Understanding the Obama Administration

Have you ever watched recent events and wondered "What in the world were they thinking?" Well, the following articles are very helpful for explaining the larger context for the Obama administration's actions.


Wishful Thinking

First, Charles Krauthammer writes "Debacle in Moscow". From China, to the Middle East, to Poland and the Czech Republic, to Russia, Barack Obama's foreign policy strategy is either masterfully subtle, or else he's simply giving away the store.

Altering the famous Churchill quote on Russia ("It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma") Krauthammer concludes:

It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity.

Renunciation of Primacy

Next, we have Charles Krauthammer again with "Decline is a Choice". Among other things, he explains that the President's health care takeover is actually a two-fer:

1. Socialized medicine is the perfect vehicle for accomplishing massive income redistribution.
2. The consequent massive federal budget deficits will force large cutbacks in defense spending, thus preventing the United States from projecting its military power overseas.

But if the United States abandons its role as benign hegemon, which nation (or nations) will seize the opportunity to become a malignant hegemon? Naturally, the most aggressive nations will fill the vacuum.


Inexperience

Next is Byron York (Obama can't be community organizer for the world) who interprets Obama's foreign policy blunders through the lens of his prior experience as a community organizer. York notes that "as an organizer, Obama started a lot of projects, gave a lot of inspirational talks, but accomplished very little." His preferred approach to problems was "to make powerful people feel guilty, or embarrassed, or annoyed enough to give them things."

But the problem is that Obama's prior experience is with

... people who shared his goals. They wanted to believe in him and in their shared enterprise.

Does Mahmoud Ahmedinejad fit into that category? The Taliban? Kim Jong-il?

Now that Obama is the president of the United States, he is the power figure, not the supplicant or the protester. Certainly a president still needs to convince foreign leaders to give him what he wants, but when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world, Obama isn't the underdog. His years on the South Side are little help.