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European libs are in shock over Barack Obama's failures

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
It is no coincidence that Barack Obama held a key campaign rally last year in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring Germans, as though he were running for Mayor of Berlin. Obama remains in many ways a quintessentially European politician, a firm believer in big government, large-scale state intervention, social liberalism, supranational institutions, and the projection of soft power abroad. His political philosophy is frequently more attuned to Brussels or Strasbourg than it is to Washington.

For a host of reasons however, President Obama is increasingly viewed by his natural allies in Europe- the left-wing intelligentsia in particular – as a mounting disappointment, whether it is dithering over attending the climate change summit in Copenhagen, supposedly ignoring the momentous changes within the European Union, making little progress with the Middle East peace process, adopting protectionist trade policies, a lack of commitment to human rights, the list goes on.

Significantly, there have even been some attacks from the left on Obama’s failure of leadership on Afghanistan. No matter how hard Obama tries to appease his supporters in Europe by presenting American power in a softer light, the president of the United States is still going to let down those who backed him most strongly.

It’s bad enough being berated from across the Atlantic by the President of France for being a big softy and failing to stand up to the Iranian nuclear threat. But being taken to task by European intellectuals is even more humbling for a US leader who attaches just as much importance to how he is perceived on the world stage, as he does to domestic popularity.

One year on from his election, it is striking how many liberal commentators in Europe, especially those who grace the opinion pages of lofty publications like The Guardian and The Financial Times, are beginning to question Obama’s global leadership and are casting a more critical eye on the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I was particularly struck by an interesting Guardian piece written by arch Euro-federalist historian Timothy Garton Ash last month, which actually claimed that while Obama “is the most European president” there has ever been, he is also “the least European president of the United States that there has ever been” – less European even than George W. Bush, according to the Oxford don. As Garton Ash eloquently put it:

“Unlike during the cold war, the United States is not focused on Europe and does not regard helping to build a strong, united Europe as being among its own vital interests. Europeans may continue to feel that Obama is “one of us”; and in one way he is, but in another way he isn’t – and he certainly won’t do our work for us. If we Europeans want to get our act together, we must get our act together.”

Another Guardianista, the best-selling author Jonathan Freedland, continues to defend Obama but acknowledges that “as president he has too often left a vacuum where his own plans and visions should be.” In a piece for The Guardian last week, Freedland depicted the palpable disappointment of many of those who had cheered Obama at his victory rally in Chicago’s Grant Park:

“Now, one year on, it can feel as if all that was a foolish mirage. The US is still fighting two wars; Guantánamo remains open, with no clear plan for its closure given that Congress has ruled that none of its inmates can be moved to the US; Iran has not yet agreed to anything; Middle East peace looks as distant as ever; the US economy is still limping, with unemployment around 10%; healthcare has provoked a congressional battle royal; and as for serious US action on climate change, don’t hold your breath.”

Also at The Guardian, Simon Tisdall, the paper’s foreign editor, has just penned a hard-hitting article taking apart the Obama administration’s laclustre approach to transatlantic relations. Here’s a snippet:

“Obama’s apparent lack of interest in America’s European allies – some call it indifference, even disdain – is a source of growing unease on the Old World side of the Atlantic. As polls suggest Europeans, by and large, are hugely enamoured of George Bush’s dashing successor, his coolness is more than a little hurtful. It’s like being the spotty, socially challenged nerd who has a crush on the prom queen.”

Over at the FT, Clive Crook, a columnist who endorsed Obama for the presidency in 2008 as “a man of outstanding intellect and magnetic personality”, has written a damning indictment of the president’s handling of the Afghanistan mission:

“The US has been at war in Afghanistan for eight years – and it is losing. On this issue, Barack Obama is giving deliberation a bad name. He needs to make his mind up… Week by week, the administration’s muddle makes everything harder. What a godsend for the Taliban. In his speech in London this month, General McChrystal said, “Uncertainty disheartens our allies, emboldens our foe.” After months of wrestling with this problem, uncertainty is all the White House has got.”

President Bush might not have been loved in Europe, but at least he was feared by his enemies and strategic competitors and respected by US allies. With Barack Obama in the White House, the United States has succeeded in alienating key partners in Eastern and Central Europe by kowtowing to Moscow, has undermined morale in the NATO alliance by refusing to give a firm commitment to extra troops for Afghanistan, is viewed as weak by Nicolas Sarkozy in the face of Iranian aggression, and has relegated the transatlantic alliance to an extraordinarily low priority. Embarrassingly for the president, even the left in Europe are now beginning to question the Obama administration’s record after just nine months in power

Barack Obama is swiftly finding out that American global leadership is far more difficult than it looks, and takes more than a few flowery speeches in Strasbourg or Prague calling for world peace and apologizing for America’s past. As Obama will come to realize, US leadership is not a popularity contest, but about taking tough decisions in defence of America and its allies. So far, the president has only succeeded in undermining both.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100015908/european-liberals-are-in-shock-over-barack-obamas-failures/
 

Broke Cowboy

Well-known member
Germans believed the lie in 1938 and they have not changed - the bigger the lie the easier it is to believe - they may be slowly coming around but it is too little too late.

As for the rest of Europe. The biggies - France, Italy and Spain are basically becoming Islamic nations and within two more generations they may actually have the voting majority.

Certainly Denmark is close as well.

Syria and Turkey are negotiating a "no visa required" cross border agreement. It will be a few years, but Turkey will enter into the EU and then the borders will really flow.

The EU actually caused most of this as now there is no border control by various nations who are part of the EU - which is one reason there are still a very few European countries that have not joined and quite likely will not join.

So the big O will continue to placate and bow to others - his numbers will fall even faster over the next couple of years as the European and Middle East media start taking him to task even longer and harder.

I will go out on a limb and say that I think this all pleases the big O.

BC
 

hopalong

Well-known member
Broke Cowboy said:
Germans believed the lie in 1938 and they have not changed - the bigger the lie the easier it is to believe

As for the rest of Europe. The biggies - France, Italy and Spain are basically becoming Islamic nations and within two more generations they may actually have the voting majority.

Certainly Denmark is close as well.

Syria and Turkey are negotiating a "no visa required" cross border agreement. It will be a few years, but Turkey will enter into the EU and then the borders will really flow.

The EU actually caused most of this as now there is no border control by various nations who are part of the EU - which is one reason there are still a very few European countries that have not joined and quite likely will not join.

So the big O will continue to placate and bow to others - his numbers will fall even faster over the next couple of years as the European and Middle East media start taking him to task even longer and harder.

I will go out on a limb and say that I think this all pleases the big O.

BC


I hope you are wrong but I am afraid you are right!!! :( :(
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Broke Cowboy said:
hypocritexposer said:
but, but....

the New World Order is a Conspiracy Theory

:? :?

I am beginning to wonder - after seeing what is happening here I am not so sure

BC

You're probably well educated in the history of the banks/corporations before and during WWII.

I don't think we learned from history.
 

Broke Cowboy

Well-known member
Came across this in the Canadian paper - National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2170124

It details what Europeans are not only seeing but now believing when it comes to the US of A prez - a lack of performance.

Americans are coming to see it that way as well.

The media will soon stop giving O the free ride he has enjoyed for a long time.

BC

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obama, Year 1: Reality takes a toll on optimism
Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, November 01, 2009


Jason Reed/Reuters U.S. President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen from an inauguration day high of 69% to a low of 51% almost a year later.

WASHINGTON -- When he cast his ballot for Barack Obama last Nov. 4, Lance Orchid never thought that -- less than a year later -- he would join a campaign questioning the new U.S. president's leadership.

The 39-year-old Democrat spent most of 2008 working as an Obama campaign organizer in conservative Georgia, helping register 200,000 new voters inspired by a charismatic young senator who promised change and "seemed to transcend politics."

But by this fall, with the White House on the defensive over the moribund U.S. economy and stalled health-care legislation, Mr. Orchid started to wonder when, exactly, Mr. Obama would deliver.

"I was having some doubts," admits Mr. Orchid, who signed his name to a full-page New York Times ad pleading with Mr. Obama to pass universal health care -- a promise central to his election.

"Everyone is anxious to see things happen quickly, but that's not the way that Washington works."

Perhaps no one knows that more than the president himself.

One year ago, Mr. Obama was swept into the White House by voters who sought a clean break from the Bush era and hoped the Democratic candidate could transform U.S. politics.

But as the nation marks the anniversary of Mr. Obama's historic election, some of the bloom is off the rose.

The U.S. economy remains mired in a real-world recession, with unemployment approaching 10%. The war in Afghanistan is deadlier than ever -- and public support is waning even as Obama contemplates sending more troops.

From climate change to health care, Mr. Obama's attempts at major domestic legislation have yet to clear congressional hurdles. His first promise as president -- to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay by January -- is in jeopardy.

Even Mr. Obama's signature achievement -- passage of a $787-billion economic stimulus bill -- has been a double-edged sword, creating a public backlash over massive government spending even as it helped prevent a deeper recession.

Taken together, the myriad challenges have exacted a political toll.

Gallup's daily tracking poll shows Mr. Obama's approval rating has fallen from an inauguration day high of 69% to a Halloween low of 51%.

"What we are seeing is an erosion of enchantment with Obama," says Stephen Schneck, a Catholic University of America political scientist. "After the election, there was a sense of great expectation associated with the Obama presidency. People are now taking more realistic stock of what this president is, and what he can achieve."

Mr. Schneck believes Mr. Obama's inability "to succeed even moderately in changing the atmosphere in Washington" is a prime reason for his slide in popularity.

"I think this administration needs some kind of major success relatively soon in order to salvage its reputation."

For Obama supporters, the high hopes of Nov. 4 have given way to high anxiety.

If the election night street celebrations marked the height of optimism about Mr. Obama, last summer's angry health-care town hall meetings were a metaphor for a growing national skepticism.

Politically, Mr. Obama's grassroots army found itself outflanked by a better organized conservative opposition.

"I have felt frustrated with the pace of change," says 23-year-old Marcus Powers, a television producer in Texas who voted for Obama, "but I understand you just can't snap your fingers and have everybody change their minds. This is a deeply divided country."

George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University, says Americans had unrealistically high expectations of Obama.

"This whole notion of transformational leadership is essentially nonsense," says Mr. Edwards, author of On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit. "We always talk about new presidents coming to office with a lot of ignorance, a lot of hubris and a lot of testosterone. Then they have to start dealing with other realities."

The economic crisis, in particular, thwarted Mr. Obama's ambitious agenda on clean energy and health care.

Concerns about the size of stimulus package, coupled with Washington's controversial takeover of General Motors and Chrysler, had the effect of dampening the American public's enthusiasm for further government intervention in the economy, Mr. Edwards says.

"The opportunity for change was not nearly as large as the Obama administration thought it was," says Mr. Edwards. "By dealing responsibly, and as best he could, with the economic crisis, Obama restricted his options to do the other things he wanted to do."

Mr. Obama has also made some rookie mistakes, say critics. In particular, the president's initial reluctance to detail his health-care reform priorities allowed others to shape the debate, says Mr. Schneck.

"The White House has been reactive as opposed to proactive," he says.

"It allowed the extremes on the right and the left to seize the microphone and push their own agendas."

Joe Szymczak, who worked for Obama in Pennsylvania, joined a recent demonstration outside the White House to pressure Mr. Obama to do more.

"A lot of us felt he was passing the health-care issue off to Congress," says Mr. Szymczak, 30.

"We went there to tell Obama, ‘Look, we fought hard for you. Now we need to keep you in check.' "

Mr. Orchid agrees. In August 2007, he broke his neck in a two-storey fall from a ladder. Uninsured, he ran up close to $40,000 in medical bills. But he was inspired by Mr. Obama's call for universal health care and started making campaign calls from his recovery bed.

With Democrats now embracing health-care legislation that includes a form of public insurance, Mr. Orchid says his concerns about Mr. Obama's leadership have subsided.

"People were so ready for a change, and so ready for it to happen now, that it is easy to be impatient," he says. "I feel confident he won't abandon the promises of the campaign."

Denise Wright, a District of Columbia resident, said she doesn't regret her vote for Obama.

"There was this idea that he would somehow bring utopia to the United States," says Ms. Wright. "We live in an instant gratification society. But this is a long process."

How long will America's patience last? According to Gallup, the president's approval has already fallen faster -- from the second quarter of 2008 to the third quarter -- than any president since 1953.

But Mr. Edwards says that's misleading because support for Mr. Obama started out so high.

"This presidency is a work in progress. This is still early days," says Mr. Edwards. "It's like in a football game. The question is, how do you adjust at half time?"

FACTBOX

"This victory alone is not the change we seek -- it is only the chance for us to make that change." -- Barack Obama, election night 2008.

A Presidency in Progress -- What Obama has done and what remains undone

The U.S. Economy.

• Mr. Obama won passage in early February of a $787-billion economic recovery bill. The White House claims the stimulus has saved or created 650,000 jobs. The U.S. economy grew 3.5% in the third quarter of 2008, in part because of the infusion of government funds.

• Unemployment has risen from 7.6% in January to 9.8% in September.

• The U.S. government took ownership stakes in General Motors and Chrysler after the ailing auto companies filed for bankruptcy protection last winter. U.S. car sales spiked in the summer because of government's ‘cash for clunkers' program, but slipped back in the fall after the program's completion.

• An $8,000 U.S. government tax credit for first-time home buyer's slows the decline in national housing prices, but has been subject to fraudulent claims.

• A program to reduce the skyrocketing number of home foreclosures has gotten off to a slow start, with far fewer mortgage modifications than the White House had hoped.

• Mr. Obama announced in February that companies receiving federal bailout money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) must cap executive pay at $500,000. Subsequently, Obama's pay czar announced in October that executives at seven companies would see their compensation cut 90% from 2008 levels.

Foreign Policy

• Mr. Obama signed an executive order in January ordering the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba within one year. Administration officials have recently said it will be difficult to meet the timeline, and Congress is refusing the transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil.

• Afghanistan. In March, Mr. Obama ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan as part of an overhaul of U.S. strategy. He is now contemplating a military request for 40,000 more troops as part of a proposed counterinsurgency strategy.

• Iraq. Mr. Obama announced in February that most U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by August 2010.

• Iran. Mr. Obama authorized the first-ever direct talks with Iran, which were held in September. Iran has so far rejected a UN-backed deal to send its nuclear fuel to a third country for enrichment.

• Middle East. Mr. Obama last month arranged a face-to-face meeting between leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but no agreement has yet been reached to restart peace talks.

• Mr. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his renewed emphasis on international diplomacy.

• America's image abroad. Mr. Obama has travelled outside the U.S. more than any other president in his first year of office, visiting 16 countries including Canada. He travelled to Cairo in July to deliver a speech to the Muslim world. A Pew global attitudes poll subsequently showed America's image internationally had jumped "markedly" in several nations, including by 16% in Great Britain, 33% in France and 13% in Canada.

Domestic Policy

• Climate change. A White House-backed bill to reduce carbon emissions has passed the House of Representatives. Debate on a Senate version of the bill began in committee last week.

• Health care. Democrats in the Senate and House are moving ahead with separate versions of health-care legislation that includes a form of government-run medical insurance. Final votes are expected later this fall.

• Supreme Court. Mr. Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as the newest justice in August.

• Beer Summit. Mr. Obama drinks beer in July with a Cambridge, Mass., police officer and a black Harvard professor after a controversial arrest at the academic's home.

• In October, Mr. Obama renewed his promise to repeal the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gay soldiers, but sets no timetable.

Mr. Obama's personal popularity

• November 2008. Mr. Obama's wins presidential election with 53% popular support.

• Inauguration Day 2009. Gallup polls shows the president's approval rating at 69%.

• November 2009. Gallup's daily tracking poll pegs support for Mr. Obama at 51%.
 
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