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The Obama Timeline

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Harconen
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« Reply #150 on: July 29, 2009, 03:31:31 pm »

April

 

The Apology Tour

 

While in London for the G20 summit on April 1, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announce they will meet later in the year and attempt to work out an arms control treaty that reduces the number of nuclear weapons. They issue the joint statement, “We are instructing our negotiators to start talks immediately on this new treaty and to report on results achieved in working out the new agreement by July.” Russia is likely to take advantage of Obama’s desire to limit nuclear arsenals by persuading him to drop U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that it vehemently opposes. Obama may believe he will score “peace points” by reducing the number of nuclear warheads, but Russia will emerge the clear winner if it stops a missile defense system that is designed to neutralize its weapons. (Russia would no doubt rather have fewer missiles that cannot be intercepted than more missiles that can.) Medvedev later refers to Obama as “my new comrade,” and expresses pleasure that he is not pursuing President Bush’s “mistake” of a missile shield. (The United States has not yet officially ruled out the missile defense installation planned for Poland, but Russia is clearly pressuring Obama to cancel it.) [2101, 2152]

            Gun stores around the nation continue to experience increased sales of weapons and ammunition. Demand is so great that many stores run out of ammunition shortly after their shelves are stocked, and manufacturers are struggling to keep up with orders. A Denver resident tells KMGH-TV, “Just about everywhere I’ve been, it’s sold out.” A National Rifle Association (NRA) spokesman states, “Folks have been experiencing shortages all over the country. Since the election, there has been a great increase in firearms sales as well. Background checks are up, enrollment in training and safety classes is up, concealed weapons permits are up, gun sales are up—and ammo manufacturers can’t keep up with demand.” One NRA member explains, “Everybody’s just worried about the new government coming in and trying to ban guns and make everything more difficult to obtain. Well, the way (Obama) has been acting, there may be a little truth to the rumor.” The owner of a gun shop says that even “old ladies and young people and liberals” have been buying ammunition from his store, and that Obama’s ill-advised (but revealing) campaign remark about how people “cling to guns or religion” may have sparked the fears and the purchases. [2105]

            More than 60 members of Congress ask Obama to withdraw his nomination of Dawn Johnsen to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, partly because of her having described pregnancy as a form of slavery. Congressman Steve King (R-IA) complains that Johnsen has “…compared pregnancy to slavery and described it as involuntary servitude.” Johnsen has described pro-life activists as “terrorists,” and in arguing a case before the Supreme Court, Johnsen stated, “The woman is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not wholly her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends. Thus, abortion restrictions ‘reduce pregnant women to no more than fetal containers.’” [2106]

            The honeymoon—or at least the media adulation—is not yet over for Obama, as NBC’s Today show predicts that Queen Elizabeth will be overwhelmingly thrilled just to meet Obama during a break in the G20 activities. “This is gonna [sic] be the most exciting encounter of her (the Queen’s) long and successful reign. I think she’ll be absolutely fascinated.” [2119]

            When Obama and his wife meet England’s Queen Elizabeth II on April 1, he illustrates that he and his staff learned very little from the Gordon Brown DVD gift fiasco. Obama presents the Queen with a Chinese-made iPod. (She has had one since 2005.) Fortunately, Obama also presents her with a songbook autographed by the great American composer, Richard Rodgers. (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! is one of the Queen’s favorites musicals.) The Queen gives Obama a signed photo of herself and her husband, a gift she routinely presents to visiting foreign dignitaries. The Queen says nothing to suggest the Obama visit is her “most exciting encounter” since her 1953 coronation, nor is it known how she will react upon learning that the iPod contains not an Oklahoma! soundtrack but a recording of Obama’s 2004 DNC speech and his 2009 inauguration address. [2107, 2124]

            Although Obama shakes the hand of Queen Elizabeth upon meeting her, he bows from the waist when later presented to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Proper protocol would have been a handshake for both Queen Elizabeth and the Saudi king, but only a Muslim would bow to a Saudi Wahhabi. One columnist writes of Obama’s act of submission to the Muslim king that it “…is not the protocol, and is most unbecoming a president of the United States.” Jamie Glazov (author of United in Hate, which “…analyzes the left’s romance with tyranny and terror”) is less generous in his criticism of Obama and comments, “And people don’t know what’s going on here? Are we kidding? This is simply the continuation of fellow traveling. It’s to be totally expected.” Obama was the only foreign leader to bow, and several laughed as Obama did so. (Whether Obama kissed the ring of the king is unclear from the available video of the event.) It is worth noting again that Obama had attended Harvard Law School with the help of Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour. Al-Mansour is the principal financial advisor to Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, the nephew of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (the world’s 19th wealthiest person, worth $29.5 billion, who donated $20 million to Harvard to fund an Islamic studies program, and who gave $1.35 million to the families of Hamas suicide bombers out of gratitude for their having killed innocent Jews). Although protocol states it was most certainly improper for Obama to bow before the Saudi king, for perhaps more than one reason he felt obligated to bow; the king’s nephew is also the largest shareholder in Citigroup, which received billions in bailout dollars from American taxpayers and which has donated generously to Obama campaigns. [41, 380, 381, 382, 408, 558, 2144, 2150, 2203, 2312]

            The White House is put in damage control mode and denies that Obama bowed to the Saudi king, even though the action was caught on videotape. An Obama aide claims, “It wasn’t a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah.” (The video clearly shows Obama’s left hand at rest until after he rises from the bow; England’s Queen Elizabeth is shorter than King Abdullah and Obama did not bow to her.) Although the White House unconvincingly argues that Obama’s bow was not a bow, at least one Saudi newspaper recognized the gesture and stated, “Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, who has made one of the most important calls in the modern era, namely the call for inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue to defuse the hatred, conflict and wars.” The Washington Times calls the bow a “shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate” that violates centuries of American tradition of not deferring to royalty. [2238, 2263]
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