Travels with Barry

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois made a foreign policy speech here yesterday.

Obama, he who talks softly and carries a little stick accuses Bush of "tough talk" and bemoans our bad reputation among terrorists.

OBL and the Islamofascists didn't attack our reputation, they directly attacked our country, our largest city, our center of commerce and killed 3,000 innocent people. What was America's reputation during the Crusades? Please.

Oh, but Obama majored in international relations.

From that he jumps to aspiring to the mantle of "leader of the free world". It's Travels With Charley, uh Barry, you might say a bit picaresque. Instead of traveling with a French poodle, Barack of the little stick travels with his fellow travelers of the Left, never coming to grips with the fact that there are evil men in this world who wish us harm, always looking for a better war. Expanding and expounding upon what constitutes our national security so no one ever can expect substantive measures to ensure it, but will be dazzled by soaring rhetoric:

Whether it's global terrorism or pandemic disease, dramatic climate change or the proliferation of weapons of mass annihilation, the threats we face at the dawn of the 21st century can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries.

Only I, the great Barack, can rally the world "to a new era of global cooperation". I am pleased Sen. Obama at least pays lip service to not retreating from the world and backs a larger US military to relieve our overstretched forces. But his solutions are pedestrian and myopic. He still puts faith in the UN and the World Bank, which are bureaucratic and corrupt, resist reform and empower dictators. He thinks developing countries should starve themselves and limit themselves to "low-carbon energy" to salve the conscience of his Lear Jet eco-liberal friends. While I agree we have a "global education deficit", given his indifference to the quality of American education I can't say I have much confidence there. Probably he would just give more money to PBS to take their message overseas, with help from CNN, and make things worse.

His vision on nukes is "aggressive diplomacy" which sounds like he wants us to negotiate with ourselves and unilaterally surrender to North Korea and Iran, through some phony, legalistic fig leaf of non-proliferation. He wants to "stand with our friends" in the Middle East by forcing them to rely on an "over the horizon force" he somehow envisions somewhere. Sounds like a dollar short and a day late, with dead bodies of slaughtered innocents we would cynically leave to their fate littering the ground always just short of that horizon.

Sen. Obama further says:

This will require a new spirit - not of bluster and bombast, but of quiet confidence and sober intelligence, a spirit of care and renewed competence.

You know, the UN and the "world" loved Bill Clinton, but for all his charm he left the world safe for Osama. As one wise observer noted, nobody ever charmed anyone out of a nuclear weapon. And most of the cooperators of the world melt away quickly when some real effort is involved. I suggest Obama go back to school and take notes from Condi. Or how about withdraw from the race and write up Travels with Barry.

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UPDATE: WLS' Don Wade, and commentator Dan Proft on our Senator's foreign policy souffle. Link here.