Why Brand Obama Is Good for America: Top 10 Reasons

Barack Hussein Obama may be the first president who is actually a brand. So it's rather amazing that he is also one of the most popular brands on the planet. It's spilling over into every aspect of life - and, contrary to the sense of the word "brand" as an advertising gimmick, a commercialization of what should have "deeper" value, it's making things better wherever it goes.

On a business trip to Miami and Orlando, I noticed in the hotel lobby a large group of - maybe Lithuanians? - people, dressed like businesspeople, who spoke some Germano-Russian-sounding language, who were all smiling, enthusiastic, and chanting. Yes, chanting "Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!..."

What was this all about? Or the news article out of Orlando about Obama being a "hit" throughout the Caribbean Islands:

Radio stations across the Caribbean are tuning into U.S. politics, broadcasting rapper and reggae songs celebrating Barack Obama's victory. "Black Man Redemption" by Rapper Tony Rebel, "Yes We Can" by Reggae singer Cocoa Tea and "The Obama Song" by rapper Tyrical are dominating the airwaves in Jamaica. Trinidadians, meanwhile, are enchanted by "Barack the Magnificent," a creation of Calypso legend Mighty Sparrow.Antiguans are singing along with "Barack We Love You," by native calypso singer King Short Shirt.

Followed by a page of letters from local elementary students asking questions directed to the President-Elect. And meanwhile, back in Columbia, the people are "looking forward" to Obama's presidency.

Of course, we know already how excited Africans are for their "native son". Not to mention his unprecedentedly enthusiastic and massive reception in Berlin. But what about China? Hands down - he's an "overwhelming hit" there where last October,

an online poll conducted on China Daily's website by the US embassy, shows Obama enjoys the support of 75 percent among the Chinese.

We know that the name "Obama" tastefully included in any product name is, to borrow a Blogojovitchism, "golden" - spikes sales exponentially. It's just a superlative brand that connotes all that's good about humanity.

What better representation for the United States after years of eroded-to-zilch public image? It's gotten so bad that friends of mine pretend not to be American when at cafes in, say, the Netherlands, so as not to receive dirty looks and bad prices. Even more, the Obama brand incites people to almost-lunatic enthusiasm, joy, hope, action.... good stuff, that.

So, the Top Ten Reasons Why:

1. When you're on the precipice, you need balance. President-elect Obama has balance. Lots of it. Nobody else comes close. And that inspires more balance in others. Weigh the two sides, find a fair solution, be willing to compromise, talk about it, balance your emotions with your mind... Pretty transformative, that! Helps when you're hanging on the edge of an economic, ecological, and otherwise...cliff.

2. Nothing combats depression like inspiration. Obama just walks into a room, and people get inspired. But it's not merely charisma, or oratory. He represents overcoming impossible odds, challenges, achieving the Impossible Dream by hard work and incremental success. He also represents overcoming oppression, a locked-in-steel status quo, a power structure that seems insurmountable, a nasty social attitude in the air, a neocon warmongering mania that nobody can seem to get rid of...and everything you need to get back on your feet in a crisis. Nobody else means "Yes We Can" quite like Obama.

3. He's one of us. He has this amazing ability to identify with Everyman, Everywoman, in Everycountry, while maintaining his American identity. People have this feeling that he understands them, personally. That he cares about them, about what happens to them. He succeeded to have a mass personal relationship with not all, but many on the planet. Maybe it's just lack of pretense, and being down to earth. And something else... je n'sais quoi.

4. When the world is in turmoil, we need someone with an even keel. It's that incredible, unflappable temperament, that pulled Obama through the election process, and that we all hope will pull us through the critical, dangerous days ahead.

5. A brilliant mind: that human gift, and responsibility. Obama has a great mind, and better yet, he actually uses it responsibly. When the challenges get tough, it's not enough to just "get going", as we have seen. It needs a great mind to intelligently work our way through complex issues. No sycophant will do any more. So for Obama to represent the best of the mind does us a world of good. Smart is cool again. Finally.

6. Flexibility, willingness to cooperate. This is essential to building goodwill in world affairs, as well as domestic ones. We've suffered too long through ill will, divisiveness, and "us" vs. "them". The results have been catastrophic. Democracy without cooperation is not democracy. It's a failed state.

7. Obama is a multicultural success story. He blends continents, wildly varying cultures from Kansas to Hawaii to Indonesia, plus of course, Africa, and yet it all somehow works into a very superior "product". He therefore gives us hope that although we are all very different, the common bond is nonetheless intact, and that very diversity contributes toward strength. This is a boon to people against inbreeding, Us v. Them, etc.

8. When we've been sitting on a Ponzi scheme, thinking ourselves rich and powerful, it really helps to find someone with genuine core integrity. Solid ethics. Trustworthiness. Honesty. The high ground. Making good on promises - not just for PR, but just because it's right. Wow, now that's downright refreshing! Barack Obama, from his loving domestic relations with his wife and daughters and other relations, to his making good on promises, to his clean and democratically-run campaign, to his thoughtful, honest relationships with others in government as well as campaigners and those in "Main Street", is the absolute epitome of One Good Man. Not some idealized idol, just a regular guy who works very hard to do things right, and has very high standards.

The net result? Obama made being righteous very, very cool. Bring it on! Which brings us to

9. Pres-elect Obama is just, simply very, very cool. This is an intangible. It's God-given. It's something you either have, or don't have. It may be the "aura" of all of the above. But it's also because he's always working to stay in touch with what's going on around him. He knows technology and uses it. He knows the language, the songs, the music, the culture of everyday Americans. He may not know bowling and country music. But that's OK, because he's cool with what he knows. He goes above and beyond a specific culture, by virtue of his multicultural background added to his being "one of us", added to his cooperative stance, taken to another level by his intelligence. It's everything rolled together in a way that simply ... works.

We're dog tired of things that don't work. And people who make them not work.

10. And at last, Obama resurrects the work ethic. Hard work is part of his success story, and it's not only something that's true, that people can relate to, but it's also very good for the economy. After all, work is how economies are ultimately built - not merely by investing money, that essentially fake/representative thing, but investing actual work. Instead of encouraging people to spend, we find ourselves inspired to sweat. It's very basic, and being enthusiastic about it makes it far more likely to succeed. After all, what's work without a motive? The profit motive just won't cut it any more.

As we watch the incredible scene of President-elect Barack Obama taking the oath of office, and all that goes with it, no one can help but be amazed at how it all got put together, and how one man came to symbolize so much in one unimaginably critical moment. This is a "brand" that will go down in history in more ways than ten. And that can't help but be good for America, and I hope, the world.

Top 10 Cloak-n-Dagger Capers in '007

For a year numbered 007, it had more than its fair share of the clandestine, the Republicans having the sleightest and most illusory of hands, especially Bush-Cheney-World, which operates in unprecedented secrecy. Some of the following were only discovered in '007, although the legerdemain itself occurred earlier. Some became scandals of a sort, but overall, the American public has remained steadfastly teflonized, preferring to be disinformed, cortisol-driven, and inflammatory.

10. Operation Disinformation.

The mainstream corporate media collaborated with the administration to provide us bait-n-switch news on unimportant events, while disastrous activities passed by under our very noses unnoticed. How many Americans were aware that Bush just signed Martial Law into legal possibility - up to his own sole discretion - while the Paris Hilton frenzy was hitting the airwaves a month ahead of her much-heralded future jail stint?

And media manipulation by Bush-leaning corporate heads is the greatest protection against crimes committed by those in high office.

As Sen. Conyers said on Democracy Now:

“There is a very stark reality that with the corporatization of the media, we could end up with turning people, who should be documented in history as making many profound errors and violating the Constitution, from villains into victims,” the Michigan Democrat said.

Or, according to Consortiumnews,

He’s probably right that the Washington press corps would hoot any serious
impeachment drive against Bush and Cheney off the political stage.

In my view, the above 2 opinions show marked cynicism and lack of hope in the power of dissidence and truth. Perhaps that's part of the success of corporate media:

"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change."
(David Barsamian, journalist and publisher)

9. The Missing Torture Tapes.

What torture tapes? Did anybody have torture tapes? Do you mean Dick Cheney's stash? Don't tell me Nancy Pelosi saw it??? And said nothing? I guess everyone is getting blase about torture...

I suspect this will be #1 in '008...

8. Big Bro's Backdoor Break-In

Although this has been going on since 9-11 and the manic "Patriot" Act, spying on Americans involves not just the Bush administration, but telecom giants as well, in complicity with the neocon so-called "war on terror". Warrantless spying on Americans was introduced through the back door, so no one would know for sure.

When pressed about it, then-Justice Gonzales claimed it was authorized by the President, but

"I did not and could not address . . . any other classified intelligence activities." Which implied there was more than meets the press.

"It seems to me he is conceding that there are other NSA surveillance
programs ongoing that the president hasn't told anyone about," said Bruce Fein,
a government lawyer in the Nixon, Carter and Reagan administrations

This was just the tip of the iceberg - or shall we say, the spy network?

According to the WaPo, the very next day after this ambiguous testimony,
"the Senate voted 69 to 30 to end a filibuster of the proposed four-year extension of the USA Patriot Act, the sweeping anti-terrorism law enacted in 2001. The Senate plans today to approve the measure, which contains hotly debated modifications."

So much for government by the people.

7. The Petraeus Maneuver

We're hemhorraging from the solar plexus, Iraq is a hopeless quagmire, 90% of the Iraqi people want us out and consider this an unwanted invasion, a brazen oil grab, and a total disaster, and yet the Bushco folks trot out this "ass-licking little chickenshit" to convince the American people - or protoplasm, your choice - that the Surge Is Working, and We've Turned a Corner! Meanwhile, all military dissidents are slipped out the backdoor - presumably the same one the surveillance guys snuck in through - and silenced. Shhhhhhhh....


6. The Emperor's New Coronation (And the People's New "Clothes" - ignorance and powerlessness)

Little known to the American public as a whole, George Bush has consolidated power in the Presidency through a series of signing statements, pocket vetoes, and Presidential Declarations. One such Directive (with a twisted, convoluted name) I call his coronation - It gives him, among other things, the right to retain sole executive unchecked power over the United States of America - sans Congress, sans Supreme Court oversight - simply based on his own determination that a "national emergency" exists. A sort of self-proclaimed martial law clause. Are we an empire yet? He was workin' on it - even crowned himself emperor - while the public was in a drunken media-soaked stupor over ... the earthshaking jail sentence of Paris ... the humanity-threatening meltdown of Lindsay...etc...

5. The Ashcroft Caper

When they needed to override dissent, there's always the old deathbed signover thing, especially when it comes to Cheney's pet project, "Robust Interrogations", otherwise known as torture. And so it was reported in May 2007 - when the "stunning" all-absorbing announcement of Paris Hilton's possible jail term was revealed with much media attention - that back in 2004,

On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call.
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.

In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft,
summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers
they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left. ...

The next day, as terrorist bombs killed more than 200 commuters on rail lines in Madrid, the White House approved the executive order without any signature from the Justice Department certifying its legality. Comey responded by drafting his letter of resignation, effective the next day, March 12.

The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said...
It also marks the first public acknowledgment that the Justice Department found the original surveillance program illegal, more than two years after it began.

4. The Gonzales Eight

When it came out that Gonzales fired 8 Prosecutors for political reasons, the cloaks were out in full regalia, lying like hell - which finally sunk in as the clandestine operation it was:

The only way to redress that insult -- and to uphold the constitutional balance of powers -- is to demand the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes that may have been committed in the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys and the coverup that followed.

There is little doubt that Gonzales and his aides have sought to mislead Congress about the origins of the scandal.


3. Project Libby - The Switch

A spy is compromised, laws are broken, and the perps get what? They get lost, of course! And when the dust settles, all that's left is a dedicated front man/guy Friday for some unnamed Vice Presidential figure who goes by the name of Dick. Who in turn, wrote a little note implicating Bush W himself about which was said:

So Cheney was reflecting a presidential decision as to who was expendable and
who wasn’t? Bush wanted to save Rove by designating Libby the fall-guy. He asked
Libby to be the fall guy for Rove. (Cheney may not have been thrilled that he
had to lose his right-hand man to save the president’s.) Pure speculation, of
course. But it makes sense. And if true, it’s a fascinating glimpse into the
mafia-like code of loyalty that exists in Bush world.

And here: "The Post's Dana Milbank writes that Martin also discussed Dick Cheney's PR strategy, which included putting him on Meet the Press where he could "control [the] message" about the White House's handling of Iraqi nuclear plan evidence. Tactics also included burying bad news on the weekends and keeping Bush spokespeople in the dark about important matters."

Matters such as committing the treasonous, impeachable crime of blowing the cover of an American spy. Such as Valerie Plame. So to protect the impeachable, someone's gotta stand in the line of fire, obstructing justice. Thanks, Scooter, said Dick.

2. Blackwatergate

Suddenly, the news woke up one morning, perhaps after some Britney meltdown, and there in the margins, was this:

U.S. security contractor Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 shooting
incidents in Iraq since 2005 and, in eight of 10 cases, their forces fired
first, a leading U.S. lawmaker said on Monday, reported Reuters.
State Department contractor Blackwater is under investigation for the shooting deaths of 11 Iraqis on September 16, they will answer questions about that incident and its performance in Iraq at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.

Now it appears that not only is the United States military overextended, it's hiring mercenaries who are above the law and killing Iraqi civilians.

And the US government is covering it up:

"It appears that the State Department's primary response was to ask Blackwater to make monetary payments to put the 'matter behind us' rather than to insist upon accountability or to investigate Blackwater personnel for potential criminal liability," said the (Waxman)memorandum.

Aside from being a scandal, Blackwatergate may be used by Bushco to further obfiscate the war scene in Iraq as suggested here:

Condemnation of Blackwater, however justified, can easily be siphoned into a
political whirlpool that demands a cleanup of the U.S. war effort -- as though a
relentless war of occupation based on lies could be redeemed by better
management -- as if the occupying troops in Army and Marine uniforms are
incarnations of restraint and accountability.

1. The Shadow Presidency


WaPo's expose on Dick Cheney revealed the ultimate caper: that the man in charge was not really the President after all: the previously ceremonial office of Vice President had been transformed, in a move of unprecedented wholesale legerdemain, to the status of uncrowned king.

"Angler," as the Secret Service code-named him, has approached the levers of
power obliquely, ... has found a ready patron in George W. Bush for
edge-of-the-envelope views on executive supremacy that previous presidents did
not assert.

In roles that have gone largely undetected, Cheney has served as gatekeeper for
Supreme Court nominees, referee of Cabinet turf disputes, arbiter of budget
appeals, editor of tax proposals and regulator in chief of water flows in his
native West.

Now who really pulls the strings of power? The Angler? Or just ... 007?...

Top 10 Lies about Liberals

Bridgethought of the Day: Don't believe everything you hear. Just use it to figure out what's really going on.

From Acid Ann Coulter 45 to that guy who sadly for the Irish has an Irish name, but whom I don't want to mention on a page that has the Declaration of Independence on it, lots of "conservatives" or Bush apologists have put out considerable time and effort in trying to make the word "Liberal" synonymous with "Satan", but without, of course, naming names. Failing that, the next best thing involves the word "soft". The lies are voluminous, but these are my picks for the Top Ten.

10. Liberals destroy American culture and traditions.

A lie of convenience - yesterday, it was liberals who were "Hollywood". Unless, "Hollywood" is part of American culture, in which case liberals threaten Jennifer Anniston, or to be more "conservative", reruns of Katherine Hepburn. Or maybe because liberals don't build enough walls and sectarian divisions, encourage that dreaded assimilation. So we dilute the WASP pool, which is what, to some, America is all about. Are they afraid they'll go the way of the Indians? Yes! Let's bring back true American culture and traditions - starting with power to the Sioux.

Or is immigration the threat? So conservatives give all the favors and tax breaks to Big Business, who celebrate by hiring cheap foreign and immigrant labor so they can increase their profits even more, and then they can blame liberals for not wanting to tax and spend more on prisons and walls to lock everybody up - or out. Is that an American "tradition"?

9. Liberals have no backbone - don't stand for anything - they're "soft" on principles.

Another lie of convenience - yesterday, they were rabid unionists, bleeding hearts, women's libbers, integrationists and equal opportunists, and anti-war weenies. But now that people began to actually value standing for workers, the poor and oppressed, women, minorities, and peace, suddenly this no longer works, so they "re-define" what "backbone" means, and reclassify liberals as invertebrates. Watch your back, folks, it's a whole 'nother phylum!

"Backbone" now means "rigor mortis" of the conscience. The human conscience is redefinied as a coelenterate. Hello, "strong", "principled" torture, war-mongering and lying. Goodbye, "weak", "waffling" peace, human rights, and honesty.

8. Liberals promote World Government.

This is where they bring in the Conspiracy Theorists and fringe groups. It's designed to loosely match the allegation that Muslims gather to the rallying cry "Bring Back the Caliphate!" "You see? They want to dilute us to be ruled by them."

So please explain Henry Kissinger, Exxon Oil, and other multinational corporations. Explain the World Bank too, will ya? What threat exists from those fearsome, plane-hijacking hordes who spend 98% of their time killing each other off in their Quest for the Caliphate? Or should we fear something else? Especially if "we" are living in, say, Africa, where the biggest threat is starvation, and the biggest human threat is foreign looters of natural resources, making "us" unable to make a ... well, to survive.

7. Liberals are soft on crime.

Here we go with that fantasy of "soft" and "tough". Note they do not say "hard". Prisons are "tough". And that includes the neocon's newest Orwellian invention, the Family Prison. Yes, a prison for the whole family - dad, mom, and the kids, including infants! Now there's family values for ya! Now that's not soft - that's Gulag tough! And Halliburton wins again! Guess what? They're in the "get tough" prison business! It's a win-win!

Unfortunately, when it comes to government wrongdoing, abuse, and Constitutional violations, the "Conservatives" (sic) are not only soft on crime, they're downright cushy-mushy with it. Then the "Liberals" are tough on government abuse of power and flagrant lying and Constitutional violation/manipulation. Also, Liberals believe that "Corrections" is not a misnomer, and include something other than Medieval dungeons, like education and rehabilitation services which have a proven track record of reducing crime. Now that's effective crime-fighting, not anti-crime posturing.

And Liberals aren't exactly removing laws from the books or cutting down on police departments. They just want more money spent on crime-fighting here and less on the crime problems of everyone else, everywhere else. Including the overbloated Terrorist Task Forces, built on the assumption that there's one under every bed, we've just gotta find 'em, and dedicated to the proposition that All Arabs/Muslims Are a Potential Threat. Instead of using their manpower to deal with actual crime, they are spending all those resources, human and otherwise, on hunting down potential suspects who fit the "profile", and after six years of dedicated service, we have uncovered thousands and thousands of terrorist plots, all but 3 of them false alarms. Tough on imagined crime, soft on real crime. Liberals are on target. Myth busted.

6. Liberals subsidize laziness.

This is an obvious jab at the public "welfare" system, usually "blamed" on Liberals. So the best solution, following this line of logic, is to let the poor, handicapped, mentally impaired, insane, economically or socially disadvantaged, and others generally discriminated against, such as children without trust funds, yes, just let all these people fend for themselves! Because they ought to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like General Patton, by God, and Republicans are there to help them do it by pulling out from under them any government assistance, so they can start from scratch just like Grandpa Bill did in 1892. Let's clear the government of this "waste" and these "huge government programs" that "take over" and "threaten our very democracy" by removing the God-given right of such people to just die and leave the rest of us alone.

Yes, it's subsidized "laziness" to try to feed and clothe disadvantaged children, especially if they are in this country, because that money could be better spent on weapons systems to kill such people in other countries, bomb civilian populations because they happen to live near a "terrorist hideout" or a "weapons facility" or an infant formula manufacturing plant.

But it's encouraging hard work to fill the Administration of the U.S. Government with good ol' boys and yes-men, and to eliminate job-training programs so we can spend more on the Iraq War, and we can employ more soldiers. Pretty soon, the only jobs left will involve guns and weapons systems. And they're all government jobs. And we want you...

5. Liberals are socialists, extremists, marginal, never mainstream.

If all of the above describes funding government to protect the unprotected, remember the forgotten, equalize the oppressed, free the enslaved, educate the ignorant, help the victimized, protect the environment and natural resources, and feed the hungry... then it's true.

But this assumes that such activities are "extreme" or "marginal" or the venue only of "socialists" (whatever they are as of now) - which sounds ludicrous to me. This presumes that ethical values, those traditional values taught in all "mainstream" religions, are actually "marginal" or "extreme" or "socialist". Now we're beyond ludicrous. Wasn't it Hitler who wanted to stop subsidizing the weak and the disadvantaged? He was definitely extreme, but he was no socialist. Get your values straight.

4. Liberals tax & spend, promoting Big Government.

Does Big Government mean Big Daddy, or Big Brother? The choice is yours. Our government has gotten big over time with the gradual increase of both largesse-to-humanity and control-freak-to-the-world. All costs money, all require taxes. But if you look at the stats, you find more "Liberal" governments, such as Clinton's, encouraging small business, opening up the U.S. economy, and creating an atmosphere of "can-do" and free enterprise ... all with relative fiscal responsibility and putting the deficit on a low-carb diet. With "Conservative" W's government, we are hemhorraging at the jugular from war after war after poorly-conceived, incompetently-run, special-interest-boggled war, the economy is going downhill along with the dollar, and small business is getting the shaft from huge, multi-national Goliaths who have the so-called "government" in their left pockets.

The rest of the money is going into more and more and more prisons, police, guards, soldiers, barbed wire, and detention camps. Especially aliens. We spend a lot on the detention and torture of aliens. All to keep you safe. Ah, and surveillance programs. Secret programs where you can be watched by Big Brother and you can't even know what you're charged with, or what they found out, or who they'll send it to, or why, or if you'll even have a home, country or family to your name tomorrow. Big Brother is watching you. But not on a Liberal's watch.

Hi, Dick!

3. Liberals are unpatriotic.

If patriotic means having flag tie tacks and bumper stickers, or attending VFW Post 47 meetings: guilty as charged.

If patriotic means defending the Constitution, our Democracy in its highest principles, and all that America stands for and has stood for over 230 years, including those rights guaranteed in the Amendments to the Constitution, then I submit that Liberals are in fact, carrying the torch of liberty at this time in history, and Conservatives, as represented by "neocons" and the Bush Administration, are posing the greatest threat to the freedom and democracy we hold so dear.

2. Liberals are bad for business.

Read number 4 above. The so-called Conservative pro-business stance only refers to the gargantuan powerful corporations who can afford to foot the bill for today's election campaign. Tax breaks are only for the rich. The poor have ... bootstraps. Try starting a business with bootstraps, Dick. This one should simply be corrected: "Liberals are bad for ... the unstoppable rise of the superrich."

1. Liberals are soft on defense, and weaken America's superiority and stature in the world.

Again, the word "soft" used deceptively. "Tough" means spending on weapons and defense industries all the money we get from the IRS and more, borrowing on future income. Since when is opening the floodgates of the economy and "Homeland" resources on one single government department "tough"? I would say neocons have a "soft" spot for the killing department, and a "hard" spot for people. No more weakness! We are tough! Thus spake Adolph in Germany many years back. It was all about detention camps, getting tough, looking for criminals and conspirators in every closet, and getting a purpose so the war machine can be motivated and on the move, inventing new killing machines, and increasing the military. And he didn't have to tamper with votes to get elected, democratically.

As for "America's stature", Bush and his cronies have succeeded in weakening that stature more than anyone could have imagined a few years ago, making us hated in Europe, not to mention in less familiar territory. Europe! I mean, these were our allies in WWII. There's been all this goodwill for over 50 years, and now... well, just go undercover and sit in any cafe, any public place, from the Netherlands to Germany to Italy to... it's definitely NOT a good time to be an American. Better stay home...

This was not the case with the last Liberal president, when America was on the ascendant, able to broker deals and command the respect and even admiration of many nations from east to west. Now someone tell me ... why is this "tough guy" stuff backfiring? I thought everybody loves a bully! Gee, I thought if you just tell everybody that we're the Leader of the Planet and we're the Best People on the Whole F-ing World and everyone else better tow the line and listen up, then everybody would just love us and obey us and worship us. And it was the Liberals who were going to put us all to shame, and make us an international pariah.

Soft on defense? Maybe soft on "offense". Weaken America? That's the Neocon Way. They just don't say it that way. It would be too damn honest. Haven't you heard? Honesty is soft.