Obama v. Bush = Sober-Rattling v. Sabeer-Rattling

[doh_phooey]

Obama's recent trips overseas and to Latin America mark a new direction in foreign policy.

[doh_phooey]

1. Obama, sadly, is no Bush when it comes to foreign policy

Humble or Bumble? Obama's New Diplomacy

by Rick Horowitz
April 13, 2009

And now all of a sudden, we're supposed to find...consensus? We're supposed to try to see things from somebody else's perspective ... we're supposed to make time for every tin-pot nobody with two missiles to rub together? We're supposed to find out what's on their mind? We're supposed to see whether we can do business together?

It was never like that in the Bluster Years.

We had better things to do than waste our time talking to people like that, or even going to conferences where people like that might show up, just so we might bump into them in the hallway and figure out what they're thinking and maybe even do a little deal about something or other just to get the ball rolling.

We don't have to get the ball rolling. It's our ball, and we can take it and go home any time we want. Or at least we could during the Bluster Years.

You were either with us, or you were against us, and we didn't tie ourselves in knots figuring out who was in which category. It was simple. Everything was simple. The money was always in dollars. The conversation was always in English. We apologized for nothing, and we had nothing to apologize for.

And now all of a sudden, the president -- the president of the United States, mind you -- is telling foreigners that we screw up from time to time. That we've gone our own way much too often. That we've been arrogant!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-horowitz/humble-or-bumble-obamas-n_b_185226.html

(the above piece, which can be read in full at link, is satire by Rick Horowitz)

[doh_phooey]

2. President Obama's New Approach

President Obama's New Approach to a New World Order?

Sunday 19 April 2009
by: Wilmer J. Leon III, Ph.D.

Against the backdrop of this recent historical context and in the wake of the dreaded foreign policy blunders of President Bush 43, President Barack Obama appeared on the world stage at the G-20 Summit and held subsequent meetings with European leaders. At the Summit and in these meetings, Obama set a new tone for dialogue and diplomacy. He listened, engaged in constructive dialogue, demonstrated an appreciation for and understanding of cultural difference and nuance, and apologized for American arrogance, thereby laying the groundwork for a new diplomatic approach to a new world order. A "world order" in which "the principles of justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong. A world where the UN is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations. A world order based on a truer sense of diplomacy, not Bush 43's unilateral and destructive sense of "American Internationalism."

President Obama's measured, thoughtful, patient and reasoned approach in Europe and Somalia indicates a refreshing change in tactic, possibly resulting in a new approach to a "New World Order".

http://www.truthout.org/041909B