Mood:
incredulousTopic: The Audacity of Obama
I've talked about Barack Hussein Obama's empty committments not to take money from "special interests" when he's been proven to be in the pocket of Big Law and Big Corporate Lobbying firms. Elsewhere in this blog there's confirmation - most of it in liberal magazines and blogs - that he's accepted three times the number of contributions that McCain has, twice as many as Hillary Clinton (Senator Clinton is praying HARD that she can run as vice-president on the Obama ticket in order to pay off millions of dollars which her campaign still owes - he out-raised her, too - look at the table compiled by opensecrets.org lower in this page to see what a money-taking machine Barack Obama is).
Even many of Obama's fellow leftists are disgusted with the way that Barack Obama is selling himself to corrupt labor unions, to Big Business, to the trial lawyers' lobby and the big national banks who did so much to help the foreclosure crisis happen. Obama's claims that he refuses to take money from these guys are lies, pure and simple.
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But Barack Obama is also chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs, a body with direct responsibilty for our relations with NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the alliance in which American servicepeople are helping to fight terrorism in three fronts around the world, from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Obama's responsibility as chairman of this subcommittee is also to provide the Senate with oversight on our relations with the European Union and all the countries in Europe whether they are part of NATO or the EU (Switzerland being the most prominent European country which is part of neither organization).
You'd think a Senator who wanted to be President would jump on the chance to prove how diligently he could work to maintain the crucial military, diplomatic and economic alliances on which our conduct of the war on terror and much of the rest of our foreign policy depends. You'd think so, wouldn't you?
But Obama hasn't taken this opportunity. He hasn't convened a SINGLE MEETING of this subcommittee. Not one.
Don't take my word for it. In fact, I'm not going to ask you to believe a conservative on this at all. I'm going to point you toward a critique of Obama's defense experience - his utter lack of it, more to the point - by someone who thinks Hillary Clinton's a GREAT candidate for President (and compared to Obama... she is. Depressing, no?)
Steve Clemons, in the "Washington Note" blog, has expressed exactly the same concern I have about Obama's failure to do ANYTHING to discharge his oath of office where our military committments to NATO are concerned. Read what he has to say:
(http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002589.php has the entire article, I'm just quoting relevant excerpts)"I get the sense that Barack Obama is also extremely intelligent, though I've not had the same kind of encounters with him that I have had with Hillary Clinton and thus can't give personal commentary.
But I am convinced of something about Hillary Clinton's commitment to use every lever and every aspect of government machinery to push her legislative and policy work that I'm disappointed to say that I can't find as strongly in Barack Obama's profile. My concern has to do with the fact that as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations' Subcommittee on Europe, Obama has held zero hearings -- at least that is how the record appears to me.
Compare this to the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe, which is having constant hearings -- or to the Senate Subcommittee's work before Obama became Chair -- or to a comparative commitment of Hillary Clinton on a Subcommittee she chairs, and the zero hearing detail is disconcerting...
...I'm not trying to find a minor, nuanced difference between Obama and Clinton and inflate that to inappropriate levels. I am a fan of some of Obama's foreign policy positions -- though I think that I tend to appreciate his speeches influenced by Zbigniew Brzezinski that reflect tough-minded thinking and hard choices rather than those influenced by former Clinton National Security Adviser Anthony Lake that seem to want America to rush into every global cause without clear delineation of priorities and an accounting of potential costs and consequences to our national interest."
Brzezinski followed his old boss Jimmy Carter in currying favor with the Saudis (for which Carter was well-paid under the table), and with the louder critics of America in Europe. Since then, Chirac has been replaced by Sarkozy in France, Berlusconi is back in charge in Italy - the socialist leaders who Carter, Brzezinski and their friends wanted to placate are being pushed out of power by ordinary people in Europe who see the writing on the wall now about trying to sell out to the Muslims in hopes of suing for peace. That dog won't hunt; they know it.
"Senator Obama has a great team. Some of his staff are friends and former colleagues of mine -- though i can say the same about every one of the presidential candidates in both parties.
But his not calling any hearings in a Senate Subcommittee he chairs ought to raise some questions that he needs to respond to. His Subcommittee deals with Europe, with NATO, with various related political and security matters -- and he's got the gavel and can set the agenda.
Given the stress NATO is experiencing today on many fronts -- from the question of Europe's evolving security identity, to NATO's deployments in Afghanistan, to the evolving question of how to deal with Russia, Kosovo, and other common challenges -- it seems inconceivable that Senator Obama would not want to highlight important policy concerns by way of hearings.
I hope Senator Obama looks at this post as something to respond constructively to -- as we need to understand how this gap would be fixed or translate into a White House setting."
Those are the words of a liberal who also thinks Obama's inattention to national security - his willful neglect of the duties of his job by failing to do the business necessary to make sure our people fighting under NATO commands are as well-taken care of as possible - is scary.
Obama's fitness to be President of the United States isn't a partisan issue. It never really was. This guy is being as diplomatic as he is to make a Democratic ticket with Obama leading it more palatable - but his heart's not in it.
Liberals, conservatives, moderates and libertarians (like me) ALL think that Obama's scary. He's sold out to precisely the sort of special interests he's accused everyone else of dealing with; now we find that he hasn't even done a crucial part of his job dealing with national security - we trusted him to hold meetings which he hasn't held.
If Barack Obama were working for me and not the people of Illinois, I'd have fired him. Any good boss would.
