It Is America's Fault (Again)

Watching the President’s news conference today I couldn’t get past two things. First, for someone who insisted that he didn’t want to look backward he repeatedly mentioned the previous administration and the past eight years. It is obvious that Obama is aware that the Left is unhappy with some of his decisions of late and he was hand feeding them a spoonful of sugar in hopes of getting the bad taste out of their mouths.

Second, Obama put himself squarely in the ‘blame America first’ camp. This isn’t surprising given the series of apology tours he’s gone on since coming in to office, but it does beg the question, “is he really that naïve?” Our enemies do not hate us because we engaged in waterboarding at Gitmo. If anything, terrorist of the Khalied Sheikh Mohammed stripe probably point to our methods of interrogation as proof of what a bunch of softies we infidels are. Given the ideology of al Qaeda, et al, it is more likely they hate us for our Paris Hiltons and Britney Spears than they even care about enhanced interrogation techniques. Islamists hate us for our decadence and our societal excesses and lack of discipline. They do not share our values and it is folly to suggest that anything that happenned at Gitmo will change that.

Obama talked about our principals and values. The fact remains that the Bush administration kept us safe from another attack after 9/11. If somehow keeping American safe caused other countries to look down on the United States then frankly, they are unworthy to be our allies.

The President cited, more than once, that Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham agree with him on the subject of EITs. I can’t see anyone being swayed, let alone impressed, that the ‘Me Too’ caucus in the Republican Party might find it politically expedient to follow the President’s lead on this one.

Due to work obligations I was only able to watch a few minutes of former Vice President Cheney’s speech. Of the two of them, Cheney showed himself to be a man of deeply held convictions and love for his country. Obama, on the other hand, was shallow.

Let us hope that we are lucky throughout these next four years. I am afraid that if attacked again this President’s idea of decisive action will be to crank of the Apology Express once more.