FWO-ForBarackObamaOnline.com

Listening to the paranoid Republicans, you’d think that Barack Obama is working night and day to give away what’s left of U.S. power. He’s exposing America to a mortal threat from … Nicaragua. Setting up the dollar to fall as the premier global currency. Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton recently said, in all seriousness, that “people close to” the Obama team are conspiring to cede U.S. sovereignty to a world government. Former GOP leader Newt Gingrich sees a “weird pattern” in which Obama administration lawyers have sought to defend the terrorists that Bush tried to put away. One GOP congressman after another complains that Obama himself is aiding the “enemies of America”—Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—by talking to them, and is setting the country on the road to -European-style socialism.

Not so long ago, the GOP was dominated by seasoned foreign-policy thinkers like Brent Scowcroft and James Baker. Now the mainstream of the party has a paranoid world view that sees America’s rivals plotting with ruthless efficiency against a weak-kneed president. Former vice president Dick Cheney recently said he no longer considered Colin Powell a GOP member, because in the presidential elections Powell endorsed Obama, someone who in Cheney’s view is making the nation “less safe.” Cheney cited as a real Republican the popular radio personality Rush Limbaugh, whose has this to say on foreign policy: “I’m telling you, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are disasters. Russia, China, Third World communist countries are all on the move—and we’re doing nothing other than begging them to talk to us by telling them it’s a new era of diplomacy.” Leslie Gelb, a foreign-policy expert who has worked in two presidential administrations, calls the new GOP tone “worse than paranoid, it’s cynical.” That is, a desperate attempt to shore up a failing party by defining itself in sharper contrast to Obama.

The new GOP line represents the triumph, if one can call it that, of the party faction that has always been hostile to multilateralism, and to global institutions and treaties like the U.N. and the Geneva Conventions. This faction dates at least as far back as the 1940s, and over the years it has clashed repeatedly with the party’s internationalist, business-oriented wing. Ronald Reagan managed to unite the factions, briefly. His successor, George H.W. Bush, was a multilateralist—a businessman and ambassador to the U.N. After September 11, the business—oriented wing was shunted aside.

Analysts on Israeli television stations criticized the American president for failing to mention the word terror in his speech even once, opting instead to use violence. While the professionalism and conviction Obama delivered his speech was praised by some Israeli officials, others felt the president’s reference to the Holocaust followed by a direct passage where he spoke of the suffering and humiliation of the Palestinian people was hurtful and unnecessary.

The speech is reported to have been well received within Cairo itself, according to the Washington Post:

The fact that Barack Obama chose Egypt as the location for Thursday’s address to the Muslim world endeared him to the locals, who are always proud to host a foreigner and even prouder when it shows off their history.

Representing a more cynical, but predictable viewpoint is Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who issued a statement Thursday to say that it will take much more than “words, speech and slogan” to repair America’s “ugly, detested and rough” image, according to the AP.

Likewise, a spokesman for Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Ayman Taha, relayed similarly unimpressed sentiments, describing the approach laid out in the speech as “no different from the policy of his predecessor, George W. Bush,” the BBC reports.

Source: Huffington Post/AP |  Stuart Whatle. Click here to continue reading.

Forbarackobamaonline.com

FBO-ForBarackObamaOnline.com

The press will undoubtedly focus their attention on rhetoric and body language. Did Obama sound like he meant it when he threatened Iran? Did Bibi come close enough to endorsing a two-state solution to satisfy his American hosts? These are, however, diversionary atmospherics.

If Barack Obama really means to remake U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, he will condition his cooperation on Iran with a public demand for the dismantlement of all illegal settlements built since Israel put its signature on the U.S.-sponsored 2003 “roadmap.”

A curtain-raising report on Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to Barack Obama’s Washington in Israel’s Ha’arretz newspaper on Sunday explains that the newly elected, hardline Israeli prime minister will tell Obama that “without dealing with Iran, it would be difficult to advance the peace process with the Palestinians. He will ask Obama to coordinate the American-Iranian dialogue with Israel, and stress the importance of acting firmly against Iran should this dialogue fail.”

By Eric Alterman, Source:The Daily Beast. Click here to continue reading.

Forbarackobamaonline.com

FBO-ForBarackObamaOnline.com

by Lydia Saad Source: www.gallup.com. Click here to continue reading.
Forbarackobamaonline.com

In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction _ compared with 44 percent who disagree.

The “right direction” number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31 points since October, the month before Obama’s election.

Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to the AP-GfK poll. It shows, as Obama approaches his 100th day in office next Wednesday, most people consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington.

“He presents a very positive outlook,” said Cheryl Wetherington, 35, an independent voter who runs a chocolate shop in Gardner, Kan. “He’s very well-spoken and very vocal about what direction should be taken.” ByRON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON Source: The Huffington Post. Click here to continue reading.

ForBarackObamaOnline.com

Unrestrained by the sensitivities of campaign season, Barack Obama returned to an energy policy statement that got him in a bit of hyper-partisan heat while on the trail: calling for people to properly inflate their tires.

“Some of you may remember during the campaign, when gas was really high, I suggested that one small step Americans could take would be to keep their tires inflated, remember that?” Obama told the crowd at Newton, Iowa, in a speech celebrating Earth Day. “And everybody teased me. ‘Aw look, that’s Obama energy policy.’ And my opponents started passing out tire gauges. But I’ll tell you what, turns out that saves you an awful lot of gas — and money in your pocket. It also makes sense for our energy use as a whole. If everybody kept their tires inflated, it would have a big dent; it would produce as much oil savings as we might be pumping in some of these offshore sites by drilling.”

For the full story at HuffingtonPost, click here.

FBO-ForBarackObamaOnline.com