Dakota Beacon

America is now "paralysed [sic], diminished," and it's definitely not Barack Obama's fault.

Financial Times columnist Clive Crook is a never-ending fount of smugness, a textbook embodiment of the operational style of so many elitist American progressives. Recently, Crook decreed that "Mr. Obama’s [foreign] diplomacy has seemed disappointing partly because too much was expected of it."

Could it be that world-wise leaders see Mr. Obama's diplomacy as equivalent to the quixotic Kumbayas spoken by naïve schoolchildren? Could it be that Mr. Obama's diplomacy stinks?

Barack Obama's foreign policy has consisted of nothing more than apology and appeasement. Apology for America's very existence, and appeasement for anyone wishing to end that existence. Even now, as the North Korean pipsqueak and the pipsqueak's son beat their chests in the expectation of being tossed more bananas, our President speaks in finger-wagging, "Now you really should behave yourself," tones.

Could Obama's "disappointing" foreign policy achievements be a result of the President's coddling of terror-state scumbags like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Maybe it's problematic that The Chosen One relentlessly bows to thugs, a policy that has never ended well in the history of civilization.

Questions, annoying questions. Reality, painful reality. Clive Crook has no use for inquiry. Clive Crook supports his man.

Recall his [Obama's] inheritance. The Bush administration laid the US low, say critics, with its misadventure in Iraq and its disdain for soft power. Mr. Obama would put this right. His election was greeted rapturously around the world. Finally, a leader other governments could work with. See irresolvable disputes melt in the warmth of his goodwill. Recent disappointments look bad partly because one measures them against absurdly inflated expectations.

Crickets chirp. Lights on, nobody home.

Worse yet, Crook goes claims that Obama has acted precisely correctly.

In foreign policy, the problem is not that Mr. Obama has made big mistakes. More often than not, when he has failed to agree with other governments – for instance, on the need for tougher financial regulation, co-ordinated [sic] monetary stimulus, and exchange-rate realignment – he has been in the right. Nonetheless, charm and being right count for little when interests diverge.

The world is wrong. Obama is right. The world doesn't get it. Obama does.

According to Crook, Barack Obama didn't act like a leftwing ideologue. No, instead voters rejected Obama simply because of his "too-ambitious agenda."

Poor Barack, a savior besieged by the stupidity of those whom he wishes to save. For instance, Crook laments that no matter what Obama commits to on "climate change," the President's "word, until further notice, is worthless."

Poor, poor Barack. As Crook points out, "How can a US president call on others to act when his own administration is hobbled?" A wise man trying to show the world the way, held back by non-believers. Why won't the dumb people believe as the enlightened ones believe, that the planet will bake unless we reverse the industrial revolution to stop of an infinitesimally small rise in atmospheric CO₂?

What an arrogant man, this Clive Crook.

I keep thinking to myself that sooner or later, progressive ideologues like Crook have to come to their senses and see reality. But I know deep inside that I might as well wait for Hell to freeze over.

We have seen here a classic illustration of the progressive attitude of infallibility. Progressives ricochet from destructive ideas to catastrophic ideas, bouncing through life with an incurable mindset that their way is the way. Haughty, but horribly wrong, progressives drive axes disguised as panaceas into a nation's skull and then lecture, "Why, oh why, did you people hurt yourselves so!"

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér