Apparently,
Barack Obama never read his
predecessors' Inaugural Addresses. There have been many good ones, to be
sure, even great ones, but none is better than the address delivered on a cold,
snowy day on January 20, 1961.
Within this speech, President Kennedy
pieced together some of the finest oratory ever spoken by any President, in any
speech. But an Inaugural Address is the sword, the hammer, the guidepost by
which a President's administration is measured. After all, it is his challenge
he gives to himself by which we can judge his success and his failure.
Kennedy's
address is remembered by one paragraph; after all, any second or third grader
can recite it:
"And
so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what
you can do for your country."
Others will also know the next paragraph as well: |
|
"My
fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what
together we can do for the freedom of man."
These are good words, inspiring thoughts by which we measured his presidency. But I believe a line spoken a bit earlier in the speech, the third paragraph actually, is one which challenged us with a sense of "Moral Equivalence" forevermore as a nation. I also believe it challenged Presidents who came after him to never forget what our "prime directive" with our foreign policy is to be, first and foremost: |
"Let every nation know,
whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any
burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to
assure the survival and the success of liberty."
Of all the Presidents who came after him, certainly Ronald Reagan measured up to this phrase. Some may say the two Presidents Bush came close. With his response in the old Yugoslavia to the ongoing genocide, Bill Clinton tried to live up to Kennedy's challenge. But Barack Obama? No freaking way!  This man "leads from behind", caring more about his alleged legacy than standing up to the challenge which faces him in the "here and now". Forget that he has practically destroyed the American economy with his "Monopoly money economic stimulus" failure. Look, instead, at his foreign policy, where in each case, he has failed miserably. Libya Ukraine Syria Iraq Egypt Afghanistan He has single-handedly destroyed the coalitions George Bush put together to fight the war on terror. He has minimized NATO's power in dealing with the Russians over the Ukraine disaster. He had managed to give Russia, ie, Putin, the confidence to rebuild the Soviet Union in a 21st Century image. He has helped rebuild al-Qaeda to be stronger, more fearsome now and harder to pinpoint than at any time while bin Laden was still alive. Now, he has given moral equivalence to FIVE GITMO prisoners in exchange for ONE American POW. I know that for his family, they want their son back. I am glad he is coming home. But, these evil men will go back to Afghanistan, strengthened by the fact that they "beat" the US by their release. The message to the world is now "take Americans, Obama will trade GITMO prisoners 5 to 1." What happens when there is no more prisoners to trade? JFK faced many challenges during his presidency, as all presidents do. But, he was willing to "bear any burden" and "oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Is Obama? Apparently, instead, he has taken the lesson of Neville Chamberlain, who in 1938, held a piece of garbage in his hand and claimed "peace in our time" with his appeasement of Hitler. For this alone, he is the consummate failure of what an American President should be. Even during the Iran Hostage Crisis, Jimmy Carter attempted to rescue those Americans, and because of a helicopter crash, the mission failed. This guy has no understanding of what a President must be. Because of him, the American Century is just about over, and the American Presidency is done. JFK is rolling in his grave. |
No comments:
Post a Comment