Thursday 31 May 2012
Like Carter before him, there's something disconcertingly un-American about Barack Obama
(Hat-tip: A Tangled Web)
I know it's none of my business, but it really does seem utterly inconceivable that American voters will give this dull, talentless, strangely affectless man another four years to carry on destroying their country. He doesn't seem to like America much - and he doesn't seem to like most Americans. Hell, he doesn't even appear to be that enamoured of the black voters who got him into the White House four years ago!
Obama evidently has no respect for the Constitution, doesn't seem to take any pride in his country's history (his wife's positively ashamed of it), and he doesn't seem to have the foggiest notion as to what made America powerful and successful and a force for good in the world: I'm not sure he believes America ever has been a force for good, or that it deserves to be successful again (he certainly seems to be doing his best to ensure that it never is).
As to why so many people from other countries are so desperate to live there, he probably assumess they want revenge for all the years of brutal oppression they've suffered at the hands of US robber barons (either that, or he's convinced they want to get their mitts on those food stamps which seem to be the cornerstone of his economic strategy).
Obama strikes me as an alien in his own country, much as Jimmy Carter always did. Carter gave the impression that he'd managed to pass an exam on How to Be an American without ever really grasping the subject. When he was in power, I even speculated that he'd started life as Dzhimmi, a peanut farmer in Soviet Georgia, before the KGB knocked on his door one night with an audacious proposition.
I could be wrong, of course, and it could be that I spend too much time reading right-wing pundits on conservative websites, or it could just be because I'm a foreigner - but, again, like Carter, Barack Obama strikes me as deeply and profoundly non-American.
This isn't purely a matter of political prejudice. I'm no fan of Bill Clinton's - but, when he was President, there was undoubtedly something innately American about the man. Sure, he was a porky, sleazy, folksy, bullshitting, unprincipled, populist Southern Democrat in the Huey Long mould - but, boy, was he ever a Yank!
Reagan, Nixon, Dubya, Ford, LBJ, JFK - despite their myriad differences - were all Americans to the core of their being. Oddly, apart from Carter, the only other serving president in the last 50 years who made the same impression on me as Obama was Dubya's dad - there was always something creepily, vacillatingly European about George.
So, it isn't to do with politics or race or religion or personality. Perhaps it's because I can so easily imagine Obama as head of the UN or another of those ghastly international organisations whose aim appears to be to waste as much taxpayers' money as possible without actually doing good - which, come to think of, pretty much sums up Obama's current strategy.
Whatever, I just can't believe that Americans will vote him back into power.
Guys, for all our sakes - please don't!
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Yes, all very well. But Romney? isn't this a sort of mirror opposite of our choice between Kinnock and Major in 1992? You don't have to be a Democrat to worry about voting for a half-Mitt of a dodgy religious disposition and sleazy Wall Street background who doesn't seem to stand for anything definable other than opposition to Bazza. Another choice between Tweedles Dumb and Dee.
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times have a belter of a story, picked up by our Times and the Guardian.
ReplyDeleteThe story concerns Stuxnet, the clandestine computer software which destroyed hundreds or thousands of Iranian centrifuges, thereby impeding their nuclear weapons effort.
Who was responsible for Stuxnet? It's a brilliant piece of software, and it is now confirmed that it was created by the US National Security Agency (budget three times greater than the CIA's) with assistance from Israel.
Who authorised the development and deployment of Stuxnet? George W Bush, the warmonger who thought it was better to use software than have Israel start another war.
The UK Times, under the day-to-day editorial control of crypto-fascist Rupert Murdoch reports this story under the typically irresponsible and politically ideological headline 'US role in cyber attack on Iran nuclear plant revealed'.
Hands up who thought the headline would be 'Inspired Bush visionary 21st century warfare expert personally coded Stuxnet'? No, 'fraid not.
When George W Bush handed over to Obama, the latter did not halt the on-going Stuxnet programme.
Now guess the Guardian headline.
That's right: Obama 'sped up cyber-attacks on Iran's nuclear programme'.
And the New York Times headline?
'Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran'.
Agreed - Romney's worrying. But I couldn't care less about his religious beliefs, mainly because his religion doesn't seem to require its followers to kill non-believers or take over the world. As for his Bain Capital involvement - again, I don't see anyhting particularly sleazy about it (and Obama's attacks on that aspect of his past seem to have backfired). It's his stuffed-shirtedness and his lack of fixed political beliefs that worry me. But, for all that, he's way to the right of Bazza, and he at least talks like a fiscal conservative - so he'd get my vote, if I had one.
ReplyDeleteYour story is absolutely classic, Mr Moss - the excellent Biased BBC website is packed with examples of blatant double standards (especially on reports concerning Israel, where retaliation for Hammas rocket attacks is invariably presented as if there had been no provocation). If George Bush had personally discovered a cure for cancer, the NYT headline would have read: "Thousands of oncologists to lose jobs: Bush to blame, say medics".
You couldn't care less about Romney's religious beliefs? You should. Howard Hughes surrounded himself with Mormons who engaged in a variety of nefarious activities on his behalf. Keep politics well separated from any form of religious fundamentalism. They tend to breed robotic responses far worse than any left-wing ideology.
ReplyDeleteSimply put, Obama is a classic case of the "Eloquent Incompetent". EIs add to the gaiety of life [I am not talking about the pillow-biting community], but you don't want them near the big red button. Especially with Joe Biden lurking in the background [I hope the CIA have been issued with clear instructions on that one?]
And yet, as an excellent NYT article recently pointed out, Obama has shown himself to be as tough as his predecessor in using the full range of US intelligence and strike capability to hunt down his country's enemies wherever they are. The Stuxnet issue mentioned by D.Moss is another example. Whatever you think of the US drone policy, it is competent in delivering its outcomes and shows that Obama is prepared to protect the interests of US citizens in a way that Clinton shied away from.
ReplyDeleteJust a bit of a caveat on Obama's toughness, ex-KCS. this from Peter Foster, the Telegraph's US Editor - and who actually strikes me as a bit of a pinko:
ReplyDelete"First three Republican senators, including Marco Rubio in Florida (a Romney Veep possibility), published a joint Washington Post editorial accusing Mr Obama of authorising leaks that jeopardise informants' lives (or get them sent to jail for 33 years, like the Bin Laden informant Shakil Afridi), and make it harder to build ties with other intelligence agencies who don’t want to be splashed all over The New York Times.
Then today, Sen John McCain blasted the White House for the latest leak – a detailed account of how computer worms had been sent in to cripple the Iranian nuclear programme. The Senate Armed Services Committee will now hold an inquiry into the leaks.
“It makes the president look very decisive,” McCain said, accusing Obama of cynically using national security for political ends, “and it gives very little credit to the other men and women who make these things happen. This puts American lives in danger, revealing our most highly classified operations both in cyberwar and in drones.”
There is, of course, more than drop of electoral humbug in all this, but it is also absolutely true that some of the "leaking" has been eye-poppingly gratuitous – though the White House has the gall to deny this."
- As for drones, there seems to be a genuine worry that their use means that the US is gathering no local intellgience - I've no idea if this is a valid objection. Personally, I'm never going to object to anyone killing psychopathic scum.
Re Stuxnet, the Republicans ought to be able to earn votes for having (a) initiated the successful project and (b) kept their traps shut, unlike certain Democrats, who are now left with only their grandmothers to sell.
ReplyDeleteRe drones, there was a charming young schoolboy we used to know vaguely, a chorister, sang every day for about 10 years at weddings and such, and his grandmother tells us he joined the army and is now in charge of the British drone recce/attack resources.
Do Hezbollah Scud personnel benefit from a similar training, I wonder?