Make Obama, Biden, Clinton And The Democrat Party Wear Nuclear Iran Like An Albatross Of Shame

I want you to go back to December 2007 and reflect on documented history:

THE NATION – Democrats rip Bush’s Iran policy
Presidential candidates say a new intelligence report shows that the administration has been talking too tough.
By Scott Martelle and Robin Abcarian
December 05, 2007

Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.

While the candidates differed somewhat over the level of threat Iran poses in the Mideast, most of them sought to liken the administration’s approach to Iran with its buildup to the war in Iraq.

“I vehemently disagree with the president that nothing’s changed and therefore nothing in American policy has to change,” said New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. “We do know that pressure on Iran does have an effect. I think that is an important lesson.”

Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the new intelligence report indicated that Iran dropped its program before international pressure came into play.

“It was like watching a rerun of his statements on Iraq five years earlier,” Biden said. “Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America. Iran should be dealt with directly, with the rest of the world at our side. But we’ve made it more difficult now, because who is going to trust us?”

The debate was aired without a studio audience over NPR, live from the Iowa State Historical Museum. It covered Iran, China and immigration, offering the contenders a chance to delve more deeply into subjects that often receive less detailed debate treatment.

Clinton and Biden were joined by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson missed the debate to attend the funeral of Cpl. Clem Robert Boody in Independence, Iowa. Boody was a Korean War soldier whose remains Richardson had helped retrieve from North Korea earlier this year.

The National Intelligence Assessment report on Iran, released Monday, was the focus of the first third of the two-hour debate.

The assessment concluded that Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003 largely because of international pressure — reversing a conclusion made two years ago that the nation was aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons.

The Democrats used the issue to criticize each other as well as President Bush. Yet their own prescriptions for dealing with Iran are similar — and fairly close to the administration’s approach of increasing diplomatic and economic pressure to force Tehran to suspend enriching uranium that can be used for making nuclear weapons.

The leading Democratic candidates have differed over whether to negotiate directly with Iran. In a July debate, Obama said he would be willing to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a position criticized by Clinton and others. But front-runners Clinton, Obama and Edwards have all said they would not rule out military action against Iran.

For their part, Republican candidates have said that the new intelligence estimate did not change their view of Iran as a major threat to the United States — a view also held by Bush.

In the Democrats’ debate Tuesday, the focus on foreign-policy issues gave Clinton a chance to bring up what many people believe was the high point of her eight years as first lady — her speech at the 1995 U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In it, she castigated China over its treatment of women, arguing that women’s rights could no longer be considered separate from human rights. The Chinese government blocked the speech from being heard within China.

As at the Black & Brown Forum here Saturday night, the debate did not provide any landscape-shifting moments. Exchanges among the candidates were polite — but also at times direct, particularly over the recent bill sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that unofficially declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Clinton was the only Democratic candidate to vote for the bill. When asked whether she thought the Revolutionary Guard were “proliferators of mass destruction,” she said “many of us believe that” and suggested that earlier comments by Obama and Edwards about Iran indicated that they did too.

Edwards and Obama responded that they believed Iran was a threat to stability in the Mideast but that the administration was moving toward an unnecessary war.

“What I believe is that this president, who, just a few weeks ago, was talking about World War III, he, the vice president, the neocons have been on a march to possible war with Iran for a long time,” Edwards said. “We know that they’ve prepared contingency plans for a military attack.”

Obama, who missed the Kyl-Lieberman vote in the Senate because he was campaigning in New Hampshire, also drew parallels to the Iraq war buildup.

Who – and which party – turned out to be right?  And who couldn’t have been more wrong???

Secretary of State Leon Panetta – serving as Obama’s attack poodle – spilled the beans on an Israeli attack on Iran:

Panetta believes Israel may strike Iran this spring
United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a growing possibility Israel will attack Iran as early as April to stop Tehran from building a nuclear bomb, according to reports.
7:03AM GMT 03 Feb 2012

The Washington Post first reported that Panetta was concerned about the increased likelihood Israel would launch an attack over the next few months. CNN said it confirmed the report, citing a senior Obama administration official, who declined to be identified.

“Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June – before Iran enters what Israelis described as a ‘zone of immunity’ to commence building a nuclear bomb,” Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote.

“Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon – and only the United States could then stop them militarily,” Ignatius wrote.
 
Ignatius did not cite a source. He was writing from Brussels where Panetta was attending a NATO defense ministers’ meeting.
 
Panetta and the Pentagon both declined comment on the Post report.

Israel, widely believed to possess the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, views Iran’s uranium enrichment projects as a major threat and has not ruled out the use of military force to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
 
Iran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.

The Post article said the postponement of a joint U.S.-Israeli military exercise that had been scheduled for this spring may have signaled the prospect of an Israeli attack soon.
 
Washington and the European Union imposed tighter sanctions on Iran in recent weeks in a drive to force Tehran to provide more information on its nuclear program.
 
Iran has said repeatedly it could close the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane if sanctions succeed in preventing it from exporting crude, a move Washington said it would not tolerate.
 
Israel’s military intelligence chief said on Thursday he estimated that Iran could make four atomic bombs by further enriching uranium it had already stockpiled, and could produce its first bomb within a year of deciding to build one.
 
But in his rare public remarks, Major-General Aviv Kochavi held out the possibility that stronger international sanctions might dissuade Tehran from pursuing a policy he had no doubt was aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
 
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said separately that “if sanctions don’t achieve the desired goal of stopping (Iran’s) military nuclear program, there will be a need to consider taking action.”

What if Israel had done something similar shortly before our Navy Seals went into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden???  We would have rightly blasted such treachery.

That said, Israel has no choice BUT to attack Iran because Barack Obama and the entire Democrat Party are traitors and cowards who put the United States and the state of Israel at grave risk by demanding we stick our heads up our asses and keep them there until it was too late. 

Re-read this sentence: “”Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon – and only the United States could then stop them militarily.”  And let me translate it for you.  Israel will attack Iran – and start a war in the Middle East – because it knows it cannot trust a pathological weakling like Barack Obama to stand up to evil.  They know they will have to do what Obama lacks the moral will or courage to do; and Israel’s attack will mark the failure not of Israel but of Barack Obama.

Obama despises Israel in his actions in spite of his devious rhetoric and the thought of that nation having the courage to protect itself in the face of his cowardice fills him with dread.

You can bet that Obama won’t launch an attack on Iran.  Bottom line: he is a pathological weasel.  What he’ll do is sit back like a trembling little coward and wait for Israel to do what any decent nation would do for not only its own survival but for the sake of sanity itself and attack Iran.  And then Obama will tut-tut naughty Israel for its aggression.

This is the most obvious train-wreck in human history.  In early February of 2009 I wrote about America’s enemies seeing a weakling in the White House and smelling blood:

When Iran gets its nuclear weapons, we will start seeing some hard-core “generated international crises.” Right up the wazoo.

I’ve written about Obama’s dilemma in dealing with Iran before (and see also) Given the fact that Obama opposed the war with Iraq due to what he claimed was insufficient evidence of Iraqi WMD, how would he be able to go to war with Iran when the evidence will likely be even more flimsy? I mean, we were IN Iraq for several years; we actually SAW their WMDs in the Gulf War. We know very little about Iran’s weapons programs.

That same month in 2009 I wrote It’s Official: Iran Will Have The Bomb On Obama’s Watch.

In November 2008 shortly after the election I pointed out and asked: President Obama Not Ready For Coming International Crisis. Are You?

And before the election I explained the interesting phenonema as to Why Islamic Extremists Support Democrats and Obama.

Oh, I also pointed out the fact back in 2008 that Biden Reported Stating Israel Must Accept A Nuclear Iran.

In August of 2008 I asked a question: Iran And The Bomb: What Are We Going To Do?

And I can go all the way back to April of 2008 in one of my very first blog articles titled Democratic Debate: Promising Armageddon in which I concluded:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

A Republican president can say to the Iranians, “We went in to Iran when we thought they might attack us, Iran. And I promise that will do the same to you if you continue your weapons program.” And no one can question that. A Republican president can say to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, “We stayed with Iraq and defended them even when it was difficult, and we’ll do the same for you.” and no one can question that.

One of the things that I here point out is that even if Obama surprises me and actually attacks Iran, it will also be a shocking surprise to Iran that believes that Obama is a weakling and a coward based on his own words.  They would not have similarly believed that McCain was such.  Which is to say that even if Obama does the right thing and attacks Iran, it will be a war that didn’t have to be fought had we just voted with wisdom and courage in 2008.

Here we are now, on the verge of a nuclear Iran and a regional war involving Israel and Iran that the United States will most assuredly be drawn into at great economic cost (at a minimum) to ourselves.  Entirely due to the fault of Barack Obama and a treasonous Democrat Party.

When we voted for Barack Obama, we voted for a nuclear Iran.  We would accept nothing less.  We voted for the most expensive gasoline in American history.  We voted for an economy that would remain in shambles.

As I close this, I want to point out another FACT that history needs to remember.  I wrote a three part series in May 2008:

Iraq War Justified: Lessons from Saddam’s History (Part 1)

Iraq War Justified: What the Chronology Reveals (Part 2)

Iraq War Justified: Paralysis, Corruption at U.N. Made Truth Impossible (Part 3)

One of the primary points that I documented was that we had no choice to go to war with Iraq because three countries – Russia, China and France – blocked every serious international effort to prevent Iraq from developing WMDs which American foreign policy rightly concluded was unacceptable.  For the record, we are facing basically the same situation now with Iran and with Syria.  And how are we going to gain international cooperation when Russia and China can block any meaningful effort at international cooperation with their respective veto powers?

Three sites provide a list of statements that top Democrats made as they gave their support for the Iraq War before they treasonously turned on a president at war.  You can see that they talked as tough as “Dubya” EVER did about military action against Saddam Hussein; but when it came time for these cowards to put their money where their mouths were, well, that was when they cut and ran:

Truth or Fiction
Freedom Agenda
Snopes

I have repeatedly attacked the Democrat Party for its:

Opposition to the Iraq War (which 60% of Senate Democrats voted for, only to repudiate and claim Bush deceived them); opposition to the Patriot Act; opposition to Domestic Surveillance on calls from international terrorists; opposition to Gitmo, even though it is the only reasonable place to hold these people that no country wants; the demand for full legal representation in civilian courts for terrorists; opposition to even the reasonable use of profiling to weed out terrorists.  And I could go on and on.  It boils down to the fact that the left despise anything that help us win the war on terror or protect us from terrorism.

And to quote Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright who demonized America in his “No, no, no!  Not God bless America.  God DAMN America!” sermon, “Our chickens have come home to roost” for voting for this disgrace and this party of disgrace.

There is one person – Barack Obama – and one party – the Democrat Party – that are 100 percent responsible for the crisis we are about to face.

Obama Job Speech Fiasco AGAIN Makes POTUS Look Petty, Weak And Just Plain Small

This has actually degenerated to a level that is simply sad.

It’s hard to even put into a sentence: To say you’ve got a plan when you don’t have a plan, and then go on a fancy vacation, and then come back and have to “scramble” to come up with a plan that you frankly should have had months if not years ago, and then just show the world how petty you are by demanding that Congress call a special joint session the night of a scheduled GOP presidential debate, well, it’s pathetic.

The pathetic president.

Maybe Obama shouldn’t have gone on that fancy vacation, after all. 

Obama’s narcissistic arrogance is simply stunning.  His vacation was important, but Congress’ schedule is irrelevant.  His vacation is essential to the well-being of the nation, but the Republican Party using the democratic process of debate to select their nominee to contend for Obama’s job is trivial.

Obama constantly calls upon Congress to rise above petty partisan politics, but again and again this guy has taken some of the cheapest shots at all.  Going on a vacation and then coming back and saying the ONLY night Obama can give his speech just “happens” to coincide with the exact same date and the even the exact same TIME-SLOT of a GOP presidential debate that had been hard-scheduled for MONTHS is beneath even petty partisan politics.

Even very career and very partisan Democrats acknowledge that Obama was “out of bounds” in his attempt at this petty partisan politcal pissing contest:

Democratic strategist James Carville on Thursday called the White House “out of bounds” for requesting that the president address Congress during the same night as next week’s Republican presidential debate.

“I do think this is a really big debate and I think the White House was out of bounds…in trying to schedule a speech during a debate,” Carville said on “Good Morning America”.

There is absolutely no question whatsoever that Obama has every intention of using his “jobs speech” as a partisan political stunt.

Fortunately, Speaker of the House John Boehner wasn’t in the mood to tolerate a self-appeasing posturing poser:

Posted: 12:16 p.m. yesterday
Obama bows to Boehner; jobs speech will be Sept. 8
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has acceded to House Speaker John Boehner’s wishes to deliver an address on jobs and the economy to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 8. The president had requested Sept. 7 for the long-anticipated speech.

In agreeing to Boehner’s schedule, Obama’s address will compete with the opening game of the National Football League season — a conflict the White House wanted to avoid.

But the change now will allow a planned Sept. 7 Republican presidential debate to proceed without Obama upstaging it.

That’s right.  BOWS again.

Obama has a rather pathetic personal history with bowing down.

Atlas Shrugged has a magnificent pictorial presentation of who Obama bows down to (America’s enemies) and who he treats like dirt (America’s friends).  At least this time Obama bowed down before an actual American.

Speaker John Boehner was incredibly solicitous to Obama:

“It is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks,” Boehner, the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, said in a letter to the president.

“I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011 in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule,” he said.

But Obama – who saw this as a chance to upstage his rivals in a petty way while at the same time calling on politicians to “rise above” the very same sort of thing he was himself doing, just got owned.

It is truly sad for America that such a weak and petty man managed to rise to our presidency.

Libyans Facing Down Dictator Gaddafi Are Seriously Missing George Bush

As to the question of this sign:

The answer of the Libyans who are trying to free themselves from a murderous dictator thug named Muammar Gaddafi is, “Hell yes we do!”

In this case, one Bush is as good as another.  Both men were far more morally courageous than our current Coward-in-Chief who is casually putting his feet up on the Oval Office furniture.

George Herbert Walker Bush famously said, “This will not stand.  This will not stand, this aggressiona against Kuwait,” when informed that Saddam Hussein had just brutally invaded that tiny country.  And it didn’t.  Saddam Hussein had the fourth largest military in the world at the time; but it sure didn’t after we cut them down to size.  Barack Obama, in contrast, didn’t say a word criticizing Muammar Gaddafi for over a week while he sent first a boat too small, then a ferry that couldn’t handle rough water, while hundreds of Americans literally thought they would be killed.  Because the commander in chief of the most powerful navy in the history of the world did not want to risk provoking Gaddafi – even though several other nations had sent their own warships to save their people.  And after a lengthy period in which Obama refused to directly criticize Gaddafi for his murder of his own people, Obama has since looked at the polls and started making all manner of provocative threats that he has no intention of backing up with action.

Even the most evenhanded accounts are affirming that Obama is undermining American leadership.

BREGA, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi’s forces struck at rebel control of oil export hubs in Libya’s east for a second day on Thursday as Arab states weighed a plan to end turmoil Washington said could make the nation “a giant Somalia.”

A leader of the uprising against Gaddafi’s 41-year-old rule said he would reject any proposal for talks with Gaddafi to end the conflict in the world’s 12th largest oil exporting nation.

In The Hague, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Gaddafi and members of his inner circle could be investigated for alleged crimes committed against civilians by security forces since the uprising broke out in mid-February.

Italy said it was preparing for a potential mass exodus of migrants escaping turmoil in North Africa after a rise in flows of illegal immigrants from Tunisia, the initial destination for tens of thousands who have fled violence in Libya.

Save The Children and Medecins Sans Frontieres said they were struggling to get medicines and care to Libya’s needy, with gunmen blocking roads and civilians too scared to seek help.

Witnesses said a warplane bombed the eastern oil terminal town of Brega, a day after troops loyal to Gaddafi launched a ground and air attack on the town that was repulsed by rebels spearheading a popular revolt against his four-decade-old rule.

The rebels, armed with rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and tanks, called on Wednesday for U.N.-backed air strikes on foreign mercenaries it said were fighting for Gaddafi.

Opposition activists called for a no-fly zone, echoing a demand by Libya’s deputy U.N. envoy, who now opposes Gaddafi.

“Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes,” shouted soldier-turned-rebel Nasr Ali, referring to a no-fly zone imposed on Iraq in 1991 by then U.S. President George Bush.

But perhaps mindful of a warning by Gaddafi that foreign intervention could cause “another Vietnam,” Western officials expressed caution about any sort of military involvement including the imposition of a no-fly zone.

I began with a question.  Might as well throw in another one:

Libya: Just how pathetic is Barack Obama?
**Posted by Phineas

The British have dispatched the Royal Navy and their SAS –their elite Special Air Service– to evacuate their citizens from Libya:

The SAS was ordered into Libya on Thursday to oversee the evacuation of hundreds of British nationals after the Government’s response to the crisis came in for widespread criticism.

Nearly 500 Britons were successfully repatriated throughout the day after three RAF Hercules transport aircraft and a Royal Navy frigate were pressed into action.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that special forces were on the ground in Tripoli to ensure the evacuation of all British nationals went smoothly.

SAS officers offered support and advice to private security firms drafted in to rescue more than 170 oil workers stranded in remote desert compounds.

Last night the frigate HMS Cumberland set sail from Benghazi with 200 passengers on board, many of them British.

Rescue efforts were still under way last night but the Government insisted that it was close to getting everybody out.

That is how the government of a world power is supposed to take care of its people!

So, what did President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama, Commander in Chief of the mightiest military the world has ever seen, do? Dispatch a carrier battle group with Marines to rescue our people? Drop in Special Forces to secure an evacuation zone? Declare a no-fly zone and crack a few sonic booms over Tripoli as a warning to Qaddafi?

Nope. The 45th President of the United States, successor in office to Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, TR, FDR, Reagan, and all the rest… rented a ferry:

Right now, in Libya, there are hundreds of Americans waiting for evacuation … by ferry.

Seriously. The State Department has chartered a ferry to take the hundreds of waiting Americans to Malta. But rough seas have delayed the ferry’s departure until Friday.

A ferry. We have the biggest navy in the world and all that wimp can do is rent a ferry, as if this were some excursion in the bay instead of an evacuation in the middle of a civil war.

Others offered earlier the reasonable argument that Obama wasn’t doing more because he didn’t want to do something that might set Qaddafi off to take revenge on Americans. But that obviously isn’t a concern if the Brits feel they can send in the SAS…

Yet we rent a ferry.

Unbelievable.

Mr. President… Barry… Stop it. Just stop. You’re embarrassing us.

UPDATE: After three days, the ferry has finally left the dock in Tripoli and the Americans are out. Maybe next time we should ask London to do it for us.

This doesn’t adequately deal with Obama’s incompetence.  Before sending the stupid ferry, Obama had actually initially sent a boat that was much too small.  It would actually be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.

The Americans were waiting for the ferry because – unlike the British warships – it couldn’t handle heavy seas.  The hope of America rested in a ferry that could sink with a big wave because appeasing coward Hussein didn’t want to appear threatening.  And rather than demanding that if a single American were killed Libya would be bombed until the stone ages looked like Futurama, Obama actually pleaded for permission to evacuate threatened American citizens.

And WHY has Obama acted this pathetically and this weakly?

Read this for the answer to that question.  Basically, Obama actually has more in common with Gaddafi ideologically than practically anyone else.

In a story by CBS titled, “Libya rebels beg for no-fly as bombings persist,” we have these words:

In a firsthand look at why Libya’s rebels are begging for a no-fly zone, CBS News was first on the scene after a bombing. People ignored the danger and raced to show the damage.”He’s hitting his own people with bombs,” one man said through a translator. “Young children. He’s killing them.”

CBS News was en route to the front line when a government warplane dropped two bombs on a road leading there. The shrapnel from those bombs was still warm when CBS News arrived at the blast site.

Near the craters was the wreckage of a pickup truck. A family with three children was in it when Qaddafi’s air force struck. Two of the children died. 

The survivors were slashed by shrapnel. The circling warplanes made for a very jumpy day on the front line.

The rebels have had trouble on the ground as well, their advance slowed by better-armed government forces counterattacking to defend Qaddafi’s home turf in the west.

Well, whether it’s the Sunni world fearing the Shiite Iranian nuclear bomb, or whether it’s Muslims across the Middle East yearning from freedom from tyrants, go knock on another door. 

The Muslim world wanted a weak American president, and now it’s got one.

This same Muammar Gaddafi watched George W. Bush take Saddam Hussein out, and he gave America the keys to his nuclear arsenal because he didn’t want to be the next dictator to be deposed.  Now he sneers at us while sending his jets to obliterate unarmed civilians from the air.

According to liberals – the quintessential moral idiots – that is actually proof that the U.S.  has regained the prestige it lost: because we are weaker and less feared in the world than we’ve ever been since Jimmy Carter.

I miss Bush, yes.  I miss a guy who did what he said and said what he did.  Verus Obama.  For example, just today, the weakling is abandoning yet another key campaign pledge.

The smell of weakness really stinks.  And whether we look at Russia, or at Iran, or at Egypt, or at Libya, or at China,  or at North Korea, or at the Sudan, it really reeks of stink at the White House these days.

Media Hypes Obama’s Giving $12 Billion To Small Businesses, Ignores Fact That He TAKES $300 Billion Away

First, a typical mainstream media dose of pure horsecrap from the AP:

Republicans block small business lending bill
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER; Associated Press Writer
Published: 07/29/10 2:13 pm | Updated: 07/29/10 4:14 pm

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s election-year jobs agenda suffered a new setback Thursday when Senate Republicans blocked a bill creating a $30 billion government fund to help open up lending for credit-starved small businesses.

The fund would be available to community banks with less than $10 billion in assets to help them increase lending to small businesses. The bill would combine the fund with about $12 billion in tax breaks aimed at small businesses.

Democrats say banks should be able to use the lending fund to leverage up to $300 billion in loans, helping to loosen tight credit markets. Some Republicans, however, likened it to the unpopular bailout of the financial industry.

Democrats had wanted to pass the bill before Congress leaves town for summer vacation, but that won’t happen with the House scheduled to adjourn Friday. The Senate is in session for another week, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said there would be no more votes until Monday.

And whose to blame for this despicable refusal to help small businesses, you ask?  Republicans, out to cynically manipulate the issue and undermine the economy in order to score cheap political points for the November election.

How dare they?  What kind of minions on evil are these Republicans?

Do the Republicans have a reason for their evilness?  Not really.  All they have, according to the Associated Press, is an ad hominem comparison to the financial bailout.

The only problem is, day in and day out, the mainstream media only gives the part of the story that contributes to its ideological agenda.

The Wall Street Journal manages to find the reasoning behind the Republican position that the Associated Press simply didn’t think you to know:

The bill authorizes Treasury to purchase up to $30 billion of stock in small, community banks across the country. The banks in turn would agree to issue as much as $300 billion in loans to small businesses that they wouldn’t otherwise lend to. You can bet that many businesses that get the loans will be engaged in not very profitable, but politically correct activities, such as diversity investing and renewable energy. Sound at all like subprime mortgage loans?

Here’s the best part: The whiz kids at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that this program will raise $1.1 billion for the federal government. So there really is a free lunch.

The assumption is that these banks will make such wise loans that they’ll make a bundle and the Treasury will get its money back in dividends on its preferred stock. But then why not have Treasury invest $100 billion to leverage $1 trillion in new loans? Or why not $2 trillion? If government-directed investment and lending can conjure such returns, the deficit should vanish in no time.

The false assumption here is that banks are reluctant to lend because they lack the capital. This ignores that small business lending is also down because the business demand for loans is weak. Businesses don’t typically expand when Washington is raising dividend, capital gains and personal income tax rates while piling on the new costs of ObamaCare and other regulations.

The tax cut in this bill will provide $12 billion in relief over 10 years. The tax increase that Mr. Obama favors for 2011 would raise what the Joint Committee on Taxation figures will be $600 billion of revenues, about half of which comes from the coffers of small business. So the tax hikes, which are permanent, are about 50 times larger than the tax cuts, which are temporary. And the Obama Administration wonders why some people think this President is antibusiness.

The title of that WSJ article is “Son of Tarp.”  As in, the evil child of the evil and justifiably unpopular financial bailout.

So, yeah, Republicans liken this bill to the financial bailout.  Because it pursues the exact same rationale that the financial bailout followed.  Because it does the exact same things.  And because it will lead to the exact same result.

But it wasn’t important for you to know why the Republicans might be right.  All you needed to know, in the minds of the Associated Press, is that Obama and the Democrats are the party bringing “change,” “change” is clearly good (including, apparently, such “change” as shoving a nuclear bomb into your ear and then detonating it), and Republicans are cynically blocking “change.”

The biggest bottom line of all is the bottom line of the WSJ piece.  The mainstream media wants to shout from the rooftops that Obama is giving $12 billion to help small businesses.  But when they ought to be pointing out that Obama is actually taking away $300 billion from small businesses in the form of the giant tax increase when Obamacrats allow the tax cuts “for the rich” to expire, all you can hear is crickets chirping.

Obama is going to take fifty times more from small businesses in permanent taxes than he’s going to give them in temporary relief.  And the mainstream propaganda is treating this rape of businesses like its some kind of gift from heaven.

That’s just the way the rodent media rolls.

Turd-in-Chief Sinking To Bottom Of Toilet In Latest Poll

The Tennessee Valley just experienced its worst flood in 500 years.  At least 31 people were killed, and over $1.5 billion in damage was done to the region.

And Barack Hussein Obama never bothered to even show up and tell desperate victims, “I feel your pain,” before jetting back to the White House.

I mean, lest we forget, George Bush at least flew over the Hurricane Katrina devastation.

Now, maybe Obama has an excuse for not showing up in Nashville.  Maybe he’s too occupied in doing absolutely nothing to deal with the massive disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

From Politico:

The gulf oil spill catastrophe has entered a new phase, as Washington looks increasingly weak and unable to control the disaster or the political narrative.

Congress will do what Congress does best: hold hearings, express outrage and threaten subpoenas. The White House will continue to do what it’s doing – send out long, detailed memos to the media outlining “the ongoing response” to the oil spill. But BP and the Obama administration are married on this disaster – Coast Guard chief Thad Allen admitted that the federal government can’t take over the cleanup because it doesn’t have the expertise to take over.

Let’s see.  Obama took the most political contributions from BP over a twenty year period, despite having less than a three year career in national politics.  His administration approved of the BP project that blew up and started gushing oil.  His administration issued an environmental waver to the BP platform only eleven days before it went boom.  His administration did absolutely nothing for NINE DAYS while the crisis turned into a national disaster.  And as we speak, the Obama administration doesn’t have so much as a freaking clue about what to do for what is turning into the world’s worst oil disaster.

And let’s not forget that, only three weeks before this disaster exploded and spewed millions of gallons of oil all over us, that it was OBAMA saying “Drill, baby, drill.”

From ABC:

President Obama: Drill, Baby, Drill
March 31, 2010 6:01 AM

On Wednesday morning at Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility in Washington, DC, President Obama will announce that his administration will allow the lease sale to go forward for oil and gas exploration 50 miles off of the Virginia coast — the first new sales of offshore oil and gas in the Atlantic in more than two decades.

The Department of Interior will also allow seismic exploration for oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf from Delaware all the way South to the middle of Florida, to assess the quantity and location of potential oil and gas resources.  A White House official says that the president will also approve a lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, while canceling another lease sale in Alaska’s Bristol Bay because of environmental concerns. (Lease sales in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are essentially being suspended pending further scientific review.)

The official says that “To set America on a path to energy independence, the President believes we must leverage our diverse domestic resources by pursuing a comprehensive energy strategy.”

So much for “blame Bush.”  Blame OBAMA.  His paws are all over this baby.

James Carville, a lifelong Democrat strategist, pretty much says Obama has failed in just about every possible way he could have failed.

CARVILLE: “The President of the United States could have come down here. He could have been involved with the families of these 11 people. He could have commandeered the things. We could have sent the Woods Hole people. He could have sent the Scripps on research vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. He could have implemented a plan in anticipation of this. You know, right, he can’t exactly fill the hole up. Last night I was on Larry King, the CEO, the former CEO of the Shell. They said they got 85 percent of the stuff cleaned up in the Gulf of Saudi Arabia. He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could the deploying people to the coast right now. He could be deploying people to the coast. He could be with the corps of engineers and the Coast Guard with these people in Plaquemines Parish, doing something about these regulations. These people are crying. They’re begging for something down here. And it just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!”

I guess you weren’t doing anything that would have kept you from going to Tennessee, after all.

Just imagine if Karl Rove had said that about George Bush’s failure in Katrina.  Man, journalists would have been all over that the way Great White sharks get all over bloody meat.

According to the news, Obama has golfed every single weekend since the BP-Gulf disaster hit some 36 days ago.  At least he’s doing something, I suppose.

Meanwhile, North Korea is going rabid and escalating saber-rattling war tensions to a level that we haven’t seen in fifty years.  And, oh, yeah, Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons to go along with their being a terrorist state bent on international jihad.

And Obama’s policies in Afghanistan are bogging down, and only cut-and-run is looming ahead.  General Stanley McChrystal says Marjah “is a bleeding ulcer right now.”  And the access McChrystal granted to reporters “drove home the fact that President Barack Obama’s plan to begin pulling American troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011 is colliding with the realities of the war.”

Like virtually every conservative and every human being with a functioning brain cell was saying would happen six months ago.  Liberals have been arguing for years that we needed to have a withdrawal date so our enemies could know we were going to cut and run, and our friends would be made aware that we weren’t a reliable ally.  And whowouldathunk such a brain-dead strategy wouldn’t work???

The McClatchy article which has the above quotes goes on to say:

There aren’t enough U.S. and Afghan forces to provide the security that’s needed to win the loyalty of wary locals. The Taliban have beheaded Afghans who cooperate with foreigners in a creeping intimidation campaign. The Afghan government hasn’t dispatched enough local administrators or trained police to establish credible governance, and now the Taliban have begun their anticipated spring offensive.

“This is a bleeding ulcer right now,” McChrystal told a group of Afghan officials, international commanders in southern Afghanistan and civilian strategists who are leading the effort to oust the Taliban fighters from Helmand.

In other words, Obama, who demonized Bush up one side and down the other, and demonized Bush’s successful strategy that ultimately won the war in Iraq, is failing.  And hanging on his own petard.

What’s it like to be such a terrible president that you make George Bush look magnificent in comparison, Barry Hussein???

The disaster isn’t the troops’ fault; it’s the Commander-in-Chief’s.  Abraham Lincoln fired general after general until he found Ulysses S. Grant; the problem here is that Obama needs to shitcan Obama, only we all know he won’t.

Weakness is as weakness does.  Or, to put it another way, Obama’s foreign policy is “weakness through weakness.”

On the domestic front, our economy is circling the toilet.  Unemployment is up, mortgage delinquencies are up, and market leading indicators are mostly down.

Obama shoved his health care by way of an immoral and undemocratic process that has a whopping 63% of likely voters wanting repealed before it grows into an even bigger monster.

Then Obama demonized Arizona over its attempt to finally do something to stop the tsunami of illegal immigration which Obama clearly has no serious interest in tackling.  In spite of the fact that a massive 69% of Americans say the Arizona law is either “about right” or that it “doesn’t go far enough.”

That didn’t stop Obama from appearing with the President of Mexico – in spite of that countries’ incredibly harsh immigration policies – and join him in demonizing Arizona:

Well, at least Obama didn’t bow down to Calderone.  At least I don’t think he did.  He’s bowed down before so many other leaders, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track.

Obama couldn’t care less what the American people think.  We’re gnats to him.  Insects.  He’s “the president of the world,” after all.

Incompetent, arrogant, and detached.  You’d think that would be a winning combination.

But it’s not.

From Rasmussen, May 25, 2010:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trends).

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. That is the lowest level of approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove of his performance.

Have you ever noticed how turds tend to sink to the bottom of the toilet bowl before you flush them?

There’s your metaphor for Obama: a turd sinking to the bottom of the bowl.

Obama Grovels Before Yet Another Foreign Leader

There’s a scene in the movie Crocodile Dundee that reminds me of the current Obama fiasco (there’s ALWAYS an Obama fiasco, but this is the fiasco of the hour).  Mick “Crocodile” Dundee visits New York and is confronted by a mugger with a switchblade.  His gal-pal, Sue, says, “Mick, give him your wallet!”  And Dundee says, “What for?”  Sue, looking at the switchblade, says, “He’s got a knife.”  An amused Crocodile Dundee says, “That’s not a knife,” as he draws this gigantic Bowie knife that dwarfs the trivial-by-comparison switchblade.  “This is a knife.”  The mugger runs away.

ABC reporter Jake Tapper tries to put Obama’s bow into “perspective” by pointing out that Richard Nixon had at least sort of bowed in 1971.

But let’s apply what we just learned from Crocodile Dundee.

That’s not a bow.

Apparently, Bill Clinton did something that wasn’t quite a bow, either.

But about what Obama just did on his Asia tour (while he runs away from his decision to send the troops his general requested for Afghanistan, while he runs away from the latest unemployment report of 10.2%, runs away from his inability to label the Fort Hood massacre as a terrorist attack)?  Well….

THIS is a bow.

And it’s not just a bow.  It is a grovel.  It’s the profoundly disturbing and disgusting genuflection of a man who clearly has no business representing a people who drove away kings by force of arms bowing down low before his betters.

It’s an insult to everything America stands for.

ABC’s Jake Tapper put it this way:

“The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms….The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.”

Just like this prior contemptible event, in which Obama groveled before the Saudi king:

Mind you, Obama did not merely cravenly grovel before King Abdullah (making America grovel before Saudi Arabia by proxy), he cravenly lied to the American people about cravenly bowing down before the king of Saudi Arabia.

You’d think he would have learned his lesson, but grovelling just seems too deeply ingrained into his psyche.  He just can’t help himself.  It’d part of his unfortunate condition of statolatry.

Obama’s “Disgrace America Tour” is kind of like the Rolling Stones — it just keeps going on and on and on and on.

Obama doesn’t have to grovel before Nancy Pelosi — as long as he lets her have complete control over “his” healthcare agenda.

Here’s a picture of Vice President Cheney offering his respects to the Japanese emperor.

Ah, thank God for an actual grown-up who actually understands that American leaders do not grovel before foreign ones.

I’m betting that “inexperienced” Sarah Palin wouldn’t have groveled before the emperor, either.  Apparently, bowing and groveling is something that they teach at Harvard.

You know what I wonder?  I wonder if FDR or Harry Truman, who defeated Imperial Japan at the great cost of 100,000 American lives following their vicious attack against Pearl Harbor, would have bowed down before the Japanese emperor?

Just wondering.

International Scholar Ajami Explains How Obama Is Failing Re: Iran

There is no question that Barack Obama has been widely criticized for offering weak statements on a developing Iranian situation with demonstrators literally risking death to protest what they view as a

While women are being gunned down in the streets, Obama has said he doesn’t want to “meddle” in Iran.  While such women and hundreds of thousands of others are demonstrating and even dying for their vote of Mousavi to be counted against the man whom the Iranian mullahs put in power (Ahmadinejad), Obama has publicly claimed that there is no difference between the two.  And while the Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a progressively harsher and more lethal crackdown on his people, Barack Obama has taken the Ayatollah’s side, claiming:

President Barack Obama says he believes supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has deep concerns about the civil unrest that has followed the hotly contested presidential election there.

Obama repeated Tuesday at a news conference his “deep ir own, concerns” about the disputed balloting. He said he believes the ayatollah’s decision to order an investigation “indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns.”

The Iranian Ayatollah really isn’t that bad of a guy.  You heard it from Barack Hussein first.

It’s not a question as to whether Obama has been tepid in his response to the mass demonstrations in Iran; it is OBVIOUS he has been tepid.  To date, he has delivered three statements on Iran — having been forced to make the third, somewhat more strongly-worded statement, as a result of Congress’ display of unity in its resolve to stand with the Iranian people.  His first statement delivered on June 15 was simply pathetically weak.  Pure and simple.   And even the French and the Germans have shown more moral backbone and more moral indignation than Barack Obama.

When a French president displays moral outrage, while an American president displays political appeasement, it is more than a shame: it is an absolute abdication of leadership.  And, even worse, when an American president is behind Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in exhibiting moral courage, it is truly a sign of the last pathetic gasps of a fading republic.

No, the question isn’t whether Obama is being tepid; it’s merely a matter of asking why he is being so incredibly tepid.

The reason, from all accounts, is that Obama (cynically if realistically) expects the Iranian leadership to prevail in this current struggle, and he doesn’t want to antagonize the Iranian regime in a way that might undermine his subsequent efforts at the direct negotiations he campaigned on.  That, and he doesn’t want to be accused by the Iranians of “meddling” when that has already been proven absurd: the Iranians have ALREADY accused us of meddling whether we have been or not.

I would argue that Ronald Reagan’s “meddling” when he called the Soviet Union “an evil empire” and when he  said, “Mr. Gorbachev: tear down this wall!” are what is in order.  It isn’t “meddling” to call a spade a spade.  It is hardly “meddling” to decry in the strongest of terms the absence of liberty and freedom in support of a demonstrating people who clearly yearn for them.

We can never know what would have happened had we only done something that we were too timid to do.  It is right to stand with the Iranian people against an evil and unjust system; it is wrong to cynically play realpolitic in the faint hope of having that same evil and unjust system offer a diplomatic bone down the road.

But, getting back to the main point, are Obama’s concerns that he might undermine future negotiations with Iran valid?

I would argue that Obama’s whole project of attaining success through diplomacy with Iran was a fool’s project to begin with.  We are talking about a regime that has based itself for over 30 years on conflict with and opposition to “the Great Satan”, America.

At no time during the Obama presidency have they demonstrated any willingness to cease their efforts toward nuclear weapons.  They simply have no reason to do so.  And there is virtually no reason to believe that Barack Obama will be able to give them one.

By any realistic expectation, Obama’s policy of diplomacy and negotiation with Iran has ALREADY FAILED, as even the New York Times recognizes.  There is nothing left in terms of hopes of future negotiation breakthroughs to hope for.  If nothing else, how is Obama going to personally meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the Ayatollah Khamenei, when the fundamental legitimacy of their government is in such open question?

An insightful article by one of the premier experts on Iran offers insights on precisely how and even why Barack Obama has failed on Iran:

JUNE 22, 2009

Obama’s Persian Tutorial: The president has to choose between the regime and the people in the streets.

By FOUAD AJAMI

President Barack Obama did not “lose” Iran. This is not a Jimmy Carter moment. But the foreign-policy education of America’s 44th president has just begun. Hitherto, he had been cavalier about other lands, he had trusted in his own biography as a bridge to distant peoples, he had believed he could talk rogues and ideologues out of deeply held beliefs. His predecessor had drawn lines in the sand. He would look past them.

Thus a man who had been uneasy with his middle name (Hussein) during the presidential campaign would descend on Ankara and Cairo, inserting himself in a raging civil war over Islam itself. An Iranian theocratic regime had launched a bid for dominion in its region; Mr. Obama offered it an olive branch and waited for it to “unclench” its fist.

It was an odd, deeply conflicted message from Mr. Obama. He was at once a herald of change yet a practitioner of realpolitik. He would entice the crowds, yet assure the autocrats that the “diplomacy of freedom” that unsettled them during the presidency of George W. Bush is dead and buried. Grant the rulers in Tehran and Damascus their due: They were quick to take the measure of the new steward of American power. He had come to “engage” them. Gone was the hope of transforming these regimes or making them pay for their transgressions. The theocracy was said to be waiting on an American opening, and this new president would put an end to three decades of estrangement between the United States and Iran.

But in truth Iran had never wanted an opening to the U.S. For the length of three decades, the custodians of the theocracy have had precisely the level of enmity toward the U.S. they have wanted — just enough to be an ideological glue for the regime but not enough to be a threat to their power. Iran’s rulers have made their way in the world with relative ease. No White Army gathered to restore the dominion of the Pahlavis. The Cold War and oil bailed them out. So did the false hope that the revolution would mellow and make its peace with the world.

Mr. Obama may believe that his offer to Iran is a break with a hard-line American policy. But nothing could be further from the truth. In 1989, in his inaugural, George H.W. Bush extended an offer to Iran: “Good will begets good will,” he said. A decade later, in a typically Clintonian spirit of penance and contrition, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright came forth with a full apology for America’s role in the 1953 coup that ousted nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.

Iran’s rulers scoffed. They had inherited a world, and they were in no need of opening it to outsiders. They were able to fly under the radar. Selective, targeted deeds of terror, and oil income, enabled them to hold their regime intact. There is a Persian pride and a Persian solitude, and the impact of three decades of zeal and indoctrination. The drama of Barack Obama’s election was not an affair of Iran. They had an election of their own to stage. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a son of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary order, a man from the brigades of the regime, austere and indifferent to outsiders, an Iranian Everyman with badly fitting clothes and white socks — was up for re-election.

The upper orders of his country loathed him and bristled under the system of controls that the mullahs and the military and the revolutionary brigades had put in place, but he had the power and the money and the organs of the state arrayed on his side. There was a discernible fault line in Iran. There were Iranians yearning for liberty, but we should not underestimate the power and the determination of those moved by the yearning for piety. Ahmadinejad’s message of populism at home and defiance abroad, his assertion that the country’s nuclear quest is a “closed file,” settled and beyond discussion, have a resonance on Iranian soil. His challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, a generation older, could not compete with him on that terrain.

On the ruins of the ancien régime, the Iranian revolutionaries, it has to be conceded, have built a formidable state. The men who emerged out of a cruel and bloody struggle over their country’s identity and spoils are a tenacious, merciless breed. Their capacity for repression is fearsome. We must rein in the modernist conceit that the bloggers, and the force of Twitter and Facebook, could win in the streets against the squads of the regime. That fight would be an Iranian drama, all outsiders mere spectators.

That ambivalence at the heart of the Obama diplomacy about freedom has not served American policy well in this crisis. We had tried to “cheat” — an opening to the regime with an obligatory wink to those who took to the streets appalled by their rulers’ cynicism and utter disregard for their people’s intelligence and common sense — and we were caught at it. Mr. Obama’s statement that “the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as had been advertised” put on cruel display the administration’s incoherence. For once, there was an acknowledgment by this young president of history’s burden: “Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons.” No Wilsonianism on offer here.

Mr. Obama will have to acknowledge the “foreignness” of foreign lands. His breezy self-assurance has been put on notice. The Obama administration believed its own rhetoric that the pro-Western March 14 coalition in Lebanon had ridden Mr. Obama’s coattails to an electoral victory. (It had given every indication that it expected similar vindication in Iran.)

But the claim about Lebanon was hollow and reflected little understanding of the forces at play in Lebanon’s politics. That contest was settled by Lebanese rules, and by the push and pull of Saudi and Syrian and Iranian interests in Lebanon.

Mr. Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo did not reshape the Islamic landscape. I was in Saudi Arabia when Mr. Obama traveled to Riyadh and Cairo. The earth did not move, life went on as usual. There were countless people puzzled by the presumption of the entire exercise, an outsider walking into sacred matters of their faith. In Saudi Arabia, and in the Arabic commentaries of other lands, there was unease that so complicated an ideological and cultural terrain could be approached with such ease and haste.

Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obama had spoken of his desire to restore to America’s relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution — and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.

Little more than three decades ago, Jimmy Carter, another American president convinced that what had come before him could be annulled and wished away, called on the nation to shed its “inordinate fear of communism,” and to put aside its concern with “traditional issues of war and peace” in favor of “new global issues of justice, equity and human rights.” We had betrayed our principles in the course of the Cold War, he said, “fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is quenched with water.” The Soviet answer to that brave, new world was the invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979.

Mr. Carter would try an atonement in the last year of his presidency. He would pose as a born-again hawk. It was too late in the hour for such redemption. It would take another standard-bearer, Ronald Reagan, to see that great struggle to victory.

Iran’s ordeal and its ways shattered the Carter presidency. President Obama’s Persian tutorial has just begun.

Mr. Ajami, a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is the author of “The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq (Free Press, 2007).

It is more than fitting that, in an article that is ostensibly about Barack Obama’s poor handling of the Iranian election opportunity, Dr. Ajami should begin and end with Jimmy Carter.  Because we truly have seen much of Barack Obama’s native and failed policies before in the person of Jimmy Carter.

The biggest problem facing Barack Obama is that he is viewed – and I believe very rightly – as weak.

Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” – and he defeated it without even having to fire a shot simply by forceful and continuous confrontation.  George W. Bush called Iraq, Iran, and North Korea “the axis of evil” – and he defeated one of its members and replaced it with a stable democracy (over Barack Obama’s opposition, by the way).

Barack Obama is viewed by rogue regimes as being unwilling to go to war to stand up for American policy or American values.  He will pursue negotiation and diplomacy come what may – and in so doing allow tyrants to take advantage of the United States.

That is why “North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has challenged President Obama more in four months than he did President George W. Bush in eight years.”

Bottom line: with a Reagan, or with either Bush, dictators knew that there was a point beyond which they dared not go, lest the U.S. unleash its might upon them.  They have no such fear about Barack Obama, and for good reason.