Charges of Pandering Leveled at Democrats
These few paragraphs on foreign policy in the speech were among its weakest. The plans for Afghanistan and nuclear disarmament seemed thin and utopian. The threats launched against Iran seemed empty. The use of a kind of 'imperial feminism' to justify Obama's escalation of the Afghanistan war seemed just pandering to some of his constituency without holding much promise of genuine change for Afghan women.
Since it is the most recent manifestation of the Obama willingness to belittle America, let's take a look at his pandering speech in Cairo.
...As part of the Obama Muslim buttering-up, he said that "One of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." Really, do the 2.3 million or so Muslims in the US (according to the Pew Research Center) make us "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world"?
Obama went so far as to tell Muslims "It is part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Now isn't that special - I didn't see that in the Constitution where it describes the job of president and where was that exactly in the oath of office he took? I also don't remember Obama saying to a Jewish audience or the Christian audience at Notre Dame that it was his responsibility to fight for them.
US envoy Richard Holbrooke will meet Indian officials on Wednesday amid concern in New Delhi that Washington's new regional strategy for Afghanistan is pandering to its old foe Pakistan.
...Pakistan was the Taliban's main backer until Islamabad publicly sided with Washington after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks. India accuses it of giving covert support to Islamist forces which bombed the Indian embassy in Kabul last year.
Pakistan says India is arming its Baluch rebels and using Indian consulates in Afghanistan for anti-Pakistan activities.
Sibal [former Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal] said Washington was trying to engage India without taking its sensitivities into account. He wrote in the Mail Today on Tuesday that Indians were angry Obama's policy painted Pakistan as a "helpless, almost guiltless victim of terrorism" but failed to mention the militant attacks on India.
In a staff editorial headlined "McConnell to big banks' rescue," the Herald-Leader decries McConnell's pandering to Wall Street executives and repeated use of the catch phrases outlined in an anti-financial reform memo written by pollster Frank Luntz.
Charges of Pandering Leveled at Republicans
In Ohio today, John McCain showed why the American people can't trust him to bring a new direction in Iraq. Speaking to reporters in Columbus, McCain continued his pattern of pandering to the right wing of his party and misleading the public about the facts on the ground by echoing the Bush Administration's talking points on the war. Instead of joining Democrats in offering the change the American people want, McCain lashed out, claiming that "both of them were wrong when they said the surge wouldn't work...Both of them were wrong when they said the Iraqi government couldn't function effectively politically."
Several months ago I wrote an article here at Libertarian Republican Blog talking of Ron Paul's district mailings and how they were inherently deceptive. The article was titled: "Ron Paul talks tough on Terrorism: Must be Election Time." As I said in the piece, Ron Paul's mail-outs are frequently geared towards gaining the support of Military Veterans and the families of US Military Troops within Paul's heavily conservative South Texas Congressional District.
...Ron Paul plays both sides of the issue when it benefits him politically or financially. Not just on defense, but on other issues, as well, like abortion, drug legalization, and term limits. The only surprise is that it has taken the mainstream media this long to catch on to his deceptions.
