Silence Not So Golden

Worst speech ever? Maybe not. But close. OK, we can’t really speak for President Obama’s economic policies. And health care got dropped. They could ultimately work, we don’t know. Actually we can’t really speak of his foreign policy either - because he never did.

So here are some other things we found interesting in his national security sliver.

Obama doesn’t want to “re-litigate the past” in reference to the Bush era torture doctrine, Iraq war crimes, and all the other things his various officials were accused of.

He then claims, “We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August... This war is ending and all of our troops are coming home.” Both statements are hard to believe and confusing when put together. America is leaving up to 50,000 US troops as a residual force, something Obama only seems to muddle.

That’s probably the point.

He boasts of increased isolation on North Korea and Iran, a policy more likely to bring war. He warned of growing consequences, “that is a promise.” Attacking Iran is a check Obama can’t cash.

He also didn't mention the following words: Israel, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Kashmir.

And no offense to him personally, but he didn’t stutter at all in his domestic agenda and too many times to count during national security. He also used stupid hand gestures taught at some communication workshop on a strip mall.

Don’t blame us for being cynical, for blacking out a foreign policy without direction. Everything went as expected. We aren’t cynical, the White House is cynical.

But the GOP response was no different and just as easy to reduce. Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia said in his speech, after calling Iraq a success, devoted one paragraph to Afghanistan, none to any other foreign policy issue. Just like Obama.

"We applaud President Obama's decision to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan," said McDonnell. "We agree that victory there is imperative for national security."

This hardly matters to him though, there are more pressing concerns at hand.

"We have serious concerns over the recent steps the administration has taken regarding suspected terrorists. Americans were shocked on Christmas Day to learn of the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit. This foreign terror suspect was given the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen and immediately stopped providing critical intelligence. As Sen.-elect Scott Brown has said, we should be spending taxpayer dollars to defeat terrorists, not to protect them."

The GOP seems to have learned a clever trick - replacing torture with "defeat terrorists." Other than that, Obama's foreign policy is fine by them. The less said the better.

Not for us.