Obama’s Words & Actions

A WORD AND THEN A BLOW was probably a motto on some ancient nobleman's crest. Reviewing President Obama's rapid fire, BANG BANG speech itinerary this last week in foreign lands, you have to wonder when his rhetoric stops and his deeds begin. The more speeches he delivers, the more he sounds the same. Much of his substance is recycled stuff that promoted him during his presidential bid, now retuned for a world audience. One exception was his speech in Cairo, Egypt.

Sure the Cairo speech had that artful Axelrod blissful touch of making a black man non-threatening to a non-black audience. It had the typical apologetic self-effacing hallmarks of a better world combined with thoughtful logic. In this case, this audience was third world; it had painful recollections of invading, rootin shootin pink-skinned, bible quoting crusader GW Bush – so brown Obama, using Arabic and Koranic phrases, could have had a tail, horns, bat wings and pitchfork; he still would have received a standing ovation with shouts from the assembled at Cairo University of WE LOVE YOU.

There were some unusual themes in the President's speech that if instituted might result in quantum changes in the Middle East. His message to Iran was conciliatory and much to Israeli discomfort, he mentioned a nuclear-free Middle East; implicitly, this proposition called for no Israeli nucs too. His call for no new Israeli settlements stuck a finger in the Israeli eye and undermines the current Likud Israeli campaign promises. Further, Obama's call for a separate Palestine state is enough to cause the current Israeli regime to have a stroke.

Republican House Minority Leader Boehner dutifully assisted Israel by condemning Obama's speech for his position on Iran and the Israeli. Pro Israeli NEW YORK TIMES tried to argue that GW Bush had unofficially green-lighted continued settlements; it had to admit, however, that there was nothing in writing. Best the paper could report was that American Jew, Elliot Abrams, member of the Holocaust Committee, reported that he understood such an arrangement existed. With his troubled legal history, who believes him on anything?

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has promised to deliver a speech soon. This will provide the American Jewish Lobby its marching orders. Israeli settlers are already building shacks calling them Obama Huts. So expect a full-court press against Obama's proposition. My sense is that Obama's knees will buckle in the face of pressure. Israelis will produce a political knife fight over the issue; it will be too messy for Obama who will find a reason to back down.

On Obama's previous European trip he committed to 108 billion dollars to the International Monetary Fund. Now is time to pay up. The US Senate has attached a 108 billion appropriation to a 96 billion supplemental war bill. Republicans are fairly asking: Is the US borrowing from China to give money to IMF so it can lend it? The dollar is worth less than 60 cents versus the Euro as of today. The whole thing is fiscal insanity. You may want your dentist to cap your teeth with gold to protect your net worth and make it portable.

As reality closes in on Obama, the more he appears driven to speech making. The more speeches, the less his accomplishments. That is a correlation for disaster. His economic programs are faltering. Unemployment figures are staggering. Federal debts are met with printing more money or funds from China. His stock market is pumped up artificially by statements from his three stooges economic team of Summers, Geithner and Bernarke. His war strategy is failed Nixonian: PEACE WITH HONOR.

Alternatives? None. The Republicans hopelessly are goofier than ever – squealing over Socialism started by GW Bush and still Crazy for Christ. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret