Posted by
Buster Foghorn on Monday, June 08, 2009 7:42:28 PM
“Keep your friends close - hold your enemies closer.”
The advice contained in this old Arabian quote is almost an article of faith when it comes to leadership principles, especially in difficult or treacherous times, and this holds true whether we look to Abraham Lincoln’s shaping of his cabinet, as explained in the best-selling book Team of Rivals, or Don Vito Corleone’s (as played in the movie version by Marlon Brando) strategic alliances in The Godfather.
And in the early days when President Obama reached out to his former rivals, Bill Richardson and Hillary Clinton, to join his cabinet, the conventional wisdom was that the President was following Lincoln’s example; he understood the wisdom of the old proverb—he would do the right thing with his friends while turning “enemies” into new friends.
The jury may still be out (at least among those American voters who even still strongly support the President) on his blueprint to remake America, but there is one area where it is timely, indeed—mandatory, to point out how the President is doing and that is with his campaign promise to improve our image aboard—to make the world like us again.
You may recall that it was a constant drumbeat by candidate Obama along the campaign trail--our reputation had been trampled and destroyed and ruined during the Bush years, and President Obama promised that he would improve our standing in the world—countries around the world would be our friends again.
In fact, we now have enough details to grade the President; we have had an eye view of his handiwork to remake our image into a beloved country around the world. I don’t know if the President’s special talent comes from his Ivy League education; or from his training as a community organizer; or from his friendships with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his fellow board member, Bill Ayers; but our former Senator from Chicago has essentially thrown out that old kernel of Arabian wisdom, that bit of Americana—heck, what did Lincoln know anyway?, he was just a one term President; forget The Godfather, he is just a fictional character. No, our President has a new, and even better, formulation—Keep your enemies close—distance yourself, even disrespect, your old friends.
And while the President is failing, failing disastrously in his campaign promise to improve our image aboard, he continues to mount trophies on his White Office wall, trophies of the splendid success of his novel formulation to “distance yourself, even disrespect, your old friends.”
His triumphs mount whether it is: the British—insult them and reject the Churchill bust, give the Prime Minister a gift that screams indifference; or the French—that’s right, reject a dinner invitation from President Sarkozy and his wife during a visit to France, refuse to find time for a reception, reject any reason to spend personal time with the French leader; or the Germans—lecture the Germans on the holocaust, rub their noses in it on your tour of a prison camp, and feel the glacial cooling between you and Angela Merkel, a cooling so icy that the White House had to deny there was any tension with the Germans; or the European countries of the former Soviet bloc (Secretary Rumsfeld’s ‘new Europe’) who now see themselves abandoned by the U.S., left to fend on their own, chartering a course without American resolve, without NATO admission, without missile defense, without promised U.S. support against Russian interference and intrigue; or the Israelis--who have an exploding cottage industry of writers explaining how the Obama diktat not to expand settlements is part of a White House plan to destabilize their government, to saddle them with a tired left wing coalition that will give away land and security, leaving them unable to defend themselves. And all of this isn’t even counting the President’s victories closer to home: antagonizing Mexico with a sop to unions over trucking or the Buy American rule riddling our friendship with Canada, angering Canadian cities and prompting a Buy Canadian resolution in return.
Yes, how our educated Ivy Leaguer, trained Community Organizer, befriender of radicals, and companion to the marinated disaffected managed in less than six short months to turn his campaign promise inside out, to turn conventional wisdom on its head, to isolate us even further and crush and trample our friendships of many long years, why, dear reader, it is a performance not to be missed; perhaps even, a performance for the ages—but then, I guess no one would expect anything less from—The One.