In his weekly address to the nation yesterday, POTUS Obama bragged about the magnificent job he’s done in Afghanistan before announcing, “After more than a decade of war, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.”
Oopsies!!
It was only just this January, in his 2012 State of the Union address, POTUS Obama promosed to do more “nation building at home” because nation building abroad was no longer a U.S. priority.
Six months prior, in his weekly address to the nation, on June 22, 2011, POTUS Obama said ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were in the “best interests” of U.S. Security and our economy. “Now is the time to focus on nation building here at home,” he said.
Which is a retread of Thomas L. Friedman’s November 27, 2010 retread of his own June 29, 2008 op-ed tirade:
- I do not believe nation-building in Iraq is going to be the issue come November — whether things get better there or worse. If they get better, we’ll ignore Iraq more; if they get worse, the next president will be under pressure to get out quicker. I think nation-building in America is going to be the issue. …
We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in need of nation-building. It is our political system that is not working. …
We need nation-building at home, and we cannot wait another year to get started.
Matt Welch commented on the November 10 version:
- But as a lifelong Prince fan, my eyes were drawn to the sheer dogged repetition of Friedman’s trademark sloganeering. The phrase “nation-building at home” makes two appearances, “nation-building in America” makes two more, and there’s a fifth “nation-building” in there, presumably for collectors. Since we’ve been down this road with the Flat-Worlder before, I thought it might be a public service of sorts to trace how long he’s been flogging this Molly. Turns out for 29 months at minimum.
More from Welch here.
John Hawkins at Rightwing News explains:
- Though lofty and nearly unimpeachable as a safely vague slogan, it is hardly new or unique to Democratic speech making.
True. Here’s Ohio communist Rep. Dennis Kucinich a few weeks ago, on April 23, spouting the same message. Nation building at home, he declared, will put Americans back to work. (Just google Democrat + “nation building” for many more examples.)
Hawkins continues:
- There has been a chorus on the Left promoting this idea for years without fully explaining it. Nation-building at home is code for the implementation of far-left policies. Because the president and the liberals who feed him these slogans misunderstand our nation so badly, they can be forgiven to promote a false definition of nation-building.
Sorry, but I disagree. Neither POTUS Obama nor Thomas L. Friedman are to be forgiven. They know exactly what they are doing and what they are saying and what they want to do to America. Too bad for them. We do, too.
When googling the phrase, make sure to put quotes around “nation building” for a more precise return.
The path we’re on is clearly unsustainable, nearly ruinous without serious intervention – it is a vision of the not-too-distant past for the likes of much of Europe. We have the rise of communists in France, while the national socialists are ascendent in Greece – there will be more of the same in other countries.
If the self-annointed “elites” in/around government, major media, academia, were paying attention, they’d see that there will be ruin… or a reckoning.