Music of the Day: Tia Fuller, Just a Journey

Mr. Obama is now showing a hypersensitivity that ought to be both troubling to Democratic voters and instructive to “undecided,” independent, and waffling-Republican voters. He allowed himself to get worked up over the mention of appeasement (the A-word) in a recent George W. Bush speech, although as many have noted, Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Obama by name (nor did he mention Mrs. Clinton by name either and she, too, got her undies in a bunch by the use of the A-word).

Mr. Obama’s reaction was based upon what his camp called the “implication” that Mr. Bush was referring to Mr. Obama. This is interesting on more than one level because it seems to indicate: (1) that Mr. Obama is now convinced that he is the center of the political universe; (2) that Mr. Obama knows his position vis-à-vis Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other terrorist-based organizations and states is a precursor to policies that can accurately be called “appeasement; and (3) that he doesn’t take even implied criticism of his foreign policy notions very well (probably because of reason number two, above).

Interestingly, someone in the Bush camp indicated that Mr. Bush’s remarks about appeasement were aimed at the Former Peanut-Farmer-In-Chief, the execrable Mr. Jimmy Carter; at this juncture this seems to me a wasted and belated effort to reconnect Mr. Carter to reality—belated because similar remarks could have (and should have) preceded his recent trip to the Middle East to consort with actual terrorists, and wasted because Mr. Carter is fundamentally inconsequential in American and world politics and because the Bush administration was not going to prevent Mr. Carter from again embarrassing himself by palavering with fascistic thugs of Middle Eastern extraction. What makes folks in the Bush administration think that Mr. Carter will change after a nebulous reference to the A-word? And furthermore, why bother?

There are, no doubt, some smart Republican strategists (or, if you prefer, “strategerists”) out there right now gauging Mr. Obama’s reaction to Mr. Bush’s remarks as a sign of weakness, defensiveness, and vulnerability. Mr. McCain, too, may sniff the fear in Mr. Obama’s girly-man remarks about wanting all political discourse to remain lofty and civil and at his “elevated” (and vacuous) rhetorical level. He wants to play nice, he wants Mr. McCain to play by his rules, and wants not to get down and dirty—all of which, by the way, is perfectly legitimate and wonderful, and when you think about it, it can make you feel warm and cuddly and oh-so-good.

Mr. Obama may indeed want “change” to occur that takes the rough and tumble out of American politics, and perhaps that’s a good thing; when it comes to dealing with people who have openly, and frequently, avowed to destroy America, to kill as many of us as they can, people who have said and continue to say that Israel must be “wiped off the face of the earth,” Mr. Obama’s call for a “change” to the sweet nothings of diplomacy with terrorist thugs is a frightening and dangerous prospect.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

*By the way, if you have not yet read George Orwell’s 1946 essay of that title, Politics and the English Language, or if has been a while since the last time you read it, this election year might be a good time to revisit Orwell’s thinking on the importance of clarity in language. As a matter of fact, I’m gong to take my own advice and re-read the essay right now. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!