We've Figured Him Out

I left the Forum some days back but received the following by Ben Stein in an email, checked the American Spectator to verify, and decided it was too insightful and truthful not to pass on. Enjoy.

OldRegular

By Ben Stein on 7.24.09 @ 9:45AM

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/24/weve-figured-him-out

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

 

Where oh where have the 0 lovers gone? Where oh where can they be? That is "whoever", Snow, MP, Crabtownboy, and any other Obama lovers on the Forum?

 

Tuesday, 28 July 2009 ]

Mixed signals

Hassan A. Barari

One question kept popping up in the run up to the last American presidential election: how would the United States address Iran’s non-compliance on the nuclear issue? Both presidential nominees made it clear that they would follow a preventive strategy vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear bid.

While Iran continues to defy the international demand to put an end to its provocative nuclear program, the American administration has yet to back up its rhetoric with concrete actions. Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that her country would examine the possibility of extending a defense umbrella over the Middle East should Iran continue refusing to halt its nuclear program.

One is tempted to read this statement as a game changer. In other words, it is a sort of a retreat from the preventive strategy and a reminder of the deterrence strategy employed during the cold war. In this connection, it is worth quoting Secretary Clinton at length: “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment, that if the US extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon.”

<snip>

In our part of the world, many Arab pundits assert that Iran’s program is not a direct threat to Washington; nonetheless, Israelis are extremely uneasy with a scenario wherein Iran joins the nuclear club. For this reason Israelis raised their eyebrows on hearing Clinton’s statement. To Israelis, a nuclear Iran will surely pose an existential threat to their country’s survival.

“I was not thrilled to hear the American statement… that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella, as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran. I think that’s a mistake,” said Dan Meridor, Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy.

<snip>

Given the mixed signals coming from Washington, it is not yet clear whether Washington is no longer confident in its policies to compel Iran to give up its nuclear program. But while America is toying with the idea of letting Iran go ahead, it simultaneously seeks to prevent Iran from enjoying the membership benefits of the nuclear club. This could be done by American insistence on changing the balance of power in the Gulf, rendering Iran’s new status redundant. This seems to be just the message that Secretary Clinton is meaning to send at a time when Iranians are saying that they are willing to send a set of ideas and proposals to address the issue.

http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2009/07/28/80139.html

*Published in Jordan's THE JORDAN TIMES on July 28 2009.