What the (Bleep) Just Happened? (31 page)

Leftists, however, see American power as a nefarious tool of global injustice, bursting into countries such as Vietnam and Iraq with all guns blazing, getting into bed with dark regimes such as Saudi Arabia for resources such as oil, exploiting poorer countries such as the Philippines for cheap labor and stuff, and siding with regional bullies such as Israel over the oppressed and occupied Palestinians. To the kooks, this doesn’t make America exceptional. It makes her evil. The Left rejects the reality of what the world is and chooses to see only the fantasy of what they perceive that it
should
be. The kooks are much more comfortable naked in a hot tub with Hans Blix, Kofi Annan, Madeleine Albright, and current UN ambassador Susan Rice than they are at accepting the responsibilities that come with superpower status.

In order to “fundamentally transform” America, the leftists have to do internationally what they do domestically. This means realigning the global power structure such that the United States is forced down the totem pole and Obama’s Declaration of Dependence is put into action internationally.

It’s an approach that was reflected in a phrase by a “senior administration official” that would come to define the Obama foreign policy. In the spring of 2011,
The New Yorker
ran a deeply unsettling piece about how Obama dealt with the array of national security issues confronting him. The author, Ryan Lizza, quoted a top adviser as saying that the president’s strategy was to “lead from behind.” The official used those words to describe Obama’s approach to fighting the war in Libya, but they had a broader application to much of the rest of Obama’s foreign policy.

Lizza wrote, “It’s a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world.” He quoted the “senior” adviser again: “It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world, but it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”

Evident in the comment by that “senior administration official” are several basic kook beliefs: (a) first, that America is in decline; (b) second, since the decline is inevitable, Obama’s job is to manage it, not to fight it; (c) third, China is passing us on the world stage; (d) fourth, everyone loathes us, so we shouldn’t do anything to make them loathe us more; and (e) fifth, by “shepherding us through this phase,” they don’t mean to stronger, sunny days ahead. They mean to weaker, darker days of diminished power.

The “leading from behind” approach, however, disregarded a basic truth. History shows what happens when the United States checks out of its position of global leadership: the bad guys advance, the good guys retreat, and really horrific things happen. The reality is that “leading from behind” isn’t really leading at all. It’s simply a clever leftist way of redistributing American power to others. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of “leading from behind” is that Obama wanted to lead with our behinds, literally. In order to appear more humble on the world stage, he instructed all members of the State Department’s diplomatic corps to bend over, grab their ankles, and face everyone ass-first. Which is ironic, since most of Obama’s foreign policy is ass-backward.

Obama’s foreign policy is based on the belief that because of our past “sins,” we should surrender our leadership role in the world, and since other nations are taking that role from us anyway, his job of surrenderer in chief is made that much easier. Obama is operating
intentionally
as an American declinist.

We hire leaders to keep us at number one. We want any “decline” arrested and reversed, not “managed.” We don’t want our leaders to be wimps who just accept that America is losing it and simply move on. We want our leaders to
fight
for American dominance and greatness. To
fight
to restore America’s power and influence. And to
fight
for American exceptionalism.

What we’ve gotten from Obama and the kooks has been not simply acquiescence to the idea of American decline but a hastening of it in real terms. They have forced America to her knees, leaving her staggering and bleeding and leaving the rest of the world to run amok. We’ve seen this movie before when they have downgraded America, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.

To the kooks, America is like an ex-boyfriend who shows up at 2:00 a.m. unannounced and drunk, bursting through the door, smashing up the joint, and then leaving you alone, weeping, shaking, and on the phone to the cops. Of course, America
is
the cops, so it’s unclear who would take the call. But after believing that America has busted up the global joint for decades, the kooks wanted America begging for forgiveness for perceived past injustices. In 2008, before he had even formally locked up his party’s nomination for president, Obama decided he wanted to give a speech in Berlin, Germany, and at the Brandenburg Gate no less. German chancellor Angela Merkel found Obama’s audacious Brandenburg Gate request “odd” and suggested that he give his speech at the Victory Column instead. In reality, an Obama speech in Germany was fitting, since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels hailed from Deutschland.

It was there, in Berlin, months before he was even elected president, that Obama got the apology ball rolling: “I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.”

There’s the word “perfected” again. I’m not sure delivering that particular message in Germany, which started two world wars in its desire to “perfect” itself, was particularly wise. I’m sure the German people loved watching an American presidential candidate echo the sentiment of the Übermensch seeking to create a utopian state. The president of the United States—the commander in chief—explicitly and openly apologizing for America would be the most powerful symbol of the New American Humility. It would let the rest of the world know that we’re now a gentle giant who’s so sorry for the ruckus we’ve caused. We’ve screwed up the world and we’re here to beg forgiveness. We hope you’ll be kind enough to bestow it.

As soon as he entered office, Obama continued the international Apology Tour, complete with roadies and groupies.

Obama told the French that the United States had failed “to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world” and that we’d displayed “arrogance” and been “dismissive” and “derisive.” I suppose the statute of limitations is up on the fact that America rebuilt Europe after Hitler destroyed it.

Obama told the Germans that “the (economic) crisis began in the U.S. I take responsibility, even if I wasn’t even president at the time.” This was a way of appearing to accept responsibility while really placing it elsewhere. Classic kook.

Obama appeared on Al Arabiya television and flatly declared that America “dictates” without considering “all the factors involved.” He continued: “Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.” (There’s that notion of “perfecting” again.)

At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, he told the world that the United States had been “dictatorial” and “disengaged,” and he went on to say: “But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and no junior partner in our relations.” Then, after listening quietly to anti-American Marxist thugs like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega bash the United States, Obama asked all of Latin America for forgiveness for failing to carry out “sustained engagement with our neighbors.” He also palled it up with Chávez, accepting a book and mini-lecture from him. “Adios, amigo!” he called to ol’ Hugo, who then returned to Venezuela to land some great nuclear deals with Russia, China, and Iran. In Prague, he declared that America had “a moral responsibility to act” on arms control because we were the only nation that had ever “used a nuclear weapon.”

There were some reports that he thought about also apologizing to the Japanese for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II, although the White House denied it.

In Cairo, Obama legitimized Muslim grievances against the United States, vastly overstated the number of Muslims in America, hyper-exaggerated the role of Islam in American history, suggested that the war in Iraq was an unjustified act of aggression by the United States, apologized for the CIA’s role in a 1953 coup in Iran, and invoked “resistance” as a euphemism for Palestinian terror.

In Turkey, Obama blamed the United States for the “strain” in “many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not at war with Islam.” He went on to beg for Muslim absolution of America’s sins.

In early 2012, after some of our military personnel in Afghanistan seized some Korans that were being used by jihadis to communicate extremist messages, another group of American personnel inadvertently burned them, setting off violent Afghan protests that killed several U.S. troops. Obama’s first impulse? To convey to Afghan president Hamid Karzai his “deep regret” and “sincere apologies” for the incident. A few days later, Obama defended his apology by saying that it had helped to “calm things down.” After that, even more Americans were killed.

After the successful drone strike that had killed American-born Islamic terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, Team Obama called the family of Samir Khan, a top al-Qaeda propagandist who was also killed in the attack. To apologize. The call went like this: “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Khan. This is President Barry. I’m really sorry I evaporated your al-Qaeda son’s body with a Hellfire missile. I’ve instructed the Department of Defense to send both of you an Amazon.com gift card.”

In fact, Obama was so obsessed with “healing” relations with the Muslim world that he enlisted an entire government agency to help carry it out. The weird thing was that the agency he chose was the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. In early 2010, Obama announced that he was killing NASA’s $100 billion “Constellation” program to return Americans to the moon. What he didn’t say was that he directed NASA to use that money instead to “find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries,” as NASA administrator Charles Bolden put it. When asked to explain Obama’s new directive, Bolden described it as outreach to “nontraditional partners,” particularly nations that don’t have established space programs, such as Indonesia. Under Obama, NASA’s mission was no longer space exploration. Out with the romantic heroism of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, and even the fictional Major Tony Nelson. In with the pathetic groveling of third-tier diplomats. Astronauts from Houston to Cape Canaveral were heard grumbling, “What the @$%&! just happened?”

Obama went on to bow to Saudi king Abdullah, with some suggesting that he actually bent to kiss his ring. He also bowed to the Japanese emperor, who looked more than a little perplexed by the sight of an American president prostrating himself. These acts were graphic symbols of the moral and power equivalence Obama was cultivating—as well as of the American decline he was speeding along.

Other top Obama administration officials carried out their own Apology Tours. After we scored a seat on the joke known as the UN Human Rights Council, our ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, bent over backward to tell that anti-American body that “we have not been
perfect
ourselves,” a statement that put us in the same category as other council members with such sterling human rights records as Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Cameroon.

In China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States must take responsibility for being the top emitter of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia, she said that our policy of sanctions against Myanmar had failed. In the Middle East, she blurted out that the Bush policy of isolating the Iranian regime had not convinced it to relinquish its pursuit of nuclear weapons. In Mexico, she declared that it was America’s big appetite for drugs that was largely driving the narcotics-related violence there. In Sweden, she asked the National Bikini Team, “How many of you have slept with my husband?”

One of her top lieutenants, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, told the professional human rights violators in the Chinese government not to worry about their human rights record because ours was just as bad.

Obama touted his approach at the G-20 summit in London in April 2009: “I would like to think that with my election and the early decisions that we’ve made, that you’re starting to see some restoration of America’s standing in the world.” Obama was right. They only chant “Death to America” in the Gaza Strip every
other
hour now, instead of
every
hour, like they did under George W. Bush. He later put a finer point on the one-world gobbledygook that he first advanced in his 2008 Berlin speech. During a 2010 address at West Point, Obama reemphasized his commitment to shaping a new “international order” in which he’d invest America’s power and prestige in global institutions.

With apologies all around, the stage was set for the building of that new world order, in which America would relinquish world leadership to those generally anti-American “global institutions” and see to it that the traditionally solid relationships with allies and clear-eyed approaches to enemies were shattered. Big Daddy was punishing America, forcing her to sit in the corner wearing a dunce cap, while he community-organized the rest of the world to take our place.

On October 9, 2009, the Norwegian Nobel Committee jumped the shark. It announced that it was awarding its coveted Nobel Golf Prize to President Barack Obama for his “extraordinary efforts on the back nine.” That’s a prize he may have actually deserved. No, that day the Nobel Committee announced that it was bestowing the world’s most prestigious award, the Nobel Peace Prize, to Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”