The Anti-Reagan
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Despite his boldness, Barack Obama seems as fated to fail as were Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter. And for the same reason: a belief in his own righteousness and moral superiority, and a belief that his ideals and his persona count mightily in the modern world.
Wilson declaimed about America’s fight to “make the world safe for democracy” when in harness with the British, French, Russian, Japanese and Italian empires, all slavering to feast on the carcasses of the Hohenzollern, Habsburg and Ottoman empires.
By 1920, Wilson was a tragic failure, mocked by ex-allies and reviled by former enemies for having dishonored his own 14 Points.
Jimmy Carter declared in 1977 that “we have gotten over our inordinate fear of communism that caused us to embrace any dictator who shared in that fear.” So, we undermined Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza and the Shah, and got the Sandinistas and the Ayatollah Khomeini.
As for Barack, he behaves on the world stage like some Ivy League kid ashamed of the people he came from, letting one and all on campus know that he is nothing like his benighted family with its sordid history.
In Cairo, he confessed that America had a hand in dumping over the regime in Iran in 1953. He did not mention that the United States forced the retreat of Joseph Stalin’s army from Iran in 1946.
For the 100th time, he declared, “I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.”
Is Obama unaware that Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia run prisons that make Guantanamo look like The Breakers at Palm Beach?
How many Guantanamo inmates plead to be sent home to Muslim countries?
In Trinidad, Obama sat for 55 minutes enduring Daniel Ortega’s diatribe against the United States for mistreatment of Castro’s Cuba and for the Bay of Pigs. Obama protested that he could not be held responsible for something that happened the year he was born.
Why could not he say to Ortega: “We also intervened in the Dominican Republic in 1965 to block a communist takeover, and in Grenada in 1983. The only problem with the Bay of Pigs is that we should have done it right and removed the odious Cuban dictatorship, and put Fidel, Raul and Che up against that same wall where so many patriots perished and spared the Cuban people 50 years of tyranny and the prostitution of their island into a base camp for the greatest despotism of the 20th century.”
What is the matter with Obama that he cannot defend our Cold War conduct and Cold War presidents like Ike and JFK?
Answer: Obama cannot, because at heart he buys into the anti-American narrative that ours is a deplorable history — of genocide against the Indians, of slavery and segregation, of robbing Mexicans of their land and of disrespecting our Latin neighbors.
Obama is determined to make the requisite apologies to show the world he does not condone the sins our fathers committed.
Thus, as Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation has cataloged, Obama has apologized to Europe for our having “shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” He apologized to Latin America for our having been “disengaged and at times … sought to dictate.”
He told the Turks that we are “working through our own darker periods in our history. … Our nation still struggles with the legacy of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.”
Obama, however, did not ask the Turks to confess to their own “darker periods,” which might have taken some time.
Obama is the anti-Reagan. Where Reagan ever spoke of the greatness and glory of America, her history and heroes, her capacity to make the world all over again, Obama is like a dismal parson, forever reminding us — and everyone within earshot — of our own and our fathers’ sins.
Obama is not only demoralizing Middle America, he is driving away the God-and-country patriots who are sick of hearing this rot from professors and journalists, and prefer not to hear it from their president. He is ceding moral high ground to regimes and nations that do not deserve it.
If Obama believes he can build himself up by tearing America down, he is mistaken. Cynical foreigners will view it with snickering contempt, patriotic Americans with disgust. What kind of leader is it who talks down his own country on foreign soil?
America’s performance in the Cold War was hardly flawless. But does anyone deny that we were on the right side, that the Soviet Empire and Mao’s China and communist Vietnam and Castro’s Cuba were on the side of tyranny — and that the neutrals were by and large irrelevant or worse in that great cause?
A nation is an extended family. While families fight and quarrel, often bitterly, you do not take the family quarrel outside the family.
You don’t hang the family’s dirty linen on the communal clothesline.
Obama, however — like some Hollywood actress seeking sympathy and public approbation with her tell-all biography detailing how she was abused by her father — trolls for popularity with America’s adversaries by reciting for the benefit of the world all the sins his country has allegedly committed.
When did this become the duty of the president of the United States?
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
In light of what has happened to the country when the Bush administration foolishly attempted to apply Reagan’s cowboy rhetoric, then attempted to regulate big business with ’small’ government, Mr. Buchanan uses selective omission and playground insults to make no point at all. Left out are the many positive things that Obama said about our servicemen, and our participation in the liberation of other countries, including that of his own grandfather. But the truth is revealed when there is that late gender switch, comparing the President to an actress… not even an actor, of which Reagan was not a very good example, unless you count fronting for 20 Mule Team. Which, given Sarah Palin and the rest of the Republican Party at this point, is a fairly accurate approximation of what Buchanan is trying to do.
Pat may have a point about Obama’s view of the Cold War, but hardly a relevant point. He’s deluding himself along with the Commentary set if he thinks “middle America” is up in arms about this stuff.
Communism and anti-Communism are both ghosts of the past, for better or worse. As I would say during the election, how can the right expect to wave the bloody shirt of McGovern when the median voter was born in 1972? Is it really the right now that can’t deal with the fact that the 60s are finally behind us?
The only ones snickering in contempt are the far right punditocracy. Perhaps Mr. Buchanan hasn’t learned the valuable lesson in admitting mistakes.
When one is making an apology, one says, “I’m sorry,” not, “I’m sorry, but here’s where you were bad and here’s where I was good.”
It becomes ever more confusing why Pat Buchanan, diehard Republican, is affiliated with this magazine.
I think Pat is correct.. and his viewpoint should be respected since any conservative would be horrified at communism..maybe some responders do not realize the messiah is bring marx into american mainstream .. who needs the 60s? ..communism back
Mr. Buchanan’s opinion is important and there are many points in this essay that are correct , however he utilize’s the belief that the choice was between the communists and the anti-communists and everyone else is considered “neutral …or worse ” . This is a false belief , that sometimes is used as a ploy- recall Bush’s ” you’re either with us , or against us ” artifice.
Yes , communism (and the many different shades of it ) sucks , but so does the fascist corporate military dictatorships “we” installed around the world . They actually resemble each other in many respects and the people who recognize this are hardly being neutral , but more accurately should be called realistic .
It seems that the conflicts that occured and the delineation of “sides” was favorable to only each countries power structure – the people be damned . Economic reasoning and not proxy stooges or military adventurism garners support .
Dear Mr. Buchanan,
But one must ask how we got Obama inthe first place. Was it not the republicans/conservatives/neocons that partnered in deregulating the financial industry, refusing to regulate hedges, derivatives, credit options and voted with democrats to give mortgages to those who couldnt quality…allowing the financial industry and government to outgrow and dominate the productive capacity of our nation while our productive capacity was canabalized, disassembled, offshored, outsourced and sold to the lowest cost producer.
Was it not the republicans/conservatives under nixon and yourself that started the balkanization of our nation into fractionalized minorities so they could be played off one another.
Was it not the republicans/conservatives that kept our borders open, placated the unions with no child left behind and the big government pharmaceuticals with drug coverage.
Was it not the republicans/conservatives/neocons under Bush that pushed past the limits of hubris and conceit by invading Afghanistan and Iraq and threatening Iran and Syria and Egypt…while at the same time acting like a banana republic under Israels dictates.
The tolerance for Obama come from the excesses of Bush and Bush will need to be forgotten before the light of day comes to Obama…and by the time that day does come…how many of the american electorate will want a 3rd party because both republicans and democrats failed them.
Probably the only thing I agree with Obama on is High Speed Passenger Rail….So far Sotomeyer is a feminist racist victimization queen…and there is no re-industrialization of american….Obama has pursued only the refinancing of banks and the banks will never be in a position to bring back the economy without the other legs of the stool (manufacturing) being strengthened.
If Obama is so bad – and he is – why did the American Conservative and Pat Buchanan devote all their energies to pulling down John McCain in the Presidential election campaign? Schizophrenia?
There was no such animal called “Cold War” ever existed on earth!
“Cold War” is a fiction created by America to hide its failure to confront Soviet Union militarily.
America never attacks another nuclear-armed nation. After all, Dick Nixon capitulated to the Chinese.
So, “Cold War” is as fictitious as “Moist War”!
Mr. Patrick J. Buchanan should avoid using fictitious words in his future writings.
To clarify and correct some remarks that have been made in here…….Liberals brought this catastrophe down on us–not conservatives. Copy and paste if you can not click on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxMInSfanqg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related
If social conservatives and libertarians do not seize the opportunity to take leadership and offer fair and balanced opposition to the Obama government, the reality of 1984 will be upon us sooner than later. Besides, I agree with the author when he writes ‘Cynical foreigners will view it with snickering contempt, patriotic Americans with disgust…‘ . Contempt not just for his words, but for the fact he cannot deliver.
God help us if the right wing is left rudderless to embrace the next Hitler.