PRESTIGE

Talk about the snow falling on the b.o. snowplow train.

The numbers are being crunched and the numbers are exposing, dare we say, the lies of the b.o. Administration regarding the impossible costs of the intended wholesale replacement of the American health care system.

It would appear that the costs are prohibitive, politically and economically unachievable.

So much for b.o.’s promises to change all, fix all – to lead us helpless and incapable citizens into broad, sunlit uplands.

Yes, the stuff is falling.

There are also of course the costs of the economic bailouts – the success of which is yet to be seen.

And there are the upcoming show trials in New York of the Gitmo folk, especially the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, ksm, as the msm is calling him.

And the Copenhagen gathering has collapsed.

And the tour of Asia is off and running. b.o. will bow and scrape and talk the talk and accomplish nothing except the further erosion of US prestige.

We attended a lecture last week wherein an Asia expert explained/defined something of the rationale of national power. He discussed the obvious power factors: economic; military; and intellectual, etc.

He left one out which I used to share with my students. It is the ingredient of power known as prestige.

Prestige is that which makes it possible to exert persuasive, sometimes even coercive influence, without having to do anything but communicate desire or intention.

It is that quality which impresses target audiences with the assurance that what one says will occur will actually occur.

Prestige makes proof of credibility generally unnecessary.

It is what makes it possible for nations to have their way without having to resort to less than subtle action.

b.o. is setting about to absolutely destroy US prestige.

He is renouncing to the world the assumption by the Government and people of the United States that American policies are worth pursuing for the greater good and that the United States expects to prevail and indeed will prevail in areas significantly affecting US national interests.

In a few words, he is giving away the farm.

Ronald Reagan built up the farm.
Harry Truman built up the farm before him.
George Bush and Dick Cheney, in spite of mistakes made, did not give away any of the farm.
The world believed they meant what they said, even if the world did not like what they said and did.
And more of what they said and did was liked by much of the world than the msm would have you believe.

b.o. is giving it away and the farm will have to be rebought .

For the US is not the equal nation among other equal nations that b.o. is saying it is.

The peoples’ republic of china is not only a brother or sister nation, it is also a long-term enemy.
n. korea is an enemy.
iran is an enemy.
russia is an enemy.
The 9/11 terrorists and those they represent are enemies.

Those who support and abet them are enemies.

It is one thing for b.o. to attend to domestic American politics and appease interest groups and supporters, it is quite another for him to allow foreign enemies to lose respect for the American will to prevail in the world.

As someone once said, it is better to be respected and feared if one cannot be loved.

Our enemies will never love the United States.
It is important that they respect and fear an enemy United States.


Finally, I would conclude by saying that this post is incomplete in that I have not defined enemy.
There are enemies and there are enemies.

Russia is not the same kind of enemy that nazi germany or imperial japan was.

I know that.

But they are enemies just the same.
The word deserves a definition.

Perhaps I will do so later.