US Foreign Policy: Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Seems that these days we need to go overseas to get any sort of rational evaluation of our supposedly grand president.
"Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it". Excellent comment on human nature -- everyone wants a lot of great benefits (health care, education, "living wage", etc) but hardly anyone wants to do the tasks required to earn those results, everyone wants a nice think waistline, but few are willing to push away from the table (I'm VERY guilty on this one!!). We are all human, but we don't all seem to accept that -- many believe that "someone else" ought to provide them "respect, income, health care, retirement, education ...." the list stretches on and on. Wants are infinite, means never are.
How far the mighty have fallen -- Is BO more like Lincoln or FDR? or would he exceed both? That was the chorus from the left a year ago that was brayed loudly from the MSM. As Bush took office the MSM already had him locked as a "one term appointed president" -- BO was "historic". Now, at least in foreign lands, the media is starting to see the fact that BO is very much like Jimmy Carter -- without the experience of having been a governor, or the demonstrated combativeness against swimming bunnies!
Seems that these days we need to go overseas to get any sort of rational evaluation of our supposedly grand president.
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.
"Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it". Excellent comment on human nature -- everyone wants a lot of great benefits (health care, education, "living wage", etc) but hardly anyone wants to do the tasks required to earn those results, everyone wants a nice think waistline, but few are willing to push away from the table (I'm VERY guilty on this one!!). We are all human, but we don't all seem to accept that -- many believe that "someone else" ought to provide them "respect, income, health care, retirement, education ...." the list stretches on and on. Wants are infinite, means never are.
There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama's advisors fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."
How far the mighty have fallen -- Is BO more like Lincoln or FDR? or would he exceed both? That was the chorus from the left a year ago that was brayed loudly from the MSM. As Bush took office the MSM already had him locked as a "one term appointed president" -- BO was "historic". Now, at least in foreign lands, the media is starting to see the fact that BO is very much like Jimmy Carter -- without the experience of having been a governor, or the demonstrated combativeness against swimming bunnies!
