Obama the Neoconservative?
When Obama said that “we must put away childish things” he was not just talking about our domestic over indulgence. Obama told radical Islamists that those “who blame their society’s ills on the West-know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” This is a message that the leaders of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas will not be happy to hear.
And Obama went on to say:
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles…we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort….We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
These are indeed strong words.
So again, TNR editor Marty Peretz is right. Obama is at once taking away many of the talking points of the Republican opposition, while at the same time “upsetting many of Obama’s liberal enthusiasts.” And Schoenfeld too makes the point that if Obama succeeds in gaining conservative allies, he could fracture their movement, co-opt some of their best minds, and “help turn the Republicans back into the stupid party for years to come.” But we must await Obama’s actions. For now they are just words.
For now, I wish our new President well in his effort to unite our nation. I hope he intends to move in the direction his words suggest that he will.
Barack Obama is an intellectually shallow man. He is now the very busy president of the United States. When will Obama find the time to catch up on his reading? At this point in time, he is an economic illiterate—just like John McCain. I am very concerned about the damage he could cause to the nation’s economy. Is he sufficiently prepared to be the elected leader of this country? Oh well, we will find out soon enough.
I hope you’re right, Ron, but I fear you are wrong. It’s reminiscent of the Clinton years, but at least then, they had a token presence in Penn Kemble; at USIA. Everybody he has put in power are the ‘realists’ who would pave over Israel for a drop of Saudi oil. Followers of the Walt/Mearsheimer school of Arab greavance appeasement like Samantha Powers and Robert Malley. Martin Peretz has lost his grip on reality I’m afraid.
“cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent”
Didn’t Nacy Pelosi and company just re-write the rule of Congress to acheive exactly that?
Judis doesn’t think that AQ is a “far-reaching network of violence and hatred” What are they the Boy Scouts?
If Obama is serious he will need to watch his back, his own party will be after his head.
We should never overlook one important fact: Barack Obama is president of the United States mostly because so many guilt tripped white liberals wanted to prove that “I’m not a racist!” He is definitely a product of reverse racism. A white man would have never been elected with such a thin resume. It is indeed very fair to describe Obama as the affirmative action beneficiary. But that’s water over the bridge. Obama is now going to reside in the White House for minimally the next four years. Can he get his act together? How is he going to get the time to do the reading he should have done ages ago?
David 1 & 4: curious, what reading should O be catching up on?
“David 1 & 4: curious, what reading should O be catching up on?”
I might as well suck up to Ron Radosh and encourage Barack Obama to visit this very blog to learn more about the Islamic nihilist threat to the Western World. This alone, in a relatively short time, should help the new president realize that our existential foes are not interested in Negotiations 101 tactics to achieve a win-win agreement satisfactory to all parties concerned. No, they wish to humiliate and defeat us. Compromise is not possible. This is indeed a fight to the death.
President Obama also foolishly adheres to the “FDR saved American capitalism” myth. Sadly, the majority of Americans also embrace this gross interpretation of history. I encourage the new White House occupant, for a start, to read these books:
1.) The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes
2.) FDR’s Follies, by Jim Powell
3.) New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, by Burton Folsom, Jr.
4.) Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch
This article is total garbage!!!
Too much hope to believe in this article, Ron. I think Obama is one of the usual collectivist suspects. He will show his ass when he comes down from the mountain top?
David (6) Quite a list there. I’ve perused the synopses of a few of these @ Amazon. They all seem to be saying much the same thing, so I’d like to think someone in O’s administration (inner circle) has heard or read the arguments. I’m just hoping that whatever decisions are made, they play out to the good of all. We’ll see.
From the author – “He has emphasized the need to win in Afghanistan…”
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No he hasn’t. From Obama’s inaugural address: “We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.”
A big difference and a needed one.
This article is most insulting considering the vile path the neocons sent us down the last eight years under Bush.
“They all seem to be saying much the same thing, so I’d like to think someone in O’s administration (inner circle) has heard or read the arguments.”
This is the question that you must unavoidably ask: what’s in it for them? I have cynically learned that compelling logical arguments may not carry the day if the listener does not perceive that they will somehow increase their power and fatten their pocketbook. The myth that FDR saved capitalism opened the door to the “elites’ desiring more authority over others and it also provided them with lucrative careers. The very day that the consensus viewpoint agrees that Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. did not know what he was talking about concerning the depression era and the New Deal—will result in the elimination of the economic doctrines underpinning the Democratic Party and “moderate” Republicanism. They have a lot to lose!
Neo-conservative? On which planet?
As long as BHO continues to be as deaf as a post, and as blind as a bat
to those who stick up for the scientific method when it comes to climate change, (for their efforts, they are slagged with the label of
climate change denier by those who continue to copiously imbibe from the koolaid of kyoto) – avoidance of the truth is not an acceptable display of neo-conservatism.
Mr. Radosh:
“For now, I wish our new President well in his effort to unite our nation. I hope he intends to move in the direction his words suggest that he will.”
In that case, you might have to support a war against the Sudan.
It is supporting a genocide by Islamic militias against Christians and Animists in the Darfur region.
It is a friendly base for al-Qaeda
It allows the practice of chattel slavery to exist within it’s borders.
Could any war be MORE uniting than this?
Neo-President; Neo-Terrorist; Neo-Democrat; Neo-whore.
So; What’s new?
Bilgeman:
You go ahead Rambo. I will never support the Democrats in any war. They deserve every knife in the back for thier performance against the Reps.
David,
don’t you think that laissez-faire and financial deregulation have really taken a beating intellectually as a result of the current meltdown? You can’t blame everything on Barney Frank!
Even Greenspan, who knows the works of Ayn Rand by heart, acknowledges that he was wrong in thinking that the financial markets did not need oversight: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html
Regarding Radosh’s article, he’s correct in the sense that the neocons and the liberal internationalists that rule the Democratic foreign policy establishment agree on the same ends, abstract universal ideas like “democracy” and “freedom” and “globalization” which are thought to be more important than cultural, religious and ethnic ties that traditionally brought people together. Also, an committment toward the continued deindustrialization and secularization of America. The quintessential example of someone who could be very comfortable in both the “neocon” and the “liberal Democrat” camp would be David Brooks.
If Obama des indeed wish to “rescue the black family”, perhaps he should rethink funding abortions overseas and his promise to pass the FOCA, which will kill even more black babies.
Cybergeezer – Neo-wingnut
“turn the Republicans into the stupid party” They already are the stupid party as McCain-Palin proved so brilliantly last fall. The Pubs would do well to get rid of the neo-cons like Radosh. They are America second people(we know who is first). They are as loyal to America as the man Radosh wrote about Julius Rosenberg.
“don’t you think that laissez-faire and financial deregulation have really taken a beating intellectually as a result of the current meltdown? You can’t blame everything on Barney Frank!”
But I do blame Barney Frank and the Clinton administration for most of the mess. The forcing of lending institutions to provide mortgages to minorities with poor credit histories open the flood gates. Soon afterwards, many white people demanded roughly the same deal. There was no turning back.
Alan Greenspan is also married to ultra left-winger Andrea Mitchell. Please note that he hesitates to be precise about the regulation needed to keep matters under control. I am personally not against regulation per se. We instead need to be wary of overkill regulation.
Good article. Maybe we are going to see a new version of triangulation and that’s why so many Clinton people are in the new administration.
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Who is John Galt?
Mr. Radosh:
You raise interesting points. Its amazing how inflamed some are on this forum. As it turns out I live in America and hope Obama does very well even though I didn’t vote for him.
I agree with you that many of his statements are conservative. And I think another point of your article is the question mark at the end of the title. We will see soon enough if it is just hollow rhetoric or does he put things into action.
But Obama isn’t wrong in these statements; people have not taken responsibility for all their actions. I was impressed years ago when Cosby had the stones to criticize the black community. It paved the way for Obama.
Time will tell.
Good job RAP – you can go back to rereading The Protocols now.
As long as too much freight is placed upon ideology, and not enough freight is placed on the other ways to get us to the future (the schools of history), we will continue to see cultural poverty by those who claim BHO is a
neo-con.
Then again, I am not an American, so I use a different prism to view life.
Obama a neo-con? Sure, and Bush was America’s Churchill,Brittany Spears a paragon of motherhood,and Robert Reich a Navy Seal. Conservatives need to stop taing drugs and begin to take action to oppose this Hugo chavez wanabee!
Maybe he’s a closet Limbaugh listener
He doesn’t want anyone else to listen so he’s not exposed
Bud
#16 Shawn:
“You go ahead Rambo. I will never support the Democrats in any war. They deserve every knife in the back for thier performance against the Reps.”
Turn around, ace, and look at the mural that resulted from my post going right over your head.
Obama may want to prove his chops as a “strong military” type of President. (Personally, I don’t buy it…but he might think it a necessity to being re-elected).
As I look around, I see that Sudan would offer some very advantageous political reasons for making war upon them.
Basically, these can boiled down to 3 questions:
1) Do you approve of Islamic terrorism?
2) Do you approve of state-sponsored genocide?
3) Do you approve of chattel slavery?
All three, as I pointed out, are present TODAY in the Sudan.
Even the Euro-weenies might get onboard for that mess…they’ve dithered about it, along with everyone else, for long enough.
And when we win, Obama will have been the Emancipator of the Sudanese slaves.
We already know this guy models himself on FDR, and here’s a chance for him to stand in Lincoln’s company…legacy-speaking.
If the O-bots keep kissing his behind as fervently as they have, I can see him being seduced and start thinking those kinds of Big Thoughts.
Obama a neocon? I don’t think so. He’s the neo-fascists worst nightmare.
Fuck John Galt.
My only major gripe is that he didnt seem to notice the line about corruption and the silencing of dissent… was directed (most likely) more toward Mugabe and other one-party state tyrants in Africa and Central Asia, perhaps Latin America. And if we need to liberate someone, it’s the long suffering North Koreans or the Burmese. Let the Russians and the Chinese deal with Sudan, oh wait, they already are.
I think you all need to drop the ideology when looking at Obamanomics. First, I suspect he is of the Chicago school variety, tempered a bit by his stays on the left (oops I mean east) coast. Pragmatism doesnt invoke ideology (likely why its often juxtaposed with a lack of principles in most people’s minds), it takes baby steps rather than big leaps (though a few big leaps might not hurt…eg. energy infrastructure, entitlements, etc.) and it is always cognizant of context in all its vagaries. It’s uncomfortable for these reasons, but I think most of the American people could stand a softer step in our very heavy shoes.
Thanks for allowing my post and i hope the new administration defies your expectations.
Chris
RAP #20 “they are America second people”
You hit the nail on the head!
I couldn’t agree with you more!
Took the words right out of my mouth!
RAP…you’re a f*cking genius!
In the very near future, BHO will be redefining the “con” in neo-con. Con man or convict: take your pick! If he strays too far he’ll piss off the extreme left. When the MSM turns on Him, it’ll be ugly. Between Mrs. Obama’s bogus hospital “job” in Chicago, Rezko Realty, million dollar records cover-up (birth, college, passport,etc.) something is certain to jump up and take a huge chunk out of His ass.
It truely is amazing how people’s mind can change when they get the full brunt of the from the Intelligence community, and the Joints chiefs. you’d have to be a fool not to recognize the daily threats to America.
Obama is the USA’s Tony Blair. He is assiduously raiding the conservatives’ wardrobe. Conservative ideas will only be the sugar on the Clintonite pill he is aiming to peddle.
That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody’s son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — or at least, most of the time.