Hostages? I Want Pizza!

While Americans are being held captive at sea President Obama decided to hold a pizza party at the White House,
And Dear Leader doesn't eat just any pizza. He's gotta have his pizza from St. Louis.
So much for the hostages. They can wait. So, Obama flew in his own personal pizza guy from the Gateway City just so he could have his pizza.
Meanwhile, America continues to signal to the world that we are all too happy to capitulate.

Here's more from Abe Greenwald at Commentary:

Four Americans are now being held captive by foreign governments or non-state actors: two journalists in North Korea, one journalist in Iran, and one ship captain off the coast of Somalia.
Has anyone heard from the president about these incidents?
In regard to North Korea and Iran, Barack Obama is too dug-in to a capitulationist stance to make a peep. While free and safe journalists praise Obama for “listening” to autocrats and fanatics, their less fortunate colleagues have been listening in vain for a word from the American president. Tragic as that is, it does at least free up Obama to speak forcefully about the Somali pirates now holding the brave and selfless Capt. Richard Phillips. After all, we can’t possibly have an interest in engaging these stateless thugs. So what message has Obama sent?

“So far President Barack Obama’s role in the U.S. response to an American sea captain’s kidnapping by Somali pirates has been careful - and quiet,” writes the Associated Press’ Liz Sidoti. “The new commander in chief has been kept abreast of negotiations over the captain’s release, but advisers say Obama has delegated the heavy lifting to high-level administration officials and his military commanders. The president himself has yet to speak publicly about the incident near the Horn of Africa. He brushed off a reporter’s question Thursday. Instead he has let his top surrogates do the talking, although their comments have been brief, perhaps mindful that their words could influence the sensitive negotiations with the hostage-taking pirates.”

It is far too easy to criticize the president for failing to do or say the right thing in regard to these fragile situations. Missteps could prove fatal. But to do and say nothing about Americans being held captive in foreign lands is a scandal in itself and another global advertisement for America’s new and pervasive sense of trepidation.

Obama Dodges Pirates Issue

From the Associated Press:
President Barack Obama has declined for a second day to answer questions about the Somali piracy standoff.
Reporters asked the president about the situation at the end of a White House meeting Friday with his economic advisers. Obama did not answer.
Four Somali pirates are holding Capt. Richard Phillips. He was captured during a failed attempt by the pirates to seize a U.S.-flag cargo ship on Wednesday off the Horn of Africa.
Obama also brushed aside questions Thursday when reporters sought his reaction on the incident.

Another Day In Paradise

From Dayo Olopade at The Root:
Another busy day at the White House: First Lady Michelle Obama hosted students from Bancroft High School in Washington, who helped her plant and water the brand-new White House garden. She and Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack spoke to the students about the healthy fruits and veggies that would grow there. “It’s all brain food,” Obama said. She cheered the kids for bringing good weather and then sent them (and the press) home with cookies. The weather was so nice in fact, that, after President Obama received his economic briefing and met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Oval Office, the POTUS and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to hold their 4:15 meeting out behind the White House—next to the swing set installed for the Obama girls in March. Striding out from the West Wing, the two seemed thick as thieves—smiling, Secretary Clinton casually swung her leg over the bench on the east side of the playground, and the president grinned and waved to gawking reporters and staff as he sat down across from her. After all, it was just a year ago that Clinton could be seen crying, "Shame on you, Barack Obama." This is the first meeting of the two former rivals since Obama returned from Turkey and Iraq.

No Degree For Obama

From Andy Barr at Politico:
Arizona State University will not award President Barack Obama an honorary degree when he speaks at commencement on May 13.
The university decided against awarding Obama the degree because it is customarily awarded for “lifetime achievement,” ASU spokeswoman Sharon Keeler told Politico.
“It’s normally awarded to someone who has been in their field for some time,” she said. “Considering that the president is at the beginning of his presidency, his body of work is just beginning.”
Obama was invited by the university to be its commencement speaker and accepted the invitation in March. But a separate six-member committee that determines the awarding of honorary degrees did not nominate him to receive such a degree.
Keeler said that while one committee invites speakers, a separate committee votes on who will receive an honorary degree. Typically, the committee that awards honorary degrees acts first, followed by the committee that invites the recipient. But in Obama’s case, he was invited without the honorary degree committee selecting him.

'Apology Tour' Folly

From Ralph Peters in the New York Post:
I, for one, don't think our country has anything to apologize for, either to Turkey or to Europe. Insisting that America's always guilty, Obama omitted any mention of Turkey's wartime betrayals of our troops, its continuing oppression of its Kurd minority or the AKP's determination to turn a state with a secular constitution into a Wahhabi playground. When it came to the Armenian genocide, Obama bravely ducked: He never dared use the g-word. And Obama's disdainful remarks about President Bush were just shabby. After those overpriced tour T-shirts have shrunk in the wash (trust me -- they will), what will we have gained from Obama's superstar act? He told the Europeans that the global economic crisis is all our fault. No mention of European greed, overleveraged governments, destructive Euro-loans or Chinese currency manipulation. We did it. Whip us, please. In return, the Europeans gave him . . . nothing. Even though Obama was right when he said that Europe faces a greater terror threat than we do, the entire continent only ponied up 2,500 short-term non-combat troops for Afghanistan. The Europeans know we'll do the heavy lifting. He gave the Russians yet another blank check, too. (Meanwhile, in Moscow, Putin's thugs beat an aging pro-democracy dissident to a pulp.) In return, the Russians promised to . . . well, actually, they didn't promise anything. Then Obama went to Turkey, undercut secular political parties, infuriated the Europeans -- and disclaimed our country's Judeo-Christian heritage. (Did Turkey's leaders respond by denying Islam's importance to them? Naw.) In Turkey, Obama got . . . nothing we didn't already have. Then he went to Iraq and told its prime minister that Iraq would get nothing. I believe that our president wants to do the right thing. But he doesn't have a clue how. For now, he's enraptured by the applause. But he hasn't tried to charge his fans for their tickets. And they've already made up their minds they won't have to pay.

Notre Dame Pressure Grows

From Ken Kusmer at the Associated Press:
Ten priests from the order that founded the University of Notre Dame say the school risks its "true soul" and could distance itself from the Roman Catholic church by inviting President Barack Obama to campus next month.
The members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which helps run the university, asked the Rev. John Jenkins, the Holy Cross priest who is Notre Dame's president, and the university's board of fellows to reconsider the invitation to Obama because he supports abortion rights.
"Failure to do so will damage the integrity of the institution," said the letter published Wednesday in Notre Dame Observer.
Notre Dame announced last month that Obama would deliver the university's May 17 commencement address and receive an honorary degree. The decision by the nation's best-known Catholic university sparked widespread anger among many Catholics who said Notre Dame should not honor someone whose policies on abortion and stem cell research clash with core church teachings on human life.
Hundreds of abortion opponents protested on campus Sunday, and the priests said the invitation has opened a "fissure" between Notre Dame and many bishops. More than a dozen bishops have denounced Obama's appearance, including Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Notre Dame: 250,000+ Against!

From CNS News:
More than a quarter-million people have signed a petition sponsored by the Cardinal Newman Society calling on Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation to President Obama to speak at the May 17 commencement. As of April 7, the petition--found at notredamescandal.com--had gathered more than 250,000 signatures calling on Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins to withdraw the invitation, which includes the conferring of an honorary law degree on Obama. Nineteen Roman Catholic bishops, including Cardinal Francis George who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have also spoken out in opposition to Obama speaking at Notre Dame. “The tremendous response of faithful Catholics and Catholic leaders to the petition is an indication that Notre Dame has betrayed the values of Catholics worldwide,” Patrick Reilly, the Cardinal Newman Society’s president, told CNSNews.com. The society, which is not an official organ of the Church, says that Obama should not receive an honorary award from the university in light of his advocacy for abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and the recognition of same-sex relationships--all of which are contrary to Catholic moral teachings. Catholic leaders from all across the U.S. have taken a public stance against the Indiana university’s invitation to Obama. “Bishops across the country have publicly insisted that Notre Dame is in violation of the bishops’ policy, and therefore Fr. Jenkins has no leg to stand on,” Reilly told CNSNews.com. In 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published a document saying that Catholic institutions should not honor or provide a platform to politicians who stand in opposition to Catholic moral teachings. The document specifically cited support for legalized abortion as a position that should disqualify a public figure from being granted a platform by a Catholic institution. Bishop John D’Arcy, who presides over the Roman Catholic diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., that includes Notre Dame, was one of the first to speak out, saying he would boycott the May 17 commencement ceremony-- the first time he has not attended a Notre Dame graduation in his 25 years as the local bishops. “Even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found shocking, so must Notre Dame,” he said. “Indeed, as a Catholic university, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.” Bishop Thomas Doran of the Rockford, Ill., diocese, suggested that if Notre Dame does not retract its invitation, the university should change its name. “I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision,” Doran said. “Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the university to something like, ‘The Fighting Irish College’, or ‘Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.’” Cardinal George, who is archbishop of Chicago, questioned Notre Dame’s understanding of the Catholic faith. “Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation,” he said in a statement. Cardinal George and the bishops speaking out against Notre Dame's invitation to Obama point out that it is a violation the bishops' 2004 document “Catholics in Political Life” that says Catholic institutions must not provide a platform to public figures who “act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.” “They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms, which would suggest support of their actions,” the document states.
To sign the petition protesting Notre Dame's action click here.

Obama Gets '3 AM Call'

From Steven R. Hust at the Associated Press:
Hillary Clinton said there would be days - and nights - like this.
For the second time in four days and with less than three months in office, President Barack Obama has received the "3 a.m. phone call" that Clinton warned about.
In their bitter presidential contest, Clinton suggested that her young rival was not ready for a national security crisis.
His tests are coming early: first from the borderline rogue government in North Korea, then from stateless bandits preying on shipping lanes off the East African coast. Those calls presaged what surely will be many more middle-of-the-night wake-ups for Obama as he battles a scourge of stateless brigands and terrorists operating with near impunity across an increasingly interconnected globe. His response to the early crises are being watched for signals of how he confronts enemies who operate outside the old rule book of international relations.
Through the day Wednesday, the White House was mostly silent on the pirates, leaving the talking to military officials more closely involved in whatever operations might be planned. Obama was updated on the incident throughout the day, first in his daily security briefing and then in updates from the White House Situation Room.
The president himself made no public comment. The nearest U.S. Navy ship reportedly was at least 12 hours away when the Maersk Alabama was seized. And that spoke to the difficulty of the problem.
"The president is following the situation closely," said Denis McDonough, a top Obama security adviser, who noted the administration had "watched with alarm the increasing threat of piracy." Upon returning from his first European trip Wednesday - at about 3 a.m. - he got word that a U.S.-flagged cargo ship was in the hands of Somali pirates.
The seafaring hostage takers were holding a 20-member crew, all Americans. Historians said it was the first time in 200 years pirates had taken control of an American-flagged vessel. As Air Force One was jetting west to Washington, Obama was still digesting the outcome of his travels, which included the first of the dreaded "3 a.m. calls."
That came when he was awakened early Sunday in his quarters in Prague with news that North Korea, in defiance of the world community, had launched a missile in what was believed to be the test of a nuclear delivery vehicle.

White House: No Bow!

From Ben Smith at Politico:

The White House is denying that the president bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London, a scene that drew criticism on the right and praise from some Arab outlets. "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Washington Times called the alleged bow a "shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate" and said it violated centuries of American tradition of not deferring to royalty. The Weekly Standard, meanwhile, noted that American protocol apparently rules out bowing, or at least it reportedly did on the occasion of a Clinton "near-bow" to the emperor of Japan. Interestingly, a columnist in the Saudi-backed Arabic paper Asharq Alawsat also took the gesture as a bow and appreciated the move.
"Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, who has made one of the most important calls in the modern era, namely the call for inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue to defuse the hatred, conflict and wars," wrote the columnist, Muhammah Diyab.
The video shows Obama dipping toward the king as G-20 leaders greet one another at the ExCel Centre in London.

Let's face it: The Obama White House is in serious need of a first-rate Director of Protocal.
This Administration wouldn't know what's proper from what usually winds up in the hopper.

Defense Cuts Threaten Security

From Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt in the Wall Street Journal:
On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a significant reordering of U.S. defense programs. His recommendations should not go unchallenged.
In the 1990s, defense cuts helped pay for increased domestic spending, and that is true today.
Though Mr. Gates said that his decisions were "almost exclusively influenced by factors other than simply finding a way to balance the books," the broad list of program reductions and terminations suggest otherwise. In fact, he tacitly acknowledged as much by saying the budget plan represented "one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity" -- the "necessity" of course being the administration's decision to reorder the government's spending priorities.
However, warfare is not a human activity that directly awards virtue. Nor is it a perfectly calculable endeavor that permits a delicate "balancing" of risk. More often it rewards those who arrive on the battlefield "the fustest with the mostest," as Civil War Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest once put it. If Mr. Gates has his way, U.S. forces will find it increasingly hard to meet the Forrest standard. . . .
Mr. Gates justifies these cuts as a matter of "hard choices" and "budget discipline," saying that "[E]very defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk . . . is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in." But this calculus is true only because the Obama administration has chosen to cut defense, while increasing domestic entitlements and debt so dramatically. . . .
The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop. But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter.

Camille Paglia: Obama Falters

From Camille Paglia at Slate:

Obama will face an inescapable administrative crux. Arriving at the White House, he understandably stayed in his comfort zone by bringing old friends and allies with him -- a team that had had a fabulous success in devising the hard-as-nails strategy that toppled the Clintons, like crumbling colossi, into yesterday's news. But these comrades may not have the practical skills or broad perspective to help Obama govern. Like Shakespeare's Prince Hal ascending the throne, Obama may have to steel his heart and banish Falstaff and the whole frat-house crew.

Obama's staffing problems are blatant -- from that bleating boy of a treasury secretary to what appears to be a total vacuum where a chief of protocol should be. There has been one needless gaffe after another -- from the president's tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister, followed by the sweater-clad first lady's over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia. Why was protest about the latter indignity confined to conservatives? The silence of the major media was a disgrace. But I attribute that embarrassing incident not to Obama's sinister or naive appeasement of the Muslim world but to a simple if costly breakdown in basic command of protocol

Enough already! These slips are worsening the anti-Obama backlash, which began with the administration's bungled handling of the grotesquely swollen stimulus package. . . .

Whether the Obama presidency succeeds or fails will depend on his ability to sustain his ideals in the face of the testing crises that will inevitably erupt in far-flung regions where ethnic or religious strife has been a way of life for thousands of years. And closer to home, Obama will need to cut the umbilical to his hometown posse, whose inefficiency and poor decision-making took the shine off his honeymoon and brought the dispirited Republicans back from the dead.

Obama: Making It Clear?

President Obama has taken to prefacing certain statements by saying "Let me say this as clearly as I can," or "Let me be clear about this."
He did it again while addressing the Turkish parliament.
Why would any communicator say that? Why?
If you are speaking clearly and simply in the first place, then you don't have to say "I want to be as clear about this as I can."
In fact, when you say "Let me make this very clear," or something along those line, you are actually implying that other things you may have said (without the preface) were not clear. As if to say: "Now, I'm finally going to stop being duplicitous and I'm going to finally make myself clear, so listen up."
What does it man when you say you're now going to make yourself clear? Does it mean the rest of what you said was obtuse, fuzzy, unclear?
It sort of reminds me of the original weasel himself - Nixon (aka Slippery Dick).
Nixon used to say "Let me make one thing perfectly clear." He said it a lot.
And we all know where that got Nixon.

The Financial Genius Ponders

Hat Tip: Lucianne.com

Obama's Nuclear Fantasy

From Anne Applebaum at Slate:
Someone has to say it: Some things went well on this trip, and some things went badly. But the centerpiece of the visit, Obama's keynote foreign-policy speech in Prague—leaked in advance, billed as a major statement—was, to put it bluntly, peculiar. He used it to call for "a world without nuclear weapons" and a new series of arms-control negotiations with Russia. This was not wrong, necessarily, and not evil. But it was strange.
Clearly, the "no nukes" policy is one close to the president's heart. The Prague speech even carried echoes of that most famous of all Obama speeches, the one he made after losing the New Hampshire primary. "There are those who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt whether it is worth setting a goal that seems impossible," he told his Czech audience. (Remember "We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics"?) "When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by their differences, the gulf between them widens," he continued. ("We are not as divided as our politics suggests.") He didn't say "Yes, we can" at the end, but he did say "human destiny will be what we make of it," which amounts to the same thing.
The rhetoric was his—as was the idea. Look at his record: One of the few foreign-policy initiatives to which Obama stuck his name during his brief Senate term was an increase in funding for nuclear nonproliferation. One of the few senatorial trips he managed was a nuclear inspection tour of Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan.
This is all very nice—but as the central plank in an American president's foreign policy, a call for universal nuclear disarmament seems rather beside the point. Apparently, the president's intention is to lead by example: If the United States cuts its own nuclear arsenal and bans testing, others will allegedly follow.
Forgive me for joining the chorus of cynics, but there is no evidence that U.S. nuclear arms reductions have ever inspired others to do the same. All the world's more recent nuclear powers—Israel, India, Pakistan—acquired their weapons well after such talks began more than 40 years ago.
As for the North Koreans, they chose the very day of the Prague speech to launch (unsuccessfully) an experimental missile. In its wake, neither China nor Russia wanted to condemn the launch, since to do so might set a precedent uncomfortable for them. "Every state has the right to the peaceful use of outer space," said a Russian U.N. envoy. His government does want arms-reduction talks, it is true, but only because the Russian nuclear arsenal is rapidly deteriorating. By agreeing to start them, we've unnecessarily handed over a bargaining chip.

Polarizer In Chief

From Amy Walter at the National Journal:

Despite calls for a "post-partisan" presidency, a recen">Pew Research Centa> study found that President Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings for a new president in 40 years.The 61-point gap in opinion is driven by almost universal support from his party (Democrats give him an 88 percent approval rating) and very low approval ratings (27 percent) from Republicans.

In comparison, President Bush had a 51-point gap in April 2001 (he had higher approval ratings among Democrats than Obama has among Republicans), while President Clinton had a 45-point gap in April 1993 (his support among Democrats wasn't as strong as Obama's, though he had the same approval ratings among Republicans). . . .

When we talk about bipartisanship, we're really talking about how well a president and his party are doing among those who are not aligned with a party. How Obama and the Democrats are faring with independents will tell us more than Obama's support among Republicans about how much success his party is enjoying at the legislative and electoral level.

At first glance, Obama's job approval ratings among independents have stayed consistent over the last three months, between 67 percent and 63 percent. But those who said they "strongly" approved of the job he was doing dropped 13 points between the end of January and the end of March. Obama carried independent voters in November by 52 percent to 44 percent.

Also interesting to note is the fact that independents have started to drift away from congressional Democrats as well. From the beginning of March to the end of the month, the approval ratings of congressional Democrats among independent voters dropped 10 points, from 48 percent to 38 percent. Same goes for the generic ballot test. In our most recent poll, independents gave a slight edge to Republicans (26 percent to 23 percent) -- a 6-point drop for Democrats since early March.

At this point, independent voters are showing signs of disenchantment with the Democrats, but Republicans still need to give them a reason to support them and their policies.

Obama 'Rediscovers' Muslim Roots

From the DC Examiner:
President Barack Obama launched a major outreach initiative to Islam on Monday, urging Muslims to join America in fighting common enemies.
And signaling the strategic importance of the U.S. alliance with this majority-Muslim country, the president made a sharp retreat from a campaign promise to press Turkey on the issue of Armenian genocide.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not at war with Islam,” Obama said. “In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.”
Obama came to Turkey at the end of a European tour of summits designed to restore ties to nations frustrated with American foreign policy, especially in Iraq.
In a closely watched address to the Turkish assembly, Obama continued a line he started in Europe, admitting American fallibility in an effort to rebuild ties with nations tired of America’s arrogance.
Obama, who downplayed his own family ties to Islam during last year’s presidential campaign, found them of greater use in the Turkish capital, telling a gathering of the Grand National Assembly that “the United States has been enriched by Muslim-Americans.
“Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country,” Obama said. “I know, because I am one of them.”
Obama, a Christian whose Kenyan father was Muslim, was raised partly in majority-Muslim Indonesia.

'Apology World Tour' Flops!

From Mona Charen at TownHall.com:
There's nothing wrong with pleasant atmospherics, of course. And if Barack and Michelle Obama wowed the crowds in London and Prague, that's nice. But what you might have missed in all the hyperventilating in the media about the new incarnation of Jack and Jackie was that President Obama was rebuffed by Europe. He had asked them to pass stimulus bills like the one the Democrats passed in the U.S. Germany's Angela Merkel and the others turned that down flat. European nations have even graver problems with promised social safety net programs than we do, and they sensibly decided that further indebting themselves would aggravate rather than alleviate their troubles.
President Obama further requested that more troops be sent to Afghanistan. He wasn't subtle about it either. "Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone," he said. "This is a joint problem and it requires a joint effort." Adoring crowds notwithstanding, they refused that request as well. Oh, wait. That's not quite true. According to Fox News, "Belgium offered to send 35 military trainers and Spain offered 12."
Back to relations with the Muslim world. Lest this slander pass into conventional wisdom, it must be protested. George W. Bush was never disrespectful to the Muslim world. He was extraordinarily careful to telegraph his respect for the Muslim faith -- some thought to a fault. ("Why is it," asked one wag, "that the only people who say Islam is religion of peace are Christians?") Bush made the Feast of Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan, an annual White House celebration with prominent Muslim guests. He arguably saved more Muslim lives through the African AIDS initiative than any other world leader could claim. Mrs. Bush made improving the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan her special project. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when this was not an obvious move, he visited the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., to telegraph to the nation that anger toward American Muslims would be a misplaced response to the atrocity.
This caricature of Bush as a heedless militarist and xenophobe -- which no one is doing more to promote than the current president -- is a libel.
There is one other troubling aspect to President Obama's diplomatic debut. Being eager to ingratiate oneself with Europeans is an understandable liberal impulse. The left wing of the Democratic Party reveres European welfare states. But President Obama also bowed low (literally) before the king of Saudi Arabia. That was more than courtesy; it was abasement.

Obama's Shocking Bow!

An editorial from the Washington Times:
In a shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate, President Obama bowed to Saudi King Abdullah at the Group of 20 summit in London last week.
Mr. Obama later said in Strasbourg, France, "We have to change our behavior in showing the Muslim world greater respect." Symbolism is important in world affairs. By bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the U.S. president belittled the power and independence of the United States.
The bow was an extraordinary protocol violation. Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king's subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for U.S. presidents bowing to Saudi or any other royals. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt shook hands with Saudi King Abdulaziz in February 1945. Granted, Mr. Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound, but former President Dwight D. Eisenhower shook hands when he first met King Saud in January 1957. Mr. Obama's bow to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques does not help his image with those who believe he is secretly a Muslim, and why he chose to bow only to the Saudi King and not to any other royals remains unexplained.
No Americans of any station are required to bow to royalty. It is one of the pillars of American exceptionalism that our country rejected traditional caste divisions. Article I Section 9 of the Constitution forbids titles of nobility and stipulates that no officeholder or government employee may "accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state" without the consent of Congress. Judith Martin wrote in her Miss Manners column in 2001 that bowing "is not an ordinary bit of foreign etiquette one might adopt out of courtesy when traveling. ... Americans do not properly bow to any royalty. We show respect for other countries' leaders the same way we do to our own."
Press outlets have been conspicuously silent on Mr. Obama's bow. Compare this to the New York Times' reaction when former President Bill Clinton inclined a bit too far when meeting Japanese Emperor Akihito in 1994. According to the Gray Lady, "The image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent president, and the Emperor of Japan." Former President George W. Bush received thorough press attention after being photographed holding hands with then-Crown Prince Abdullah in 2005. "It clearly strikes a nerve," CBS News reported, while David Letterman satirized Mr. Bush as "officially the gayest president since Lincoln." These two cases were tame compared to Mr. Obama's full-out genuflection, which makes us wonder why it is not worthy of comment.
Mr. Obama is proving that one can be elected president without knowing how to behave presidentially. His servile gesture was fully fitting with the tone of his humility tour of Europe. In his eagerness to be loved personally, the president has lost sight of the fact that the leader of the free world also must be respected.

US No Longer #1

Hat Tip: Lucianne.com

Obama Picks Anti-Catholic Zealot

From CNS News:
President Barack Obama has named to the federal government’s faith-based initiative a gay-rights activist who, last month, described Pope Benedict XVI and certain Catholic bishops as “discredited leaders” because of their opposition to same-sex marriage.
Harry Knox, who is a newly appointed member of Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is the director of the religion and faith program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual activist group.
In addition to his remarks about the Pope, Knox also criticized the Catholic Knights of Columbus as being “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression” because of the Knights’ support of Proposition 8. The latter was a ballot initiative that amended California’s state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman, and passed in November 2008. . . .
The appointment of Knox advisory board makes a mockery of the faith-based program, said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League.
“This is exactly the kind of bastardization of common sense that the Obama people are putting forth,” Donohue told CNSNews.com. “Quite frankly, I would prefer to see the entire faith-based initiative closed down. They’re going to use this as political capital in the Obama administration to say, ‘We reach out to people of faith.’ The whole thing is a sham.”
“I’d rather people simply be honest and say we don’t believe in faith-based initiatives as they were initially intended by the previous administration, and what we’re going to do is thoroughly politicize them with these gay activists,” said Donohue.
Reports surfaced last week that both Knox and former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy – the latter an opponent of same-sex marriage -- were asked to join the president’s council.
However, in the release Monday afternoon, Dungy’s name was not included.
The council now has 24 out of 25 members appointed.
“Because of the screamers in the gay community that said we can’t have a man like Tony Dungy, they’ve decided to reach out and get someone like Harry Knox,” Donohue told CNSNews.com. “Whether Dungy dropped out himself or they dropped him, there was a dust up. That much we know. And this is the way the Obama people work.”
Conservatives have already expressed concern that Obama’s faith-based advisory council is heavy with liberal activists, such as the Rev. Jim Wallis, the Rev. Otis Moss Jr. and Rabbi David N. Saperstein, among other left-leaning clergy on the council who have advocated for more social spending, less restrictive immigration policies and more environmental regulations. Some council members have been avid supporters of abortion rights, gay marriage, and keeping a strict separation of church and state.
“It is expanded to go beyond faith-based organizations, which is a complete 180 of its original intent,” Tom McClusky, vice president of Family Research Council’s FRC-Alert, told CNSNews.com. “The numbers on the council are – as expected – much more heavily leaning liberals who are not as concerned about the right to practice one’s own faith when accepting federal dollars.”