lives and grief at home and abroad.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with American national interests. It had to do with armaments profits and with eliminating an obstacle to Israeli territorial expansion. The cost of the war, aside from the $3 trillion, was over 4,000 dead Americans, over 30,000 wounded and maimed Americans, tens of thousands of broken American marriages and lost careers, 1 million dead Iraqis, 4 million displaced Iraqis and a destroyed country.
All of this was done for the profits of the military-security complex and to make paranoid Israel, armed with 200 nuclear weapons, feel “secure.”
My proposal would make the military-security complex even more wealthym as the companies would get the money without having to produce the weapons. Instead, all the money could go for multimillion dollar bonuses and dividend payouts to shareholders. No one, at home or abroad, would have to be killed, and the taxpayer would be better off.
Quote of the Day
Some of the protestors invoked Ron Paul’s non-interventionist approach in explaining their foreign policy stances. “At heart, I’m increasingly a Ron Paul guy on foreign policy. We can’t be the world’s policeman… Iraq and Afghanistan could be too much for us to handle. The people there have to stand up. It’s their country,” said John Tidwell of Bristol, Virginia.
As the tea party movement takes steps to translate their policy aspirations into political outcomes, conservatives should watch out for a new wave of Buchanan-esque isolationism………. support for the spreading of democracy in the world and even for free trade may wane as Tea Partiers either become more active in the GOP or start their own party.
Quote of the Day
Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers “at the expense of hardworking Americans.” Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.
Then he got elected.
