The Asia Times opines:Napoleon was a lunatic who thought he was Napoleon, and the joke applies to the 44th United States president with a vengeance. What doesn't the president know, and when didn't he know it? American foreign policy turned delusional when Barack Obama took office, and the latest batch of leaks suggest that the main source of the delusion is sitting in the Oval Office.
The initial reports suggest that the US State Department has massive evidence that Obama's approach - "engaging" Iran and coddling Pakistan - has failed catastrophically. The crisis in diplomatic relations heralded by the press headlines is not so much a diplomatic problem - America's friends and allies in Western and Central Asia have been shouting themselves hoarse for two years - but a crisis of American credibility.
How do we explain the gaping chasm between Obama's public stance and the facts reported by the diplomatic corps? The cables do not betray American secrets so much as American obliviousness. The simplest and most probable explanation is that the president is a man obsessed by his own vision of a multipolar world, in which America will shrink its standing to that of one power among many, and thus remove the provocation on which Obama blames the misbehavior of the Iranians, Pakistanis, the pro-terrorist wing of the Saudi royal family, and other enemies of the United States.
Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. With a Muslim father and stepfather, and an anthropologist mother whose life's work defended Muslim traditional society against globalization, Obama harbors an overpowering sympathy for the Muslim world. He is not a Muslim, although as a young child he was educated as a Muslim in Indonesian schools. His vision of outreach to the Muslim world, the most visible and impassioned feature of his foreign policy, draws on deep wells of emotion;
In fairness to Obama, he simply carried forward the Bush Administration's
benign neglect of Iran's nuclear ambitions. Bush confirms in his just-published memoirs what was evident at the time: he followed the advice Defense Secretary Robert Gates and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to avoid open conflict with Iran. If provoked, Iran was capable of producing a large number of American casualties in Iraq in the advent of the 2008 elections. The difference between early 2008 and early 2010, to be sure, is that Iran has had two years to enrich uranium, consolidate its grip on Syria, insert itself into Afghanistan, stockpile missiles with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and build up its terror capabilities around the world. The window is closing in which Iran may be contained. Covert operations and cyber-sabotage might have bought some time, but benign neglect of Iran has reach its best-used-by-date.
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The Washington Examiner writes: No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
Obama made that particular pledge in a speech to the American Medical Association in June 2009, but he said the same thing, with slight variations, dozens of times during the health care debate. And now, exactly eight months after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, we're seeing just how empty the president's promise was.
The New York Times reports there is a "growing frenzy of mergers" in the health care field in which hospitals and other care providers, pressured by the new law's provisions, are joining forces to save money. "Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve," the paper reports, "by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses."
The Obama administration's answer to the problem will undoubtedly be more regulation. But the wave of mergers is just one of many signs of trouble with the new law.
For example, we know that the government's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has found that the new law will increase health care costs, rather than reduce them, in the coming decade.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2010/11/empty-promises-health-care-will-haunt-obama#ixzz168ioGTJS
The initial reports suggest that the US State Department has massive evidence that Obama's approach - "engaging" Iran and coddling Pakistan - has failed catastrophically. The crisis in diplomatic relations heralded by the press headlines is not so much a diplomatic problem - America's friends and allies in Western and Central Asia have been shouting themselves hoarse for two years - but a crisis of American credibility.
How do we explain the gaping chasm between Obama's public stance and the facts reported by the diplomatic corps? The cables do not betray American secrets so much as American obliviousness. The simplest and most probable explanation is that the president is a man obsessed by his own vision of a multipolar world, in which America will shrink its standing to that of one power among many, and thus remove the provocation on which Obama blames the misbehavior of the Iranians, Pakistanis, the pro-terrorist wing of the Saudi royal family, and other enemies of the United States.
Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. With a Muslim father and stepfather, and an anthropologist mother whose life's work defended Muslim traditional society against globalization, Obama harbors an overpowering sympathy for the Muslim world. He is not a Muslim, although as a young child he was educated as a Muslim in Indonesian schools. His vision of outreach to the Muslim world, the most visible and impassioned feature of his foreign policy, draws on deep wells of emotion;
In fairness to Obama, he simply carried forward the Bush Administration's
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The Washington Examiner writes: No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
Obama made that particular pledge in a speech to the American Medical Association in June 2009, but he said the same thing, with slight variations, dozens of times during the health care debate. And now, exactly eight months after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, we're seeing just how empty the president's promise was.
The New York Times reports there is a "growing frenzy of mergers" in the health care field in which hospitals and other care providers, pressured by the new law's provisions, are joining forces to save money. "Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve," the paper reports, "by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses."
The Obama administration's answer to the problem will undoubtedly be more regulation. But the wave of mergers is just one of many signs of trouble with the new law.
For example, we know that the government's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has found that the new law will increase health care costs, rather than reduce them, in the coming decade.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2010/11/empty-promises-health-care-will-haunt-obama#ixzz168ioGTJS
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From the liberal Politico: Freudian slips may haunt Obama
President Barack Obama, fresh from his drubbing in the 2010 midterms, is trying to revive his fortunes by pursuing a path toward the middle.
But Obama’s effort to overhaul his image is encumbered by conflicting impressions of who he is that have been engraved in voters’ minds by his own words.
First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
There was also the case of Joe the Plumber. “I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama told him, “it’s good for everybody.”
Other presidential Freudian slips even left a sense that Obama is hostile to accumulating wealth. His lectures to bankers, credit card company executives and health insurers sounded unduly harsh to some voters. Perhaps they felt validated in their suspicions when Obama said in April, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
Added to this, in the weeks before the midterms, was the vision of a snarling partisan voters hadn’t previously seen, the former avatar of “hope and change” dressing down House Minority Leader John Boehner and dismissing Republicans as Slurpee-guzzling incompetents.
First was the suggestion, made during an interview on a Latino radio station, that Latinos should “punish” their “enemies” at the polls, followed later by the awkward attempt to walk it back by saying he meant “opponents.”
Obama then undermined the sincerity of his repeated calls for Republicans to work with him as equals, saying as the midterm campaign headed into its final week, “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”
From the liberal Politico: Freudian slips may haunt Obama
President Barack Obama, fresh from his drubbing in the 2010 midterms, is trying to revive his fortunes by pursuing a path toward the middle.
But Obama’s effort to overhaul his image is encumbered by conflicting impressions of who he is that have been engraved in voters’ minds by his own words.
First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
There was also the case of Joe the Plumber. “I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama told him, “it’s good for everybody.”
Other presidential Freudian slips even left a sense that Obama is hostile to accumulating wealth. His lectures to bankers, credit card company executives and health insurers sounded unduly harsh to some voters. Perhaps they felt validated in their suspicions when Obama said in April, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
Added to this, in the weeks before the midterms, was the vision of a snarling partisan voters hadn’t previously seen, the former avatar of “hope and change” dressing down House Minority Leader John Boehner and dismissing Republicans as Slurpee-guzzling incompetents.
First was the suggestion, made during an interview on a Latino radio station, that Latinos should “punish” their “enemies” at the polls, followed later by the awkward attempt to walk it back by saying he meant “opponents.”
Obama then undermined the sincerity of his repeated calls for Republicans to work with him as equals, saying as the midterm campaign headed into its final week, “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”
In Obama’s case, the accumulation of comments that seem contrary to the image he conveys not only will create perceptions the president will find difficult to dislodge but could prompt questions about his sincerity.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45103.html#ixzz168Xpp6wE
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President Obama, writes the LA Times, has passed the Big 4-0 -- going the wrong way.
Turns out voters were not simply satisfied to spank the Democrat and his party in the Nov. 2 midterm elections with historic losses in the House of Representatives.
Obama's job approval rating as calculated by the Zogby Poll has now sunk to 39%, a new low for his 22-month presidency that began with so much hope and excitement and poll numbers up around 70. As recently as Sept. 20, his job approval was 49%.
A whopping 60% now disapprove of his job, up from 51% disapproval Sept. 20. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/11/obama-romney-palin.html
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45103.html#ixzz168Xpp6wE
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President Obama, writes the LA Times, has passed the Big 4-0 -- going the wrong way.
Turns out voters were not simply satisfied to spank the Democrat and his party in the Nov. 2 midterm elections with historic losses in the House of Representatives.
Obama's job approval rating as calculated by the Zogby Poll has now sunk to 39%, a new low for his 22-month presidency that began with so much hope and excitement and poll numbers up around 70. As recently as Sept. 20, his job approval was 49%.
A whopping 60% now disapprove of his job, up from 51% disapproval Sept. 20. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/11/obama-romney-palin.html
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