Reality versus academia, Cheney takes on hope with no change

Former Vice President Dick Cheney took a hard-line stance against the Obama administration for its unwillingness to face problems for what they are.

In a speech to Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C, Mr. Cheney lambasted the Obama administration for its public waffling on Afghanistan, “[sending] signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries…The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.”

Mr. Cheney also stated the President isn’t keeping the promise he made regarding in Afghanistan last March, “President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission”

So why is the former Vice President now being so critical of the Obama Administration? One would guess it was prompted by Rahm Emanuel when he stated on national television that, “…the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.”

But Cheney’s criticism of the Obama administration, while warranted, doesn’t address the deeper issue – and that is, Barack Obama is and always has approached issues from an academic standpoint. While Mr. Cheney has 40 years of public service as a congressman, Assistant to the President, a White House Chief of Staff, US House Minority Whip, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President, Mr. Obama has been a community organizer, a college professor, a state senator, and a US Senator (the former two lasted much longer than the latter or about 30 years less than Mr. Cheney.)

Candidate Obama and President Obama don’t seem to have much divergence, though reality is knocking, Mr. Obama prefers not to answer. In October 2007, Candidate Obama gave a speech to the Caucus for Priorities in which he stated, “As president, I will end misguided defense policies…” and continued, “I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems, and I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending…I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material, and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.”

Lofty promises indeed, but pre-2008 Candidate Obama and President Obama certainly don’t seem to differ; the only fly in the ointment of this agenda is a nuclear Iran and North Korea, a power-grabbing Russia, and those stubborn Islamic-fascists that populate Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, oh and FOX News.

Karl Rove and Dick Morris have both concluded the White House’s current course of action to war against a cable news network to be a political strategy to distract the American public from the administration’s failings, both foreign and domestic, but it might well be Mr. Cheney is right, that President Obama believes his words coupled with feel-good intentions and a cult of personality will cause the world to change; it isn’t – but here’s to hoping it will.

-- The Editors, Killswitch Politick

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With Friends Like These (or, Sympathy for the Messiah)

Amongst the fan-fare and media/electorate honeymoon, once aspiring state senator, and electoral promotion via opponent disqualification to US Senator, the 44^th President became the last man standing in last years national election.

Following what Dick Morris cites as a LBJ inspiration, keeping political enemies closer so they’d be standing inside “pissing outside the tent” rather than in; President Obama trapped the Clintons: the former First Lady as a powerless Secretary of State and pigeon-holed the 42^nd President as a special envoy to Haiti. Former also-twice-ran presidential candidate, Joe Biden became a running mate and has since moved into the Naval Observatory residence.

But in lassoing in his former rivals to hedge his bets, Mr. Obama has to constantly egg-shell walk day by day: he has a Vice President whose gaffes explode without warning, a Secretary of State that’s itching to plunge the knife into his back at the first opportunity, a Press Secretary that bungles his way through one press conference after another, going so far to tell the press core to contact the White House for an explanation of the now infamous Air Force One/NYC photo-op.

And it doesn’t end there.

His Treasury Secretary, like many of his other appointments, has a inexplicable tax problem and runs a field with overreaches on talking head programs, a House Speaker who can’t seem to keep from impeaching her own credibility, a Senate Majority Leader whose re-election prospects are waning fast, a rabid hard-left fringe base that is turning ever more angry and a European fan club that cheered him into office that won’t lend a hand other than to shake and send him on their merry way.

Aside from the personalities, there’s no end of real crisis:

The imploding American auto industry, a seemingly bottomless housing free fall, two wars, a credit calamity, uneasy suits on Wall Street, an insolvent west coast state, ever expanding unemployment and debt larger than any one can possibly count.

Not to mention, a maniacal Persian dictator just itching to start a war with our only true ally in the Middle East and a crazed half-pint NorK who likes to launch missiles as a backdrop to end-of-nuclear proliferation speeches.