Power Line:
So here was the president of the United States doing everything but getting down on his hands and knees before the representatives of every wretched regime in the world to plead that the U.S. has turned over a new leaf and, in effect, become harmelss.
Does Obama believe that anything positive will come of this stomach-turning spectacle. Or does he just like to bask in the glow of applause for the proposition that the U.S. was a pretty rotten place until he assumed control, without worrying about who it is that's applauding?
The Hill:
U.S. lawmakers, however, were not so quick on Wednesday to reciprocate Qadhafi's support. While he spoke, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted the Libyan president for releasing the Lockerbie bomber from prison last month, and he introduced a resolution condemning Qadhafi for holding a "welcome home" ceremony in his behalf. Hours earlier, local law enforcement stopped Qadhafi from erecting a large tent on one of Donald Trump's properties, where he was spending the night.
Commentary Magazine:
The president keeps telling us he isn’t naive (funny how Ronald Reagan and even Bill Clinton didn’t have to keep compulsively telling us that). Well, maybe he’s just incredibly cynical. Or uninterested in facing the real dangers to America and its allies. In his view, they simply don’t exist.
The Corner:
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tells NRO that President Obama’s address to the U.N. was “a post-American speech by our first post-American president. It was a speech high on the personality of Barack Obama and high on multilateralism, but very short in advocating American interests.”
“It was a very naïve, Wilsonian speech, and very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy,” says Bolton. “Overall, it was so apologetic for the actions of prior administrations, in an effort to distance Obama from them, that it became yet another symbol of American weakness in the wake of the president’s decision to abandon missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and his recent manifest hesitation over what to do in Afghanistan.”
“The most significant point of the speech was how the president put Israel on the chopping block in a variety of references, from calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegitimate to talking about ending ‘the occupation that began in 1967.’ That implies that he supports going back to 1967 borders,” says Bolton. “Obama has a very tough road ahead. He is frequently taking the side of the Palestinians, who don’t have a competent leader who can make hard decisions and compromises in the future.”
The Telegraph headlines "Barack at the UN: Was this Obama's most naïve speech ever?"
Was this though Obama’s most naïve speech ever? It is a very strong candidate, but I think there is intense competition for that accolade. The president’s speeches in Cairo, Strasbourg and Prague would all vie for that title. Still, his address today will go down in history as one of the weakest major addresses by a US president on foreign policy in a generation, by a leader who seems embarrassed, even ashamed, by the power and greatness of his own country.
This was an exceedingly dull, poor speech that overwhelmingly failed to advance US interests on the world stage, or project American values and principles onto the rest of the globe. As Barack Obama will eventually discover, soft power will only get you so far when you have to confront and defeat brutal enemies that seek America’s destruction.
Read the speech for yourself, Barack Obama once again, embarrasses America.
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