State of the Union Address on Foreign Policy: Careful Phrasing Conceals Disasters
As for the Taliban, again there is a cute formulation: its “momentum has been broken.” In other words, the Taliban has survived, it is still launching attacks, and it might even take over large parts of Afghanistan after American troops leave. Momentum has been broken is just a fancy way of saying that its gaining power has been slowed down. Of course, after American troops leave, that momentum will probably speed up again.
In his second mention of foreign affairs, Obama spoke of economic issues:
My message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away.
Obama’s policies don’t — in the strict sense of the term — reward businesses for shipping jobs overseas; they merely punish businesses for remaining in America. Taxing executives more while adding to the regulatory and cost burden will make things worse.
He continues:
We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.
And soon there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago.
This sounds good, but it’s a fantasy. To speak of doubling U.S. exports is insane except for one point. If Obama’s policies lead to massive inflation and the decline of the dollar, foreign customers will want to unload their dollars and take advantage of relatively falling American prices. This will not, however, benefit the American people much.
A simply excellent commentary on O’s State of the Union address. Frankly, I rarely listen to any of these as they are full of silly platitudes, meaningless phrases & 99% brown sugar. However, O has reached the pinnacle of lies in his address. Certainly, NO one could have done it better than O-even Bill Clinton. And, quite frankly, everyone knows what an excellent liar he is.
Our Dear Leader just yaps away like an annoying, arrogant & proud poodle at the world while our country races down the path to the garbage heap of nations. Sadly, our 0nce great land will never recover from the Obama regime.
How can so many not see that the Emperor (meant in every sense of the word) has no clothes & is a complete phoney & failure? It is truly beyond me…
“If American cars are on those foreign streets, it will be because they were manufactured in China. (I wonder if Obama’s choice of South Korea rather than China as the Asian country in his list was deliberately made to conceal that fact.)”
Weren’t South Korea, Panama and Colombia the three free trade agreements Democrats had blocked under Bush but finally ratified under Obama? That’s where I assumed his speech was pointing to. With one of their own in the White House, Dems are free traders. (As with NAFTA and GATT under Clinton. Would a Democratic Congress have passed either of these agreements with Bush 41 in the WH?)
This guy Obam is ridiculing the political awareness of Americans and at most the global community. I’ve got a disturbing hunch, he himself is not aware of the facts, nor had he not gone across the speech before delivery, his writers pure charlatans fishing accolades for their Big Patron the president, than serving the people with facts and truths.
This person, is a real inspired one by the ‘abomination of desolation’. He is a typical or exact replica of it.
I disagree with Mr Rubin: the State of the Union speech by Pres Obama was cogent, eloquent and poignant. It is a privilege to be alive in the Obama era, year in which America at last shed its legacy of racism. From his pioneering approach to Islamophobia to advocacy for social justice, Pres Obama will effect fundamental change in the United States and throughout the world. Let us open the borders and set the minimum wage to $100,000 per year as an innovative program to eliminate poverty in this hemisphere. Watch and wait as unilateral cuts in the American nuclear arsenal inspires the world — and in particular Iran and North Korea — to eliminate their own nuclear weapons programs. The Nobel-recognized moral example of Pres Obama will surely bring peace in our time.
Let me guess moshe, you are also in favor of getting rid of marijuana laws.
after re-reading you comment, I realized it was sarcasm.
“… & 99% brown sugar.” Ah – ha! I knew you were racist! (Sorry…couldn’t help myself.)
With the situation in the middle east becoming more unstable by the day and several large African nations perpetually on the brink of a Muslim / Christian civil conflict I can’t see even Obama’s delusional world view maintaining his run of imaginary foreign policy successes
This is an interesting and still-timely commentary, but it seems to apply to the 2012 SOTU, not the one delivered by Obama this week.
Notice a very strange and ungrammatical formulation: “Most of al-Qaieda’s top lieutenants have been defeated.”
This is neither ungrammatical nor strange. And, with respect, it’s not too difficult to find “ungrammatical formulations” in any of Dr. Rubin’s posts. An annoying recurring example is the improper use of “would” in conditional protases expressing past-tense counterfactuals.