The Mediocrity Of The President Or The Destiny Of Our Nation?

On August 27, 2012 Bret Stephens wrote a stinging appraisal of this president’s failed foreign policies.  His piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal sixteen days before the barbaric murders of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.

Stephens writes:

“I tend to think that the buzz about American decline mistakes the mediocrity of the president for the destiny of the nation. But we have an election on, the outcome of which will decide whether one man’s mediocrity becomes a whole nation’s destiny. Mr. Obama is now the world’s leading has-been, trying to revive a career on the strength of a talent that was greatly exaggerated to begin with. But a country that’s willing to reward mediocrity with a second chance risks becoming a has-been itself.”

In his piece, Stephens comments that “the president would rather be loved than feared.  He is neither.”

I chose to Photoshop the picture associated with this post by substituting the American flag that had been set ablaze while a group of radical Muslims look on with the flag that his Obamaness is now hawking on his website.

His failed effort to improve America’s standing in the Muslim world with the now-forgotten Cairo speech and his comment while on the 2008 campaign trail where he boasted “when I’m inaugurated Muslim hostility will ease” rings hollow.  Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton said, “And what's unmistakable, despite the bluster which is coming from the Obama administration, they [the Muslim world] are not afraid of the United States. They do not fear this president. They do not fear the United States. They do not fear consequences for their actions.”

America’s friends are bereft, confused, paralyzed, says Charles Krauthammer.  He warns:

“Islamists rise across North Africa from Mali to Egypt. Iran repeatedly defies U.S. demands on nuclear enrichment, then, as a measure of its contempt for what America thinks, openly admits that its Revolutionary Guards are deployed in Syria. Russia, after arming Assad, warns America to stay out, while the secretary of state delivers vapid lectures about Assad ‘meeting’ his international ‘obligations.’ The Gulf states beg America to act on Iran; Obama strains mightily to restrain…Israel.”

“Sovereign U.S. territory is breached and U.S. interests are burned. And what is the official response? One administration denunciation after another — of a movie trailer! A request to Google to ‘review’ the trailer’s presence on YouTube. And a sheriff’s deputies’ midnight ‘voluntary interview’ with the suspected filmmaker. This in the land of the First Amendment.”

“What else can Obama do? At their convention, Democrats endlessly congratulated themselves on their one foreign policy success: killing Osama bin Laden. A week later, the Salafist flag flies over four American embassies, even as the mob chants, ‘Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas.’”

“A foreign policy in epic collapse. And, by the way, Vladimir Putin just expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development from Russia. Another thank you from another recipient of another grand Obama ‘reset.’”

I’ll close with this. Froggy at Blackfive attended the funeral of Tyrone Woods, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi while trying to protect Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

He writes:

Ty's widow, Dorothy, delivered an inspiring eulogy with more grace, poise, and fervor than I have ever witnessed from the spouse of a fallen warrior.  I wish I had the entire thing on tape, as it should be read by the nation on the anniversary of 9/11 next year.  Here are two quotes that I will never forget.

"It is easy to write a book about being a Navy SEAL, but it is very hard to write an obituary for one." 

"To all the Operators here today I give you this charge: Rid the world of those savages.  I'll say it again, RID THE WORLD OF THOSE SAVAGES!"