Is America really going to do this?
The impact of the financial crisis on the American presidential election has somewhat obscured the most important reason why the prospect of an Obama presidency is giving so many people nightmares. This is the fear that, if he wins, US defences will be emasculated at a time of unprecedented international peril and the enemies of America and the free world will seize their opportunity to destroy the west.
Personally, I don’t give any credence to the ‘support’ for one candidate over the other that has been expressed by the enemies of civilisation (Iran and Hamas ‘support’ Obama, while an al Qaeda blogger ‘supports’ McCain). Their agenda is simply to sow confusion and promote American recriminations and disarray. Nor do I set much store by many of the remarks made by either candidate during the latter stages of this election campaign, since under this kind of pressure both will now say pretty much anything to win it. The New York Times has run a useful analysis of the candidates’ foreign policy campaign statements which shows how Obama has carefully tacked to the ‘hard power’ agenda while McCain has in turn nodded towards ‘soft power’.
No, the only way to assess their position is to look at each man in the round, at what his general attitude is towards war and self-defence, aggression and appeasement, the values of the west and those of its enemies and – perhaps most crucially of all – the nature of the advisers and associates to whom he is listening. As I have said before, I do not trust McCain; I think his judgment is erratic and impetuous, and sometimes wrong. But on the big picture, he gets it. He will defend America and the free world whereas Obama will undermine them and aid their enemies.
Here’s why. McCain believes in protecting and defending America as it is. Obama tells the world he is ashamed of America and wants to change it into something else. McCain stands for American exceptionalism, the belief that American values are superior to tyrannies. Obama stands for the expiation of America’s original sin in oppressing black people, the third world and the poor.
Obama thinks world conflicts are basically the west’s fault, and so it must right the injustices it has inflicted. That’s why he believes in ‘soft power’ — diplomacy, aid, rectifying ‘grievances’ (thus legitimising them, encouraging terror and promoting injustice) and resolving conflict by talking. As a result, he will take an axe to America’s defences at the very time when they need to be built up. He has said he will ‘cut investments in unproven missile defense systems’; he will ‘not weaponize space’; he will ‘slow our development of future combat systems’; and he will also ‘not develop nuclear weapons,’ pledging to seek ‘deep cuts’ in America’s arsenal, thus unilaterally disabling its nuclear deterrent as Russia and China engage in massive military buildups.
McCain understands that an Islamic war of conquest is being waged on a number of diverse fronts which all have to be seen in relation to each other. For Obama, however, the real source of evil in the world is America. The evil represented by Iran and the Islamic jihadists is apparently all America’s fault. ‘A lot of evil’s been perpetuated based on the claim that we were fighting evil,’ he said. Last May, he dismissed Iran as a tiny place which posed no threat to the US -- before reversing himself the very next day when he said Iran was a great threat which had to be defeated. He has also said that Hezbollah and Hamas have ‘legitimate grievances’. Really? And what might they be? Their grievances are a) the existence of Israel b) its support by America c) the absence of salafist Islam in the world. Does Obama think these ‘grievances’ are legitimate?
To solve world conflict, Obama places his faith in the UN club of terror and tyranny, which is currently fuelling the murderous global demonisation of Israel for having the temerity to defend itself and is even now preparing for a rerun of its own anti-Jew hate-fest of Durban 2, which preceded 9/11 by a matter of days.
McCain understands that Israel is the victim rather than the victimiser in the Middle East, that it is surrounded by genocidal enemies whose undiminished intention is to destroy it as a Jewish state, and that is both the first line of defence against the Islamist attack on the free world and its most immediate and important target.
Obama dismisses the threat from Islamism, shows zero grasp of the strategic threat to the region and the world from the encirclement of Israel by Iran, displays a similar failure to grasp the strategic importance of Iraq, thinks Israel is instead the source of Arab and Muslim aggression against the west, believes that a Palestinian state would promote world peace and considers that Israel – particularly through the ‘settlements’ – is the principal obstacle to that happy outcome. Accordingly, Obama has said he wants Israel to return to its 1967 borders – actually the strategically indefensible 1948 cease-fire line, known accordingly as the ‘Auschwitz borders’.
Obama would thus speak to Iran’s genocidal mullahs without preconditions on his side (the same mullahs have now laid down their own preconditions for America: pull all US troops out of the Middle East, and abandon support for ‘Zionist’ Israel) but has said he would have problems dealing with an Israeli government headed by a member of Israel’s Likud Party. In similar vein, it is notable that Obama opposed the congressional resolution labelling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, which passed the Senate by a wide margin with support from both parties. And had he had his way, there would have been no ‘surge’ in Iraq and America would instead have run up the white flag, with the incalculable bloodbath and strengthening of the jihad that would have followed.
Obama assumes that Islamic terrorism is driven by despair, poverty, inflammatory US policy and the American presence on Muslim soil in the Persian Gulf. Thus he adopts the agenda of the Islamists themselves. This is not surprising since many of his connections suggest that that the man who may be elected President of a country upon which the Islamists have declared war is himself firmly in the Islamists’ camp. Daniel Pipes lists Obama’s extensive connections to Islamists in general and the Nation of Islam in particular, and concludes with this astounding observation:
Obama's multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives mean he would fail the standard security clearance process for Federal employees. Islamic aggression represents America’s strategic enemy; Obama’s many insalubrious connections raise grave doubts about his fitness to serve as America's commander-in-chief.
The hatred that these Islamist connections entertain towards Israel is reflected amongst Obama’s own advisers. With one notable exception in Dennis Ross, whose late arrival in Camp Obama suggests a cosmetic exercise designed to allay alarm among Israel supporters, his advisers are overwhelmingly not only hostile to Israel but perpetrate the loathesome canard that Jews have too much power over American policy.
The former Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, for example, not only denounced Israel’s war against Hezbollah thus:
I think what the Israelis are doing today [2006] for example in Lebanon is in effect– maybe not in intent – the killing of hostages
but also supports Mearsheimer and Walt’s notorious smear that the Jews have subverted America’s foreign policy in the interests of Israel. Merrill McPeak, vice chairman of Obama’s campaign and his chief military adviser, has similarly blamed problems in the Middle East on the influence of people who live in New York City and Miami (guess who) whom no ‘politician wants to run against’ and who he says exercise undue influence on America’s foreign affairs. Most revolting of all is Samantha Power, a very close adviser whom Obama fired for calling Hillary a ‘monster’ but who says she still expects to be in Obama’s administration. Not only has Power has advocated the ending of all aid to Israel and redirecting it to the Palestinians, but she has spoken about the need to land a ‘mammoth force’ of US troops in Israel to protect the Palestinians from Israeli attempts at genocide (sic) -- and has complained that criticism of Barack Obama all too often came down to what was ‘good for the Jews’.
There are, alas, many in the west for whom all this is music to their ears. Whether through wickedness, ideology, stupidity or derangement, they firmly believe that the ultimate source of conflict in the world derives at root from America and Israel, whose societies, culture and values they want to see emasculated or destroyed altogether. They are drooling at the prospect that an Obama presidency will bring that about. The rest of us can’t sleep at night.
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Robbit
October 24th, 2008 6:03pmYet another brillaint post, Melanie.
Amidst all the drivel, trivia, starry-eyed nappy-wetting and brouhaha of the campaign you have spelt out the real bottom line... once again.
The good folks of the USA have only a few days to come to their collective senses.
N
October 24th, 2008 6:12pmMel,
You make good points as always, and for this election (i'm american) i'm resting for the most part on information about the candidates from you because in the States everything is biased and it's impossible to know the truth. Anyway, you make some good points why one shouldn't vote for Obama, but let me ask you this: Given McCain's age and unspecified medical problems if he were to be president and die in office, do you really think that Palin could take over and be the president and protect the US as McCain would have?
Bill
October 24th, 2008 6:18pmThanks for the news about Samantha Power. I hadn't realised how extreme she is. Obama is also a big buddy of Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia and a big terrorist propagandist.
Joseph
October 24th, 2008 6:19pmMelanie, I sincerely commended your inner thoughts on the candidates.
I am a black man with such a great concern about OBAMA presidency. I know America has not done well in many areas in the last few years, however, America is still better than many nations of the world including Europe. Security and sovereignity of a nation is the greatest freedom to economic and other issues. Listening to OBAMA and the way the rest of the world and HolyWood are falling in love with him is telling me that Obama will appease to all group. Once you decide you wanted to be like by everybody, you will sacrifice your moral and traditional principles to achieve that. How I wish people can see deeper into the heart of OBAMA and his agendas of appeasement that may bring America on her knees which will be to the joy of the Liberal and Socialist world.
Jane
October 24th, 2008 6:26pmTo the useful idiots 'everything happens for a reason' and so, it then follows, the jihad is justified. It must have a good reason.
Western reason - defending ourselves from the jihad - has no validity at all, though.
Only the reason justifying the jhad is not the myriad of excuses that change from country to country and from time to time.
For us, it's Iraq. For Delhi, it's Kashmir. For Israel, well, it's just Israel and so on. 'Western decadence', 'Western oppression' - the excuses are neverending, each one more brazen than the last.
The one reason that is consistent to the jihad everywhere is the one reason the useful idiots can't handle: the word of a deity.
And what did the deity say?
"Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate."
What earthly reasoning can there be with that?
It certainly wasn't written in response to 'Western oppression' as the Guardianistas would have us all believe.
Perhaps the American electorate thinks the Obamessiah will be able to do a deal with Allah?
john doe
October 24th, 2008 6:55pmExcellent post Melanie and a timely and necessary summation of the choice America has. This strikes me as the most critical election in US history.
Worried, Windsor
October 24th, 2008 6:55pm"Joseph"
Brilliant. Best yet. Keep up the good work!
hippiepooter
October 24th, 2008 7:16pmIf Obama becomes President the US will have nothing to fear from Islamist terrorist attack. They will see him as a natural ally.
I think Obama will bring about a 'false peace' that will last a season, then the power that the United States has exercised for good in the world for two centuries will be inverted to engulf the world in darkness beyond our worst nightmares.
Verity
October 24th, 2008 7:26pmN "Given McCain's age and unspecified medical problems" ... Unspecified? Hello? His complete medical records were submitted. He had two skin cancers removed. The surgeon predicted they would not return. They haven't. What other "medical problems" are you referring to? Obama just submitted a doctor's note, instead of his records, which is a bit of a worry.
You continue, "... if he were to be president and die in office, do you really think that Palin could take over and be the president and protect the US as McCain would have?"
Your question was addressed to Melanie, but I'll go ahead and barge in, as this is a blog and all. A resounding, Yes! Indeed, I believe she will be stronger protecting America's values than McCain. Obviously, no one can predict what another human being will do, but I think that someone who can face a moose and shoot it will not shrink from firepower if it is required.
(Palin and Jindal in 2012.)
hadrian
October 24th, 2008 7:42pmThe threat from Islamic fanaticism cannot be overstressed, though I suspect the time'll come when our freedom to express it will be carelessly and ignorantly bartered away under presseure from Islamic organisations in unholy alliance with the leftist PC brigade. The word's already coined- 'Islamophobia'- just waiting to be fully rolled out. Notice there is not a similar coinage for criticism of Christianity or any other religion. The prejudicial remarks about Palin really do depress one. The woman's values might be 'old American' but that hardly disqualifies her for high office. Her relative inexperience is hardly new in presidential candidates, either, however disdainful the chattering classes may be.
You are right, Melanie, to raise all these cautionary observations about Obama; at best there's terrible muddle-headedness there and I do not think the 'big picture' of his ideological mind-set at all reassures us.
Dave
October 24th, 2008 8:02pm"That’s why [Obama] believes in ‘soft power’ — diplomacy, aid, rectifying ‘grievances’"
To be honest these don't seem to be bad beliefs to have.
What are the alternives? War, suffering, letting wounds fester?
Sybilll
October 24th, 2008 8:38pmExcellent article Ms Phillips. Very factual, without a hint of malice. I will gladly share this with other like-minded Americans, and give you much due credit.
Hysteria
October 24th, 2008 8:40pmN - you pose a reasonable question (reiterated in many other media outlets etc) - and I think there is a very good answer which interestingly the California Governor mentioned in his interview on CNN a couple of days ago - which is...
The US President does not act alone - they have an army (literally and figuratively !) of people to provide advice, information, challenge opinions and help form policy. This group would have been put together by McCain and if the worst should happen , would be there to provide a consistent message and advice base for the VP.
By sharp contrast and as pointed out by Melanie, the group closest to an Obama Oval Office will be of a similar persuasion to him.
So I think the concerns about Palin as POTUS are over-played (and we know why!) whereas the concerns about an Obama presidency are under-estimated.
Alex Bensky
October 24th, 2008 10:51pmYes, Melanie, I regret to say that chances are that we indeed will do this. You make all sorts of good points about Obama's background, beliefs, and character. The problem is that virtually none of this is getting into the mainstream media, which after this year really cannot possibly claim to any sense of fairness or objectivity in political coverage.
As just one example among many, the New York Times had a major two page article on Sarah Palin a few weeks back. She has an eighty percent approval rating but they couldn't find anyone at all who was willing to be quoted as supporting her.
Biden made half a dozen major gaffes in the debate, such as reciting a history of Lebanon that had no relationship at all to the facts and mixing up the West Bank and Gaza. The mainstream media the next day had nothing--nothing--about it. However, coverage of the debate pretty much echoed the trope that Palin is a perky ignoramus.
I could go on and on. Despite the economic woes McCain would still have a very good chance if he were getting anything like fair coverage.
Don't tell anyone I told you this. Criticism of Obama comes only from racism; one of our local (Detroit) columnists assured her readers recently that there was no reason to vote against Obama except racism.
However, Obama's election will please your fellow Brits like Harold Pinter, so that's something.
Hayward Maberley
October 24th, 2008 11:06pmAt the core of the problem is the combination of this American, US that is, Exceptionalism with Manifest Destiny. Since the end of WWII and under most Administrations, whether Democrat or Republican, the USA has invaded or had its SOB proxies/surrogates invade or take power in many countries. Actions taken supposedly in the name of "freedom, democracy and the free market” It has also blocked the bringing of freedom and democracy to others.
A nadir has been reached with the Iraq Fiasco and the Afghanistan Imbroglio. This brought about by a Republican President with a chiliastic world view aided by the Neocon Manicheanism.
In order to carry out this Manifest Destiny it has skewed its economy towards the Military Industrial Financial Nexus. The Wall Street Debacle one of the outcomes of this has now spread into the "real economy" and "real people" all around the world are suffering from the machinations of Predator Capitalism USA style.
George Steiner
October 24th, 2008 11:31pmYes indeed Obambi will remake the world. And like all remakes, it will not be as good as the original.
Still conservatives can only blame themselves. They are disorganized whiners. While the left has put shoulder to the wheel and may well succeed where the Soviets have failed.
But this time the left will have little time to enjoy themselves. They will be Islamised faster than you can say Allahu akbar.
alcibiades
October 25th, 2008 12:52amBarney Frank, who helped bring the credit by crisis by his refusal to do anything to regulate Fannie and Freddy, is already making a stink about cutting defense spending by 25%.
The Truth Hurts
October 25th, 2008 1:58am"This is the fear that, if he (Obama) wins.....the enemies of America and the free world will seize their opportunity to destroy the west."
Melanie Phillips
24 October 2008
I believe, Melanie, that these hasty words will come back to haunt you.
Verity
October 25th, 2008 2:21am"That’s why [Obama] believes in ‘soft power’ — diplomacy, aid, rectifying ‘grievances’"
To be honest these don't seem to be bad beliefs to have.
What are the alternives? War, suffering, letting wounds fester?"
Awwwwwwwwwww! Are you 15 yet?
Lynda Stack
October 25th, 2008 3:09amBrilliant post.
I pray every day and I have praying that this man not be elected. I do have a dread about him
History has turned a corner. The West is disarmed all over the place and the election of Obama is a manifestation of that.
I am not sure how the financial crash will effect their ultimate loyalty to him or whether they will blindly follow him while he 'turns up the heat'.
Reg
October 25th, 2008 3:52amIs America really going to do this?
No. For a myriad of reasons, not least the Hilary Dems.
McCain's choosing of Sarah Palin as running-mate may well turn out to be the one act that did more than any other to scupper the Obama machine.
Flora Steele
October 25th, 2008 5:00amWhat is this about McCain being 'erratic'? I think it's a subliminal attack, founded on his awkward physical movements -- which are the result of damage he suffered as a POW. A very dishonorable attempt to turn war wounds into a liabilitly.
It is Obama whose policy statements are in fact erratic. In summer 2007 he was trying to sound hawkish -- talking about invading Pakistan!
Hugh
October 25th, 2008 5:56amN: I live in Canada and have been paying particularly keen attention to this Presidt'l campaign...have you? Have you listened to Biden's gasbaggery - worse, his solipsim? Are you judging HIS ability to backstop the young , and clearly shape-shifting "senior" partner who has exhibted lots of charisma on the stump and zero "values" nor "morals" in the classic sense? You must appreciate junk pop culture and shallow YOB mores- how soft and extantBritish- you sir/madam are the reason England is on bended knee. I suppose you disavow Wilberforce and suffer "guilt" and pine for expiation..ah well, you're obviously just one of a crowd-how reassuring.
Hayward Maberley
October 25th, 2008 6:33amJoseph,
"...America (in truth the USA ) has not done well in many areas in the last few years..."
That is somewhat of an understatement. And now just look at the Wall Street Debacle!
There are many nations in Europe Joseph,it is not just one nation.
"....sacrifice your moral and traditional principles to achieve that..."
The current Republican Administration have already flushed away a lot of what made the the USA great. Led by someone who will be regarded as the worst President in the history of the USA for a long time.
Dr John of Porpoise Spit
October 25th, 2008 7:30amMelanie, I am very concerned about Israel, and now is not a good time to be disolving Parliament to hold an election. If I were them I'd launch an attack on Iran's nucleur facilities right now, or maybe the day after the US election if Obama wins. Maybe this is what is exercising Joe Biden's mind. Obama is going to make Blair's Britain look like walk in the park.
Conservative Cabbie
October 25th, 2008 8:11amVerity
I'm not sure about Palin & Jindal in 2012. They'll be going up against each other in the primaries and should Palin win the primary process, what value add does Jindal give the ticket. He's from LA so doesn't really help securing a state, he wouldn't add the "foreign policy experience" that Biden was laughably supposed too and they appeal to exactly the same conservative base. I suppose the only thing he might add would be the intellectual bit (he's Ivy league and a Rhodes scholar).
Don't get me wrong, from what I know of him I like him, just not sure what he would bring to the ticket. There are potentially three strong conservatives getting ready for 2012 in Palin, Jindal and John Thune (Senator from South Dakota). I think Romney and Huckabee don't stand a chance; Romney won't have the evangelical support of Palin, Jindal etc and Huckabee will lose a lot of his evangelical base because of the aforementioned three. Finally, the person I see as a potentially good VP is Fred Thompson, a real rabble-rouser. Palin and Thompson on the campaign trail would be a really interesting sight.
So, if push comes to shove, who is it for you, Palin or Jindal?
Conservative Cabbie
October 25th, 2008 8:22am@Hysteria
"whereas the concerns about an Obama presidency are under-estimated."
Never a truer word spoken. We're starting to get a feel for the legilative agenda of an Obama presidency and a Democratic congress.
1. Card Check - in which "union bosses want Congress to pass a law that actually robs workers of their democratic right to a private ballot".
2. Barney Frank has revealed the Dems agenda.
25% reduction in defence spending.
He says they will "have to raise taxes eventually".
He says there is a big spending stimulus package in the offing, probably November, more likely January.
So we have defence cuts, tax increases and government spending. Allied to Obama's desire to not weaponise space and reduce the nuclear arsenal, it's like the Labour Party of the 1980's. (Of course Joe Biden does admire Neil Kinnock so much).
david skinner
October 25th, 2008 8:49amThere seems to be doubt as to whom said the following:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship”.
"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith
2. from spiritual faith to great courage.
3. from courage to liberty.
4. from liberty to abundance.
5. from abundance to selfishness.
6. from selfishness to complacency.
7. from complacency to apathy.
8. from apathy to dependency
9. from dependency back to bondage."
In Britain and America the entire news is dominated by the economy and how it will effect our material peace and prosperity. Whilst at the same time unspeakable evil is being perpetrated on a daily basis and yet it hardly hit’s the news. In Britain, babies are being murdered in their mothers’ wombs at the rate of 200, 000 a year, our youth are being transformed into psychopathic killers, sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness and addictions of every kind abound and the government is literally hell bent on destroying the very atom of society, the family.
Where are we on the scale? Probably at number 8
solemnman
October 25th, 2008 9:58amI can't think of another governor who has been given an 80% approval rating by their constituents,who has acheived anything comparable to what she has acheived ,in such a short time, in any other state.She has done what we would all hope for but hardly ever get from an elected official but-this is all academic now.Americans,like bemused lemmings,are headed for the cliff.
Mladen Andrijasevic
October 25th, 2008 10:04amMcCain for President. A very short endorsement:
Iran WANTS to start a nuclear war with Israel and destroy the Jews in order to trigger the return of the Mahdi, the Hidden Twelfth Imam, the four-year old who went into hiding in a well 1140 years ago.
Barack Obama wants to talk to Iran.
All other arguments are insignificant.
Genesis of Shi'a Islam
http://www.amilimani.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=116&Itemid=2
Emmet
October 25th, 2008 10:22amMr Maberley, America might have made a few mistakes, but don't dare try to compare them with the organised tyranny of most of the members of the UN club. Try living in one of these thus states, not as a privileged westerner, but as a native, or, better still, as a poor domestic worker say from India or the Phillipines. Please spare us from your moral equivalence crap.
Worried, Windsor
October 25th, 2008 10:26amVerity,
Excellent comment about moose attacks. Definitely a case of shoot first.
These warnings from the Alaska wildlife people are worth noting, for those with children:
"Are kids safe around moose?
Yes, usually. The problem is, both kids and moose are somewhat unpredictable. Young kids will take their cues from adults; if you take chances, they might also. Keep kids away from moose. If a moose is hanging out at a school bus stop, ask the driver if he or she can pick up the kids one or two blocks away along the route. Establish a parent patrol to wait at the bus stop with the kids (more to control the kids than the moose). If your kids walk to school, show them another route to walk if they see a moose on their normal route. If you know a moose is in your neighborhood, kids should probably avoid walking on long paths through the woods where it is dark and there is no easy escape if a moose runs down the path."
But, for the final word on the matter you should check out this video (by Woody Allen): http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xmnLRVWgnXU
Have a nice weekend.
Tam
October 25th, 2008 10:31amSays Hayward Maberley: “At the core of the problem is the combination of this American, US that is, Exceptionalism with Manifest Destiny.”
No, Hayward.
At the core of the problem is a religious conflict that has been going on for centuries. At various stages it has been defeated (the Gates of Vienna) or put into the deep freeze (the diluted version of Islam that came with colonialism).
In the 20th century, though, through the stalking horse of Marxism which saw the West tie itself in knots and through the wealth of the petrodollar it seeks to reassert itself again.
You claim, Hayward Maberley, that the US “has also blocked the bringing of freedom and democracy to others”.
Really?
Who else has been trying to spread democracy in the last century? Russia? China? The mullahs?
No. America is the only major power that has tried to spread democracy. Yes, it is often blunt, but I’m afraid that’s the way the world works sometimes.
I keep looking for the perfect world in the Middle East and Russia and I can’t find it. All I see is spiteful, corrupt leaders with ordinary people who have a boot over their windpipe. No thanks. Not for me.
If the American Dream must die with an Obama presidency, then so be it. A new generation might actually then realise what it was their forefathers were protecting themselves against.
Whether the dream will ever live again, I have my doubts. But at least the American public might actually wake up to the values that, for a time at least, gave them the freest, most prosperous nation on earth.
Formerly I’d have said God bless America, I hope that won’t soon be God rest America.
Dee Ranged
October 25th, 2008 11:45amMelanie.
This is tremendous.
Stay on this issue for another two weeks in the hope more and more Americans will wake up.
It is clear that NObama's credentials are wholly suspect and that he intends to downsize American influence in the world.
The whole world will be scorched by radical Islamic hate if he becomes the next president.
Barackobama
October 25th, 2008 12:21pmPatriotic Americans and friends of the US should be delighted by developments since the summer. I shall list them:
1 Decisive action by a Republican president with the support of congress to prevent the American economy going into deep economic depression.
2 The fall in inflated share prices that will force American households to consume less and save more for the future.
3 The amazing recovery in the dollar against every other currency (with the exception of the yen). This will make America richer and stronger.
4 The sharp reduction in killings and violence in Iraq which will allow America to scale back its operations in the country with dignity.
5 The fall in oil prices which will make Russia, Iran and Venezuela weaker.
All told, America today is in a far stronger position globally than it was in January.
The least important change is a new personality in the White House. We have known for four years that this was going to happen though we had no idea who the newcomer would be. This uncertainty is about to end, which is in itself an excellent thing for the US and its loyal allies.
And isn't it possible that a president that the world loves might be a good thing for American interests and all those who have stood by America in the past five years?
America recovering economically in a world where its principal rivals have been weakened and under new leadership is something to make every American patriot look to the future with optimism and joy.
john doe
October 25th, 2008 12:59pmI think the burning issue of our times is the confusion between 'affect' and 'effect'. It's a virulent bug infiltrating all walks of life and is threatening our culture from the inside.
Just for the record folks: 'to affect'(a verb) means 'to have an effect (a noun) on something or someone' One can also say, however, 'to effect(a verb) a change'.
So here's a quick exercise: Identify the following mistake:
'it will effect our way of life'
I'm sure Melanie will appreciate that this is all an outcome of our dumbed-down education system.
Ah, that feels better!
Norm
October 25th, 2008 1:11pmThe comparisons with 1997 and NuLabour are obvious. Obama will win because Americans are fed up with Bush so all he has to do is look Presidential and say as little as possible. Just like Tony Blair in 97. I have Republican American friends who say they will vote Democrat for the first time because of Bush not because they want Obama.
Dave
October 25th, 2008 1:23pm@Verity. oooh, zzzzzing!
Here's another example of the problem with Palin.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/sarah_palin_ignorant_and_antis.php
Ignorance? Or more "Scientism"?
Verity
October 25th, 2008 1:30pmDavid Skinner - Agreed. America isn't as far down the path, but an Obama presidency would catapult them to level pegging with us.
Conservative Cabbie - What Bobby Jindal has done, in two short years, is take an utterly corrupt state - a state with such a depth of corruption, no had any concept of what competent, neutral governance was, and turned it around in two short years.
Louisiana had the worst corruption in the United States, with a long string of corrupt governors - from way before Huey Long, although he was certainly the poster boy for corrupt governance everywhere. All you have to do is hark back to Hurricane Katrina - which, as I always point out, DID NOT TOUCH DOWN IN LOUISIANA, but they got the very heavy rains that accompany the fringes of a hurricane - and watch Governor Blanco, from a corrupt old Louisiana family, refuse to allow the president to send federal troops into the state to help with the burst levies - and subsequent heavy flooding - of Lake Ponchartrain (those levies built by Blanco's corrupt contractor friends with the cheapest of materials - to hold back a lake that is so vast it is basically an inland sea) and watch Mayor Nagins, holed up on the top floor of the Sheraton Hotel while his city was flooded and people's homes were washed away - and this was all considered normal in NO - to get a feeling for the level of corruption endemic there.
In two years, Bobby Jindal has sluiced out the state government. Nagins is still clinging on as do-nothing mayor of NO - a city he considers too dangerous for his own family, who he shipped to Dallas when Katrina was threatening the city and has kept there ever since. But there will be an election soon, and the people of Louisiana are beginning to appreciate that governments can actually be run to serve the citizens.
Companies are moving facilities, and even headquarters to a Louisiana governed by Jindal, who is giving tax breaks for new businesses to move in.
He would bring strong managerial experience with him, a brilliant, trained mind and an understanding that public servants are there to serve the public.
He is also utterly charming and funny and would be a wonderful ambassador for America. I am his biggest fan and I would like to see him President of the United States one day.
I would have mentioned, as you did, that he is a Rhodes scholar, but, uh, so was Bill Clinton.
Verity
October 25th, 2008 1:30pmDavid Skinner - Agreed. America isn't as far down the path, but an Obama presidency would catapult them to level pegging with us.
Conservative Cabbie - What Bobby Jindal has done, in two short years, is take an utterly corrupt state - a state with such a depth of corruption, no had any concept of what competent, neutral governance was, and turned it around in two short years.
Louisiana had the worst corruption in the United States, with a long string of corrupt governors - from way before Huey Long, although he was certainly the poster boy for corrupt governance everywhere. All you have to do is hark back to Hurricane Katrina - which, as I always point out, DID NOT TOUCH DOWN IN LOUISIANA, but they got the very heavy rains that accompany the fringes of a hurricane - and watch Governor Blanco, from a corrupt old Louisiana family, refuse to allow the president to send federal troops into the state to help with the burst levies - and subsequent heavy flooding - of Lake Ponchartrain (those levies built by Blanco's corrupt contractor friends with the cheapest of materials - to hold back a lake that is so vast it is basically an inland sea) and watch Mayor Nagins, holed up on the top floor of the Sheraton Hotel while his city was flooded and people's homes were washed away - and this was all considered normal in NO - to get a feeling for the level of corruption endemic there.
In two years, Bobby Jindal has sluiced out the state government. Nagins is still clinging on as do-nothing mayor of NO - a city he considers too dangerous for his own family, who he shipped to Dallas when Katrina was threatening the city and has kept there ever since. But there will be an election soon, and the people of Louisiana are beginning to appreciate that governments can actually be run to serve the citizens.
Companies are moving facilities, and even headquarters to a Louisiana governed by Jindal, who is giving tax breaks for new businesses to move in.
He would bring strong managerial experience with him, a brilliant, trained mind and an understanding that public servants are there to serve the public.
He is also utterly charming and funny and would be a wonderful ambassador for America. I am his biggest fan and I would like to see him President of the United States one day.
I would have mentioned, as you did, that he is a Rhodes scholar, but, uh, so was Bill Clinton.
Familiar Clown
October 25th, 2008 1:53pmCould Joe Biden's connections with credit card companies explain why Obama's campaign has been getting away with fraudulent credit card donations?
Normally, a purchase with a credit card on the internet requires that the name and address of the customer matches that of the cardholder, otherwise it isn't approved. But on the Obama campaign website, if you enter a false name and address, and after you enter your donation, card number and expirey date (it doesn't ask for the 3-digit code), you are taken straight to the next page with the message: "Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift."
This could not happen without the collusion of the credit card companies. They simply wouldn't allow any business to process hundreds of millions in credit card transactions where the name on the card doesn't match the purchaser's name. Therefore, with the system set up by the Obama camp, an individual could donate unlimited amounts of money with fake names and addresses. And Obama is a party to this fraud. This is truly scandalous.
L
October 25th, 2008 2:47pmSome of the views in this article are the most ridiculous I have ever read. I am a Black American woman. Not African American (that would mean my family came here willingly, we didn't, so I am not).
It amazes me how those on the outside looking in can comment on what is best for those inside. You obviously only get what you reported from commentaries written from others. If you actually lived here where 90% of us do, you wouldn't have written half of the garbage that you profess to be wisdom. And to have a cult following as well? These brainless people actually think this is a brilliant post!!
I have read articles from this site before and this is the first time I have been more upset than the previous reads.
Good day, Ma'am.
puppet
October 25th, 2008 2:59pmObama is a puppet.
He is inarticulate except when giving a speech. Without a script he appears lost as he was with Joe the plumber. His visit to his grandmother is probably just a way of avoiding similar off-the-cuff questions after the Joe the plumber debacle. He changes his position/policies frequently & abruptly because he is not the one who is determining them. He was lacklustre in the debates because he could only be partly scripted. He appears to be two different people. The presidential articulate speaker with a powerful prescence when scripted and an inarticulate ordinary man of maybe average intelligence who has difficulty explaining or remembering his own policies when answering questions off-the-cuff.
Who writes his scripts? Who coaches his performances? Who is the puppet-master?
Craig Strachan
October 25th, 2008 4:15pm"I think that someone who can face a moose and shoot it will not shrink from firepower if it is required"
I'd be more impressed by Palin's courage if the moose was armed and shooting back.
Verity
October 25th, 2008 4:29pmWorried, Windsor - At one point, I used to go to Alaska on business for a couple of weeks at a time and I never saw a moose or a caribou at a bus stop or anywhere else. There is a stuffed 7 foot brown bear in the lobby of the Captain Cook Hotel though. He looks a lot like you.
Mary from Illinois, USA
October 25th, 2008 4:32pmThe ONLY reason an Obama exists in this country is because for many many years the leftists as well as many of the black community "leaders" in this great land have convinced the majority of the blacks that they are victims of the white man. The white man is to be hated. The rich are to be hated. Of course the guilt ridden white liberals have bought into this as well. These victims are entitled to reparations because they have been held down by the "man". Socialists like Obama see the time is ripe for the kill of the greatest country in the history of the world. Make NO mistake the destruction of AMERICA IS HIS AGENDA! He will enslave those he purports to free. Sadly they cannot see through this plot. Obama and those before him have created a divide and set the stage for class warfare. If he is elected President (God help us all) not only will there be an economic depression but a spiritual one as well. Louis Farakhan called him the "messiah". I call him the anti-Christ. WAKE UP CITIZENRY OF AMEREICA!
Verity
October 25th, 2008 4:35pmNorm, I agree that there is a tremendous disaffection with Bush among Republicans and, although they most assuredly will not vote for Obama, they may stay home.
old white guy
October 25th, 2008 5:09pmjust remember what the second amendment is for. even the supreme court can't take your gun. if they try it is your right to show them that they can't.
Frank P
October 25th, 2008 5:15pmTam
Excellent post; I wouldn't be too hard on Hayward; he once had a bit of financial luck; it went to his head and enabled him to wander the world, particularly those parts South of Border which he calls 'the real America'. He's been able to buy lots of books and a pair of red-tinted spectacles; also a PC connected to the Internet enabling him to infitrate the non-leftist blogs and educate us in the aims of Utopian communism. The filter on his spectacles therefore prevents him from seeing the obvious in geopolitical matters. In fact at times he seems unable to see beyond the end his own nose and certainly focuses on all matters anti-Amerikkkan, Bushitler the dreaded and evil neoconmilitaryindustrialcomplex.He is a wag, but if you stick around you'll get used to his nonsense. Luckily while he is spending his time here - trying to convert us pro-Western counter-counter-revolutionaries who have realised that anti-Islamic-jihad enjoined (pro-tem; the enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend) with hard-core and crypto-Marxism is the main threat to world stability -he is not corrupting the credulous minds of the more youthful who spend their time on other blogs.
That's the great thing about Melanie's blog - it draws their fire and provides us with some amusement when the the likes of Howard keep coming back for more. He's from Down Under, too, be we don't hold that agin him, as there are a number of Australasians among the commentariat here who more than make up for Howard's quaint treatises with some good hard-nosed common sense - Oz style. God bless 'em! And God bless America, who, for better or worse we all rely. Unless of course we are look at the world through the same sort of spectacles as Howard. In which case Obama would be our man.
clue
October 25th, 2008 5:37pmJust as in Noah's day, they took no note until the end was suddenly upon them.
Jim from Pittsburgh
October 25th, 2008 5:45pmI would like to offer the small bit of reassurance to Melanie and other concerned Brits that those of us opposed to following the blindly idiotic and overtly predictable path of socialism are only a slight minority and we seem to harbor most of the intelligence. Even if Obama is elected with a veto proof majority, I have growing confidence that this election cycle has awakened the (by its nature) sleeping giant of economic conservatism both here and abroad.
Scott in California
October 25th, 2008 6:22pmI live in California. If Obama is elected, God help us all. Personally, if he wins I plan on giving him the same respect the Left has shown George Bush for the last eight years.
George
October 25th, 2008 6:22pmI hope and pray that Obama turns out to be the USA's Shimon Peres - always winning in the opinion polls but losing at the ballot box.
Bill M
October 25th, 2008 6:27pmDon't worry. Under Obama we'll have Minipax
http://www.thepeacealliance.org/content/view/77/118/
Chris Quinn
October 25th, 2008 6:31pmWe will all miss America when it is gone.
Bill
October 25th, 2008 6:58pmThe only time Obama will use "soft power" is on his American hating allies. Anyone who thinks this Marxist and his merry band of Chicago thugs won't unleash the full force of the U.S. Military when it serves his plans to change the world are fools on par with Neville Chamberlin.
realist
October 25th, 2008 7:12pmYour piece assumes many sweeping generalizations about the two American candidates for the presidency. Have you ever heard this saying? Assume makes an ass out o u and me!
Obama is the consummate strategist. He is intelligent, educated and capable of assembling functional groups of intelligent, competent people to deal with the country's challenges.
FDR dealt with the challenges very effectively. Your assumption that a Democrat is weak is rather ridiculous.
You are skilled at writing a polemic.
I happen to strongly disagree with you and am more frightened by an elderly hawk who seems erratic and confused, has strong financial interests in continuing the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. I am even more frightened of the poor judgment he has shown by choosing a female Arctic cowboy who is ignorant of the American Constitution, given to believing her own lies and rhetoric and far too comfortable with nepotism and not comfortable at all with accountability as his running mate and possible president should he be incapacitated or die. Surely you jest if you believe McCain/Palin are up to the challenges of this globalized world!
George Bush has paved the way for Obama!
Accept it.
Zebulon Quinn
October 25th, 2008 7:17pmThere is a tendency to every 4 years pronounce the presidential election the "most critical election in US history." The one this year is critical, as are most of them.
I'll be voting for McCain, but I suspect I'm in the minority. The Republicans have had the helm for 8 years and have done with it what they have. Most people look at it and say it's time to give the other side a turn. The conservative movement started by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago is in complete tatters and disarray. In the 20 years since Reagan left office the conservative movement has been mishandled, mismanaged, even undermined, under 12 years of domination by Bush and his father. It reached the point where by 2008 there was a total absence of conservative leadership. That's how and why McCain won the Republican nomination. That's why the choice of Sarah Palin is so wildly popular amongst the conservative cohort. She stepped into a vacuum. She's still the only one there. The Republicans are not ready to lead in a coherent way.
Maybe the Republicans are due for a spell out of power to reorganize themselves and to put forth fresh leadership with focused conservative ideas.
Four years of Jimmy Carter gave the world Ronald Reagan. It can and probably will happen again.
Frank P
October 25th, 2008 7:17pmTam
Excellent post; I wouldn't be too hard on Hayward; he once had a bit of financial luck; it went to his head and enabled him to wander the world, particularly those parts South of Border which he calls 'the real America'. He's been able to buy lots of books and a pair of red-tinted spectacles; also a PC connected to the Internet enabling him to infiltrate the non-leftist blogs and educate us in the aims of Utopian communism. The filter on his spectacles therefore prevents him from seeing the obvious in geopolitical matters. In fact at times he seems unable to see beyond the end his own nose and certainly focuses on all matters anti-Amerikkkan, Bushitler, the dreaded and evil neo-conmilitaryindustrialcomplex.
He is a wag, but if you stick around you'll get used to his nonsense. Luckily while he is spending his time here - trying to convert us pro-Western counter-counter-revolutionaries who have realised that anti-Islamic-jihad enjoined (pro-tem; the enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend) with hard-core and crypto-Marxism is the main threat to world stability -he is not corrupting the credulous minds of the more youthful who spend their time on other blogs.
That's the great thing about Melanie's blog - it draws their fire and provides us with some amusement when the the likes of Howard keep coming back for more. He's from Down Under, too, be we don't hold that agin him, as there are a number of Australasians among the commentariat here who more than make up for Howard's quaint treatises with some good hard-nosed common sense - Oz style. God bless 'em! And God bless America, who, for better or worse we all rely on. Unless of course we are looking at the world through the same sort of distorted spectacles as Howard. In which case Obama would be our man.
TomTom
October 25th, 2008 7:20pmThe most powerful individual in the next administration will be the Treasury Secretary persuading other countries to finance the US deficits...the next most important will be the Defence Secretary as Putin decides to invade Ukraine and pose a threat to Poland.
If the President happens to be Obama he had better think about how he will take on the threat of financial ruin if China and Russia do not approve of him, and how far he can follow in Clinton's footsteps of appeasing China.
Bush has been a disaster because his agenda was hi-jacked on 9/11 in a conspiracy planned when Clinton was President...Bush was an isolationist forced to reverse policy on 9/11...Obama wants to be an internationalist with a cratered US domestic economy dependent on foreign economic aid to fund the US Treasury.
Whatever Obama promises he cannot deliver, he belongs to the Bond Markets
Aine
October 25th, 2008 7:35pmMs. Phillips,
Thank you for your clear voice from one of the many Americans who fear our election is being stolen out from under us, aided and abetted by most media. Another wonderful article.
derek
October 25th, 2008 7:39pmI don't get this article. america's becoming old news because of our existing policies. as brazil, china, russia and more countries are becoming more and more powerful, america's status in the world is becoming less and less prominent. is it america's primary goal to stay a world power, or to support a world where every nation is sustainable on its own (and thus preventing wars)? A McCain presidency will aim to ensure America is the most powerful nation in the world. Personally, as a human first, and an American second, I prefer an Obama presidency that will aim to ensure harmony among all people in the world.
Highlander
October 25th, 2008 7:41pm"Is America Really Going To Do This?"
We had all better hope not. Europeans too, will suffer from a weakened America under Obama. Until now Europe's social experiments have been made possible within a protective American military cocoon; courtesy of the American taxpayer. With an economically weakened U.S. and the abandonment of a global leadership role by Obama, America's reach, and the security provided therein, will shrink. The result: the world will quickly become a much more dangerous place for us all.
I am one American who would see McCain elected and America continue her vital role in a dangerous world. But defeating Obama is an uphill battle. We have been betrayed by our media, who have successfully insulated Obama from a host of issues that would have long since sunk any other candidate. The stakes for us and the world have never been higher. With a far-left president Obama, a super-majority in Congress for the Democrats, and a corrupt press leading interference for them both, the way would be clear for America's descent into tyranny, and the world's increasing descent into chaos.
Dr. Dean
October 25th, 2008 7:44pmLess is known about Obama the man than about Joe the plumber. All we have are Obama's books (which would only be taken at face value by a fool - they are semi-fictionalized...), his lean voting record in public office, and those relationships Obama chose over his life to date. For me the biggest issue is the latter as his judgment in choosing associates indicates the kind of people he will choose to fill the over 6000 positions in his administration. There is nothing on the record that would lead us to believe that he will build a moderate, uniting administration. On the contrary, the Samantha Powers types he prefers will be driving much of American foreign and domestic policy. And that is something that should scare the heck our of any good American.
Frank P
October 25th, 2008 7:54pmAs usual Mark Steyn writes it the way it is:
The Point of No Return
Will we vote for the same soothing siren song as our enervated allies?
By Mark Steyn
Across the electric wires, the hum is ceaseless: Give it up, loser. Don’t go down with the ship when it’s swept away by the Obama tsunami. According to newspaper reports, polls show that most people believe newspaper reports claiming that most people believe polls showing that most people have read newspaper reports agreeing that polls show he’s going to win.
In the words of Publishers’ Clearing House, he may already have won! The battleground states have all turned blue, the reddest of red states are rapidly purpling. Don’t you know, little fool? You never can win. Use your mentality, wake up to reality. Why be the last right-wing pundit to sign up with Small-Government Conservatives For The Liberal Supermajority? We still need pages for the coronation, and there’s a pair of velvet knickerbockers with your name on it.
Yes, technically, this is still a two-party state, but one of the parties is like Elton John’s post-Oscar bash and the other is a church social in Wasilla. As David Sedaris put it in The New Yorker:
“I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’
“To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”
Well, to be honest, I’ve never much cared for chicken.
McCain vs Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it’s not an “ideal world”, and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will “heal the planet” and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux. I agree with Thomas Sowell that an Obama-Pelosi supermajority will mark what he calls “a point of no return”. It would not be, as some naysayers scoff, “Jimmy Carter’s second term”, but something far more transformative. The new president would front the fourth great wave of liberal annexation — the first being FDR’s New Deal, the second LBJ’s Great Society, and the third the incremental but remorseless cultural advance when Reagan conservatives began winning victories at the ballot box and liberals turned their attention to the other levers of the society, from grade school up. The terrorist educator William Ayers, Obama’s patron in Chicago, is an exemplar of the last model: forty years ago, he was in favor of blowing up public buildings; then he figured out it was easier to get inside and undermine them from within.
All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can’t the government sort out my health care? Why can’t they pick up my mortgage?
In his first inaugural address, Calvin Coolidge said: “I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.” That’s true in a more profound sense than he could have foreseen. In Europe, lavish social-democratic government has transformed citizens into eternal wards of the nanny state: the bureaucracy’s assumption of every adult responsibility has severed Continentals from the most basic survival impulse, to the point where unaffordable entitlements on shriveled birth rates have put a question mark over some of the oldest nation states on earth. A vote for an Obama-Pelosi-Barney Frank-ACORN supermajority is a vote for a Europeanized domestic policy that is, as the eco-types like to say, “unsustainable”.
More to the point, the only reason why Belgium has gotten away with being Belgium and Sweden Sweden and Germany Germany this long is because America’s America. The soft comfortable cocoon in which western Europe has dozed this last half-century is girded by cold hard American power. What happens when the last serious western nation votes for the same soothing beguiling siren song as its enervated allies?
“People of the world,” declared Senator Obama sonorously at his self-worship service in Germany, “look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”
No, sorry. History proved no such thing. In the Cold War, the world did not stand as one. One half of Europe was a prison, and in the other half far too many people — the Barack Obamas of the day — were happy to go along with that division in perpetuity. And the wall came down not because “the world stood as one” but because a few courageous people stood against the conventional wisdom of the day. Had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan been like Helmut Schmidt and Francois Mitterand and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter, the Soviet empire (notwithstanding its own incompetence) would have survived and the wall would still be standing. Senator Obama’s feeble passivity will get you a big round of applause precisely because it’s the easy option: Do nothing but hold hands and sing the easy listening anthems of one-worldism, and the planet will heal.
To govern is to choose. And sometimes the choices are tough ones. When has Barack Obama chosen to take a stand? When he got along to get along with the Chicago machine? When he sat for 20 years in the pews of an ugly neo-segregationist race-baiting grievance-monger? When he voted to deny the surviving “fetuses” of botched abortions medical treatment? When in his short time in national politics he racked up the most liberal – ie, the most doctrinaire, the most orthodox, the most reflex — voting record in the Senate? Or when, on those many occasions the questions got complex and required a choice, he dodged it and voted merely “present”?
The world rarely stands as one. You can, as Reagan and Thatcher did, stand up. Or, like Obama voting “present”, you can stand down.
Nobody denies that, in promoting himself from “community organizer” to the world’s President-designate in nothing flat, he has shown an amazing and impressively ruthless single-mindedness. But the path of personal glory has been, in terms of policy and philosophy, the path of least resistance.
Peggy Noonan thinks a President Obama will be like the dog who chases the car and finally catches it: Now what? I think Obama will be content to be King Barack the Benign, Spreader of Wealth and Healer of Planets. His rise is, in many ways, testament to the persistence of the monarchical urge even in a two-century old republic. So the “Now what?” questions will be answered by others, beginning with the liberal supermajority in Congress. And as he has done all his life he will take the path of least resistance. An Obama Administration will pitch America toward EU domestic policy and UN foreign policy. Thomas Sowell is right: It would be a “point of no return”, the most explicit repudiation of the animating principles of America. For a vigilant republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens, it would be a Declaration of Dependence.
If a majority of Americans want that, we holdouts must respect their choice. But, if you don’t want it, vote accordingly.
© Mark Steyn 2008
Another sage who gets it - and explains it with lucidity and scintillating wit.
Verity
October 25th, 2008 7:58pmPuppet - Well, I read that William Ayers wrote his book about his father for him. This wouldn't surprise me because other than this book - which he may not have written - he seems never to have been engaged in a long-term project. What has he ever accomplished. He never even voted in the Illinois Senate, except to say "Present". I think we've all noticed that he can say his lines with drama, but without a script he appears lost and jumpy.
L - You failed to tell us what you disapprove of about Melanie's post. All we know from your comment is, you disapprove of it. Strongly. But why?
Also, why on earth mention that you are black? So what? You're an American and you are choosing who to vote for in your national election. I can't see what your skin pigment has to do with anything, unless you are expecting special privileges for having been born black.
This sentence has a weird charm of its own: I have read articles from this site before and this is the first time I have been more upset than the previous reads.
Do come back and tell us what you specifically object to in Melanie's post.
Continuum
October 25th, 2008 8:01pmThank God, the majority of the American people neither agree with your analysis of Obama nor of McCain.
Grant
October 25th, 2008 8:20pmI enjoy your insight on many issues, and I write this only to make a very minor correction to your piece. You state in point "c)" of greivances common to Hamas and Hezbollah the absence of Salafist Islam in the world. Salafism is a branch of Sunni Islam, to which Hamas does indeed subscribe and promote through violence. Hezbollah, however, is a faction within Shia Islam. Salafists consider Shiites apostates, and thus worthy of the death penalty. Hezbollah's greivance would more correctly be described as the absence of the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary Shia Islam in the world.
Paul from Chicago
October 25th, 2008 8:24pmSoft power is *not* defined as "rectifying ‘grievances’ ... and resolving conflict by talking" nor does it imply the conflict is solely the fault of the west. It *is* about promoting enlightenment values and the values of freedom, both of conscience, speech, poltical and religious association and in the economic sphere. It's arguably more important than military power (which is not to say that there's no role for military power, but tanks and airpower aren't particularly efficient against asymmetric guerrilla/terror-based antagonists). This doesn't mean that there aren't things that are in dire need of correction in the US, what I also believe is still the greatest force for good on the planet. The soft power - AKA the "power of the idea" - of our nation is severely eroded by unnecessary torture and unsustainable economic practice, including an economy based all too largely on debt and fossil-fuel-based expansion of consumerism and planned obsolescense. Is Obama perfect? Far from it. I worry about what he will do to the deficit, and how deep his ties might be to the Illinois political sewer. But does he understand the need to reestablish our credibility as the leading light of post-enlightenment values and redirect our economy into something far more sustainable and able to compete in a changing world? If looked at relative to McCain there is simply no comparison.
Conservative Cabbie
October 25th, 2008 8:31pmThanks Verity
He's certainly interesting, I wonder how effective he'll be on the stump, Palin's strength.
I suspect the 2012 GOP Primary will be about the money. Will it be Jindal or Palin who taps into the NRA, evangelical and Pro-Life monies. Whichever of those raises the most will probably be the nominee.
As I said a while ago, it looks like Jindal is going for it. He's scheduled a trip to Iowa after the election obstensibly to make a speech, but as we all know, Iowa is the first to go in the primary but is also a caucus state which means getting on the ground and meeting the party members face to face.
If McCain does lose in November, at least I'll be able to follow the manouverings for the primary.
John
October 25th, 2008 8:38pmToo bad if Obama becomes president the media will continue to cover for him and most people will never hear any downside to his policies. Obama will break his so called "tax cut" pledge and increase taxes on the middle class. How will people find out about it? The media? no they will see their paychecks just like Clintons disappearing middle class tax cut that turned into an increase . Israel sold out..how will people find out about it? They wont. Any Obama policy that leads to a real downside will simply go unreported. Its not news if those ideologically allied to Obama dont say its news and their quest for Socialism and the enslavement to the state for your bennies will keep the morons pressing the button for democrats. Maybe democrats will even pass a new "Fairness Doctrine" so they can shut down the limited opposition and questioning they get from conservative dominated talk radio. It certainly would be rightous payback to the mainstream media who have accepted everything Obama has said without question. How can people be so stupid to simply accept reporting that seems too good to be true. If I was from outside the USA and accepted the socialist principle of the "pie O' wealth" that the greedy USA simply takes too much of to the detriment of other countries I would want Obama for president too. He means a weaker US where the individual is further demoralized to excel. Make 74K a year you currently pay 28% federal tax 5-7% state, 7% social security and medicare (15% if self-employed) and a 5-8% sales tax on what you buy...along with property taxes. For Obama it just is not enough! Out Military will also weaken and those good souls in Russia, Iran and Venezuela will surly have the "world communities" best interest at heart unlike the evil USA. One things for sure it will hurt those outside the US far more than it will hurt us so I hope you enjoy your new world order.
joe
October 25th, 2008 8:40pmThe US is not part of the free world anymore, you are keeping people locked up without a fair trail. Not to mention all the torturing etc. That's something countries belonging to the axis of evil do, not free countries, with a decent democracy.
Tiberius
October 25th, 2008 8:47pmThere are, alas, many in the BRITAIN for whom all this is music to their ears. Whether through wickedness, ideology, stupidity or derangement, they firmly believe that the ultimate source of conflict in BRITAIN derives at root from THE TORIES, whose societies, culture and values they want to see emasculated or destroyed altogether. They are drooling at the prospect that an BLAIR PREMIERSHIP will bring that about. The rest of us can’t sleep at night.
Bill M
October 25th, 2008 8:55pmL-
"If you actually lived here where 90% of us do..." 90% of whom?
paul hill
October 25th, 2008 9:12pmThe better of the two candidates is going to win;no big deal ....relax......it's Democracy
Sumi
October 25th, 2008 9:29pmUnderinformed hit piece. Yawn.
Morgenholz
October 25th, 2008 9:37pmYes, Melanie, I fear we are about to do this.
Give it 6 months. I think American exceptionalism will surprise you, and the world, and scare the living hell out of our enemies. The word on the street here is not peaceful, but it is uniquely American.
Have faith not in the American government, but in her people. But wait until after the election for that last part. It'll be OK.
James
October 25th, 2008 9:59pmExcellent as always, Melanie.
I am however, pessimistic. The mainstream media here in America has become nothing less than an arm of the Obama campaign whose agenda is to attack McCain while simultaneously suppress any information which could harm the prospects of their Messiah.
It's not just Obama's foreign policy which will spell disaster for America - it's absolutely everything about him. His economic plan of raising taxes on big business during a recession is suicidal, for instance. But the media just doesn't care and will not, with the exception of the Wall St. Journal and Investors Business Daily, print any opposing view whatsoever.
Many have remarked that this election is the one during which journalism finally died. Not just in America either - the disgraceful BBC has officially thrown its own Charter under the bus and has allowed hacks like Justin Webb to use their BBC blogs to claim that anyone thinking of voting for McCain must "hate America."
This could in fact be the end of the mainstream media as more and more of us discard it in favor of online sources we can trust.
It does not seem like five minutes since the phrase "I read it on the internet" inspired mockery and derision. Now the roles are changing and the internet is gradually being seen as the only place you can actually find objective information and reasonable viewpoints.
Carolynn
October 25th, 2008 10:02pmI do not will my country (usa)ill, or that of any nation. However, I look forward to being able to look the liberals in the eye and say " We told you so."
Feyi
October 25th, 2008 10:03pmMelanie,
What are you going to do with yourself if Obama wins?
The man hasnt been President yet and you are already gazing into your crystal to predict not only what he would do but the consequences of the actions he would take.
You need to chill out...seriously.
Obama is nothing if not thoughtful you have no evidence to prove that he's a terrorist sympathizer as you appear to be implying here.
After 8 years of an American President who shoots first and asks questions later and who has shown a complete disdain of any point of view that he disagrees with...what can be wrong with a president who thinks?
If you criticize Obama because we dont know how he would govern, fair enough.
But to frame him effectively as a narrow minded idiot as you have done there is unbecoming even for you.
Jacky
October 25th, 2008 10:07pmThis is WOW! I am greatfull for this information. I am reading some books and this give me light!
Taylor
October 25th, 2008 10:08pmAs an American, I would have to agree. As a country we have troubles in seeing past the glitz and glamour of popular icons, like the one Obama has become. He has modeled himself into the young, attractive presidential candidate. McCain has trouble getting to the Americans in the short run, but in thhe long run, he really does know whats best for the direction of the country.
I'm so relieved to hear that the Europeans aren't "starry-eyed" for Obama. USA Today showed a poll in which Europeans wanted Obama in the White House 67%-31%
I'm glad to know that Europeans are smarter than most Americans preceive you all to be.
Once again, Thank You!
Lisa S
October 25th, 2008 10:20pmRe:Hayward Maberley
When corrupt Democrats stand in the way of reforming the loan agencies and even encourage bad loans, thats why we have this problem.
America is Not the problem, America IS the solution.
NOBAMA!
TioNed
October 25th, 2008 10:22pmI see the asylum inmates are patting each other on the back for how perceptive they are..
You really want Mr Angry Erratic Triggerhappy and Mrs. Theocrat Diva with their fingers near the big red button? I would be happy to let the British have them if I didn't have so many friends there..
Mrs. Palin is already sharpening her knife for Mr. McCain. If McCain had bothered to vet her properly, he would have known that backstabbing was one of the hallmarks of her political career...
John from Chicago
October 25th, 2008 10:22pmHopefully my fellow Americans DON'T do this, but it's looking ugly. Also, though I really want McCain to win, even if he does his presidency will be sabotaged at every turn by the poisonous democratic party hacks that now control Congress (i.e. Reid and Pelosi). I'm not saying he's not tough enough to take it, but it will make getting things done--especially the right things--very difficult. The only redeeming positive I can see in Obama getting elected is he and the democrats will screw stuff up so bad that they won't be back in power for decades. Even the news media can't cover up everything.
Augustus
October 25th, 2008 10:26pmWhereas orthodox American Jews appear to have their heads on straight, it puzzles me why so many other Jews over there support Barack Obama. There is no way that Obama is Commander-in-Chief material.
Would any business owner, who had worked all his life to build up a business suddenly take a massive leap of faith and hire a CEO who refuses to disclose fully who he is? Someone who cannot certify his experience and counters his apparent weaknesses with fanciful rhetoric of where he's likely to take your business? You would know instinctively that he makes little sense, and that what he proposes will irreparably harm the livlihoods of all you employ. And you would recognize that although ambitious and confident as this individual is who brazenly withholds his record, and who embellishes at will, you would also know with every bone in your body that he is the wrong person to hire for such a responsible position. So why risk it? Why risk everthing on this one individual with a CV that fits on the back of a driver's license you're unsure even belongs to the applicant? Why be so reckless? Especially when there's an applicant who you know has a pro