Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, April 18, 2009 1:14:16 PM
The following passage
from Barack Obama’s speech to Latin American leaders will be one of
those Rorshach tests for political perspective. Those who hated the
Bush administration enough will applaud it; those who think America is
usually wrong will cheer; and the rest of us will shake our heads
Obama’s apologizing for being dictatorial … to Hugo Chavez, Evo
Morales, and the Castros. As for “dictat[ing] our terms,” we used to
call that defending American interests. When negotiating, people try
to get the best terms for themselves. We didn’t send gunboats to
Venezuela or Bolivia during the Bush administration, and the only
people seizing assets over the last eight years have been the
Venezuelans under Chavez.
Once again, we have the new President embarking on the “We Suck ‘09″
tour, kicked off in Europe, where he felt the need to apologize for the
last administration’s efforts to defend America’s interests on the
international stage. Obama likes to call this “smart power” and tells
us we’ll get more by appearing humble than by pursuing our interests in
the normal fashion. So far, the rest of the world has applauded
Obama’s performance — and gone on to reject our requests for economic
cooperation, combat troops for Afghanistan, partnership with Russia
against Iran, and North Korean continuation of the six-party nuclear
disarmament talks without launching long-range missiles over Japan.