... to President Obama for his handling of international affairs. I sympathize with those on the left who criticize him for his use of drone strikes to take out Al Qaeda leaders and their gang of terrorists; I too shudder at the use of deadly force. But then I am not the president, and I do not have the responsibility of protecting the lives of the innocent people these miscreants plan to attack. I believe that in this world we humans have created, our leaders are constrained to undertake actions we civilians would eschew, and certainly disapprove. I wish it were otherwise.
But reading and hearing what his opponent had to say in Israel yesterday, for the benefit of the right-wingers there and in this country, I am reminded what a good job this president has done. His calm, thoughtful response to challenging, potentially destabilizing, sometimes chaotic events in other parts of the world has done much to restore this country's image as a strong center amidst the storms. What Governor Romney seems to promise is a return to Bush-like bellicosity--the last thing the world needs. His vision of America's place in the world is in stark contrast to the president's, and blithely ignores the realities of a new century in which co-operation is sorely needed in the place of enmity.
We should, by now, have left the twentieth century behind us. Obama, in my view, has done that. As in so many other matters, Romney appears to be stuck there. On his "world tour," he looks like a dinosaur trampling clumsily through the morass.
2 comments:
Dick Cheney said Obama is the weakest president since Carter. Lots to disagree with there, but if Obama is weak, he's the weakest president since George Bush. Cheney could not have done what he did while playing second to a strong president.
Perhaps what Cheney means is that Obama hasn't done as well as Bill Clinton did in fending off and working under the constant onslaught of insults and disruptions put forth by Republicans.
But I'm with you, Peter. Obama has shown considerable restraint—which is, of course, construed as weakness. Some of us would rather have a wise and careful leader rather than a pitbull.
Of course for every one of us who would prefer to visit a museum or attend an orchestral concert, there are a dozen who would sooner go to a monster truck rally or demolition derby.
Maybe my numbers are skewed, but you get the point, I'm sure.
President Obama has lifted the bar to a new and impressive level both at home and abroad during the past 45 months. He overcame decades of resistance to a national healthcare policy. He has worked to overcome a negative world view of the USA by actively engaging in constructive negotiations with Israel and Palestine. The wars he did not support are winding down and our dependance on foreign oil is diminishing. He continues to find constructive ways to decrease the flow of technical jobs in foreign markets and supports the retraining of workers in the USA. His calm and dignified manner allows progress to be made each day. He is and excellent example of what leadership means.
His opponent is presently mucking about in the Europe and middle east creating animosity toward himself, his party and our country. His biased and degrading comments are an embarrassment to literate and educated people. At a time when the middle class in all countries are struggling to make ends meet he continues to support supply side economic policies that have led us to the predicament we face here and abroad.
Indeed, there is little, if anything, in the economic agenda of the current Republican presidential aspirant that would be considered particularly revolutionary among adherents of the supply-side theory. The empirical evidence is very clear. Supply-side theory may sound good on paper, but it hasn’t worked in practice. Instead of prosperity trickling down, wealth seems to flow up according to The Center for American Progress.
In my opinion he is not a patriot either. Before joining college, Romney had received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon 'minister of religion' for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years. There's nothing patriotic about taking the profits made from sending jobs to China and hiding them in Switzerland to avoid paying taxes in America, thereby freeloading off the very people whose jobs he took.
I support the direction my President is taking to overcome the malfeasance of the former administration that allowed unregulated banking, stock market trades and hedge funds to destroy a surplus created by President Clinton. If the present GOP candidate uses his enormous income and financial leverage to white wash his record and out spend Obama in key states to win in the election then our country will see a shameful return to trickle
up economics which will continue a class imbalance that is already causing the economy to grow very slowly toward a recovery.
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