Our Jekyll And Hyde President

National Review: More Radical Than Jimmy Carter Or A Smoother Centrist Than Bill Clinton?

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Victor Davis Hanson.

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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.

[USA_Constitution]

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

[USA_Constitution]

"HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE "REAL OBAMA"...........

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

[bigsk8fan]

national review. now that's as unbiased as fox news. why don't they just a neocon rush limbaugh as their 'impartial' review of obama.

[StaxBrix]

Watch it now before it gets censored AGAIN, from Youtube or Google?.. someone?s awful nervous about this truth getting out. Maybe they need to keep the American public in the dark and ignorant about that day which lives in infamy, June 8, 1967.

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/

[skeezix06]

I don't know what planet you're living on. Obama is neither left, radical or otherwise, or smooth centrist. The media is still turning a blind eye toward his mistakes and contradictions but he is centrist with heavy rightward leanings.

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.

[didserve]

NRO take your duel passport holding media people back to your other country!

You have never represented American National Interests!

[maghop]

hey libriodiots!!! are you just waking up from a bush induced fear mongering coma?? 1. unemployment rose due to bush's obsession with iraq. 2. the stock market decreased due to bush's neglect and obsession with iraq. 3. economic growth only with cheny's haliburton friends and bush's obsession with iraq. 4. budget deficits rose due to the needless spending of almost 1 trillion dollars because of bush's obsession with iraq. i think you or anyone would agree that if bush had focused on the real war on terror, and spent time on the problems rising within america, because they started long before obama took office, then may be there wouldn't have been such a collapse in how america is seen around the world. obama, just as other people such as bush1, are cleaning up after the mess bush 2 created. bush 2 has never been good at anything except creating messes for others to fix.huummmm! example, his failed attempt in baseball, his failed attempt in the oil bussiness which his father and saudia arabia bailed him out, his failed leadership as potus. humm i can go on and on but i won't since in you eyes bush is and was a messiah!! NOT!!! WHAT A LOSER! in fact how does one spell loser? G.-W-B-U-S-H

[VultureTX]

Posted by evilbusheviks at 11:50 AM

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.

[renojmc]

Only the ignorant and naive believe the empty platitudes and lies that spew from Obama's mouth. The rest of us see him for who he is -- a neo-socialist bent on destroying America as we know it.

[Stop_the_crying]

Well cry me a river. The GOP can't stand a president that admitts the falurers of our past presidents policys. A president that will listen to any one. Considers our personel rights more important than jailing a few people. Blame, Blame, Blame that's all the red people can do. We can do it twice as good for half the price. That sounds strange comming from the people that could not even utter the word recession with the last president. WA WA WA