Is Obama the Best We Can Do?

Can you imagine Obama making a hard decision? That is arguably the essence of the job of the American chief executive, and yet we have the most celebrated of candidates jetting around talking like the whole world is Oprah's audience. Exquisite sensibilities; impeccable style; pinache; elan; elegance;...the list of fashionista superlatives goes on and on. But except for the brief holiday from history that Reagan's stunning defeat of communism bought us, the world the American president faces is not like Oprah's audience; it is not looking for healing, or hope, or undefined "change"; it is full of bad actors who lurk in the darkness like wolves outside the light cast from a camp fire, who become bolder as the fire dims.

Do you trust Obama, the New Age Sensitive Man in his smashing suit, the "Light Bearer", to meet the high standard of decision-making achieved by FDR in taking us into WWII, Harry Truman in facing down the Soviets with the Berlin Airlift, Reagan in winning the Cold War, or Bush Jr in staying in Iraq and insisting on victory? The Democrat left, in all these instances, advised retreat, "soft" or "hard" diplomacy, and defeat. A hard left president like Obama, unchecked by a responisble (read Republican) Congress, would steer the American Ship of State exactly broadside to our enemies in very short order. Viet Nam continues to be the model; they apparently prefer a shamed, second-rate America to a world-leading hegemon.

Jeff Jacoby gives just one reason Americans are going to be doing a slow burn over Obama's shameful performance in Berlin in his analysis of that soon-to-be-infamous speech.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/27/missing_from_that_berlin_speech/

In "Missing From That Berlin Speech" Jacoby notes the deliberate evasion of what actually took place:

"But not once in his Berlin speech did Obama acknowledge Truman's fortitude, or even mention his name. Nor did he mention the US Air Force, or the 31 American pilots who died during the airlift.
Indeed, Obama seemed to go out of his way not to say plainly that what saved Berlin in that dark time was America's military might. Save for a solitary reference to "the first American plane," he never described one of the greatest American operations of the postwar period as an American operation at all. He spoke only of "the airlift," "the planes," "those pilots." Perhaps their American identity wasn't something he cared to stress amid all his "people of the world" salutations and talk of "global citizenship.""

If Obama actually believes his own account of that historic showdown, and that "people coming together" is what brought down that symbol of Soviet aggression in Western Europe, I shudder to think of the position we will find ourselves in, vis-a-vis the Iranians, the North Koreans, Hugo Chavez, the Chinese, and our erstwhile allies in the EU, as he attempts his Oprah act on real players on the international scene. I suspect many older Germans were disgusted by such weakness, since they know American might and will saved West Berlin from the 50 years of imprisonment the East Germans enjoyed at the hands of their Soviet benefactors.

What benefactions can we look forward to under a President Obama?

God help us.