Truth Hertz Donut
Today’s bitter breakfast compliments of Nile Gardiner, UK Telegraph, The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak:
Barack Obama’s Gallup approval rating of 52 percent may well be lower at this stage of his presidency than any US leader in recent times with the exception of Bill Clinton. But he is still worshipped with messiah-like adoration at the United Nations, and is considerably more popular with many of the 192 members of the UN than he is with the American people.
The latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey of international confidence in Obama’s leadership on foreign affairs shows strikingly high approval levels for the president in many parts of the world – 94 percent in Kenya, 93 percent in Germany, 88 percent in Canada and Nigeria, 77 percent in India, 76 percent in Brazil, 71 percent in Indonesia, and 62 percent in China for example. The Pew survey of 21 countries reveals an average level of 71 percent support for President Obama, compared to just 17 percent for George W. Bush in 2008.
As the figures indicate, Barack Obama is highly likely to receive a warm reception when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly today, whereas his predecessor in the White House was greeted with undisguised contempt and stony silence.
It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism.
Ouchie ouchie. No one fries up breakfast like the Brits. Damn, I love the Telegraph. That little corner of Fleet Street that will be forever England. Not convinced about that last “seething with anti-Americanism” line, though. I think the world actually loves America. That’s why the world is all trying to get here. The world just has a bit of an adolescent attitude toward America’s dad-like role in the world. The world is resentful toward the country that pays the bills and expects everyone living under its security roof to follow some basic rules and also take the trash out and mow the lawn once in a while. I’d say it’s more the United Nations General Assembly that is seething with anti-Americanism. Get back on topic, Nile! OK, here we go:
It is natural that much of the UN will embrace an American president who declines to offer strong American leadership. A president who engages dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez will naturally gain respect from the leaders of the more than 100 members of the United Nations who are currently designated as “partly free” or “not free” by respected watchdog Freedom House.
The UN is not a club of democracies – who still remain a minority within its membership – it is a vast melting pot of free societies, socialist regimes and outright tyrannies. Obama’s clear lack of interest in human rights issues is a big seller at the UN, where at least half its members have poor human rights records.
The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt.
Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership. This is a dangerous strategy of decline that will weaken US power and make her far more vulnerable to attack.
Gardiner, who is director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, goes on to bash Obama for throwing Eastern Europe under the Russky bus, and to note that he “overseeing and implementing the biggest decline in American global power since Jimmy Carter,” from which it may take another generation to recover.
And that truth hertz, a lot, donut.
Legal Insurrection listened to the speech, so we don’t have to, and reports:
The United States as the shining city on the hill is dead. The entire thrust of the speech was that we have acted alone, and caused many if not most of the world’s problems.
More at the link. Not only have we caused most of the world’s problem, turns out only now are we ready for the world to teach us simple morality.
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Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:10 am Comments (4) on Wednesday, September 23, 2009
4 Responses to “Truth Hertz Donut”
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September 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
2012, baby.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I don’t think that comparing Obama’s supposed poll numbers today with Bush’s in 2008 really make a lot of sense. BTW, I am not sure he is all that popular anywhere. I just think that to a lot of the world, he is a pushover and they like that.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Thanks, Jules! I agree that the world likes the US.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Consider the possibility that The Obama is contending for the “Most Likely to Be Most Popular Stooge in the World” title, instead of for American approval ratings.