Barack Obama | Hope is Not a Foreign Policy

Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

Sunday, June 26th, 2011 at 7:41am

Conservative Critics of the Libya Campaign Aren’t Isolationist–They’re Realists

Posted by Tom Skypek in 2012 Elections, American Foreign Policy, Conservatism, Current Events

The continued military adventure in Libya, the House of Representatives’ ambiguous rebuke of the President, and the President’s recent speech on Afghanistan, has led to a number of thoughtful articles on the current trajectory of our foreign policy which I wanted to share.

Colin Dueck, GOP Isolationist? No, Just More Jacksonian, RealClearPolitics
Tony Blankley, McCain Is Wrong: GOP Not Isolationist, The Washington Times
George Will, John McCain’s Never-ending War, The Washington Post

Lastly, I wanted to share the piece I wrote for RealClearPolitics, Conservatism Does Not End at America’s Shorelines. Like the three authors above, I, too, was prompted by the misleading comments of Sens. McCain and Graham. What the conservative intellectual movement needs is a substantive, honest debate…

1 Comment Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Isolationism, John McCain, Libya, Lindsey Graham

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 8:39am

Libya Highlights Obama’s Foreign Policy Confusion

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Current Events, Military History, The American Presidency

There are few things more important to a statesman than credibility and consistency when it comes to administering a nation’s foreign policy. The Obama administration’s response to recent events in Egypt and Libya underscore its foreign policy confusion. The White House has a peculiar habit of treating allied governments and adversarial governments as equals. This stems from President Barack Obama’s professed belief that all nations are indeed equal in Washington’s eyes. Of course, the reality of international politics is quite the opposite. More than two-thousand years of human history support this fact. Some states, whose national interests overlap and intersect, join together as allies. States whose national interests collide tend to have more adversarial relationships.

Understanding the role alliance systems play…

1 Comment Tags: Alliances, Barack Obama, Egypt, Foreign Policy, History of the Peloponnesian War, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, Thucydides

Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 9:01pm

The Tea Party Movement Must Stand with Governor Walker

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Culture, American Politics, Current Events, Economy, National Debt, Tea Party

Like the federal government and much of the rest of the country, Wisconsin is broke. As such, Governor Scott Walker has courageously asked public employees to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions, which is roughly equal to the national average. He’s also asked them to pay 12.6% of their health insurance costs, which is about half the national average. These are hardly unreasonable requests considering that most Americans are paying much more out of their own pockets. At a time when most Americans are tightening their family budgets these unions expect a free ride when it comes to health care and retirement savings. Governor Walker stands in stark contrast to Barack Obama who has passed up every opportunity to cut the deficit and…

1 Comment Tags: Barack Obama, Public Unions, Scott Walker, Wisconsin

Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 7:32pm

Conservatives Shouldn’t Fear Cuts to Defense Budget

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Current Events, Economy, National Debt, The American Presidency

Social Security may be the third rail of American politics, but the defense budget is at least worthy of notable mention. In fact, the defense budget is arguably the most politically sensitive budget item after entitlement spending. Conservatives and Republicans, who have enjoyed an advantage over their liberal counterparts on national security issues since Vietnam, too often associate a “strong national defense” simply with increases in defense spending—without considering the expenditures in the context of broader U.S. grand strategy. Many conservatives and Republicans are reluctant to propose cuts to the defense budget out of fear for appearing weak. Many just lack any strategic sense and simply follow the big government internationalism crowd which includes both liberals and parts of the conservative movement.

Liberals and Democrats are split…

1 Comment Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Defense Budget, FY2012 Budget, Pentagon

Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 5:45pm

Obama’s Reckless $3.73 Trillion Budget

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Politics, Current Events, Economy, National Debt, Tea Party

Today President Obama submitted his FY2012 budget to Congress and the numbers are staggering. The president had a real opportunity to provide leadership and make good on his promise to begin to address America’s fiscal crisis. But for all the president’s talk of fiscal responsibility and a renewed commitment to deficit reduction, the proposed budgets lacks any meaningful cuts, though the White House purports that it will cut the budget by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. This figure assumes very optimistic rates of growth for the economy–rates of growth most serious economists would refute. According to Bloomberg News, “The deficit for the current fiscal year is forecast to hit a record $1.6 trillion — 10.9 percent of gross domestic product –…

No Comments Tags: Americans for Tax Reform, Barack Obama, FY2012 Budget, Rand Paul

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 8:44pm

Barack Obama, the Fiscal Conservative

Posted by Tom Skypek in 2012 Elections

We will go through our federal budget–page by page, line by line–eliminating those programs we don’t need.

President-Elect Barack Obama, November 2008

Remember this? Whoever debates President Obama in 2012 ought to ask him about this quote. I’d like to hear his response. It appears that this has never happened. All he’s done is add line items and red ink to the federal budget. I was reminded of this quote when I stumbled across this outstanding ad sponsored by the Cato Institute.

1 Comment Tags: Barack Obama

Sunday, November 7th, 2010 at 2:43pm

The Obama-Reid-Pelosi Agenda Lives

Posted by Tom Skypek in 2010 Elections, Conservatism, Current Events

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will seek the position of House Minority Leader in the next session of Congress. And, of course, Harry Reid will return as the Senate Majority Leader (much to the chagrin of Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer). The election results were a repudiation of big government liberalism–cap and trade, Obamacare, the so-called stimulus, and TARP.

Clearly, though, that’s not how the Democratic Party or the White House interprets the election results. Thinking about 2012, this seems like a good thing for conservatives and Republicans. Not only will Obama not be able to run against the “do-nothing” Republican Congress (since we only control one chamber),…

No Comments Tags: Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi

Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 5:18pm

Dissenters are “Enemies,” according to President Obama

Posted by Tom Skypek in 2010 Elections, The American Presidency

In a recent interview President Obama referred to dissenters as “enemies.” This is remarkable on a variety of levels. First, Obama was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime, post-partisan politician. Referring to people with whom you disagree as “enemies” isn’t exactly civilized political discourse. Reasonable people can disagree and not be “enemies.” Second, I find it amazing how the left and progressives always talk about “diversity,” but as their words and actions clearly show, they never mean intellectual diversity.

John Boehner summed it up nicely:

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as “our enemies.” Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and…

No Comments Tags: Barack Obama, Statism

Friday, October 22nd, 2010 at 6:05pm

The Making of a National Security Advisor

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Foreign Policy, Current Events, The American Presidency

President Obama announced earlier this month that his current deputy national security advisor, Tom Donilon, would replace the retiring Marine Corps General Jim Jones. Donilon was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, and a paid consultant for Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Apollo Investments. Donilon is kind of a strange pick, then, considering his background as a lobbyist and his association with Fannie Mae. It’s strange because this administration made such a big deal about excluding lobbyists from policymaking positions but has granted a number of waivers to high-ranking officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn.

Personally, I don’t think lobbyists should be excluded from policymaking positions solely because they were lobbyists at one point in their careers. I do think it…

No Comments Tags: Barack Obama, Jim Jones, National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon

Thursday, October 14th, 2010 at 7:18pm

The Myth of Shovel-Ready Jobs

Posted by Tom Skypek in 2010 Elections, American Politics, The American Presidency

In a recent (and now infamous) interview with New York Times reporter Peter Baker, President Obama appraised his first two years in office, confessing that “shovel-ready” jobs don’t actually exist:

While proud of his record, Obama has already begun thinking about what went wrong — and what he needs to do to change course for the next two years. He has spent what one aide called “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0” with his new interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, and his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina. During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called…

1 Comment Tags: Barack Obama, Peter Baker, The Education of a President