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February 13, 2012
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
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Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
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January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
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Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
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January 12, 2012
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Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Oct. 22 2009
4 Mar-Cheshvan 5770
The Kitty-Cat Who Roared
By
Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
President Obama keeps roaring out deadlines like a lion -- only later to meow like a little kitty.
Remember, for example, how he bellowed to cheering partisan crowds that he would close down the detainment facility at Guantanamo within a year?
The clock ticks -- and Guantanamo isn't close to being shut down. It once was easy for candidate Obama to deplore George W. Bush's supposed gulag. Now it proves harder to decide between the bad choice of detaining non-uniformed terrorist combatants and the worse ones of letting them go, giving them civilian trials or deporting them to unwilling hosts.
Going back further to September 2007, candidate Obama postured about Iraq that he wanted "to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year -- now!"
That "now!" sure sounded macho.
On Iraq, candidate Obama also railed that "the American people have had enough of the shifting spin. We've had enough of extended deadlines for benchmarks that go unmet."
Talk about "unmet" deadlines and "spin"-- here we are in October 2009, and there are still 120,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The reason why Obama fudged on his promised deadline is that the surge in 2007 worked. American deaths plummeted. The theater is quiet. Iraqi democracy is still there after six years. Obama cannot quite admit these facts, but on the other hand he does not want to be responsible for undermining them.
This July, our president roared out another impending deadline. He warned Iran that it had to prove its compliance with non-proliferation protocols by September -- or face new consequences since the U.S. was not going to "wait indefinitely."
Now it's October, and even the French are exasperated that Obama still sounds like the king of the jungle but acts like a purring house kitten. And no wonder that Iran and its patron Russia seem to be calculating that Obama will figure that a nuclear Iran is less troubling for him than the consequences of offending Vladimir Putin, spiking oil prices or using force in the volatile Middle East.
The list of what a melodramatic Obama threatens or promises to do and what he actually does is endless.
Health care: The president once warned Congress that it had to pass comprehensive reform by the August congressional recess. August came and went, and now we're still waiting, waiting, waiting . . . .
Afghanistan: This was once Obama's promised war to win -- the one we had to refocus on after supposedly taking our eye off the ball to fight in Iraq. Now, instead, we are suddenly blaming the eight-year-old Karzai government for not being the stable partner we need to finish the job.
Ethics reform: During the campaign, Obama vowed to end lobbyists in government, post legislation on the Internet five days before a presidential signing, and air health-care negotiations and discussion on C-SPAN.
In short, just imagine if Obama were to warn Congress to get health-care done by Nov. 15 -- or else; or to give Iran one last chance until the first of the year to stop enriching uranium; or to promise that Guantanamo really, really will close on March 1, 2010. Would anyone take him seriously, much less fret about the consequences of ignoring those vows?
Obama ran on the accusation that Bush missed promised targets and deadlines. Yet when the loud reformer Obama himself proves even emptier in his promises than Bush, he suffers an additional wage of theatrical hypocrisy.
But there is an even greater problem. Overheated rhetoric got Obama into these jams -- and he seems to expect that his dramatic flair can always get him out as well. So we all await more of the empty hope-and-change hocus-pocus -- as Obama explains how he never really promised to get out of Iraq "now!" or to "take further steps" against Iran in September 2009.
When Jan. 1, 2010, comes and goes, I expect the president to say that, "I can no more shut down Guantanamo than I can . . . . "
Well, by now you know the rest of what follows.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Comment by clicking here.
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