The leading analyst of the Middle East Caroline Glick called Barack Obama' rise to prominence and his foreign policy "frightening." (And see our earlier post "Obama: Frightening" below.)
Today, Pulitizer Prize winner columnist Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post said this of the Democratic oratorical wonder and his intention to meet with all of the world's leading thugs in his first year as president:
Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace."
What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.
Having lashed himself to the ridiculous, unprecedented promise of unconditional presidential negotiations -- and then having compounded the problem by elevating it to a principle -- Obama keeps trying to explain. On Sunday, he declared in Pendleton, Ore., that by Soviet standards Iran and others "don't pose a serious threat to us." (On the contrary. Islamic Iran is dangerously apocalyptic. Soviet Russia was not.) The next day in Billings, Mont.: "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."That's the very next day, mind you. Such rhetorical flailing has done more than create an intellectual mess. It has given rise to a new political phenomenon: the metastatic gaffe. The one begets another, begets another, begets ...
This all would be just too hilariious if it weren't so deadly dangerous. To think that such absurdites are being uttered by the leading contender for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States is, yes, "frightening."
