Obama The Well-Beloved

The President of the United States is widely loved throughout the world. Conservatives, I among them, have constantly harped about how Obama is destroying America's prestige overseas. Yet the headlines and the Democrat/Liberal mainstream media constantly point out that this can't be true, because the whole world loves him.

It's easy to love a hapless, powerless, fawning and drooling lap dog, but that doesn't mean you respect it. Kids love their stuffed toys, but they're not likely to expect to get real life lessons from them. And you can love Frosty the Snowman, but you had better not rely on him to save you when the jihadists decide it's your turn.

Our European allies love Obama because he makes them look strong while at the same time enabling them to make back room deals with the Islamists, undermine Israel, soothe the radical Muslim breast within their own borders, and placate the not-so-lovable Vladimir Putin. The Middle East dictatorships love him because he's so easily fooled and manipulated into putting his "we'll greet you with an open hand if you'll unclench your fist" plan into action. They just unclench their fists and reach for their swords. And the dictators of the "reformed" communist dictatorships love him because he caves into their demands faster than you can say "workers of the world, arise."

They love him because they have never before been afforded the opportunity to deal with such a spineless, self-centered, over-indulged, ill-prepared overgrown child as the alleged leader of the free world. They know with a leader like that, the free world won't remain free much longer. And they share his views of government. In whatever form, the elite must govern for the benefit of the ignorant masses. They're used to dealing with "cowboys (Reagan, Johnson, and Bush)," masters of deceptive craft (Nixon, Clinton), former generals (Eisenhower), tough haberdashers from Missouri (Truman), confused but still patriotic executives (Carter, at least back then), and one other callow youth who learned quickly (Kennedy). All of them loved America, and not one of them ever made a world trip to denounce their own country to foreigners on foreign soil.

But Obama is a new thing under the sun for them all. This is the first president to greet overseas leaders while apologizing for everything America has done wrong since its very foundation. He is the first president to announce that he knows how arrogant America has been, and he will now undo all that damage. He is the first president in history to travel nearly the entire world acting as if his sole mission was to reduce America to a second-rate member of some nebulous world community. He is the first president to meet foreign diplomatic demands as more important than America's own interests. He is the first president to bow deeply to foreign potentates, while giving the Queen of England nothing more than a cheap gift (no bow).

So the liberals are right, aren't they? He's wildly popular and loved worldwide, and we should be thrilled. Except new age touchy-feely political beliefs, fostered in the silly Sixties (all you need is love; give peace a chance) misunderstand a simple concept. Love without respect is a wasted emotion. It's frivolous, it's mindless, and it almost always leads to disaster. It creates blindness to our enemies' plans and toward our allies' fatal weaknesses. Kumbaya, here, have a dirty nuke for New York.

Obama, for cheap and obvious reasons, tends to confine his love message to contrasting himself with George W. Bush, his immediate predecessor. And the world buys it. "Bush alienated our allies, they say." What they really mean is "Bush wasn't weak enough, and he had a bad habit of ticking off our enemies causing them to hate us." But it is Obama who has slit the throats of the Poles and Czechs with his cave-in to Moscow, and even in Afghanistan is actively undermining our unfortunate but sole ally, Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Who is alienating our allies?

Obama was too busy bowing to the Japanese emperor and probably the Chinese chairman to be bothered to go to Germany to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death of communist hegemony in Eastern Europe. He was too busy bowing to the Saudi king to bother noticing that Iran is planning to obliterate our ally Israel. But he did send a nice note to the Iranian mullahs. Who is alienating our allies?

Obama has rejected the very idea of free-trade talks with South Korea and Colombia. A firm Central American friend constitutionally ejects a potential dictator, and Honduras is suddenly a target of the Obama administration which doesn't even understand its own Constitution. And Queen Liz has to content herself with cheap CDs that don't work in Britain and a pat on the back from Michelle Obama. But at least they got the Winston Churchill bust back. Who is alienating our allies?

Simply put, the more pro-American any nation is, the more neglected and demeaned it will be treated by Obama. And the more vicious and determined a nation is to destroy or completely weaken America, the more positive attention it will get from this weak, confused, and backbone-deficient president. So those who used to count on America to clean up their messes publicly love Obama, lest the predators take revenge on them. And the dictators love him because the last impediment to their lust for power and mass murder is quickly being removed. But nobody who has the least sense of self-survival respects him.

This is not a group of therapy-obsessed individuals we are dealing with. These are nations, with national needs and national interests of their own. So long as America was willing to bear the burden of defending the world from dictators and terrorists, the world was satisfied to publicly dislike the American presidents while secretly thanking God they existed. No more. The surrender-at-all-costs left loves Obama (anybody remember "better red than dead?"). Those who were willing to support previous American presidents reluctantly now profess great love for the great peacemaker ("Gosh, he's even better than Neville Chamberlain").

Machiavelli posed the great question for princes: Is it better to be loved or feared? It was never the only choice. In the modern world, the best answer would be "it is best to be loved and respected." But Obama will never understand that if "loved and respected" doesn't work, then forget the love, earn the respect of your allies and the fear you instill in your enemies. I suspect this hapless child will not learn those lessons.