The Des Moines Register published a letter which questioned the plans of the incoming Obama Administration.
Not surprisingly, the writer questions how President-Elect Barack Obama will implement his many populist programs during a time when the country is basically broke. This would be a very legitimate question if one refused to look at why the country is broke or even if one refused to ask the question, "Is the country really broke?"
Granted, CEOs of large, multinational corporations are starting to crawl out of the woodwork in order to go to Washington and beg Congress for money. Is this alone enough to prove that the country is broke? Not really.
Thus far, the country has spent over $574 billion in Iraq. We shouldn't worry, however. This cost has been very “realistic” in light of the recent crisis. The money for this folly hasn't added a thing to the present deficit. The Regime's merely borrowed the money to conduct this illegal engagement. This is one way to see to it that all of the programs a president wants to implement are “realistic”. Stay tuned, however. In a generation or two, the cost of The Iraq War may become unrealistic.
It could be possible that the writer may not have written his letter if Obama had just promised to continue to borrow money from such friendly nations as China in order to implement his populist programs. It doesn’t seem to bother him that there was “simply no money for” The Iraq War.
The writer reminds us that the Russians “are already testing” Obama. Even Obama’s supporters would find it strange, however, if he considered Russia’s response to Georgia’s incursion into South Ossetia a test. This is, of course, unless Russia is testing Obama’s ability to ferret out the truth about foreign affairs.
The writer is also worried that the President-Elect’s “inexperience in foreign affairs could hurt us very badly, no matter how qualified his advisers are”.
Who wouldn’t agree with the writer in light of the fact that he uses the adverb “could”? An army of Albert Einstein clones could invade Salem, Oregon this Friday. It’s not probable, but it could happen.
The writer was using a scare tactic in what has been and what’s going to be a long line of scare tactics used to discredit Obama. Of course, if the writer would use the lack of foreign policy experience that George W. Bush had before taking office as president and how his advisors helped create the $574 billion debt mentioned above as an example of how his projection could become reality, it would make his point seem more legitimate.
In listening to Barack Obama reason his visions through and comparing that to how The Front Man tried to sell war by talking about mushrooms and clouds, most Americans should feel comfortable that Obama will listen very closely to his very experienced advisors and, although the final decision will be his, he’ll take the advice very seriously. This is also a projection, but Obama appears to most to be a person who would engage Congress before making any major foreign policy moves.
The writer sardonically asks if Obama’s “charm will actually persuade the Europeans to pull their weight in Afghanistan”.
It may, indeed, be his “charm” or it may be his focused approach to almost all he says and does, but many foreign leaders have expressed the hope that an Obama Administration would renew the relationships based upon mutual trust and cooperation that The US once had with their respective nations.
It must not be forgotten that, immediately following the 9/11 catastrophe, leaders of almost all foreign nations were willing follow The US into hell, if necessary, to bring the perpetrators of the catastrophe to justice. What they weren’t willing to do was to stand beside The US while it invaded an innocent sovereign nation.
It’s not Obama’s “charm” that will procure the support of Europeans to once again stand by The US. It’s the truth that will do so and the fact that, if he needs allies, Obama will tell the truth to gain them.
As an aside, when I speak of the “truth” in the above paragraph, I speak of the “truth” as it would be either understood or portrayed by any Democrat or Republican who won the presidency. I, as many others, think that there is more to be done to bring closure about the “truth”. Realistically, no corporate party presidential candidate would put himself or herself in that position. But I digress.
Finally, the letter writer states that Obama’s economic challenge will be to rein in Pelosi and Reid. The present economic crisis slowly took shape over the past eight years and was the result of a government that didn’t want to govern. It’s the result of the Conservative world view that government doesn’t need to regulate big business because big business will regulate itself.
The problem with that theory is, although big business may eventually regulate itself, it will only do so once it’s convinced that it’s made all of the profit it can possibly make. This means that it will be a very long time before big business begins to regulate itself.