April 30, 2009
Our Jekyll And Hyde President
National Review: More Radical Than Jimmy Carter Or A Smoother Centrist Than Bill Clinton?
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Play CBS Video Video Obama Prime-Time Highlights The president discussed torture, swine flu and automakers among other topics during his prime time TV press conference to mark 100 days in office. Bill Plante reports.
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Video The First 100 Days Webcast "Only On The Web:" Katie Couric hosts an analysis of President Obama's first 100 days in the White House. Guests include Ariana Huffington, Valerie Jarrett, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan, and many more.
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Video Obama Acknowledges Progress In his press conference Wednesday evening, President Obama acknowledged his administration's progress, but cautioned it's just a start. Steve Chaggaris, CBS News Political Director, weighs in on the President's message.
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President Obama at his press conference at the White House last night. (CBS)
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Photos Presidential Travels Abroad Photos from President Obama's visits to countries around the world.
In matters of foreign policy during the president’s first 100 days, we have seen two Barack Obamas.
Consider “Obama I.” After taking office, the president gave his first interview to the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV station, and listed various sins of America while praising the Saudi king as courageous.
On trips abroad since then, Obama I has continued to apologize for the U.S. being arrogant and dismissive of Europe. He thinks we have been inconsiderate to Mexico. And, judging by a speech he gave in Prague, we apparently carry a special burden to eliminate nuclear weapons since we ended World War II by using them.
Obama I seems far kinder to our rivals than to the prior Bush administration when he assures various South American thugs and Iranian and Russian strongmen that he represents a sharp break from a recent, unfortunate American past.
Obama I sat quietly for nearly an hour while Nicaragua’s thuggish leader, Daniel Ortega, trashed the U.S. at the recent Summit of the Americas. Instead of defending his country, the president, in his call to move forward, replied that he was only three months old at the time of our alleged misdeeds in Cuba - and therefore not responsible for them.
Most maddening, Obama I released classified memos about past enhanced interrogation techniques - over the objections of former CIA directors from both parties.
But there has been another Obama as well. This more centrist “Obama II” kept Bush appointee Robert Gates as secretary of Defense. He named no-nonsense Gen. James Jones national-security adviser.
Most of the campaign rhetoric about leaving Iraq on a strict timetable has been scrapped. Instead, the Bush-Petraeus plan of withdrawal based on conditions on the ground continues.
Obama sent more combat troops to Afghanistan, while trying in vain to get the Europeans to fulfill their NATO obligations by doing the same. Despite the hostile anti-Bush rhetoric, Obama has kept intact many of his predecessor’s homeland-security measures. There has been little change with the Patriot Act, wiretap and e-mail intercepts of suspected terrorist communications, and renditions of overseas suspects.
Obama II gave the green light to execute suspected Somali pirates who were holding an American hostage. And in the case of our continued Predator drone attacks in Pakistan, such bombings are a little more extreme than waterboarding known terrorists.
There could be several explanations for our split-personality president.
One, Barack Obama has never before had to make tough decisions as an executive. He may be struggling to pacify both radicals in his base who detest past Bush policies and realists who warn him that al-Qaeda is still trying to repeat 9/11.
Or, two, Obama may be sincerely trying to move the country far to the left. His serial apologies may reveal a true post-national Obama. Once he consolidates power in the coming year, we may see the president’s moderate fig leaf blow away.
Or, three, Obama may be a Clinton-style realist, as his selection of Hillary Clinton as his secretary of State would suggest. He may be deliberately saying one thing abroad while pursuing quite another - in the manner of his calibrated campaign flip-flops on everything from campaign financing to NAFTA.
This more Machiavellian Obama in theory could advance roughly the same bipartisan foreign agenda as previous Presidents Clinton and Bush. Both sought to spread capitalism and democracy abroad to lessen the chances of regional conflicts, and were not so averse to using force to remove genocidal tyrants like Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
In this scenario, Obama apologizes abroad and trumpets his nontraditional background and Islamic familiarities as clever ways to preempt and nullify third-world cheap shots taken against the U.S. Given his popularity with the global masses, the new, more effective Messenger Obama could send America’s largely unchanged message directly to the people.
So which Obama persona is the real president - Obama I, more radical than Jimmy Carter, or Obama II, a smoother centrist than Bill Clinton? I don’t think Obama himself quite knows - and that’s quite scary, as we don’t know either what to expect next.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.

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See all 80 CommentsWJR-RADIO, DETROIT ?FRANK BECKMAN INTERVIEWS A LAWYER WHO REPRESENTS A GROUP OF LENDERS THAT OBJECT TO THE CHRYSLER SALE.
Every American should be outraged by what the WHITE HOUSE is doing behind closed doors! What else are they doing to America?
LISTEN TO THIS INTERVIEW ? CALL AND WRITE TO YOUR STATE REPS AND NEWS MEDIA ? WHY ISN?T THIS STORY BEING COVERED ELSEWHERE?
http://www.wjr.com/Article.asp?id=1301727&spid=6525
May 1, 2009
WJR-RADIO, DETROIT ?FRANK BECKMAN INTERVIEWS A LAWYER WHO REPRESENTS A GROUP OF LENDERS THAT OBJECT TO THE CHRYSLER SALE.
Every American should be outraged by what the WHITE HOUSE is doing behind closed doors! What else are they doing to America?
LISTEN TO THIS INTERVIEW ? CALL AND WRITE TO YOUR STATE REPS AND NEWS MEDIA ? WHY ISN?T THIS STORY BEING COVERED ELSEWHERE?
http://www.wjr.com/Article.asp?id=1301727&spid=6525
There?s a straight line from JFK?s murder on November 22, 1963 to the brutal and savage Israeli attack on the USS Liberty to the 1983 attack on that marine compound in Lebanon, to the USS Cole bombing to 9/11. And no amount of Zionist Holocaust? fairy tales or forced worship at the altar of Israel is going to erase that line.
http://waronyou.com/topics/dead-in-the-water-the-sinking-of-the-uss-liberty/
Obama is someone who always takes the easy way out and if it's prepared by the banks and other corporations he doesn't really care as long as it doesn't cause him to make an effort. Style will be valued over substance in the Obama White House.
Clinton did at least try to buck the establishment on several issues and he paid the price.
You have never represented American National Interests!
hmm three posts to the same guy. I suspect you need your medication. based on your name you likely also need a history degree since you have no relevant base line for your accusations.
well stated
Unfortunately most of the other Obama lovers here think that because Obama won, the GOP MUST disband. They think that it was a referendum for a socialist state with govt. med care, and govt owned business being their employers, and govt programs to make their lives right.
they also like to ignore when they cry out" everything Bush did was wrong", just how much Obama is either continuing or even outright defending in the courts for the previous admins actions.
finally the the shrill tone of the left is meaningful, they won, the DEMs can pass any law in congress, Obama can say any thing (with a teleprompter) and yet they still scream. It's like they can't MoveOn. they just don't know what to do, they won, but their lives still suck evidently.
That being said, my opinion does not usurp the opinions of Mr. Hansen or anyone else...because even if I disagree, all Bush apologists and others have the right to voice their beliefs...even if they're dead wrong.
What nerve of him to try and repair relationships with other countries that had been strong allies for over 100 years, but were dashed in minutes by Mr. "You're either with us or against us" Bush.
And he wants to make the US and world safer by using words and diplomacy, instead of brute force? Unbelieveable!
Posted by rwassel at 8:04 PM : May 1, 2009
Well stated. But you might as well give up on the poor bitter neocons. Facts, figures, none of these things matter to them. Let them be wrong every time. Let them lose every single election. Let them fade into the obscurity they so richly deserve. Until they own up to their mistakes and the mistakes of the Bush Administration, they shall remain an ineffectless, passive force, wallowing in their own securities and self-pity, unable to affect change and powerless to change their own course.
Bush used a teleprompter, too.
Posted by wogerwabbit at 7:44 PM : May 1, 2009
Unfortunately that didn't provide much benefit with the reading skill level of a fourth grader.
Posted by boosterprez1 at 5:32 PM : May 1, 2009
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*sniffle* LOL.... ahem... you were joking - right?
What nerve of him to try and repair relationships with other countries that had been strong allies for over 100 years, but were dashed in minutes by Mr. "You're either with us or against us" Bush.
And he wants to make the US and world safer by using words and diplomacy, instead of brute force? Unbelieveable!
Bush used a teleprompter, too.
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