Jimmy Obama Carter

Do you remember that grand speech that Obama gave in Germany during his campaign? Left-Europe loved him for it. Obama was the man they would vote to have has America's President.

Enough American voters agreed with them to put Obama in the White-House.

Half way through his first term, those same left leaning Europeans are now comparing Obama, rather unkindly, to Jimmy Carter.

See: Will Obama Be the 'Jimmy Carter of the 21st Century'?

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:

"If Barack Obama isn't careful, he will become the Jimmy Carter of the 21st century."

"In his speech, Obama tried to make a virtue of an emergency. He said a shift to new energy sources was now a 'national mission.' Just as the nation once mobilized its powers for World War II, now it needs to conquer its devilish dependence on fossil fuels … If Obama wins this debate, and achieves a true shift in energy dependence, then his name will perhaps be mentioned again in the same breath with great American presidents."

"Politically, though, it's fraught with risk. His opponents have already charged Obama with using the Gulf catastrophe to advance his climate agenda in Congress. Republicans rely on the tendency of Americans to prefer cheap fuel and big cars with a certain level of power. Over 30 years ago, after all, another president called for smarter American energy policies in a televised speech from the Oval Office. He wanted to know, 'Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?' That president's name was Jimmy Carter."

The bloom is off the rose.

Towards A More Productive And Useful Understanding Of North Korea

Christopher Hitchens reviews B.R. Myers' The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters.

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners—even black American soldiers, or so he'd heard to his evident disgust—and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity.

I was struck at the time by how matter-of-factly he said this, as if he took it for granted that I would find it uncontroversial. And I did briefly wonder whether this form of totalitarianism, too (because nothing is more "total" than racist nationalism), was part of the pitch made to its subjects by the North Korean state.

When Christopher Hitchens is good, he is very good. His review of B.R. Myers' book, flavored with his own personal in person observations of North Korea, make it clear that the oft ignored and shunned little crazy kingdom of North Korea may be far too dangerous to just ignore and shun.

I think I will head on over to the bookstore this weekend.

Hat Tip To FinallyFree at Correspondence Committee

The Obama Administration Considers Letting The Taliban Win In Afghanistan

The Obama Administration will certainly go down in history as one of the worst in US Forign policy history. Worse than even the Carter Administration.

From an AP article:

WASHINGTON - Senior al-Qaida leaders are forging deeper relationships with Pakistani militants and often operating from their camps inside the Pakistan border, fueling Obama administration arguments for a shift in the Afghan war strategy that more narrowly targets the terrorists.

For eight years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has focused mostly on Afghanistan's Taliban as an unabashed ally of al-Qaida.

Now, however, forced to choose between sending more troops in an intensified counterinsurgency campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban or largely maintaining troop levels and using more drone strikes to take out al-Qaida along the border, U.S. officials must first determine which enemy is the greater priority.

The Obama Administration will lose Afghanistan with this kind of thinking. I am inclined to think that they would be less bothered by losing Afghanistan to the Taliban then be perceived as pursuing victory. Victory over the enemy is something that the modern day left can’t seem to stomach.

If the Obama Administration fails to defeat the Taliban, or at the very least, fails to keep them out of power in Afghanistan, then Afghanistan will return back to the stone age country that it was when it was executing woman in Soccer fields for showing a wee bit too much of ankle or daring to leave their homes without a male relative as an escort.

If Obama does not choose to pursue victory over BOTH the Taliban and al-Qaida, then his legacy will be one of surrendering to despair and misery from the farthest corners of the world to the very windows of our skyscrapers.

Moon Dust and Nobel Peace Prizes

I woke this morning to the news that Nasa has bombed the moon and that Barrack Obama has Won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Reality is just so weird. My dreams last night seemed to be more solidly based on reality than what I was hearing over the radio.

To be fair, I had heard about the Moon Bombing before hand. Ironically, one of the first semi-political websites that I happened across long ago had campaigned for bombing the moon. The site advocated using Nukes over simple kinetic systems like what Nasa used today. Well, I guess you have to start somewhere. Today the moon, tomorrow, the Milky Way!!!

And so that leaves us the Nobel Peace Prize to consider.

What is it for again?

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barrack Obama has to be considered in light of the fact that it has also been awarded to Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat. In retrospect, I think I would have been surprised if Barrack Obama was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at some point. Barrack Obama is in fitting company with his winning of this award.