In a conversation some years ago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was comparing different levels of commitment to civil rights. “Think of a ham-and-egg breakfast,” he said. “The pig makes a much bigger commitment than the chicken.”
After I stopped laughing, I saw his point. And now President Obama has reminded me of it.
It is too kind to give the president credit for even a shaky commitment to a stable world order. Through hesitancy, dithering and denial, he didn’t even bother to fiddle while Rome burned. He golfed and went to fund-raisers.
Now that much of the whole planet is burning, the president says he’s ready to lead the counterattack. But his record makes it impossible to believe he suddenly sees the light and is committed to combatting Russian aggression and the Islamisc State. And that’s just for starters — Iran’s game-changing nuclear program is waiting in the wings.
Obama turned up the rhetoric at the NATO summit, vowing in an op-ed with Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, that they “will not be cowed by barbaric killers” and that “we will be more forthright in the defense of our values.”
Those are the right words — but they’re just words.
Even if Obama is committed for now, I don’t believe he’s capable of sustaining the commitment the crisis requires. A standoff won’t do. To truly defend Western values requires victory, a word the president never uses.
And to achieve that victory, he would need to renounce most of his foreign policy and world view. It would mean admitting he’s been wrong about history, America and Western civilization itself.
Remember, he launched his administration by apologizing for the US. In France, he gutted the idea of American exceptionalism by saying everybody thinks their nation is exceptional. He said in Cairo that “I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear” and often suggests America is Islamophobic.
The Fort Hood massacre is still officially deemed a case of “workplace violence.” With few exceptions, every terrorist group justifies itself by citing Islam, yet Obama inevitably calls them “extremists,” which is also what liberals call conservatives.
His semantic fouls aren’t just loose talk; they reveal his prejudices and wrongheaded policies. To justify his abandonment of the hard-won gains in Iraq and Afghanistan, he declared al Qaeda “on the run” and claimed the “tide of war is receding.”
He drew a “red line” in Syria, then walked away from it as the country descended into mass slaughter. His team boasted of “leading from behind” in Libya, which is now an outlaw state overrun with jihadists.
He “reset” relations with Russia and sent a message to Vladimir Putin that he would have “more flexibility” after he was re-elected.
When Putin accepted the invitation to carve up Ukraine, Obama sent our allies socks and military rations. When Russian thugs shot down a civilian plane, the president called for an investigation. When Putin invaded with soldiers, tanks and artillery, Obama called it an “incursion” and said it was nothing new, only “a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now.”
None of this is ancient history, or even history. Just last week, he talked of making the Islamic State a “manageable problem.” Days before that, he told donors “the world has always been messy” but that “we’re just noticing now because of social media.”
He demands that Israel negotiate with Hamas and uses the terror group as a stand-in for all Palestinians, even though it vows to wipe the Jewish state from the map. When Israel balked, he put a hold on military equipment sales — during the war Hamas started.
As for Iran, I have yet to meet a single soul who believes Obama is committed to preventing it from getting nukes.
The pattern is more than clear — it’s virtually unanimous. Our president won’t rise to the challenge because he refuses to recognize evil as evil.
As a result, Obama’s commitment to winning the Great War of our time doesn’t even match a chicken’s commitment to a ham-and-egg breakfast.
Gettin’ frisky at the party
Mayor de Blasio made stop-and-frisk sound like the worst thing that ever happened to New York, although it saved thousands of lives and more invasive searches are required to board commercial airliners.
But comes now a ringing endorsement of the police procedure from the very people the mayor claims it harms.
In reporting that cops were ordered to allow illegal liquor sales at outdoor junkyard parties in Brooklyn before the West Indian Day Parade, The Post witnessed bouncers checking the IDs of everybody who attended — and frisking them.
“These big, burly guys wave you over, and you spread your legs and raise your hands, just like at the airport,” reporter Frank Rosario told me. “They sort of give you a hug to check your back, then they brush down with their hands from shoulder to waist, then from crotch to ankles and shoes, to see if you’re packing heat.”
Rosario said metal grates, like the ones police use, formed a barrier and there were separate lines for men and women, with female bouncers frisking female patrons. He was frisked and said he never saw anybody complain.
Apparently, none of the customers, almost all of them nonwhite, felt their civil rights were being violated or that they were racially profiled. Thousands of revelers stood in line for up to 90 minutes, submitted quietly to the so-called degrading experience — before paying $40 to get into the parties.
Their logic was sound. Even though the parties were illegal, they knew they would be safer if there we no guns or knives inside the security barrier.
They were right. The Post report found one injury — a man who was stabbed and robbed. He told police two men followed him and slashed him with a broken beer bottle — outside the security barrier.
With friends like Cuomo’s . . .
If Gov. Cuomo hopes to rescue his reputation as an Albany reformer, he needs new friends or more courage. Fast.
With Cuomo getting hit from the left by primary opponent Zephyr Teachout, and from the right by GOP candidate Rob Astorino, the governor is relying on support from the likes of former Gov. David Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Oy. Paterson and Silver are living proof that Albany ethics is an oxymoron.
Yet it is a mark of the box Cuomo put himself in by killing the Moreland Commission that he has to turn to scandal-scarred pols for support.
Cuomo could stand up and talk for himself, but that would mean debating his opponents. He seems determined to avoid that, no matter the cost to his reputation
One hack of a job
The headlines announced that a hacker broke into the HealthCare.gov Web site. In a related development, the White House announced that, although they don’t know it yet, 10 million more Americans just signed up for ObamaCare.