The Good Ship Obama

 

 

March 21, 2009

 

As if his scattershot and wholly ineffective handling of the economy wasn’t bad enough, the Messiah is being dealt some cold reality in international relations as well these days.

In a video directed to Iranian leaders, distributed to Iranian news outlets, and posted on the White House website, President Chamberlain….err…President Obama declared, “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us.” On the Good Ship Obama, everything can be settled with chummy talk and a game of hoops.

 

But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded with a hearty middle-finger salute during a speech in Mashhad while the crowd chanted, “Death to America.” It turns out Obama’s Muslim brethren aren’t so reasonable and misunderstood after all.

 

“He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed,” Khameini said as he called for the United States to give up “unconditional support” for Israel and quit making claims that Iran is developing nuclear arms.

 

This presidential brush-off comes on the heels of Obama’s announcement that the U.S. hasn’t done a good job deciding who should be released from Guantanamo, the base our celebrity president vowed to close within one year with the explanation that it has been an “advertisement for anti-American sentiment.” Obama admitted that some of the prisoners released from the holding center have rejoined terrorist groups. With Russian President Vladimir Putin rattling his sabers as well, Obama is going to have a lot on his plate, and now we’ll see if he can handle things any better than his predecessor whom everyone so reviled.

 

George Bush was a detestable, crooked, and absolutely horrible president, but I always had to laugh at the presumption that his being president is why the world hated us. The world hates us because they can’t be us, and Obama and his pie-in-the-sky followers have still to learn that no amount of sweet talk is going to change that.

 

“Speak softly and carry a big stick,” Theodore Roosevelt once said. Let’s hope that message gets through to the Messiah and his Kumbaya-singing acolytes.