tomder55
Apr 20, 2009, 06:33 AM
During the campaign, candidate Obama had made the ridiculous assertion that he would meet with the enemies of the nation without preconditions.
Then candidate Evita Clintoon countered that she would not because she would never extend the prestige associated with direct contact with POTUS unless there was careful preparatory groundwork and a clear advantage for the United States in holding these direct meetings. Obama countered with one of his "let me make it clear " comments that of course lower level contacts would prep any direct contacts with foreign leaders.
Fast forward to last week .
Before the Inaugural session of the 5th Summit of the Americas,Obama approached President of Venezuela for life Hugo Chavez to greet him. They both drew their hands together in what is being described as a "historic "handshake .
Venezuela published the photos of the exchange in a matter of minutes throughout his country . It took the White House almost three hours to confirm the handshake. A senior administration official declined to describe the contact and conversation, but did not dispute the Venezuelan government's account.
So where was the low level contacts and preparations ? We get this cheap photo-op moment that bumps POV for life Chavez' prestige with no promise of policy changes . He can continue to take cheap pot shots at the US;nurture his alliances with the other thugs of the world like Tehran's proxies Hezbollah, FARC terrorists ,invite the Russian fleet to cruise the Gulf of Mexico and park strategic bombers in Venezuelan bases ,threaten his neighbors with a massive increase in arms purchase ,and generally ruin Venezuela .
Our President can continue to stroll amicably on the world stage , publicly blaming America to the world ,and asking the worst of the worst "why can't we be friends".
By contrast, Chavez issued almost daily personal smears against President Bush for years ,who mostly ignored Chavez and, by that alone, demonstrated the pathetic smallness of Chavez.What Obama has done with this single photo-op is elevate the man on the world stage.Chavez is now operating on a level stage with the President of the United States . A great propaganda coup for Chavez.
But it gets better . Chavez handed the President a present... a book... and no it wasn't a copy of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals '.
It is 'Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent '.It is the quintessential anti-European and anti-gringo screed disguised as history . It is the best known work of Eduardo Galeano,a Uruguayan author who by his own admission combines history and political analysis with a healthy does of fiction.
In this book, he analyzes the history of Latin America as a whole from the time of European contact with the New World to contemporary Latin America arguing against what he views as European and later U.S. economic exploitation and political dominance over the region. . It is a classic among the left of Latin America.
If you can stomach it here is an interview with the rabid leftist Eduardo Galeano Democracy Now! | "Voices of Time": Legendary Uruguayan Writer Eduardo Galeano on Immigration, Latin America, Iraq, Writing – and Soccer (http://www.democracynow.org/2006/5/19/voices_of_time_legendary_uruguayan_writer)
Chavez gave the copy to President Obama as a gift during this weeks 'Summit of the Americas' . Since then the book sales at Amazon.com have sky-rocketted... moving up to #2 in sales in a day. Nice huh ?
Jake Tapper of ABC has a nice review of the book. Chavez Gifts Obama With Book That Assails U.S. for Exploiting Latin America - Political Punch (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/chavez-gifts-ob.html)
Another infamous moment of the summit was the President ,and Sec State Evita Clintoon sitting placidly by as Daniel Ortega ,uber-socialist/communist President of Nicaragua, laced into the United States in a 50 minute diatribe. Ortega lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba's Communist government.
Obama diverted from his teleprompter reading long enough to scold Ortega (sorta) with this lame comment that was very reminiscent of his Bill Ayers defense .."To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. We've all heard these arguments before."
Flashback to the campaign:
“Mr. Ayers is somebody who lives in Chicago. He's a professor at the University of Chicago, Illinois, teaches education, and he engaged in these despicable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old. I served on a board with him.”
In other words ;don't blame me . I am change. But ,as President ,if he agrees with Ortega's rants he should say so ;or defend the nation against them and stand up to such attacks when they are being directed at him. The one option no longer available to him as President is to hide behind his narcissistic view of his own personal responsibility.
It just occurred to me why Obama was so comfortable listening to Ortega's rants. He sat through similar ones from Rev Wright for almost 20 years.
The President defended his approach today
Obama: Reaching out to enemies makes sense - Americas- msnbc.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30291519/)
"What we showed here is that we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long," he said Sunday at the end of the Summit of the Americas.
The White House hopes it will all pay off — Obama's personal diplomacy, his promises to lead without lecturing, his willingness to hear leftist leaders gripe about the past.
Obama even spelled out how, in his view, that political chain of events will happen.
He said countries will be more apt to cooperate with the United States on tough issues, even if only on the margins. Resistance based on anti-American conceptions of the past will fall away. And nations already friendly to the U.S. will be more willing to help because their people and neighbors will "see us as a force for good or at least not a force for ill."
He actually believes this stuff ! Chavez recently called Obama an ignoramous and told him to wash his a$$ and recently ,with the Mahdi-hatter in Iran ,boasted that they would bring down the US dollar. I don't think his opinion changed at all with all of the President's suck ups .
Then candidate Evita Clintoon countered that she would not because she would never extend the prestige associated with direct contact with POTUS unless there was careful preparatory groundwork and a clear advantage for the United States in holding these direct meetings. Obama countered with one of his "let me make it clear " comments that of course lower level contacts would prep any direct contacts with foreign leaders.
Fast forward to last week .
Before the Inaugural session of the 5th Summit of the Americas,Obama approached President of Venezuela for life Hugo Chavez to greet him. They both drew their hands together in what is being described as a "historic "handshake .
Venezuela published the photos of the exchange in a matter of minutes throughout his country . It took the White House almost three hours to confirm the handshake. A senior administration official declined to describe the contact and conversation, but did not dispute the Venezuelan government's account.
So where was the low level contacts and preparations ? We get this cheap photo-op moment that bumps POV for life Chavez' prestige with no promise of policy changes . He can continue to take cheap pot shots at the US;nurture his alliances with the other thugs of the world like Tehran's proxies Hezbollah, FARC terrorists ,invite the Russian fleet to cruise the Gulf of Mexico and park strategic bombers in Venezuelan bases ,threaten his neighbors with a massive increase in arms purchase ,and generally ruin Venezuela .
Our President can continue to stroll amicably on the world stage , publicly blaming America to the world ,and asking the worst of the worst "why can't we be friends".
By contrast, Chavez issued almost daily personal smears against President Bush for years ,who mostly ignored Chavez and, by that alone, demonstrated the pathetic smallness of Chavez.What Obama has done with this single photo-op is elevate the man on the world stage.Chavez is now operating on a level stage with the President of the United States . A great propaganda coup for Chavez.
But it gets better . Chavez handed the President a present... a book... and no it wasn't a copy of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals '.
It is 'Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent '.It is the quintessential anti-European and anti-gringo screed disguised as history . It is the best known work of Eduardo Galeano,a Uruguayan author who by his own admission combines history and political analysis with a healthy does of fiction.
In this book, he analyzes the history of Latin America as a whole from the time of European contact with the New World to contemporary Latin America arguing against what he views as European and later U.S. economic exploitation and political dominance over the region. . It is a classic among the left of Latin America.
If you can stomach it here is an interview with the rabid leftist Eduardo Galeano Democracy Now! | "Voices of Time": Legendary Uruguayan Writer Eduardo Galeano on Immigration, Latin America, Iraq, Writing – and Soccer (http://www.democracynow.org/2006/5/19/voices_of_time_legendary_uruguayan_writer)
Chavez gave the copy to President Obama as a gift during this weeks 'Summit of the Americas' . Since then the book sales at Amazon.com have sky-rocketted... moving up to #2 in sales in a day. Nice huh ?
Jake Tapper of ABC has a nice review of the book. Chavez Gifts Obama With Book That Assails U.S. for Exploiting Latin America - Political Punch (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/chavez-gifts-ob.html)
Another infamous moment of the summit was the President ,and Sec State Evita Clintoon sitting placidly by as Daniel Ortega ,uber-socialist/communist President of Nicaragua, laced into the United States in a 50 minute diatribe. Ortega lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba's Communist government.
Obama diverted from his teleprompter reading long enough to scold Ortega (sorta) with this lame comment that was very reminiscent of his Bill Ayers defense .."To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. We've all heard these arguments before."
Flashback to the campaign:
“Mr. Ayers is somebody who lives in Chicago. He's a professor at the University of Chicago, Illinois, teaches education, and he engaged in these despicable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old. I served on a board with him.”
In other words ;don't blame me . I am change. But ,as President ,if he agrees with Ortega's rants he should say so ;or defend the nation against them and stand up to such attacks when they are being directed at him. The one option no longer available to him as President is to hide behind his narcissistic view of his own personal responsibility.
It just occurred to me why Obama was so comfortable listening to Ortega's rants. He sat through similar ones from Rev Wright for almost 20 years.
The President defended his approach today
Obama: Reaching out to enemies makes sense - Americas- msnbc.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30291519/)
"What we showed here is that we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long," he said Sunday at the end of the Summit of the Americas.
The White House hopes it will all pay off — Obama's personal diplomacy, his promises to lead without lecturing, his willingness to hear leftist leaders gripe about the past.
Obama even spelled out how, in his view, that political chain of events will happen.
He said countries will be more apt to cooperate with the United States on tough issues, even if only on the margins. Resistance based on anti-American conceptions of the past will fall away. And nations already friendly to the U.S. will be more willing to help because their people and neighbors will "see us as a force for good or at least not a force for ill."
He actually believes this stuff ! Chavez recently called Obama an ignoramous and told him to wash his a$$ and recently ,with the Mahdi-hatter in Iran ,boasted that they would bring down the US dollar. I don't think his opinion changed at all with all of the President's suck ups .