It's Your Country Too, Mr. President

[cwo_ghwebb]

I'm not against gift-giving in international relations. But it would be nice to see some reciprocity. Obama was in a giving mood throughout Europe. While Gordon Brown was trying to make his American DVDs work and the queen was rocking to her new iPod, the rest of Europe was enjoying a more fulsome Obama gift.

Our president came bearing a basketful of mea culpas. With varying degrees of directness or obliqueness, Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world.

And what did he get for this obsessive denigration of his own country? He wanted more NATO combat troops in Afghanistan to match the surge of 17,000 Americans. He was rudely rebuffed.

He wanted more stimulus spending from Europe. He got nothing.

From Russia, he got no help on Iran. From China, he got the blocking of any action on North Korea.

And what did he get for Guantanamo? France, pop. 64 million, will take one prisoner. One! (Sadly, he'll have to leave his swim buddy behind.) The Austrians said they would take none. As Interior Minister Maria Fekter explained with impeccable Germanic logic, if they're not dangerous, why not just keep them in America?

When Austria is mocking you, you're having a bad week. Yet who can blame Frau Fekter, considering the disdain Obama showed his own country while on foreign soil, acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating between his renegade homeland and an otherwise warm and welcoming world?

After all, it was Obama, not some envious anti-American leader, who noted with satisfaction that a new financial order is being created today by 20 countries, rather than by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy." And then added: "But that's not the world we live in, and it shouldn't be the world that we live in."

It is passing strange for a world leader to celebrate his own country's decline. A few more such overseas tours, and Obama will have a lot more decline to celebrate.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - It's Your Country Too, Mr. President

Looks to me the Prez is long on rhetoric and short on receiving respect.

[SamSpade]

You know what gets me about the liberal need for mea culpas? The need to declare openly, we've been bad and we need to apologize and win your respect back? The need to point out America's backlog of horrendous misdeeds?

Aside from what I've said before - that it is sheer narcissim, because the SOURCE of such misbehavior is never "us liberals" but "the United States" - aside from the fact that what they are REALLY apologizing for is not their OWN behavior but those of their political rivals ---- aside from that ---

You will never in a million years hear ANY of our friends, allies, rivals or what have you ever, ever do the same, in return.

You won't hear France saying, yeah, we're sorry that after hundreds of thousands of your guys died freeing our nation, we've done nothing but stab you in the back. You won't hear Russia saying, yeah, that Cold War stuff - sorry about that. You won't get apologies and mea culpas from them.

In fact, they'll go one further. AFTER the mea culpas, sackcloth and ashes and breast-beating, they'll say thanks, but you're not getting anything from me.

Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down.

Why do people think Europe is our *friend*? They're not openly hostile, but neither are any of my neighbors. I don't feel a need to ingratiate myself to any of them.

[twinoaks207 (Premo)]

Originally Posted by cwo_ghwebb

RealClearPolitics - Articles - It's Your Country Too, Mr. President

Looks to me the Prez is long on rhetoric and short on receiving respect.

You know, I've been around for more Presidents than I care to admit to (used to see all their pictures on the milk cartons at school lunch) and I don't ever remember a US President acting this way on a foreign trip. Nor, do I remember being this afraid for the future of my country. I experienced first-hand the recession in the '80's, with high-priced gasoline and shortages (even & odd days for tank fill-ups) and unemployment rates of 13% where I was living, and even then I was concerned, but not afraid. This time it's different. This time I have no trust and faith that my government leaders will do the right thing. This time it's a crisis of confidence and I don't think I'm alone in that.

[vraiblonde]

Obama is a Dixie Chick. We should gather up his books and all the magazines with his mug on the cover and burn them in protest.

[twinoaks207 (Premo)]

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

Obama is a Dixie Chick. We should gather up his books and all the magazines with his mug on the cover and burn them in protest.

I like the way you think!

[Vince]

I'll bet you all his cronies are patting him on the back telling him "what a great trip abroad Mr. President" and so on. I'm declining Obama. He's not my President. Anyone who degrades his own country and it's people, deserves no respect from anyone.

[cwo_ghwebb]

I really get tired of hearing how bad America is in the minds of the Donks.

They hate it so much they want to change it to that shining example of perfect harmony and human rights, Cuba.

[jetmonkey]

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

Obama is a Dixie Chick. We should gather up his books and all the magazines with his mug on the cover and burn them in protest.

HA! That's exactly what I was thinking. He is a doosh.

[ImnoMensa]

He will never be my President until he fires his squads of lawyers hiding his Birth Certificate and tells Hawai to present it to anyone who wishes to see it.

I am also still waiting for John Kerry to sign his F-180.

I really dont expect to ever see either.