Our president – I’m trying to stay polite here – has shown himself to be a coward on Iran. He cannot bring himself to support the Iranian people, struggling for liberty, against an evil regime bent on internal oppression and nuclear terrorism against the rest of the world.
When the protests began, the president – again, I’m being polite – stated that he still wished to engage the regime and the US shouldn’t ‘meddle’ in Iran’s internal affairs. Then, as the protests escalated, he opined that it was his Cairo speech that sparked the revolt – and offered support, particularly when the video of Neda and other wounded protesters surfaced. Then, as the regime seemed to get the upper hand, he reverted to form, observing that the Iranian people would themselves have to sort matters out. No matter, of course, that the regime had all the guns.
This man is worse than Jimmy Carter.
Because I’m in a video frame of mind, here’s a relevant clip of our president – notice my politesse – compared with his predecessors. First, here’s the president at his June 23rd news conference. After equivocating on Iran in a previous segment, he lays down the money quote: ‘We don’t know how this is going to play out’.
Not exactly standing for principle above cozy-dog political calculation, is he?
Compare and contrast Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. First, here’s Jack Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address, given at the height – or depth – of the Cold War. The money quotes – for me at least – begin at around 2:00:
His words should be read to Mr. Obama:
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Now here’s the relevant portion of Reagan’s 1987 ‘Tear Down This Wall’ speech before the Brandenburg Gate in what was still a divided Berlin. Note that he links freedom and security. The crowd immediately grasps the point, as did the American people at the time.
There’s something cold and passionless about our president. When the leader of the free world can’t condemn tyranny and brutality forthrightly – who can’t express honest revulsion in the face of militant evil – we know something is very wrong.
There. I stayed polite, didn’t I?
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
He talks the talk, but he won’t walk the walk. How can he when he believes we are too stupid to take care of ourselves.
http://animal-farm.us/change/obamas-chairo-speech-484