Obama Doctrine: Spread Freedom? Not so Much
by Jonah Goldberg

Notable Presidential Rhetoric
(c) Jack Ohman

The Obama Doctrine is finally coming into focus.

It's been hard to glean its form because for so long it seemed the president's most obvious guiding principle was "not Bush," particularly when it came to the Iraq war. Indeed, his anti-Bush stance has led him to stubbornly refuse to say the war has been won or to admit that he was wrong to oppose the surge. In the past, this unthinking reflex has caused Obama to take some truly repugnant positions. In July of 2007, Obama said that he would order U.S. forces out of Iraq as quickly as possible, even if he knew it would lead to an Iraqi genocide. This makes Obama the first president in modern memory to have suggested that causing a genocide would be in America's national interest.

Obama himself insists that he's guided by nothing other than a cool-headed pragmatism. Indeed, Obama has a grating habit of describing any position not his own as "ideological," as if his is the only sober, practical understanding of the problems we face. Just days before he was inaugurated, he gave a speech in Baltimore in which he proclaimed, "What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives -- from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry -- an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels."

So ideologues -- i.e. millions of Americans who disagree with his policies on principle -- belong in a list along with bigots and dim bulbs. At home, this attitude has allowed him to dismiss opponents of socialized medicine and the government takeover of various industries as "ideologues," and critics of trillions in debt-fueled spending as small-minded cranks.

Joshua Muravchik, a scholar at Johns Hopkins University and a leading advocate of democracy promotion around the globe, demonstrates in the current issue of Commentary magazine that Obama has a similar attitude toward those who say America should advance the cause of liberty and democracy worldwide. Again and again, the administration has made it clear that spreading freedom is so much ideological foolishness. Before the inauguration, he told The Washington Post that he was concerned with "actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance." There's merit to this view in principle, though Obama seems to be thinking about "economic justice" more than a free society. But in practice, when American presidents say they don't care about democracy, tyrants rejoice.

In April, at a news conference following a meeting of the Organization of American States, Obama proclaimed, "What we showed here is that we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long." Hillary Clinton was more pithy: "Let's put ideology aside," the secretary of state said. "That is so yesterday." It's worth recalling that those old ideological debates often involved America championing democracy against those who pushed for socialism. One wonders which ideological stance Obama thinks is stale.

Obama supporter and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes that the Obama Doctrine involves restoring America's alliances and working with the international community so we can all do great things together. That's why Obama and Hillary Clinton have been so eager to apologize for America around the globe. One problem with such an approach is that it -- so far at least -- buys us nothing save the appearance of weakness. Another problem is that quite often, the international community is wrong.

Hence, according to the Obama administration, it's foolishly ideological to resist the United Nation's accommodation of tyrants and fanatics, while it is "pragmatic" to placate human rights abusers. It is ideological to show disdain for Venezuela's would-be dictator Hugo Chavez; it is "pragmatic" to stamp as "democratic" his effort to overthrow term limits. It is ideological to sustain sanctions against Burma and Sudan; it's pragmatic to revisit them, even if it disheartens human rights activists across the ideological spectrum. American exceptionalism is ideological, while seeing America as just another nation is realistic.

The past four weeks show how ideological Obama's un-ideological view really is. In response to the revolutionary protests in Iran, Obama initially favored stability and preserving the fantasy of negotiations with the Iranian clerical junta. Not "meddling" was his top priority. Over time, the rhetoric improved, but the policy remained just as cynical.

Then, events in Honduras revealed that Obama really has no problem with meddling when a left-wing agenda is advanced. Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras and a Hugo Chavez wannabe, illegally defied the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution in an attempt to repeal term limits (which help sustain democracy in Central America by preventing presidents-for-life). The Supreme Court ordered the military to remove Zelaya from office and expel him from the country. A member of Zelaya's own party replaced him, and elections were announced. But suddenly, Obama -- taking much the same position as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez -- thought America should join the coalition of the meddlers demanding Zelaya's return to power. In Iran, Obama was terrified to do anything that might lead to a coup to bring about democracy. In Honduras, Obama was chagrined to let stand a coup that preserved democracy.

It sure seems like Obama has an ideological problem with democracy.

You can write to Jonah Goldberg in care of this newspaper or by e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.com.

 

 

President Obama
(Samantha Appleton)

Obama's Approval Ratings Show a Summer Slump
Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama got some good news this week.

His nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court was approved by the Senate on a 68 to 31 vote. She is the first Latina on the high court, and her confirmation is a definite victory for the new administration.

But Sotomayor's approval masks some serious problems for Obama. In short, he is in a summer slump as the President's first priority, legislation to overhaul the health-care system, is still running into trouble on Capitol Hill.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a Question of Eugenics
by Jonah Goldberg

Ginsburg was surprised when the Supreme Court in 1980 barred taxpayer support for abortions for poor women. After all, if poverty partly described the population you had "too many of," you would want to subsidize it in order to expedite the reduction of unwanted populations. Left unclear is whether Ginsburg endorses the eugenic motivation she ascribed to the passage of Roe v. Wade or whether she was merely objectively describing it

Anger Over CIA Plans Is Misplaced
by Jonah Goldberg

The Democrats and much of the press insist the scandal is that Cheney never briefed Congress about specifics of the plan. There's only one hitch: The program never made it off the drawing board. No CIA operatives were sent out to kill members of al-Qaida. Call me crazy, but I just assumed that the CIA was out there trying to kill as many senior members of al-Qaida as it could

Obama's Iran Policy Is a Bomb
by Jonah Goldberg

 

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