Thursday, May 26, 2011

Has Obama Gone 'Full Biden' on Us?

After Barack Obama was elected, he went abroad and wowed European crowds with his teleprompter skills and youthful energy. Everyone, including the foreign media got caught up in Obamamania. Some in the press even compared the new President to a rock star.  

What a difference two years make. Looking at the record, the rock star of 2008 is looking more like a Vegas lounge act in 2011.   


Like his bumbling through the last two years, much just ignored by an adoring press, Obama's recent European trip have people scratching their heads over the President's continuing bizarre lack of protocol, or as I like to say, "Going Full Biden". While some conservative commentators  take a semi-serious approach to the issue and its impact on American foreign policy, I tend to think of it more in terms of a Rock & Roll fall from grace by the President.

When Obama was elected, people believed he would restore America to prominence in the world by taking a different approach to foreign policy than his predecessor, G. W. Bush. Gone were the days of "cowboy diplomacy" and in came the era of intellectual diplomacy. The world was going to love us again, throw flowers instead of insults and bombs. 

Then, Obama became President and we got to see his foreign policy shaping out to be...well, a freakin' disaster.  Our fearless leader has successfully alienated two of our staunchest allies, Great Britain and Israel, and our relationship with Germany is lukewarm at best.  He tried to buddy up with France (at Britain's expense), and has taken sides in Egypt and Libya that are loaded with dangerous ties to groups that don't exactly dig our way of life.

One of the biggest problems with American foreign policy over the past few decades has been we almost seem ashamed to admit we're American. We're expected to sit there and take everything any tin-horned dictator from a Third World country flings as us, truthful or otherwise, and suffer Jimmy Carter running around the universe acting a fool. Then, we're expected to pick up the damn check whenever that same Third World country needs help from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. And with Obama at the helm, that shame in America will only increase.

And that shame has translated into embarrassment for world leaders who have to deal with Obama's protocol breaches. Some might not agree, but I think this is serverly hurting Obama's image around the world because he doesn't seem to learn from his Bidenesque mistakes. All he does is make bigger, more public mistakes, leaving ally and enemy alike to mock Obama. I guess not much  diplomacy and protocol is needed on a golf course.

Perhaps we should call it the "Biden Effect".
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5 comments:

  1. He hates American exceptionalism with a passion, yet he uses it like a 10,000 pound club in his Socialist global community organizing effort.

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  2. DS,

    You have had some very good posts that I have admired. This one goes to the top of that list. Very well done. You are an "exceptional" writer of the American political scene. Oh, wait, that's not politically correct. You're just like everyone else. Not!

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  3. Thank You, Robert.
    A complement like that coming from a word-smith such as yourself is a complement indeed!

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  4. I agree with Robert. Very good post.

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  5. Brilliant is putting this one mildly, DS. You have hit on one of my pet peeves with this administration - the forgiving of debts and passing out of checks in the tune of billions of dollars to countries and leaders who burn our flags and hate the West. Congress only recently has begun to hint at putting a "hold" on Obama's gifts at the expense of the American taxpayers; but by the time they actually pass anything, it will be 2012. Americans know their liberty and freedoms cost us dearly, while Obama's administration thinks it should not cost any of the Arab countries one red cent - let the USA cover their every demand while they spit in our faces.

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