As the events of Christmas day last year make acutely clear, our national security apparatus is vaster, more complicated, and more poorly coordinated than ever before.  It also has a confused mission, since it’s circumscribed by mixed messages regarding the enemies America faces.  Are they radical jihadists bent upon the destruction of the U.S., or are they, as President Obama euphemistically called the Detroit bomber, an “isolated extremist”?

How we frame this crucial issue has profound downstream effects.  If those such as al-Qaeda, whose sworn goal is the destruction of America, are deemed criminals, they can invoke our criminal justice system, which has very strict rules of evidence, judicial process, and legal safeguards.  If they’re deemed enemy combatants they can be held indefinitely or until hostilities cease, and be more rigorously interrogated.. 

Although you wouldn’t know it reading our mainstream media, that decision is not up to our courts, but rather our president and Congress, who have plenary responsibility for the defense of our nation.  Our Founding Fathers purposely designed the separation of powers to ensure that matters of national security were the charge of those accountable to the people, not unelected judges.

However, Mr. Obama has a supreme distrust of the legislative branch, in large part because it can’t easily be controlled.  In contrast, judges can legislate from the bench, and the past fifty years has demonstrated that when they fail to find a legal foothold in the Constitution, they’re inclined to impute meaning into the document—the post-modernist’s approach to judicial reconciliation.

Moving further from the political canvas, when Mr. Obama redacted any references to al-Qaeda’s religious zealotry and its preferred tool of war, asymmetrical warfare (i.e., terrorism) from his administration’s lexicon, it replaced it with an inventive, if wholly specious euphemism, “man-made disasters.”  This is a clear nod to political correctness and the hard-left’s propensity to be more concerned about international opinion than U.S. national security.

Woven into this sub-text is Obama’s infatuation with dictators, from Chavez to the Castro brothers, and his explicit disdain of American exceptionalism.  Recall that he said Americans’ believe in this the same way that other nations believe in their own exceptionalism.  It’s the quintessential example of the liberal paradigm whose primary feature is a studied and willful blurring of good and evil.

Underlying Obama’s misguided approach to radical Islamists is an astonishingly naïve belief in the efficacy of government bureaucracies and a collateral ignorance of complex problems, be they our enemies or our health care system.  Both, in the view of our Harvard professor president are equally susceptible to being resolved.

All of this recalls the breezy air of intellectual superiority that infected our nation in the 1930s through the early 50s.  The left was infatuated with centralized power, from command economies to autocracies, right up to and including Stalin.  The inter-bellum sense of pandemic pity for Germany led to the Locarno Treaties of 1925.  They effectively undermined the supposedly draconian terms of Versailles and carved out a right of Germany to reacquire the Rhineland, which was to remain unmilitarized. 

The sentiment during those years was that Germany wasn’t a threat, which led to its membership in the feckless League of Nations.  Another forgotten document, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, was a multilateral agreement outlawing war as “an instrument of national policy.”  That it had no enforcement mechanism was of no apparent concern to the fifteen signatory nations.  Three years later, in 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, and the rest of that decade was yet further evidence that belligerents don’t obey treaties, or the effete terms of international law.

Delving deeper in to history, by the time Alaric and his Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, the predicate for the empire’s failure had long been established.  Some historians have posited that Rome was internally weakened by a poorly managed program of regional expansion that spiraled out of control; others have argued that a combination of cultural attenuation and civic abuses created vulneratilities exploited by invading barbarians.

Regardless of which evidence one finds most compelling, decline is always preceded by the incremental decay of internal controls, whose precursor is a blurring of civic identity and a concurrent diffusion of resolve.  If, as Mr. Obama has effectively argued, American exceptionalism is a flawed construct, he will be the first president in history to deliberately champion a policy that provides the civic and legal fissures designed to facilitate our enemies’ strategic goals.

More specifically, if he wants to invoke our Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the legal framework governing our prosecution of foreign terrorists, he shouldn’t be surprised that the thresholds of “reasonable suspicion” allow the likes of the Detroit bomber to board a plane.

In March of 2009, President Obama revised the standards by which it claims authority to hold Guantanamo Bay detainees.  Besides no longer referring to them as “enemy combatants” the revision meant the U.S. would only detain those who provided “substantial support” to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.  That, in the words of Attorney General Eric Holder, is “consistent with our values” and will “make our nation stronger.”  In truth, it’s an astonishing, naïve, and ignorant approach to national security.

His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, Obama has weakened the tiered security apparatus that former President Bush labored to establish.  Releasing bona fide terrorists captured on the battlefield so they can live to fight another day—which Obama has done and pledges to continue to do—makes the follies that led to the decline of the Roman Empire look positively benign by comparison.

The most valuable political gifts are both latent and well-disguised.  For the past year, conservatives have been dyspeptic and wan as they watched a Statist president and a faithfully liberal Congress respond to our economic woes with indiscriminate spending and willful government expansion.  When will it stop, we asked?  How will it stop?

Well, in just the past few weeks, the contours of a quiet, but momentous correction have become apparent.  Their sketchy outline arose from the ashes of the Democrats losses in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, which sent shock waves through the rarefied universe of the leftist elites.  Were they aberrations or precursors?

The nationwide tea-parties, which were the subject of scorn by the liberal establishment and derision by the mainstream media, were the electoral equivalent of the “shot heard around the world,” from the Battle of Lexington and Concord, memorialized in Emerson’s poem.  Unknown at the time was the fact that it represented a much broader, if inchoate recognition that the product of the Obama monarchy, from its panoply of unelected Czars to its indifference to radical Islam, was endangering our Republic.  Now, erstwhile Obama supporters such as moderate Democrats and Independents are jumping ship.

It all began with the president’s serialized and wholly transparent discarding of one campaign promise after another.  Most recently, his Chicago-style arrogance has convinced him that crafting his health care “reform” legislation—what he himself called the most important legislation since the Great Society—in hermetic isolation, is politically defensible.

It turns out that Mr. Obama is a gift that is nearly limitless in its political munificence.  From his arch denial of American exceptionalism to his infatuation with centralized power to his abiding disdain for power projection, he has neatly captured the very essence of all that mainstream America finds most objectionable in Washington. 

The current dividend his misguided judgment is lavishing on us is the delicious potential for picking up the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts.  As of yesterday’s polling, the challenger, state legislator Scott Brown has pulled ahead of Democrat attorney general Martha Cloakley.  Just a couple weeks ago it looked as though the upcoming special election would run its prosaic course with Brown being slaughtered as the Republican’s sacrificial lamb.  Much to the chagrin of the state’s mechanized liberal establishment, voters are following Jersey and Virginia in trying to shake off the twelve month nightmare of Obama-mania.

And, if it can happen in the hyper-blue state of Massachusetts, it’s even more likely in the fading blue state of Colorado, where Democratic Governor Bill Ritter recently announced he won’t run for re-election.  As a good friend opined, “He doesn’t want to be the Corzine of the West.”

So, for the first time in many dark months, things are looking up.  However, not just for conservatives, but for moderates across the spectrum, who correctly understand that America remains a center-right nation, that our many foibles aside, our history demonstrates that we are the world’s beacon of freedom, an economic and military might to be reckoned with, Mr. Obama’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.

As the events of Christmas day last year make acutely clear, our national security apparatus is vaster, more complicated, and yet more poorly coordinated than ever before. It also has a confused mission, since it’s circumscribed by mixed messages regarding the enemies America faces. Are they radical jihadists bent upon the destruction of the U.S., or are they, as President Obama called the Detroit bomber, an “isolated extremist”?

How we frame this crucial issue has profound downstream effects. If those such as al-Qaeda, whose sworn goal is the destruction of America, are deemed criminals, they can invoke our criminal justice system, which has very strict rules of evidence, judicial process, and legal safeguards. If they’re deemed enemy combatants they can be held indefinitely or until hostilities cease. 

Although you wouldn’t know it reading our mainstream media, that decision is not up to our courts, but rather our president and Congress, who have plenary responsibility for the defense of our nation.  Our Founding Fathers purposely designed the separation of powers to ensure that matters of national security were the charge of those accountable to the people, not unelected judges.

However, Mr. Obama has a supreme distrust of the legislative branch, in large part because it can’t easily be controlled. In contrast, judges can legislate from the bench, and the past fifty years has demonstrated that when they fail to find their legal footing in the Constitution, they’re inclined to impute meaning into the document—the post-modernist’s approach to judicial reconciliation.

Moving further from the political canvas, when Mr. Obama redacted any references to al-Qaeda’s religious zealotry and its preferred tool of war, asymmetrical warfare (i.e., terrorism) from his administration’s lexicon, it replaced it with an inventive, if wholly specious euphemism, “man-made disasters.” This is a clear nod to political correctness and the hard-left’s propensity to be more concerned about international opinion than U.S. national security.

Woven into this sub-text is Obama’s infatuation with dictators, from Chavez to the Castro brothers, and his explicit disdain of American exceptionalism. Recall that he said Americans’ believe in this the same way that other nations believe in their own exceptionalism. It’s the quintessential 21^st century paradigm whose primary feature is a studied and willful blurring of good and evil.

Underlying Obama’s misguided approach to radical Islam is an astonishingly naïve belief in the efficacy of government bureaucracies and a collateral ignorance of complex problems, be they our enemies or our health care system. Both, in the view of our Harvard professor president can be resolved if we have the courage to provide sufficent tax dollars.

All of this recalls the breezy air of intellectual superiority that infected our nation in the 1930s through the early 50s. The left was infatuated with centralized power, from command economies to autocracies, right up to and including Stalin. The inter-bellum sense of pandemic pity for Germany led to the Locarno Treaties of 1925. They effectively undermined the supposedly draconian terms of Versailles and carved out a right of Germany to reacquire the Rhineland, which was to remain unmilitarized. 

The sentiment during those years was that Germany wasn’t a threat, which led to its membership in the feckless League of Nations. Another forgotten document, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, was a multilateral agreement outlawing war as “an instrument of national policy.” That it had no enforcement mechanism was of no apparent concern to the fifteen signatory nations. Three years later, in 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, and the rest of that decade was yet further evidence that belligerents don’t obey treaties, or the effete terms of international law.

These lessons are timless, but you’d never know it from Obama’s blind determination to relive them. By the time Alaric and his Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, the predicate for the empire’s failure had long been established. Some historians have posited that Rome was internally weakened by a poorly managed program of regional expansion that spiraled out of control; others have argued that a combination of cultural attenuation and civic abuses created vulneratilities exploited by invading barbarians.

Regardless of which evidence one finds most compelling, national decline is always preceded by the incremental decay of internal controls, whose precursor is a blurring of civic identity and a diffusion of resolve. If President Obama is convinced that American exceptionalism is a flawed construct, which he has effectively argued, he will be the first president in history to champion a policy that provides willfully crafted civic and legal fissures for our enemies to exploit.

More specifically, if he wants to invoke our Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the legal framework governing our prosecution of foreign terrorists, he shouldn’t be surprised that the thresholds of “reasonable suspicion” allow the likes of the Detroit bomber to board a plane.

In March of 2009, President Obama revised the standards by which it claims authority to hold Guantanamo Bay detainees. Besides no longer referring to them as “enemy combatants” the revision meant the U.S. would only detain those who provided “substantial support” to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. That, in the words of Attorney General Eric Holder, is “consistent with our values” and will “make our nation stronger.” It’s an astonishing, naïve, and ignorant approach to national security.

His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, Obama has weakened the tiered security apparatus that former President Bush labored to establish. Releasing bona fide terrorists captured on the battlefield so they can live to fight another day—which Obama has done and pledges to continue to do—makes the follies that led to the decline of the Roman Empire look positively benign by comparison.

It would be a challenge to comb through the past two thousand years and find a commander, civilian or military, who so artfully avoided the predicate to victory as did President Obama in this week’s speech on Afghanistan.  On a tactical level, we might posit General McClellan at Antietam, whose timorous approach to battle effectively squandered the opportunity for a decisive defeat of General Lee. 

Indeed, regardless of flawed or poorly executed strategies, whether it’s Alexander at Granicus, Harold at Hastings, or the eloquence of a Lincoln in acquitting American values in the Civil War, when a commander issues a casus belli, it’s with a steely resolve and inspiring confidence--Mr. Obama’s speech made up in lofty, abstract rhetoric what it lacked in both.

Rhetoric, even in the example of the gifted Mr. Obama, can’t advance an argument for a military escalation that isn’t thorough-going in its strategic justification, and the president simply failed to make his case.  Indeed, his speech recalls President Clinton’s self-serving explanation for his areal approach to Bosnia, which was a study in political calculation. 

Obama has spent a lifetime in opposition to the military, so when commentators write that this was a difficult decision, they don’t mean that his options were limited, but rather that protracting a war is painful for a devout dove.  Strategic diffidence dressed up as a comprehensive plan is disingenuous, which shifts the argument from a military venue—where Obama is out of his element—to a political one, where he’s most comfortable.

Beyond being arbitrary, indicating a withdrawal date of eighteen months in a war that’s been going on for eight years falls somewhere between strategic myopia and an insult to the soldiers and Marines carrying out orders.  Indeed, it’s a ready-made excuse for him to blame his generals when it becomes clear, as surely it will, that victory in an under-resourced war in a tribal country without a civic—much less an economic—infrastructure is well-neigh impossible.

Here are some excerpts from Mr. Obama’s speech, with my comments:

1.  “As we know, these men [those responsible for 9/11] belonged to al Qaeda - a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam…”. 

For anyone who has an even rudimentary understanding of Sharia Law, which not only allows but encourages the murder of “infidels,” the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 was not, in fact, a distortion of orthodox Islam.

2.  “We will remove our combat brigades from Iraq by the end of next summer, and all of our troops by the end of 2011.  That we are doing so is a testament to the character of our men and women in uniform.  Thanks to their courage, grit and perseverance, we have given Iraqis a chance to shape their future, and we are successfully leaving Iraq to its people.”

Beyond the inestimable courage of our military, is the issue of political courage, which former President Bush exhibited in bringing the Iraq war to a successful conclusion.  It’s a sign of Mr. Obama’s all-consuming and unreflective disdain for his predecessor that he can’t rise above pettiness by giving credit to Mr. Bush, which provides more evidence, as though more were needed, that his so-called transcendental politics is as partisan and vicious as any Chicago politician.

3. “Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.”

If we had a media in this country it would demand that the Obama Administration provide proof of this, which simply doesn’t exist.  There is no evidence of requests by field commanders that were denied by either the Pentagon or President Bush.

4.  “And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

Most intelligence estimates are that there are fewer than 200 al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan today, and that number has been dwindling over the past several years.  In contrast, Afghanistan is home to the Taliban, so although one can argue that the U.S. has a national interest—note he didn’t say “national security interest—why 30,000 troops, and why 18 months?

5.  “I opposed the war in Iraq precisely because I believe that we must exercise restraint in the use of military force, and always consider the long-term consequences of our actions.”

This is a form of intellectual entrapment.  Who would argue that we shouldn’t “always consider the long-term consequences of our actions.”  I’ll take the bait:  What would have been the long-term consequences In Iraq if Mr. Obama’s formal action in the senate to bring all troops home by March of 2008 had passed?  They range from mere civil chaos to outright civil war, either of which would have likely dashed the chances of the rudimentary kind of democracy that’s slowly evolving in Iraq.

6.  “Finally, there are those who oppose identifying a timeframe for our transition to Afghan responsibility.”

There is no credible reason that the U.S. can’t telegraph that its commitment isn’t open ended without specifying a defined timeframe.  Mr. Obama must tell us what exactly is strategically gained by defining a date?  Will the Karzai “government” suddenly increase its pace of civic and political reform?  There’s simply no evidence it will, but there is evidence of a serious strategic downside:  al-Qaeda and the Taliban now have a horizon for U.S. involvement and can merely run out the clock. 

7.  “The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Since there is “violent extremism” in every country, including America, what, exactly is he referring to?  Naively and ignorantly believing that euphemisms have a strategic utility leads Obama to provide political cover for barbarians who, in the name of a radical religion, seek the destruction of innocent Americans.

8.  “We have to invest in our homeland security, because we cannot capture or kill every violent extremist abroad.  We have to improve and better coordinate our intelligence, so that we stay one step ahead of shadowy networks.”

I’m glad to see Mr. Obama supports former President Bush’s warrantless electronic surveillance program.  If you disagree with that program or would like more information about it, please see my post at ClearCommentary.com.

9.  “We will have to take away the tools of mass destruction. That is why I have made it a central pillar of my foreign policy to secure loose nuclear materials from terrorists; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to pursue the goal of a world without them.”

That last phrase, of course, means leveraging peaceful, law-abiding nations such as the U.S., to dismantle its nuclear weapons arsenal.  Not unlike disarming law-abiding American citizens of firearms, it’s astonishing that Obama and his liberal brethren fail to understand that criminals and the world’s tyrants will never comply with the law, which makes the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in civilized nations a fools errand.

10.  “And we have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim World - one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict.”

When did this happen?  In his apology speech in Cairo?  What difference has that made with respect to the mullahs in Iran?  If anything, Iran, Hezebollah, Hamas, and radicals the world-over now know that Obama is weak and are actively exploiting it.

11.  “That is why we must promote our values by living them at home - which is why I have prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.”

The “torture” he’s referring to is, of course, water-boarding, which is part of the training regimen for certain Air Force officers and special ops forces.  And, it would be a testament to political candor if Mr. Obama could name one member of Congress who has toured Gitmo and has made the determination that its prisoners are being mistreated.  There isn’t one.

12.  “But I also know that we, as a country, cannot sustain our leadership nor navigate the momentous challenges of our time if we allow ourselves to be split asunder by the same rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse.”

It’s crucial to remember that when we agree with liberals we’re being bipartisan, but if we have the temerity to disagree it’s a sign of “rancor and cynicism and partisanship.”  We might recall in one of his first televised meetings in the White House when a Republican openly disagreed with a policy, Obama defended his liberal position by saying, “We won.”

17.  “I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again.  I believe with every fiber of my being that we - as Americans - can still come together behind a common purpose.”

Defining that “common purpose” is, of course, a political process, and when Mr. Obama runs as a centrist but then governs as a case-hardened liberal, he may be surprised when very few Americans support his particular definition of “common.”

Since I announced my intent to terminate ClearCommentary.com on November 2^nd, I’ve received many reader responses that have encouraged me to maintain this blog as I begin writing about religion, spirituality, and science.

After considerable discussion and reflection, I’ve decided continue posting at ClearCommentary.com, but with a more limited schedule.  And, as noted below, I’ve launched a new blog that addresses issues of religion, with a focus on certain aspects of modern science, in particular, particle physics.  Today marks my first installment, which I hope you’ll read.

After considering a variety of titles, I have decided on The God Particle.  I’m indebted to my friend and intellectual compatriot, Bill Fodor, for recommending this title, which captures the dual nature of my subject matter. 

It’s difficult to say with any certainty—a theme that itself will be reflected in my new blog—exactly the course of my inquiry, but I believe you’ll find it engaging and rewarding to read.  Therefore, I encourage you to visit my new blog at:

http://thegodparticle.townhall.com

And, please continue to check ClearCommentary for continued political postings.

Regards,

Phil Mella

So seamless is the stupidity undergirding Neal Gabler’s jeremiad in today’s Boston Globe concerning the alleged misnomer ‘American exceptionalism,’ that it’s difficult to know where to begin. 

Not unlike most liberals, Gabler confuses the government and the American people. Indeed, the predicate of his argument is that, in contrast to President Carter’s insistence in a government “as good as the American people,” everything of significance that has been accomplished has been because the government was better than the American people.

In Gabler’s view, it’s as though the ‘government’ is some kind of convenient abstraction rather than the faithful and credible reflection of our Founding Fathers’ vision, regardless of whether it neatly comported with contemporary sentiment or fashion. Therefore, his assertion that FDR took America into WWII against conventional wisdom belies the fact that principled leadership is commonly unpopular, but often, as in the case of both 20^th century world wars, is consistent with Republic’s founding values.

The Gablers of the world seem lost in a kind of post-modernist fog, and for purely political motivations, refuse to consider that Republicans’ defense of American exceptionalism isn’t based on ideology but rather on a close reading of our founding documents, from the Declaration of Independence to the Federalist Papers to the Constitution.

Although missteps are inevitable, they enjoy—or suffer from—a bipartisanship that many, Gabler apparently included, seem to overlook. It has less to do with a candid defense of the ingenious symmetry contemplated by our founders, which members of both parties ought to champion, than an equally candid understanding that although all systems of governance are flawed, America’s is unique in its capacity for beneficence at home and abroad, and has a remarkable instinct for stern introspection and self-correction.

Inextricably intertwined with the liberals’ loathing of all things conservative is their transparently self-serving propensity to conflate it with their willful denial that, on balance, conservative policies are far more aligned with our founding principles than those of liberals. Indeed, whether it’s the individualism enshrined in our founding documents or an unapologetic acquittal of our democratic principles, along with the patriotism implicit in both, you won’t see conservatives getting squeamish when defending them.

Gabler observes that LBJ couldn’t have prosecuted the war in Vietnam without support from the American people, neglecting that the prosecution of a war must be separated from whether or not it’s justified. Despite the fact that it’s viewed as a strategic—and moral—failure, that war can, in fact, be justified. That it was, to put it generously, imperfectly prosecuted is quite another matter.

Finally, Gabler adduces the Greeks as the textbook example of those who understood the perils of hubris. Although hubris is a chestnut indiscriminately trotted out to support a contemporary allegation, an even cursory study of the Peloponnesian War indicates that neither Athens nor Sparta were immune from it. 

Although America, like every nation, has many foibles and makes ill-informed decisions, it betrays a want of intellectual generosity, and, indeed, an unwarranted level of self-criticism, to overlook the ways in which her exceptionalism—which is merely the extension of our Founding Fathers’ vision—has bettered the lives of her citizens, as well as the entire world, at times at a staggering cost.

As recent history demonstrates, cultural entitlement is the precursor to political entitlement. With notably few exceptions and in a shameful, seamless, fashion, politicians faithfully follow this model by perpetuating our economic ills with their excessive responses to otherwise manageable problems.

Liberal commentators, of course, are in the vanguard of this process and like overly attentive herd dogs nip at the heels of their charges, in this case Congressional liberals and the liberal-in-chief, President Obama. For a prime example, we turn to Bob Herbert, whose piece in today’s New York Times is prototypically ingenious in its ability to thoroughly miss the target.

Herbert laments the most recent unemployment numbers and makes the commendable first step of recognizing that those without jobs are suffering. He criticizes Mr. Obama for not pushing for another stimulus package and quotes polls showing that people believe banks and Wall Street benefited from the first stimulus. 

Thanks to the well-entrenched entitlement mentality, underwritten by the modern liberal polity, average Americans now look to the government for resolution of their private problems. Indeed, whether it’s getting a job, paying for health insurance, or finding “affordable” housing, all of which have been rightfully our own problems to solve, the government is now seen as the proper intermediary. 

Herbert’s blinkered narrative continues:

We’re running on a treadmill that is carrying us backward. Something approaching 10 million new jobs would have to be created just to get back to where we were when the recession began in December 2007.  There is nothing currently in the works to jump-start job creation on that scale.

Predictably, he recommends a “massive long-term campaign to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure,” forgetful that a significant portion of the $785 billion in the first stimulus package was supposed to go to “shovel-ready” jobs. Some of that did, in fact, trickle down to fund such jobs, but the outcome by no means met expectations. 

But, he’s absolutely correct when he writes that there is “nothing currently in the works to jump-start job creation,” which after nine months of Obama’s tenure and in the context of a Democratic-controlled Congress, is a savage criticism indeed.

What the Herberts of the world astonishingly overlook is the abundance of evidence from recent history: To wit, every time marginal taxes have been reduced, along with corporate and capital gains taxes, not only have federal receipts increased, but employment has increased and, the silent killer known as inflation has been kept in check.

But although reducing taxes creates freedom, it doesn’t feed the entitlement Leviathan, rather, it starves it and thereby inhibits political power, and that is simply unacceptable to the modern liberal.

Amid the apparently endless series of speeches and comments, on issues grand and frivolous, and informed by a nearly limitless confidence in a Midas touch that has thus far been a leaden failure, President Obama’s failure to secure Chicago for the 2016 Olympics is further evidence that his presidency is slated for mediocrity.

If political nuance were a virtue Mr. Obama would be a candidate for sainthood, since his every move on the global stage has been thoroughly scripted to comport with the world’s view that America is an over-valued stock.  Indeed, if results are in short supply, he has succeeded in undermining the American exceptionalism that legions of patriots before him sacrificed to safeguard. 

Whether it’s his Cairo speech, which set the tone for a newly chastised America in the context of college campus PC, his appearance with dictators such as Chavez, or his feckless demands for Iran to allow inspections, this president’s airy rhetoric amply compensates for a lack of substance.

He stunned our allies and brought smiles to our enemies when he capitulated to Russian demands to scrap the missile defense system for the Czech Republic and Poland, which reflected an apparent ignorance that Putin, not Medvedev is the man behind the curtain, if you will.  His much-vaunted posturing for strong sanctions will never see the light of day because Putin and the Chinese are inveterately opposed to them.

That buys Iran more time to complete their nuclear program and puts Obama in the untenable position of having to either confront Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs—he’s more likely to demand that the U.S. begin drilling in ANWR—or stand by as Israel strikes. 

Obama’s previously unwavering support for McChrystal’s troop surge has succumbed to his reprisal of McClellan paralysis compliments of his base, which sends an equivocal message to our allies in-country and strategic comfort to our enemies.

American history is replete with examples of presidents who, quite apart from innate intelligence, lacked the resolve and vision to lead our nation during perilous times.  Some brought too fine a touch to the charge of foreign affairs, letting opportunities pass unexploited, or, obtusely misread the electorate on key domestic issues, squandering precious political capital in the process.  It’s astonishing that Mr. Obama seems on a trajectory to accomplish both.

His lofty and misguided dream of landing the Olympics for Chicago is but the latest example of his adroit ability to misread the political landscape, compromising confidence in his leadership while embarrassing himself.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan, although he's raised it to something of an art form.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.