20 Jan 09: What the world wants from the new American president.

[Dennis Ruhl]

My view?

This should never have happened. President Obama should have said it's a matter that must be thouroughly investigated and it would be improper of him to comment. Mind you, hindsight is 20/20.

The real "villain" in this case is the professor, who refused identify himself to a legitimate police officer.
He should have been taken to task for this....but instead is painted as a "Victim" of racial profiling.
He is a "victim" of his own arrogance and stupidity.

The neighbor and the police did everything good citizens should do.  If the prof would have simply explained the situation and pulled out his ID, everything would have been over.  Instead he chose to escalate the situation to become a martyr to supposed racism.  The ease with which Obama picked sides without any information is disturbing.

If anyone wants to do a B & E in Cambridge, I know a good target and no neighbor will be calling the police.  There's a big guarantee on that.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post, are a few well chosen words from Conrad Black:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=1cd94574-6c5f-4079-8c0f-6f44a54cc088

Thanks to the U.S., Canada can shine
Conrad Black, National Post

Saturday, September 12, 2009

George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in the play of unintended consequences, are the greatest White House friends Canada has had in many decades. George W. vapourized the prestige and sapped the strength of the United States with his malapropisms, unilateralism, miring of U.S. conventional ground forces in Iraq for five years and continuation of the Clinton-Rubin economic miracle, the stupidest economic policy of any major advanced country since Margaret Thatcher took Britain off daily audit by the IMF 30 years ago -- colossal current account deficits, trillions of dollars of legislatively mandated noncommercial residential mortgages and the admission of millions of undocumented immigrants seeking low-wage jobs while millions of such jobs were being outsourced.

To be fair to Bush, the world is better off without Saddam, international terrorists did not enjoy Bush's tenure, the U.S. alliance with India was an important achievement and Bush's generosity in fighting AIDS in Africa will benefit millions of the world's most destitute people. But he is the sort of person at whose head foreigners naturally like to throw shoes. (So, apparently do many Americans, without necessarily first removing them from their feet.)

Meanwhile, Canada's apparent standard of living is about even with those of the other large prosperous countries: the U.S., Britain, Germany, France and Australia. All are between $44,000 and $47,000 per capita, though the figures become muddled because of lower purchasing power through higher sales and value added taxes in Europe, but also because of lower medical care costs in countries other than the U.S., without markedly inferior service.

Last year, the United States, understandably, voted for change. But after eight months, President Obama is still trying to sell a public policy menu that is unwanted and unworkable. He whipped up public fears to try to gain support for a more socialistic program than the country wanted or could afford.

Obama is proposing trillion-dollar annual budget deficits for 10 years, medical care that will cover 45 million supposedly uncovered Americans (a bogus figure as they are almost all either foreigners illegally in the country, prosperous individuals who make that choice and could pay medical bills if they arose, people changing jobs from one health-insuring employer to another, or the indigent who are covered by Medicaid), while reducing medical costs from their present $2-trillion without reducing coverage. He wants to increase taxes on the 5% of Americans who produce roughly 25% of the country's personal income to 69%, an uncompetitively high figure, especially hazardous in a recession; and he wants to introduce a cap-and-trade measure that will not raise government revenues or reduce carbon emissions, is based on unproved assumptions and will soak everyone who has a heater or air conditioner. A Star Chamber is now being set up to investigate those who interrogated terrorist suspects under the Bush administration, even though they saved thousands of lives, conformed to agreed standards of torture-avoidance and the Attorney General has conceded that Guantanamo is an unexceptionable detention facility.

And Obama is continuing inherited policies that include a failed drug "war" that ignores the facts that 42% of Americans are marijuana users at some point, including Obama himself, and that marijuana is the chief cash crop of California; that does not crack down on demand from the nation's middle class university students while scourging the poor African-American communities; does not deploy the greatest military force in the world to stop drug importation, but reduces Mexico and other countries to civil war as they are bullied by Washington to reduce supply.

There is nothing so far to reduce the state education system's dropout rate of more than 40%, to restore civil liberties and rights to due process to a criminal justice system that is a sausage factory of indiscriminate persecution based on the plea bargain (inculpatory perjury in exchange for reduced charges or immunity). Though illegal immigration has been sensibly reduced, there is nothing in place to attract the most qualified, assimilable immigrants.

Again, to be fair to this President, the automobile industry's reconstruction is shaping up better than seemed likely, Obama is facing up to the challenge in Afghanistan squarely and his itinerant confessional foreign policy seems to have been a passable public relations exercise. The current account deficit is sharply down, some of the TARP money is already being repaid and the country is rediscovering the virtues of saving.

Still, the United States has become, in Richard Nixon's famous phrase of 1971, a "pitiful, helpless giant." Business is despised, emasculated and incompetent. Wall Street is a mockery; the World Economic Forum now rates the U.S. as having the world's 108th most trustworthy banking system, behind Tanzania, and puts it 93rd in economic stability. The country is a bumbling, debt-ridden oaf in the world: California, General Motors, AIG, The New York Times, the Harvard University Endowment and Citigroup are all at or in sight of bankruptcy (whether coming or going).

America's public life is steadily coarsening and dumbing down. Clinton and Bush severely compromised the mighty and admired nation bequeathed to them by the statesmen who led it out of the Depression and to victory in the Second World War and the Cold War. Now this President is courting personal and national disaster.

The U.S. will get back on track eventually, but it will require years to rebuild its strength and prestige. In these circumstances, while they last, Canada can attract the immigrants, achieve the growth rates and invest the resources that always before in our history would have seemed derivative and even paltry compared to the Brobdingnagian strides of the American Nietzschean Superman at the Daily Planet next door.

There is no palatable replacement for a strong America, and I always wish that country and its leaders well (conspicuously unrequited though that sentiment is, officially, at the moment). But this is Canada's hour, and perhaps that of a few other countries such as Australia, Brazil and South Korea. It is not yet the time of teeming China and India, nor still of geriatric Japan or torpid Europe. This isn't another false or premature start of the kind that have been proclaimed at intervals since Laurier's time. The hare and the tortoise have become the eagle and the doughty beaver (whose incisive virtues were touted here two weeks ago). Arise!

cbletters@gmail.com

Lord Black appears to believe the world – Australia, Brazil, Canada and a few other countries, anyway - is getting what it “needs” from America: stimulus and a temporary respite from previously relentless American success.

The question is: will we exploit the opportunities?

 

[CougarKing]

Another update:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090914/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_financial_regulations

Obama touts Wall St. changes on Lehman anniversary
  Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is going to Wall Street on the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse to outline financial changes to avert a future crisis like the one that sent the global economy into a tailspin.

Obama has called on Congress to pass a sweeping overhaul of how financial institutions behave but has seen slower-than-sought action. Administration officials said the president will use Lehman Brothers as a starting point to again decry a hands-off approach from Washington that enabled irresponsible lending that sent the nation's largest financial institutions to the brink of collapse and the larger economy to the edge.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president would focus on "the need to take the next series of steps in financial regulatory reform" — in other words: Congress, stop stalling and get it done.

The speech comes as the same banks that received tens of billions of taxpayer dollars last year to stay afloat are again betting on the same bonds, commodities and exotic financial products that landed them in trouble.

There is, however, nothing Obama or Washington can do without Congress' action.

Obama's was to speak at Federal Hall in the heart of Wall Street before an audience that included members of the financial community, lawmakers, and top administration officials. He planned to eat lunch with former President Bill Clinton after the speech, before returning to Washington. Administration officials would not disclose any details of the luncheon discussion.

Proposals to better monitor the financial system and to police the products banks sell to consumers have been opposed by lobbyists, lawmakers and turf-protecting regulators. Mergers and sales of banks have consolidated lending power in even few hands. And those large firms still bet far more than the capital they have on hand.

Yet regulations have not moved. Much of the legislative motivation in Washington has been consumed by the contentious debate over changes to the health care system. Government intervention into private automakers such as General Motors have left lawmakers skittish to move further into corporate board rooms. And it's not as if another collapse is obviously imminent.

Five of the biggest banks — Goldman, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America — posted second-quarter profits totaling $13 billion. That's more than double what they made in the second quarter of 2008 and nearly two-thirds as much as the $20.7 billion they earned in the second quarter of 2007 — when the economy was considered strong.

The failure of Lehman Brothers — the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history — and the panicky sales of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch to Bank of America transformed Wall Street and gave fewer competitors increased market power.

As of June 30, three banks — JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America — held $2.3 trillion in domestic deposits, or $3 out of every $10 in deposit in the United States. Three years ago those three institutions held about 20 percent of the industry total.

Obama has sought tougher capital requirements for banks, arguing that banks' buying of exotic financial products without keeping enough cash on reserve was a key cause of the crisis. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has urged the Group of 20 nations to agree on new capital levels by the end of 2010 and put them in place two years later.

The administration also has proposed increased transparency of markets in which banks trade the most complex — and potentially risky — financial products. Obama's broad plan also would give the Fed new oversight powers and impose conditions designed to discourage companies from getting too big.

Sen. Chris Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is leading the push for those new rules and his aides hope to have legislation together before the year's end. Already they have conducted hearings on the source of the problem and how best to prevent another.

But one major component of the Obama plan — creating an agency to oversee marketing financial products to consumers — faces a tough road to become a law. Industry lobbying against it and other proposed financial rules has been fierce and the president's fellow Democrats have been slow to take up the cause.

 

[CougarKing]

More reminders of what is at stake, globally.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090919/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_s_big_week

Obama rolling into week of high diplomatic stakes
        Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 24 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The unrelenting global troubles confronting Barack Obama are about to converge on him all at once, providing a stern test of leadership for a first-year president who has pledged to "change the world."

In a span of four days, Obama will plunge into the politics of the United Nations and host a summit in Pittsburgh on the world's wobbling economy. The international stage is coming to him, and no one standing on it with him will have higher stakes.

Obama is under pressure to push along stalled Mideast peace, prove the United States is serious about climate change and rally allies against the nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea. Restless leaders in Europe and elsewhere are pressing Obama to reform risky U.S. financial behavior and get Congress on board.

He also bears the load of two inherited wars that now bear his imprint — the one he's winding down in Iraq and the one that's widening in Afghanistan. Eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Obama must hold together international will as he tries to keep Afghanistan from becoming an al-Qaida launching pad again.

The talks have the potential to be galvanizing moments or opportunities lost.

"Leadership is not just telling people what you want, as the Bush administration discovered. Leadership is getting people to do what you need them to do," said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official in President George W. Bush's first term.

Obama will have his chances.

His first speech to the 192-member General Assembly will outline his view of leadership, emphasizing a new brand of cooperation as if to underline he is not Bush. As U.N. ambassador Susan Rice described the message: "Everybody has a responsibility. The U.S. is leading anew. And we are looking to others to join."

Obama will be the first U.S. president to be chairman of the Security Council, whose rotating presidency happens to be in U.S. hands this month during the annual meeting of the General Assembly. He expects to emerge from that special summit on arms control with a resolution that advances his goals of a nuclear-weapons free world.

The measure will try to put heat on Iran and North Korea without singling out any country.

With his domestic agenda consumed by health care, Obama is under pressure from world leaders to put more muscle into fighting climate change. He will seek to do just that this week, too, with a speech at a U.N. climate conference.

Time is short, though, for the U.S. to have leverage. An international conference is set for December in Denmark to a new global climate pact. Although the House has passed a bill to limit greenhouse gases, Senate action may fade until next year.

Perhaps as important as the speeches will be the conversations the world never sees.

Obama, who arrives in New York City on Monday for the annual U.N. gathering, will meet privately with the leaders of Russia, China and Japan. Less formal sessions will take place all week.

The showcase for the new U.S. president is getting familiar.

In just his first year, Obama has made it through summits with heads of both the world's 20 top economies and eight major industrial powers, as well as Western Hemisphere heads, Russian leaders and NATO. The president hasn't been shy about calling for the U.N. to take on "big, tough" problems more effectively.

When the focus shifts to Pittsburgh, Obama will run the Group of 20 summit of the rich and developing countries that represent 80 percent of world economic output. Although their united, expensive efforts earlier this year helped halt the economic slowdown, there is enormous work left and wide divisions about how to proceed.

(...)
The events of just the past several days will influence Obama's agenda, too.

The president has penalized China over tires exported to U.S., citing trade rule violations. The move has infuriated an economic ally and stoked fears of further protectionism.

He just scuttled Bush-era plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, swapping it for a more mobile system aimed at a changing threat from Iran. That change has pleased Russia, which Obama said had no reason to worry in the first place, while causing consternation in the region.

His Mideast envoy has failed to bridge gaps between Israelis and Palestinians, casting fresh doubt over peacemaking talks and the U.S. influence over them. That could dash any chance for an anticipated meeting in New York involving Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

And then there's the shadow of Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday again questioned whether the Holocaust actually happened and asserted that Israel was created on "a lie and a mythical claim." That set an ominous tone for the U.N. — Ahmadinejad will be there — just as the United States and five other nations head toward an Oct. 1 conference with Iran.

Obama's biggest communications challenge may be to make sure his own message dominates.

That means, as Rice put it, trying to "bridge old divides and resist the efforts of a handful of customary spoilers."

 

[a_majoor]

How long will the teflon last?

http://climbingoutofthedark.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-george-w-was-idiot.html

If George W. Was an Idiot...

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompTer installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potato as proof of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?


So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?

Can't think of anything? Don't worry.

He's done all this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.


The above is making the email rounds, but it ties in wonderfully with Lorne Gunter's article from yesterday:

    Obama's never found guilty by association

    Suppose it was revealed that the pastor who had married George and Laura Bush, baptized their two daughters and ministered to their spiritual needs for 20 years was a raving white supremacist who, from the pulpit, preached the separation of the races, claimed that the promiscuity of African-Americans had quickened the spread of AIDS and mused about how America might be improved if black people were sent back to Africa.

Read the whole thing!

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the American Thinker web site, is an article, about six months old, that compares Obama to Trudeau:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/obama_and_trudeau.html

Obama and Trudeau
By Michael I. Krauss

March 11, 2009

We were the only American family on our block in Toronto in the mid-1960's, and we had an easy time of it. Toronto had not yet experienced the boom caused by post-separatist flight from Montreal in the ‘70's, and growing up there was, I think, little different in important ways from living in any biggish Midwestern city.  Sidewalks mostly closed up at night, folks were friendly, the (Canadian) dollar was worth a (U.S.) dollar, and media reporting was U.S.-centered. The few differences were often symbolic: paper money featured the Queen's effigy, we played more hockey than baseball -- and "My Country ‘Tis of Thee" had different lyrics.... 

But something happened in the late '60's that changed everything.  The country elected as Prime Minister a charismatic and intellectual 48-year-old:  a man who had emerged from the country's minority group, but who in fact had a mother who was not a minority; a man who had only been a member of the lower house for three years, with no executive experience; a man who promised change and confidently asked the country if it was ready for it.  Pierre Trudeau was well-spoken and sexy, and Trudeaumania swept Canada's youth.  Trudeau garnered overwhelming majorities in Francophone Canada, and enough votes in Anglophone Canada to form a government.  Once in power he consolidated it, staying in office for 16 years and turning the country markedly to the left.

Trudeau nationalized 25% of the petroleum industry and ruined the nascent boom economy of conservative Alberta.  He ensured minority group representation at every level of government and instituted French language requirements in remote English-speaking corners of the country.  He turned away from the United States and toward a "third way", vowing to make Canada more European, from imposition of the metric system to implementation of universal "free" health care.  Though elected by civil libertarians and the pacifist left, he snarled "watch me" when asked how far he would go to deny civil liberties after FLQ terrorists kidnapped two men and killed one of them. He introduced landmark legislation decriminalizing homosexual acts, contraception and abortion, while enacting significant gun ownership restrictions.  And he enormously expanded the scope of Canada's federal government, all the while resisting free trade with the United States and encouraging links with Cuba.

Pierre Trudeau was staunchly anti-military and anti-American, even during the most just of wars. [As a young intellectual during World War II he had openly resisted serving: "[W]e tended to think of this war as a settling of scores among the superpowers."] His socialization of much of Canada's economy led to today's $0.79 dollar, which is much more dependent on the price of oil than on Canadian ingenuity -- indeed, Trudeau arguably set in motion a "brain drain" to the United States that sorely depleted that ingenuity.  [Without Alberta's oil sands goodness knows what Canadian currency would be worth.]  But he was always "with it", unlike his staid predecessors at 24 Sussex Drive. Why, Trudeau was the first world leader to meet John Lennon and Yoko Ono on their 'tour for world peace'. [Lennon called Trudeau "a beautiful person" and absurdly offered, "if all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau, there would be world peace."]  When his socialist ideology was challenged by opposition members in Parliament, he brazenly mouthed "F--- O---" and sneered at their shock that traditions of civility had been trampled.  [His epithet was transcribed in the Parliamentary record as "fuddle duddle", still today a Canadian euphemism.]  With Trudeau, Canada entered the post-modern era.

I've been back in my native USA since 1987, three years after Pierre Trudeau left office. My memories of him have been flooding back of late, for President Obama's ascension resembles Trudeau's in ways superficial and deep.  The Obama election's implications for us are possibly just as fundamental as was Trudeau's for Canada. What if 2008 is the year we became Canada?  What will become of us, and of the world?

Michael I. Krauss is Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law.

Now, before I get jumped on, I know Krauss is blaming Trudeau for things he didn’t do and forgetting things he did, but the broad strokes are right and the comparison with Obama, ”in ways superficial and deep” is interesting.

(Prof. Krauss is a fairly well known “right of centre” thinker and commentator who has, of course, a “special” knowledge of Canada in relation to the USA, as seen here, in a cogent argument (until the penultimate paragraph where it turned just plain silly) against a proposed US drug pricing regime.)

I suspect that what Americans do not expect from Obama is 1970s Canada.

 

[a_majoor]

How about 1970's America?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Why-1978-was-a-very-bad-year-8437331-65944932.html

James Carafano: Why 1978 was a very bad year
By: James Carafano
Examiner Columnist

October 26, 2009 He followed an unpopular president. He received a strong election mandate. He changed the tone in Washington.

He said that Human Rights mattered. That America's image in the world had to be remade.

He would receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

As the end of his presidency's first year drew near, the future looked bright. He had brought change -- change that mattered.

It was 1977. The next year was very bad.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter negotiated the Camp David Accords, formalizing peace between Israel and Egypt. (It's what won him the Nobel.) He also signed a bill that legalized the home-brewing of beer. Almost all the other news that year proved uniformly bad.

A Soviet-backed coup in Afghanistan paved the way for Moscow's future invasion of the country. Demonstrations against the shah wracked the Iranian regime, paving the way for revolution and the rise of the ayatollahs. Trouble erupted across Africa, from Somalia to Zaire and Zambia, some of it inspired by Soviet meddling.

From there on, national security challenges and foreign policies only worsened. It helped make Carter's stint in the White House a one-term deal.

Why did things go south for Carter so fast? Because America's enemies had taken measure of the man during his first, change-filled year in office. They saw weaknesses they could exploit. In the second year, they made their move.

In Year One, Carter invested all the international prestige of his presidency in diplomacy and image-making. His energy was dedicated almost exclusively to "making nice" on the world stage. It's what drove his actions in the Israeli-Egyptian peace process, at strategic-arms limitation talks and in negotiating the Panama Canal Treaty.

It was a perpetual exercise in "soft power." Not that there's anything wrong with that. Except ...

At the same time the White House was amping up the soft power, it was also looking to cut back on military commitments -- most famously with a controversial plan to scale back military forces in South Korea.

Faced with a troubled economy, the administration was also looking to cut back on military spending. Thus Carter embraced Defense Secretary Harold Brown's "offset" strategy. The armed forces would buy nothing new. The Pentagon would "skip a generation" and "rethink" military needs.

The "offset" strategy gave Carter a rationale to cut defense spending to the bone -- while claiming not to be weak on national security.

Our enemies didn't see it that way. They saw a distracted and humbled America that tried to substitute rhetoric for reality. They went on the offensive.

There is a real possibility that next year the Obama White House may find itself living out the Carter Years -- redux. Obama appears to be resurrecting the Carter formula of speaking out strongly but carrying a small stick. Plans for the Pentagon are awfully reminiscent of Carter's defense program. Likewise, the president's elevation of treaty negotiations and international institutions as the primary instruments for advancing national interests mirror Carter's approach as well.

In fact, Obama has already outdone President Carter, winning a Nobel Prize before rather than after he has done anything. Of course, this merely places additional pressure on the administration to continue relying on the tools (arms control agreements, the United Nations and such) lauded by the Nobel judges.

Sadly, warning signs that others will use the administration's "soft power uber alles" strategy to undermine U.S. interests are already cropping up.

»  The Russians are demanding more and more at the strategic-arms negotiating table, while giving their U.S. counterparts less and less.

»  Iran and North Korea are running out the clock, sending diplomats into the umpteenth round of talks while their scientists toil feverishly advancing their nuclear and missile programs.

»  In Latin America, socialist dictators continue to outmaneuver the White House.

Meanwhile, new al Qaeda-related or -inspired plots appear to be popping up every day. Three in the United States were thwarted last month. A Boston-based plot was thwarted just last week. Turkey uncovered another network the week before that. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the march.

And the year is not over yet.

The rhetoric of soft power is inspiring and ever hopeful. But unless the nation seems firmly committed to backing that soft power with some hard muscle, those with no love of America will interpret the rhetoric as the vapid mooings of a nation in retreat.

That interpretation could make 2010 a year of living dangerously.

Examiner Columnist James Jay Carafano is a senior research fellow for national security at The Heritage Foundation ( heritage.org)

 

[CougarKing]

And Obama begins his Asia trip on a positive note.

We'll see how this turns out.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_re_us/obama

TOKYO – President Barack Obama is emphasizing cooperation on his first major trip to Asia, opening with a warning to North Korea that there will be tough, unified action by the U.S. and its Asian partners if the Koreans fail to abandon their nuclear weapons programs.

The hard line on North Korea was to be a prominent theme of a Friday night speech that also was intended to more broadly showcase a United States that, under Obama's leadership, seeks deeper and more equal engagement in Asia. It was to be the fifth major foreign address of Obama's 10-month presidency, this one geared toward setting a new tone for the sometimes-rocky U.S. relationship with the world's fastest-growing region.

In the speech, to 1,500 prominent Japanese in a soaring concert hall in bustling downtown Tokyo, Obama planned to give his most extended remarks in some time on North Korea, said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.

Previewing himself, Obama said after a meeting early Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama that "it's absolutely vital" that North Korea — and Iran in the Middle East — bow to international demands that they give up nuclear weapons ambitions. The U.S., Japan, China, Russia and South Korea are partners in talks to persuade North Korea to give up the active nuclear weapons program it has in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Pyongyang is widely believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear bombs

If the North Koreans comply with the demands, "then they can open the door to a better future," Obama said. "If not, we will remain united in implementing U.N. resolutions that are in place and ... helping to shape a strategy that meets our security needs and convinces Pyongyang to move in a better direction."

Obama made Tokyo the venue for his speech, a symbolically important choice that displayed respect for Japan's long history as the U.S.' chief ally in Asia and one of the region's foremost democracies. The U.S.-Japan relationship is on newly delicate footing after a change in leadership in Tokyo that has the Japanese moving toward greater independence from Washington and closer ties with the rest of Asia.

The president's remarks came near the start of an eight-day Asian trip that is presenting him with risks at every stop.

After Japan, Obama goes to Singapore, where he is to join a larger meeting that includes the leader of Myanmar's brutal regime, the first U.S. president to make such close contact. Then he flies to China, where relations with the U.S. are bedeviled by Beijing's growing economic and military might, as well as numerous issues including trade, currency, Taiwan, human rights and climate change. Obama ends his trip on an easier note in South Korea, an increasingly reliable U.S. ally.

(...)

 

[CougarKing]

And details of Japan visit before he left for the APEC summit:

Barack Obama bows and talks of green tea icecream as he pushes US ties in Asia

President Barack Obama has bowed to the Emperor of Japan and revealed his childhood affection for green tea icecream as he pushes stronger US ties with Asia.

 

There was talk of green tea ice cream, memories of a childhood visit to Japan and even a reference to the remote fishing town Obama as the US President set out his vision for US relations with Asia in a keynote speech.

He later bowed deeply to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, upon arrival at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for a private lunch before he headed to Singapore on the next leg of his Asian tour.

Beneath the signature charm and rhetoric, President Barack Obama's message was clear: the US fully intends to deepen dialogue with China and pursue greater cooperation with countries across Asia.

...

Calling himself "America's first Pacific President" during a 40-minute address, Mr Obama said: "I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home.

<more>

[color:BLUE]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6567670/Barack-Obama-bows-and-talks-of-green-tea-icecream-as-he-pushes-US-ties-in-Asia.html[/color]

 

[vonGarvin]

Didn't Nixon go to China?  It's near the Pacific, no?  And Truman and Eisenhower were involved in that "Korea-shindig", no? 

 

[Kirkhill]

Seems to me TV that FDR had the USN intimately involved in the Pacific for a good four years or so.... but that was probably a mistake which is why Obama is bowing obsequiously to Hirohito's offspring.  That position is just one step above a full Chinese kowtow.  It is not the type of bow one exchanges with an equal.

 

[vonGarvin]

Seems to me TV that FDR had the USN intimately involved in the Pacific for a good four years or so.... but that was probably a mistake which is why Obama is bowing obsequiously to Hirohito's offspring.  That position is just one step above a full Chinese kowtow.  It is not the type of bow one exchanges with an equal.

;D

Naturally!  I was just trying to avoid the obvious reference to FDR.  I think of course the USA's involvement in the Pacific goes waaaaaaay back.  Hell, even to the whole Phillipines "thing".

 

[CougarKing]

And details of his 1st state visit to China:

Link

SHANGHAI – President Barack Obama is walking a tightrope on his first trip to China, seeking to enlist help in tackling urgent global problems while weighing when and how — or if — he should raise traditional human rights concerns.

Obama arrived in Shanghai late at night, in a driving rain, hustling through a phalanx of umbrella-holding dignitaries to reach his limousine. On Monday, the president is holding talks with local politicians and, in one of the marquee events of his weeklong Asian trip, conducting an American-style town hall discussion with Chinese university students.
Thirty years after the start of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the ties are growing — but remain mixed on virtually every front.

The two nations are partnering more than ever on battling global warming, but they still differ deeply over hard targets for reductions in the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. China has supported sterner sanctions to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but it still balks at getting more aggressive about reining in Iran's uranium enrichment.

China is a huge and lucrative market for American goods and services, and yet it has a giant trade deficit with the U.S. that, like a raft of other economic issues, is a bone of contention between the two governments. The two militaries have increased their contacts, but clashes still happen and the U.S. remains worried about a dramatic buildup in what is already the largest standing army in the world.

Amid all that, Obama has adopted a pragmatic approach that stresses the positive, sometimes earning him criticism for being too soft on Beijing, particularly in the area of human rights abuses and what the U.S. regards as an undervalued Chinese currency that disadvantages U.S. products.

Obama recognizes that a rising China, as the world's third-largest economy on the way to becoming the second and the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has shifted the dynamic more toward one of equals. For instance, Chinese questions about how Washington spending policies will affect the already soaring U.S. deficit and the safety of Chinese investments now must be answered by Washington.

Second, Obama wants not to anger Beijing, but to encourage it to pair its growing economic and political clout with greater leadership in solving some of the most urgent global problems, including a sagging economy, warming planet and the spread of dangerous weapons.

Obama has talked warmly toward China, particularly in the days leading up to his visit.

"The United States does not seek to contain China," Obama said in a speech from Tokyo on Saturday. "On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations."

One test of the line Obama is walking on China will be human rights, including religious freedom in the officially atheist nation. Aides said in advance that Obama would raise several human rights issues privately with Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao.

But it was unlikely he would repeat those messages too stridently in public, out of concern for angering his hosts. Even before arriving in China, for example, he declined to get specific about human rights concerns with China in his Tokyo speech and eschewed the traditional presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama while he was in Washington in June.

Obama said he would see the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader later, a decision welcomed by Chinese officials who pressure foreign governments not to meet with the Dalai Lama and spurn Tibetans' desires for autonomy from Chinese rule.

The White House hoped Monday's town hall meeting with Chinese university students would allow Obama to telegraph U.S. values — through its successes and failures — to the widest Chinese audience possible.

But those hopes will have their limits in communist-ruled, tightly controlled China. The particulars of the town hall, including whether it could even be called one, were the subject of delicate negotiations between the White House and the Chinese up to the last minute. It remained unclear, for instance, whether — and how broadly — it would be broadcast on television and how much of a hand the central government had in choosing those allowed to question the U.S. president.

Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama would call at random on several of those in the audience, to be made up of hundreds of students hand-picked by the department heads of Shanghai-area universities, and would also answer questions solicited in advance by the White House from "various sources on the Internet."

Even if the event is only aired on China's main English-language TV channel, which has very few viewers, the White House will stream the conversation live on http://www.whitehouse.gov, an unblocked site in China.

From Shanghai, Obama was to be off to the capital of Beijing for the pomp and substance of a two-day state visit hosted for Obama by Hu.

Obama's China visit features the only sightseeing of his high-intensity Asian journey. He will visit the Forbidden City, home of former emperors in Beijing, and the centuries-old Great Wall outside of the city. Visiting a country's noted landmarks is considered a sign of respect in the world of diplomacy. But Obama aides also have learned that finding some tourist time serves to both calm and energize their boss amid the always grueling schedule of a foreign trip.

 

[CougarKing]

Is it really wise to hold a "town hall-style" meeting as described below?

Does he not realize that the average Mainland Chinese person is scared sh**less about talking against their government when it comes to sensitive political issues?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091116/ap_on_bi_ge/obama

SHANGHAI – Pressing for freedoms on China's own turf, President Barack Obama said Monday that individual expression is not an American ideal but a universal right that should be available to all.

In his first presidential trip to Asia, Obama lauded cooperative relations with China but sought to send a clear message to his tightly controlled host country. Just as Obama said few problems can be solved unless U.S. and China work together, he prodded China to accept what he called "universal rights."

(...)
He added: "These freedoms of expression, and worship, of access to information and political participation — we believe they are universal rights. They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities, whether they are in the United States, China or any nation."

Obama sought to find a political balance with China, addressing long-standing U.S. concerns about human rights but extending his hand to a critically important partner on economic and security matters.

(...)

 

[mariomike]

"Outrage in Washington over Obama's Japan bow: WASHINGTON (AFP) - News photos of President Barack Obama bowing to Japan's emperor have incensed critics here, who said the US leader should stand tall when representing America overseas.":
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091116/usa/japan_us_diplomacy_asia_obama

 

[vonGarvin]

"Outrage in Washington over Obama's Japan bow: WASHINGTON (AFP) - News photos of President Barack Obama bowing to Japan's emperor have incensed critics here, who said the US leader should stand tall when representing America overseas.":
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091116/usa/japan_us_diplomacy_asia_obama

I can't recall the reference, but I believe it to be considered to be bad form for the President of the US to bow to anyone, especially monarchy.  If I recall things correctly, it harkens back to the US Revolution Rebellion of the 18th Century, and how the President was to be considered equal to the Monarch in England, and no longer a subject.

 

[vonGarvin]

G.W. Bush vs. Obama:

From here

Some exerpts:

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to ´Cinco de Cuatro¡' in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the fourth of May (Cuatro de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes´proof of what a dunce he is?

If George W.Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on ´Earth Day', would you have concluded he?was a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and
incompetence?

 

[mariomike]

I had a look at former American Presidents meeting the Emperor of Japan, and none ever bowed.
It would be pretty hard to top when President Bush Sr., threw his his cookies all over the Prime Minister of Japan. For a while there, it looked like Bush Sr. was a goner, and Dan Quayle was going to get the Big Job.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOnDatqENo

Almost as bizarre as when V.P. Dick Cheney accidentally shot a lawyer friend in the face.

 

[a_majoor]

I had a look at former American Presidents meeting the Emperor of Japan, and none ever bowed.

A deliberate act, caused either by incredible ignorance or malice (humiliate the United States in public)

It would be pretty hard to top when President Bush Sr., threw his his cookies all over the Prime Minister of Japan. For a while there, it looked like Bush Sr. was a goner, and Dan Quayle was going to get the Big Job.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOnDatqENo

Got ill, like most people do sometimes

Almost as bizarre as when V.P. Dick Cheney accidentally shot a lawyer friend in the face.

Firearms accident, all involved were very fortunate. No mens rea involved here.

 

[a_majoor]

And now to look at the payoff:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-bows_-but-the-world-refuses-to-bow-back-8548597-70327287.html

Obama bows, but the world refuses to bow back
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
November 18, 2009

On his 10-day trip to Asia and in his 10th month in office, Barack Obama is beginning to encounter limits on his ambition to change the world. Even as he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia last April and to the Emperor of Japan last week, the world refuses to bow back.

This is not how it was supposed to be. "I am absolutely certain that generations from now," he said on the night he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June 2008, "we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last best hope on Earth."

We're still working on a lot of that. The Democrats are having a problem passing a health care bill in the Senate (though somehow a lot of sick people are being cared for), and those good jobs will have to wait, it appears, for the December "jobs summit." Whether the rise of the oceans has begun to slow is unclear to me; we had a cool summer and a warm fall here in Washington.

As for the planet beginning to heal, well, that's not clear. Obama evidently expected that his election would change not only America's image in the world but the policies of nations both friendly and unfriendly. In saluting the fall of the Berlin Wall, on videotape, he made no mention of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa or John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev or Vaclav Havel, but cited as a world-changing event his own election in the United States 19 years later.

Obama has often said that all the world's nations have shared interests, and during his campaign he made clear his willingness to meet with leaders of enemy countries in order to reach agreements. His idea seemed to be that his own eloquence and his own example would make the scales fall from their eyes and enable them to see that it was in their interest to do what he would like.

So far, not so good. The mullahs of Iran have consented to something in the nature of negotiations, but their agreement in principle to allow the enrichment of nuclear fuel in France has, like many agreements in principle, turned out to be no agreement. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have proved no more moveable by Obama's emollient and respectful tones than by George W. Bush's Texas twang.

Nor have we made any discernible progress on settling issues between Israel and the Palestinians, the first priority of Obama's national security adviser. Obama's insistence on a stop to natural growth of Israeli settlements -- no new spare rooms for Grandma or the new baby -- seems now to have been abandoned. Israelis are distrustful of the U.S., and the West Bank Palestinian leader is threatening to quit.

Obama's unilateral concession to the Russians -- abandonment of missile defense plans in Poland and the Czech Republic -- has evoked statements from Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that sanctions against Iran may someday be necessary. But it's beginning to look as if Medvedev is Lucy, sanctions are the football and Obama is Charlie Brown.

The leaders of China, despite Obama's refusal to meet the Dalai Lama, are sticking to their peg to the dollar and, like the leaders of India, have shown zero willingness to damage their growing economy by raising energy prices to avert the global warming that will supposedly bring catastrophe 50 years from now. So Obama at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit was forced to concede that there would be no agreement on a global climate treaty next month in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Obama's election was indeed a major event, as the election of every American president is, and the election of our first African-American president was a landmark in our history, as John McCain noted on election night. But it didn't change the world. All nations may have the same interests in some platonic sense. But all nations' leaders don't. Bush didn't cause all our foreign policy problems, and Obama's ascension and appeasement don't seem to be solving them.

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His columns appear Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.