Renewing American LeadershipWild. The Bay of Pigs, Hiroshima, Vietnam -- these were "America at its best"? One would hate to think so.Barack Obama
COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY
At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world...
As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat -- one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.
Intensional objects like this, as dense as a neutron star with unstated assumptions and perverse readings of history, are time-consuming (though fun, in a masochistic way) to unpack. This article alone provides meat for a whole Talmud of analytic commentary. But perhaps the only question that really matters is: what does it tell us about the handsome Mr Lesser Evil and what he might do if we put him in the White House?
... many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America.... We must lead the world....
One is tempted to reply, with Tonto, "what you mean 'we', paleface?" But that would be inappropriate.
Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel.... we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability....You get the idea. I guess he really is the new Jack Kennedy -- without the louche personal life.We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines....
I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened....
We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability....
.... we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program.... In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table.
.... we must strengthen our homeland security..... checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list.
Comments (9)
"many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs... We must lead the world"
one thinks of the latest
decent interveners gem-bot
cultural genocide
french cuisine foreign legion
Posted by Anonymous | March 28, 2008 11:00 PM
Posted on March 28, 2008 23:00
Obama is the Gumbercules of US politics i guess.
Posted by almostinfamous | March 29, 2008 4:22 AM
Posted on March 29, 2008 04:22
Given the way liberalism and our Enlightenment values are being defended, I am baffled by the lack of enthusiastic pwog support for Senator Clinton. Senator Obama speaks real pretty, but he'd wilt in conditions where she would truly come into her own.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 29, 2008 4:53 AM
Posted on March 29, 2008 04:53
What's amazing is that this information has been out there for a long time, but the Obamaniacs continue to snore right through it.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | March 29, 2008 10:21 AM
Posted on March 29, 2008 10:21
"What do you mean 'we', white man?"
Why is this inappropriate? Since at least his notorious Bomb The Living Piss Out Of Iran Speech at the 2004 DP Convention, I've considered Obama to nothing more than John McCain in burnt cork.
Mammy! Mammy! Here's your sonny boy! Mammy...
Posted by Mike Flugennock | March 29, 2008 11:17 AM
Posted on March 29, 2008 11:17
Just as I was reading this thread, an Obama canvasser knocked on my door! As usual, he was a well-meaning gentleman way, way, way to the left of the Reagan admirer for whom he's pounding pavement. This frickin place is broken, real, old-school broken.
"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing." -- BO
"The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan." -- BO
Posted by Michael Dawson | March 29, 2008 6:05 PM
Posted on March 29, 2008 18:05
MD - what, pray tell, did you say to the poor soul? Or did you not even bother...?
Posted by Tim D | March 30, 2008 5:16 AM
Posted on March 30, 2008 05:16
He was an elderly fellow, and, far as I could tell, he was about where a trapped animal (a two-headed dog perhaps?) is when it is halfway done chewing off its leg -- to busy and too stuck to think any more.
Posted by Michael Dawson | March 30, 2008 12:26 PM
Posted on March 30, 2008 12:26
tommy haydenreich
---dreaming of similar oby jfk parallels---
writes history
with a pastel crayon:
(obama )"... reminds me of John F. Kennedy, who ran against Nixon in 1960 on the exaggerated claim of a "missile crisis" and fantasies about Green Berets competing against Cuban guerrillas."
okay
" ...Then Kennedy was deceived and manipulated into the Bay of Pigs."
really ??
like hillary into sand trap II
".. Only after the Cuban missile crisis, he began deepening his questioning of the Cold War and nuclear arms race "
gee
i thought it was the other guy
the fat bald wart faced one that blinked ??
" and embraced the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. "
embrace ??
one recalls wc fields
" hardy hand shake "
"...Then he was murdered"
and not a moment too soon
the graceful bastard
thus sparkles
tommy haydenreich
progressive brown shirt
ps
we got the 14 Dial-a-lhama
and so
oby would be what ??
the nth jfk
WITH N EQUAL TO
let's see
there's of course
brother bobby the k ... ...
_ must be one or more others no ???
Posted by op | March 31, 2008 8:31 AM
Posted on March 31, 2008 08:31