Obama got elected by running against the Bush Doctrine, and now he claims it for his own.
President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron kick off two days of diplomacy this morning by pledging to work against repressive regimes in the Middle East — by force if necessary.
In a sternly worded column in The Times of London, the two leaders liken the effort to free Arab peoples from authoritarianism to the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1980s.
Bush sets sights on Mid-East freedom
By Marian Wilkinson, Herald Correspondent in Washington and agencies
November 7, 2003Under pressure over the rising insurgency in Iraq, President George Bush is calling on Americans to support a new vision of “freedom” in the Middle East that makes a break with six decades of US policy of supporting autocratic regimes.
Mr Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said that in a speech Mr Bush was to make yesterday he would promote “the new opportunity for a forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East”.
His call is being compared with president Ronald Reagan’s appeal to eastern Europe in 1983 to abandon communism.
Dr Rice said: “After 60 years of trying to find stability through regimes that were not devoted to political liberty for their people, what we found is that we did not buy security of stability but rather frustration and pent-up emotions in a region that has fallen behind in terms of prosperity and in fact continues to produce ideologies of hatred.”
Mr Bush was due to deliver his speech to mark the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/06/1068013331451.html
Obama ran against many of Bush’s policies, only to flip-flop in practice. In fact, he’s failed to do many of the things he said he would. But the morons bit, hook, line and sinker.
I found the CNN headline of “Obama & Cameron” the new Reagan Thatcher to be especially vile. Obama is no Reagan (you Brits can decide on the Cameron connection – but I tend to think he has an inflated ego as well).
Cameron certainly ain’t no Thatcher either!
Bush went along with bank/Wall Street/corporate bailouts. Obama has been adopting Bush’s Mideast polcies.
This leads one to believe that the differences between the two parties are greatly overstated. Presidents of both parties listen to the same group of advisors when the chips are down.