Special, Andrew Bolt's Article on Obama's Thoughts

Obama dreams of a past that’s rosy - with blood
Andrew Bolt
An astonishing line from Barack Obama in his first TV interview as president, that suggests he knows next to nothing about American history or the Middle East:

...the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that.

Twenty or 30 years ago, when - says Obama - America had “respect and partnership” with the Muslim world, the US was led by this “cowboy” Republican:

Iraq was led by this dictator:

American hostages were at last being freed by this Iranian despot after 444 days in captivity:

This, in part, is why the US sent this special envoy to offer the Iraqi dictator US “respect” and (limited) “partnership” in his war with Iran:

Terrorists around the world were being financed by this Libyan dictator, whose “respect” for the US led him to bomb even a Berlin disco popular with US soldiers, forcing the US to launch (ineffectual) bombing raids on Tripoli:

This Palestinian terrorist leader (right) was accused of masterminding or planning attacks on American targets, including even one on Reagan’s secretary of state, with the backing of some “partnerships” of his own:

241 American soldiers in Lebanon were killed in this 1983 Islamist attack on their barracks:

This plane was hijacked, and an American passenger killed, by Islamists seeking revenge for the US bombardment in 1984 of Beirut by the USS New Jersey:

Libya showed its “respect” for US power by in 1988 blowing up this Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, most of them Americans:

And by this time this man was so convinced that the US was weak - was so inspired by Reagan’s hasty withdrawal of his troops from Lebanon, crowing that the ”false courage” of the US had been “turned into scattered bits and pieces” by the 1983 bombing of the marines - that he decided a terrorist band could now hope to defeat this great superpower, perhaps even with just one spectacular attack on its cities:

That’s the “respect” and those are the “partnerships” the US had then. And that is the past of which Obama dreams. Or which he never knew.

UPDATE

Now even John Santor of the Huffington Post is forced to admit that Barack Obama, far from offering “change you can believe in”, is parroting the very kind of words that the despised Bush uttered, at least on the Middle East. But, in analysing Obama’s first interview, Santor bravely attempts to draw a distinction:

Many of these proclamations were made in some way or another by President Bush. What is different this time, however, is a president who is already coupling them with meaningful action...

Action? What? Where? For pity’s sake, the man has been in the job for just a week, and already he’s being hailed for having backed his grand plans for Middle East peace with meaningful actions?

With a cheer squad that desperate, this man cannot lose.