Obama as world leader?

"Barnstorming from one ungrateful, uncooperative country to the next, signaling weakness, apologizing for America’s generosity and sacrifice? That’s not my idea of success," says John Andrews of Obama's foreign trip in the April round of Head On TV debates. But Susan Barnes-Gelt argues the President was impressive abroad and later in the piracy hostage crisis. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over carbon emissions, school reform, illegal aliens on campus, and a legislative scorecard. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for April: 1. OBAMA AS WORLD LEADER?

Susan: Obama's European tour was a resounding success. His intelligent, calm and deliberate manner impressed leaders, the foreign press and public. If we are going to join with our allies and our foes to address problems than aren't defined by jurisdictional boundaries, we must begin with respectful listening and focus.

John: Barnstorming from one ungrateful, uncooperative country to the next, signaling weakness, apologizing for America’s generosity and sacrifice? That’s not my idea of success. The Messiah’s dangerous inexperience and pacifism were obvious for allies to manipulate and enemies to exploit. Scary!

Susan: Obama proved himself by the way he performed, as commander-in-chief during the recent Somali kidnapping. His decision to authorize the Navy SEALS to free Captain Philips shows he knows when to use military force and that he remains cool under pressure.

John: Remember Bin Laden’s description of America after 9/11 – “the weak horse”? That may become truer than ever under this president. People still seem to like him, but our enemies have other ideas. The hostage rescue was good, but Obama’s weakness toward Iran and North Korea is not good.

2. CAP & TRADE BILL IN CONGRESS

John: The last six quarters have seen a declining economy and the last ten years have seen global cooling. There couldn’t be a worse time to slam American industry and American taxpayers with a huge new tax on carbon emissions. Obama’s cap and trade bill should die a quick death in Congress.

Susan: The Dems were naïve to fast track Cap and Trade legislation. A comprehensive policy confronting climate change, emissions and smart energy is a 21st Century reality. Bold action entails working with the American people to educate and develop strong grassroots support.

John: Do Obama and the Democrats care more about prosperity American-style or socialism European-style? Their policy on energy will tell us. Punitive action on global warming will hurt everyone. Full speed on oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and renewables will bring back the good times. Which is it, Dems?

Susan: John, you are so smart - but very 20th Century! The choice is not black or white - combustibles and pollution vs clean and green. The answer is both - and - not either - or. Cap and trade is inevitable - the question is not whether, but when. You'll see.

3. GRADING THE 2009 LEGISLATURE

John: Democrats went on a tear in the legislature this year. First they raised car taxes on everyone. Then they ripped out another fiscal guardrail from the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, never mind a vote of the people. Then they illegally targeted the worker’s comp fund. Don’t they know there’s a recession on?

Susan: Colorado's budget is a disaster, in large measure because of mandated constraints - TABOR, Amendment 23 and under - funded federal requirements. What does it mean when legislators must choose between educating the workforce or ensuring public safety? Colorado's fiscal challenges are epic.

John: The General Assembly gets an F for this 2009 session. F as in failure, F as in fake, F as in fiscal flop. Democrats bear most of the blame, they were in charge. Republican Don Marostica also flunked. Bill Ritter started things with his reckless budget a year ago.

Susan: Real budget authority rests with the Joint Budget Committee. The Gov is right to take cuts to higher ed off the table and I, for one, think he is smart to let the legislature come to consensus. My grade for the lege is short of a B - for BOLD

4. IMPROVING COLORADO'S SCHOOLS

Susan: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was in Colorado - along with Senators Udall and Bennet - visiting our public schools. If the state is going to compete for $44 billion in federal dollars for education reform, leaders must address longer school days, teacher accountability and school choice - just for starters.

John: If dollars translated into learning, kids would show more academic mastery after we doubled real spending per student in recent decades. Instead mediocrity in the government schools worsened. Forget the federal honeypot. To improve the 3 R’s we need the 3 C’s – charters, competition, choice.

Susan: We need federal money to fix up decrepit schools so that kids can learn in safe, healthy and well-resourced environments. Neither local communities nor the states have the money to address failed facilities. Then your 3 C's charters, competition and choice should be part of the equation.

John: Speaking of education, Susan, I have to praise Secretary Duncan and President Obama for tapping Peter Groff to coordinate faith-based school initiatives across the country. Groff did well as Senate President, where I once served, and he’s a tiger for educational opportunity. Colorado’s loss is America’s gain.

5. IN-STATE TUITION BILL FAILS

John: What do you know? Sometimes the system works. Illegal aliens won’t get favored treatment at state universities after all. The kid who snuck here from Mexico won’t pay a lower tuition while the veteran who commutes from Wyoming pays full tuition. Five Senate Democrats and 13 Republicans did the right thing.

Susan: Democratic Sens. Morgan Carroll, Jim Isgar, Moe Keller, Linda Newell, and Lois Tochtrop joined Repub's in defeating this bill,which had NO fiscal impact. Shame on them and shame on the partisan and mean-spirited myopia of the Republican minority.

John: Colorado’s hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding families want no part of a college subsidy for scofflaw foreigners. You may call that mean-spirited. I call it common sense. Enough senators from both parties got the message from voters and killed the bill. The others, plus Bill Ritter, will pay the price in 2010.

Susan: Get a grip John.These kids are both law abiding and hardworking, hardly scofflaws. Any Colorado student who works hard enough to attend college ought to go and pay in-state tuition. It's in the best interest of every Coloradan to have an educated workforce.

Sorry for saving the world

One of the most frustrating things about the left is that they seem to have little use for history and even less regard for objective facts. Facts have little use when you just "know" -- in your gut and with every fiber of your being -- that you are right. Emotion trumps rationality every time. How well policies work is always less important than how they make you feel. Try telling a liberal, for example, that the evidence is clear that socialism in Europe has led to flat economic growth, falling birth rates and a 1970s-style economic and social malaise, and you will get a retort about social justice, the moral imperative of universal health care and the "progressive enlightenment" of European environmental policies. On the left, its better to be enlightened than it is to be rich, I guess. In an academic exercise, such tripe is irritating but tolerable. But when such denial of reality becomes the dominant force behind U.S. government policy -- on almost every issue of importance -- it is time to take notice.  I've written many times that Barack Obama lives in a "parallel universe" inhabited by lots of feel-good imagery, moral clarity and social justice. This is the universe of Europe, and his recent trip showed him quite at home among the hand-wringers and apologists who value symbolic gestures over concrete action.

On Sunday, for example, Obama spoke in Prague before a huge crowd and talked about setting the stage for nuclear disarmament -- a long-time moral imperative of the left -- even as North Korea was launching a test missile capable of delivering one of its newly-developed nuclear warheads as far as Tokyo. Mr. Obama responded to this clear violation of U.N. resolutions by referring it back to the U.N. for "further action" -- meaning more hand-wringing backed by timidity. In Obama's world, of course, the U.N. has a special moral authority, and is the arbiter of choice in this kind of crisis. Forget about its track record. The symbolism of China, Russia and France -- not to mention Syria, Gabon and Tahiti -- being in charge of global security is the kind of image that brings smiles to those who believe that the United States is "just another nation". You know who those people are, right? They are the ones now in charge of your government.

Image, as it turns out, is everything on the left. So you will forgive Obama for apologizing all over himself for American "transgressions". He goes to Turkey and apologizes in effect for America's war on terror -- saying that we "are not at war with Islam" -- when, in fact, we are at war with a significant, virulent strain of the religion. He apologizes for the excesses of American capitalism as the root of the current economic crisis, when in reality the engine of the American economy has lifted the standard of living across the world.

Obama is so sorry. In the ultimate irony, the most hubristic of presidents in modern times want to walk the globe with humility. He wants the world -- the same world that America, with its blood and treasure, has saved repeatedly from extremism of all kinds -- to know how badly we feel and how sorry we are. We feel badly for being exceptional, for leading and for fighting for human freedom.

We're sorry for saving the world. I guess next time, we'll leave you with Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein.

Let's make a deal!

"Part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists," said Obama, "but who were willing to work with us." That's from President Obama's interview with the New York Times on March 7, 2009. I guess he didn't get the memo about Islamic fundamentalism not being the kind of ideology that lends itself well to compromise and deal making. Of course, when you are The One and operate on a higher plane closer to God (and Muhammad, presumably), you come to really believe that your words are capable of doing the impossible -- the things that mere mortals (like George W. Bush and other conservatives) could never possibly do. Barack Obama belongs to the Monte Hall school of foreign policy: if you have five hair clips and a thimble in your purse, we can certainly make a deal!

The truth in Iraq, of course, is that we reached out to religious leaders who wanted to restore security and who had tired of the radical violence of Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. We weren't working with the radicals who were beheading hostages and killing American troops. Rather, the surge (which Obama opposed, still can't bring himself to call a "success" and apparently doesn't fully understand) convinced Shia and Sunni tribal leaders that it was a better bet to cooperate with us than with the Islamic fascists who didn't care how much innocent Iraqi blood they had to shed in accomplishing their goal of a totally lawless, unstable Iraq. These tribal leaders made a rational calculation that it was better to be "with us" than "against us" -- and helped to turn the tide againt both Al Qaeda and some of the more radical internal militias that were working to destabilize the country. We didn't sit down with Al Qaeda in Iraq and "work together" as the President apparently believes.

This is typical idealistic nonsense from the new president -- who firmly believes that symbols backed by the power of his presence can turn the world inside out into a better, kinder place. We've now dropped the term "war on terror" so as not to further upset the Islamic world (which would love us if we just spoke nicely to them), we're pulling out of Gitmo and making efforts to join the UN Human Rights Commission -- the sole purpose of which is to bash Israel while giving a pass to Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea and other human rights abusers. Its all in the effort to change the "tone" of our dealings with the world. Lots of soft music and dim lighting.

Unfortunately, this president is full of intellectual hubris, and is absolutely, positively certain that he knows best. He believes that Islamic fundamentalists are people he can "work with", as if they are folks at the local PTA meeting who are parsing the menu for school lunches. He doesn't seem to understand that Islamic fundamentalism is the heart of a radical belief system that seeks to create a world Islamic state governed under strict Sharia law. It represents a total rejection of Western culture, society and religion. It is a radical, revolutionary ideology. You can't "make a deal" with those who want to utterly destroy you.

Obama the wanderer

I've been struggling over the last few weeks to put my finger on what bothers me so much about Barack Obama. Yes, I know that sounds strange coming from me -- since the pages of my blog are filled with criticisms of the man and his beliefs. But there is something else that is bugging me about the Obama presidency, and it isn't so much about policy as it is a feeling that I have -- a sense of the peripatetic way he is going about this very serious job he has. I've been watching Obama now travel from media event to media event, fluttering about the country with much fanfare but little substance. There is something missing. A sense of steadiness. His devotion to his teleprompter -- already the stuff of scorn and ridicule -- is unsettling. Wasn't he supposed to be the eloquent one who wields a brilliant intellect? The next great communicator?

Peggy Noonan does a masterful job in today's Wall Street Journal of putting my sense of Obama into words -- it's a must read. I've been frustrated with Noonan's commentary about Obama since the election -- she seemed all too willing to accept the notion that Obama really is some new, transcendental leader. But no more. This most recent piece captures perfectly the true essence of the "Obama phenomena" -- full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing:

He is willowy when people yearn for solid, reed-like where they hope for substantial, a bright older brother when they want Papa, cool where they probably prefer warmth. All of which may or may not hurt Barack Obama in time...

Such impressions—coolness, slightness—can come to matter only if they capture or express some larger or more meaningful truth. At the moment they connect, for me, to something insubstantial and weightless in the administration's economic pronouncements and policies. The president seems everywhere and nowhere, not fully focused on the matters at hand. He's trying to keep up with the news cycle with less and less to say.

Our new president is chasing the news cycle, going on Jay Leno and following the cues from the dwarfs in Congress -- that august body of tax cheats and pork spenders where Obama most recently worked. He is engaged in a dance of reaction as opposed to a steady march of action, all at a time when we are dealing with crisis at home and war abroad. This is a time for steeliness and strength, and what we have is unfocused, peripatetic waffling.

Those of you who read this blog know that this comes as no surprise to me. Barack Obama is a man of great salesmanship, who understands how to get you excited to buy something, but then knows nothing of the details once you've purchased it. He's already on to the next sale, the next opportunity to close the deal and show his ability to convince and cajole. His sense of office is a constant campaign -- lots of platitudes and generalities, the kind of stuff that makes crowds clap. He's a jack of all and master of none. And now that he is the master of our collective domain -- the United States of America -- the weaknesses show through with growing clarity and alarm.

As Noonan succinctly argues, Obama has two jobs -- to fix the economy and to keep us safe. On both scores he seems wanting. When Dick Cheney recently criticized Obama for making us less safe in the wake of his recent decisions on Guantanamo and interrogation, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reacted with disdain. Mr. Cheney is part of a 'Republican cabal.' 'I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy.' This was cheap."

Cheap and wrong. For whatever you wish to say about Dick Cheney, he know of what he speaks -- having seen first hand the post 9/11 intelligence briefings for 8 years. Cheney knows that the threat from Islamic terrorism is a constant drumbeat that can't be wished or talked away. He knows that the Obama administration has not yet found a serious footing on this issue -- and that this puts the country at risk. Noonan says it well:

What can be used will be used. We are a target. Something bad is going to happen—don't we all know this? Are we having another failure of imagination?

A month ago former FBI director Robert Mueller, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, warned of Mumbai-type terrorist activity, saying a similar attack could happen in a U.S. city. He spoke of the threat of homegrown terrorists who are "radicalized," "indoctrinated" and recruited for jihad. Mumbai should "reinvigorate" U.S. intelligence efforts. The threat is not only from al Qaeda but "less well known groups." This had the hard sound of truth.

Contrast it with the new secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, who, in her first speech and testimony to congress, the same week as Mr. Mueller's remarks, did not mention the word terrorism once. This week in an interview with Der Spiegel, she was pressed: "Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?" Her reply: "I presume there is always a threat from terrorism." It's true she didn't use the word terrorism in her speech, but she did refer to "man-caused" disasters. "This is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear."

Ah. Well this is only a nuance, but her use of language is a man-caused disaster.

Exactly right. Eight years after 9/11 and two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are still learning the same lesson over and over again: there are enemies who want to destroy us out there, they are Islamic fundamentalists and they can and will use any weapon they can get their hands on -- from machine guns to suitcase nuclear bombs. It isn't an issue of nuance, it is one of survival. The administration's responses -- as Dick Cheney points out -- should in no way be comforting.

These are the two great issues, the economic crisis and our safety. In the face of them, what strikes one is the weightlessness of the Obama administration, the jumping from issue to issue and venue to venue from day to day. Isaiah Berlin famously suggested a leader is a fox or a hedgehog. The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing. In political leadership the hedgehog has certain significant advantages, focus and clarity of vision among them. Most presidents are one or the other. So far Mr. Obama seems neither.

Very well said, Peggy.

What a difference a great nation makes

The world is not in an all-out shooting war, for which we can all be thankful. But why is this? Is it because nations are less violent than they used to be? Hardly. Is it because they have become more reasonable? Doubtful. Is it because the awful consequences of modern weaponry are too terrible to contemplate? Possible, but not necessarily. I submit that the reason that the world has been spared World War III (meaning a war on the scale of the world wars in the last century) is the character and power of the United States of America. This is our gift to the world, not to be foolishly squandered.

Pax Americana may not sit well with either aggressive despotisms restrained by our dominance or utopian dreamers offended that "hard" power can be credited with bringing peace, but it is an undeniable fact of our age. Just as Pax Romana held barbarians in check for centuries, so has our turn at the helm for most of the last century–and Great Britain before that.

Given the stance of our enemies and the prejudices of our own ideologues, it is not easy to demonstrate the truth of the proposition that domination by great nations brings relative peace. But we know that our entry in both world wars was decisive and we haven’t had a world war since the United States rose to the status of a super power in 1945.

True, the Soviet Union also rose to a powerful position, and the two super powers, as they were called, waged "cold war" against each other for more than four decades. While fear of the horrors of nuclear warfare clearly played a part in discouraging hot war, the more telling reason was that we had the power to deter a Soviet strike.

The collapse of the Soviet regime led some to believe, as Francis Fukayama so famously declared, that "history had come to an end" with the triumph of liberal democracy and free markets. But that glorious new age was "delayed" by the rise of Islamist terrorism. Once again, the responsibility of keeping the peace has fallen to us.

Imagine the world in the absence of the United States or, what amounts to the same thing, its decline to minor power status. Is there any doubt that the Islamists would ratchet up their efforts to subdue the Infidels, limited only by their own ambitions and resources, and the feeble efforts of their intended victims?

And that’s not all. Russia may be a shadow of its former self, having demonstrated an inability to produce armaments under the failed communist system. But none of its weak neighbors would be a match for what remains of its nuclear force. Then there’s China, chastened too by the shortcomings of communism, but shrewd enough to move to a fascist system that permits private ownership but actually controls production.

None of these forces would be sufficient to dominate the world, so their leaders would gain territory and/or resources when they could, sign only temporary peace agreements with each other, and generally keep the world in pretty constant turmoil. Perhaps world wars would be avoided, but recall that world war was not expected in 1914. World trade would decline, if not collapse altogether.

The vacuum generated by the decline of the United States might be filled by still other nations–perhaps India, with its vast resources and certainly Japan, both of which would have to be very concerned about an expansionist China. Possibly Europe would find a way to unite its forces against pressure from Russia, although between its addiction to "soft" power and its declining birth rates (and Muslim birthrates soaring), that is highly doubtful.

These are not abstract speculations, for we have elected a president and a Congress that are so absorbed in aggrandizing the power and influence of the federal government that they treat the world outside as something to be downplayed, or finessed by "smart" diplomacy in which we offer concessions to our enemies even before we meet them at the negotiating table.

Just in the last week we learn that the Obama Administration is "reaching out" to Hamas in Gaza, to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and to Russia over nearby defenses against Iran’s missiles. This is an administration that conspicuously lacks a strategic vision for the world and is putting our survival as a free nation at risk.

The world will not go away, just as it didn’t in 1914, 1941 or 2001. If we don’t assume the responsibilities that have been thrust upon us, we will pay a fearful price.