Day By Day

Sunday, November 15, 2009

The "First Pacific President"?

Speaking in Tokyo Obama referred to himself as the "first Pacific President" suggesting that he, unlike any of his predecessors, had significant experience in Pacific affairs based on the fact that he was born in Hawaii and spent some of his childhood in Indonesia. As with so many pronouncements made by this most historically illiterate of all Presidents and his minions the assertion is nonsense. California, home to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, borders the Pacific and could reasonably be considered a Pacific environment. Several former Presidents served military tours of duty in the Pacific. George H. W. Bush not only served in the Pacific, he was American ambassador to China. Taft was Governor-General of the Philippines. Hoover lived and worked in China and spoke Mandarin. So, Obama's claim to be the "first Pacific President" is not just unfounded, it is a slander against his predecessors in office.

And Obama's ignorant minions singled out George W. Bush for particular scorn, accusing his administration "of letting US ties with East Asia founder". Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bush administration took the lead in forging regional security, economic, and environmental agreements with Australia, South Korea, Japan, India, New Zealand, and the Philippines while simultaneously expanding the range and depth of ties with mainland China. If anything, Dubya was an activist with regard to East Asia and the Pacific.

It would be easy to dismiss all this as simply more lies from an essentially dishonest man and his lackeys, but it more likely reveals a disturbing level of self-centeredness and ignorance of history and global affairs unparalleled in any recent administration.