Seth 03-15

Time To Wake Up
        March 15, 2012
        By Seth Leibsohn

This morning, our topic is two-fold, and I’ve left open the entirety of the second hour (7 a.m. Eastern) to take your calls on this.  First, is America stronger or weaker as a result of President Obama’s policies.  Second, how to talk to Democrats and Independents about the 2012 election.

Let me begin with a poll from Gallup this week.  Today, “A slim majority of Americans (54%) say the United States is the Number 1 military power in the world, down from 64% in 2010.”  That’s down ten points from two years ago—and it is the lowest level in 13 years, i.e., the Clinton years.

To dispense right away with the immediate defense of any position that says we actually should be weaker, let me say that I can’t imagine any President ever saying that.  No Commander in Chief would verbally state he or she wants to preside over a number two, three, or four military.  And anyone who believes our military power should be weaker—or weak—simply does not understand the Constitution which, itself, states our government is to “provide for the common defense” and “secure the blessings of liberty.”

In sum, if you are number two, three, or four, you are defeatable; and, in the world we live in or are about to live in, to be defeatable can very well mean to cease to exist.  Our enemies do call for our “death” after all.  Not our enslavement, our death.

So, let us run down a few statements and policies that have come from President Obama, and see what their effect has had—always with the following questions in mind: Does this serve to tell our enemies we are going to be stronger or weaker?  Does this serve to tell our allies we are going to be stronger or weaker?  Does this tell our citizens we are going to be stronger or weaker?  And, finally, most importantly: Does this actually make us stronger or weaker?

Let’s work our way forward.  In his first year in office, President Obama communicated to the world—at the UN, at home, and abroad—that we had engaged in torture, and, of course, that we would no longer do so on his watch.  To say and admit this about your country is a terrible thing to do—especially, especially, when he and everyone knows darned well that at a very minimum whether waterboarding as we practiced it constituted torture or not was a legally disputable question.

While in Strasberg, again, in his first year, President Obama said “there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”  To repeat, America was arrogant, dismissive, and derisive.

In Latin America, he said America had not “pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors.”  He also said “we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms.”

Recall, too, our President said the following when asked if he believed in American exceptionalism:  “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”  That’s a way of saying “no” as the Wall Street Journal editorialists put it.

Our President, still in the first year, gave a speech in Washington, DC where he said “Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions…. I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight, that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.”
 
Separately, President Obama said in a speech at the National Archives,  “There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world.”

Note, he is talking about our country here.  Note, too, the loudest complaints about Guantanamo came from the fever swamps of the terrorist media outlets—as a tool of propaganda against us.  Note, too, there was no Guantanamo when Muslim terrorists attacked us in 1993 (the first World Trade Center bombing), 1996 (the Khobar towers), 1998 (The African Embassies), 2000 (The USS Cole), or on September 11, 2001. Was our moral authority high when they were killing us?  Another question before I continue on:  What other world or non-world leader apologizes for, nay, indicts, his own country like this?

Let me also add that the President bowed to a Saudi King, a Chinese President, and an Emperor of Japan—none democratically elected, two out of three who rule regimes that truly know what “torture” is because their regimes practice it as a matter of policy they don’t think twice, or once, about.

Now let us turn to actions toward allies:  Yanking missile defense installments from our allies, the Czech Republic and Poland; turning away a meeting with the Dalai Lama in deference to the Chinese; stiffing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu two years ago and lecturing him on what Israel’s borders should be last year; imposing a travel tax on Canadians; siding with the Hugo Chavez ally in Honduras; telling the world Hosni Mubarak (our long time ally in Egypt) he had to go; and telling the Iranian dissidents in Iran (a sworn enemy of ours) in 2009 we would not “meddle” on their behalf—the same year he sent a greeting, a new year’s message, to the Iranian leadership and put the Iranian people and the Iranian leaders on the same moral plane and in the same moral position.

Now, let us go to policy here at home:  Two months ago President Obama made an announcement about our military—the first sentence of the CNN story was this:  “President Barack Obama unveiled his administration's plan Thursday for a leaner, cheaper military.”  Leaner and cheaper.  Let me continue from CNN.  The new strategy “eliminates the military's ability to actively fight two major wars at once.”  One more sentence from CNN if you’ll allow me:  “[The] announcement follows multiple missile tests by Iran in recent days and comments by Iranian leaders that they could choke off the Strait of Homuz, a major transit point for world oil supplies.”

What does this plan actually mean in troop levels?  It means a cut to the Army by 80,000 soldiers, taking it below 490,000, and the Marine Corps by 20,000, taking it to 182,000,000.  Not bad enough?  How about this:  we will also be limiting pay raises for troops, increasing health insurance fees for military retirees and closing bases in the United States.  That was January.

Now let’s go to this week:  As Peter Brookes wrote, “Team Obama has decided to reduce US forces in Europe by about 15,000 troops.”  Peter tells us what this means specifically, as this “will undermine our ability to get to fights quickly and project power in such places as the Middle East, Africa and Eurasia. And there's no shortage of problems in those places.

Fewer troops in Europe would also mean fewer training exercises with our NATO allies, helping to prepare them for deployments to such places as Afghanistan, where they work shoulder-to-shoulder with US forces.”

Now, on all this, there’s a lot I didn’t say and a lot more examples I could go into.  But suffice, to ask for now:  Is America stronger or weaker because of these statements, actions, and policies?  And, if weaker, do we not want to ask our fellow countrymen and country women this simple question:  “Why would our President do this?”  Is this not evidence that demands a verdict?

This gets me to the second part of our topic we will explore more in the second hour—how to talk to Democrats and Independents about the election.  First, as I mentioned last week, we must do so with what a friend calls “Intuitive empathy.”  What does that mean?  Intuitive means instinctive or something based on feeling rather than reason.  Empathy means to share feelings, out of concern.  So what we are asking for here is that we speak to our fellow countrymen with a sincere sharing of deep concern about our country.  So, for size, try a fact or series of facts that concern you and should concern others and follow it or them up with a question such as I posed earlier: “Why would our president do this?”  Here are some examples and I’d love for you to call and email in with more:

From Egypt to Iran, from Russia to China, the world is becoming more dangerous and our enemies more aggressive, yet the President is proposing record defense budget cuts.  Why would he do that?

President Obama said he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.  But, he has not proposed a budget for less than 1 trillion dollars in deficit spending in any of his budgets.  When he came into office, the national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars.  Today, the national debt is over 15 trillion dollars.  Clearly President Obama has broken his promise and increased our nation's indebtedness.  Why would he do that?

When President Obama and his administration came into office, unemployment was just over 7% in this country.  They said we needed a 800 billion dollar stimulus package to keep unemployment from going above 8%.  In fact, President Obama, himself, said we needed the spending to "save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs."  We got the stimulus package and unemployment went up, indeed it went up above 10% and is now over 8%.  And, indeed, as NBC reported (among others) there are one million fewer people working than there were when President Obama signed that stimulus.  So, we got more spending, more indebtedness, and more unemployment.  Yet the administration still defends this spending and indebtedness.  Why would they do that?

President Obama cancelled an oil deal with Canada known as the XL Pipeline.  That deal, which our good ally, the Canadians wanted, would have helped bring more energy sources to the United States and it would have created tens of thousands of jobs here as well.  When the Congress tried to over-ride the President's canceling of that deal, he personally lobbied members of Congress not to over-ride his decision.  Why would he cancel a deal that would have made us less dependent on enemy sources of oil, why would he cancel a deal that would have created more jobs here, and why would he send such a bad signal to an ally of ours?

Speaking of allies, President Obama has visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey among other countries.  He has not visited our long-standing ally, Israel.  In addition, he has publicly lectured Israel on what its borders should be (and if Israel did accept the borders President Obama wanted, it would be nine miles wide at its most vulnerable point).  His administration has also said some very negative things about Israel.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, for example, the religious Jews in Israel reminded her of the leadership of Iran and the pre-civil rights South in this country.  Why would the President and this administration treat an ally, an endangered ally, this way?

So, the point: Intuitive empathy in the form of fact-based questions.  Because we in a democracy have to hold our leaders accountable.  And if they are making us weaker—economically weaker, strategically weaker, morally weaker—then accountability cannot be put at a discount.  Indeed, it must be our first duty as citizens.  There is a lot of evidence—and it demands a verdict.