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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Obama's Reading Reagan - Time to Walk the Walk

Much has been said about Obama's reading of Ronald Reagan's autobiography in the past couple of months. Quite a switch from Alinky, isn't he? While paying lip service to Ronald Reagan is one thing, do any of us actually believe the egotistical Obama has anything in common with Ronald Reagan? Does Will Smith have anything in common with Clark Gable?

In any case, it's hard to not think of Ronald Reagan with what has been going on the last few months in the Middle East, North Africa, and indeed, all over the Arab world. Reagan didn't shrink from Gaddafi in the 80s - he stood up to him and put him in his place. Compare Jimmy Carter - Obama's 70s doppelganger - and his approach to the Middle East after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Carter dilly dallied and didn't send US foreign diplomats over there to teach the foundling society in the wake of the Revolution how to install the foundations of democracy. Instead, radical imams quickly moved in to fill the power vacuum. Despite being a fringe group at the time, they were the best organized, and within a short period of time, they set up basically a Caliphate. We need to send in people to set up the infrastructure of a modern society - something I doubt Obama is going to be willing to do.

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