QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:03 A.M. ET:   Related to the Ukraine, reported just below, and the fact that two forces in the world have risen in the age of Obama – Russian communism and militant Islam – is the weakness of the president of the United States.  Michael Goodwin of the New York Post summarizes the problem in our quote of the day: 

As Barack Obama enters the twilight of his tenure, the debate over his legacy is beginning, but one conclusion already seems certain. It can best be described as “Honey, I shrunk the presidency.”

Not since Jimmy Carter was held hostage by Iran has the Oval Office seemed so inconsequential against the forces of international darkness. The mismatch is particularly striking because smallness has been Obama’s choice.

Although he is guilty of executive overreach at home, that bully behavior only sharpens the contrast with a foreign policy that is feeble when it is not comatose. The president’s estrangement from the demands of global leadership is giving a green light to tyrants and malevolent opportunists everywhere.

His preference for navel gazing over action was on full display last week. As Russia and China menaced their neighbors and Islamist terrorists set off bombs in a half-dozen countries, Obama accepted an award from Hollywood pal Steven Spielberg for fighting genocide. Passing up a chance to give a full-throated defense of freedom and Western civilization, the president lapsed into what The New York Times called a “meditation” on the limits of his power.

That’s far too kind. It was a white flag of surrender and more proof that Obama lacks the capacity to shoulder the responsibilities that have belonged to the Oval Office for 100 years.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  And yet, the Obama crowd may well feel that Obama is a great success.  He has weakened America, reduced our influence, and compromised our defense.  Isn't that what the Obama left always wanted?

We can understand Obama only when we accept that he was put in office by marketing a myth – that he is some kind of practical centrist, a non-ideological guy, when in fact he's a leftist, schooled in Marxism, and a multiculturalist, schooled in the glories of non-judgmentalism. 

The fact that Obama refuses to use the term "Islamic terrorism" is all the proof we really need of who is in the Oval Office.

May 11, 2014