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Ctrl-Alt-Delete: Barack Obama's plan to placate the Muslim world with three keystrokes
Opinion Journal - Best of the Web Today ^ | 12/11/08 | James Taranto

Posted on 12/11/2008 8:54:56 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom

"Barack Obama says his presidency is an opportunity for the United States to spread a message of tolerance," the Los Angeles Times reports...

"I think we've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular," Obama said Tuesday, promising an "unrelenting" desire to "create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of goodwill who want their citizens and ours to prosper together." The world, he said, "is ready for that message."

Sorry, what is that message again? He's promising an unrelenting desire to create a relationship with peoples of goodwill? What about peoples of badwill? What about peoples of goodwill who are ruled by corrupt and oppressive governments?

We suppose a certain amount of sheer fluff--or let's call it strategic indirection--can be useful in international diplomacy. Let us hope that Obama is not actually naive enough to mistake the platitudinous for the profound, and that he is merely using the former to keep America's adversaries guessing.

Even granting the president-elect the benefit of the doubt on that point, however, one thing about his remarks irritates us--to wit, his promise to "reboot America's image." How does that work, you just hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete and everything starts over? (Also, why is this a "unique opportunity" to do so? Perhaps because President Bush had a chance to save his work before shutting down?)

...has an analogy between the workings of a computer and that of the human mind or society ever actually helped anyone to understand the latter? Are the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and America's founding documents impoverished in their understanding of mankind because their authors had no idea what a "processor" or an "operating system" was?

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: agenda; bho2008; bhogwot; hussein; mohammedanism; mohammedanism122008; muslim; obama; reboot
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Glad to see Taranto is back on track after his awful dismissal of the COLB kerfuffle. This is really scathing and exposes the empty suit for what he really is. I love the speculation that this is "strategic indirection...to keep America's adversaries guessing." O is nowhere near that smart, of course.
1 posted on 12/11/2008 8:54:56 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

“Glad to see Taranto is back on track after his awful dismissal of the COLB kerfuffle.”

he wants to get to the point, that Obama’s ideas are lousy.


2 posted on 12/11/2008 8:57:45 PM PST by ari-freedom (Conservatives solve problems. Libertarians ignore problems. Liberals create problems.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

please, PLEASE let that f****ing k———— word DIE!


3 posted on 12/11/2008 8:58:02 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (appeasement is collaboration.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Mr Hyde?


4 posted on 12/11/2008 8:58:27 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (appeasement is collaboration.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

See, this is why we should have elected McCain. He would have only done a ctrl-alt-backspace and restarted XWindows without rebooting the whole system. But Obama just HAS to reboot the whole machine...damn Windoze users...

Rebooting, eh? I’m willing to bet that our relationship with Muslims hasn’t been rebooted in a really long time, so if we do reboot it, can it go into a really long (like 100 year) fsck, so we don’t have to deal with it for a while?

He said he was going to reboot it, but he didn’t say how. If he’s not careful, the hard drive might fail and then we’d have no relationship left at all unless we had backups of it. Then, we’d have to consider if we even wanted to restore it at all...what a mess...


5 posted on 12/11/2008 9:01:36 PM PST by perfect_rovian_storm
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
"Sorry, what is that message again? He's promising an unrelenting desire to create a relationship with peoples of goodwill? What about peoples of badwill? What about peoples of goodwill who are ruled by corrupt and oppressive governments?"

Obama thinks he's won Student Government President.

A better campaign slogan than all that vague hope and change smoke would have been to plagiarize from Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite:

"Vote for Obama, and all your wildest dreams will come true!"

6 posted on 12/11/2008 9:03:37 PM PST by TheClintons-STILLAnti-American
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
"reboot America's image."

What a ridiculous thing for a president to say. After Hussein gets done rebooting America's image, I wonder if he would be kind enough to do a 'kill -9' on his administration.

7 posted on 12/11/2008 9:04:01 PM PST by KoRn
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

And how long will it take this Idiot to realize that the only way to placate the Moslem world is to surrender to them?


8 posted on 12/11/2008 9:04:24 PM PST by doc1019
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
Obama does see evil for what it is. I guess he thinks Mumbai was just a misunderstanding.
9 posted on 12/11/2008 9:06:34 PM PST by Tarpon (America's first principles, freedom, liberty, market economy and self-reliance will never fail.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Negotiate with terrorists and terrorist regimes from a position of weakness. Excellent strategy, Barry.


10 posted on 12/11/2008 9:08:17 PM PST by headstamp 2 (Been here before)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
"Even assuming no conversation took place between the two principals, we still are left with the question of when the Obama team became aware of Blagojevich's alleged scheme and what if anything they did about it."

Expect no angry demands of "What did he know and when did he know it?!?!?" here.

This is not only a Democrat, but the Anointed Democrat.

"Double standards" is far too small a term to begin to describe the difference in expectations.

11 posted on 12/11/2008 9:10:44 PM PST by TheClintons-STILLAnti-American
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To: doc1019
"And how long will it take this Idiot to realize that the only way to placate the Moslem world is to surrender to them?"

Do you have any indication that he doesn't realize that, and has no problem with it?

12 posted on 12/11/2008 9:12:20 PM PST by TheClintons-STILLAnti-American
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To: TheClintons-STILLAnti-American

Great point. Unarguable point at this time.


13 posted on 12/11/2008 9:15:56 PM PST by doc1019
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

3 Keystrokes??

Here’s two keystrokes:

FU !

(and a strong letter to follow)

See, I saved a stroke!


14 posted on 12/11/2008 9:20:53 PM PST by aShepard (Maybe 12/6 is the time to launch a constitutional amendment that lays out POTUS requirements!)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
Attention Muslims: If Hussein had his way, 25,000,000 of you would still be getting raped, tortured and slaughtered by the man who shared his name!

No Hussein, we don't need a "reboot" among peaceful Muslims. We need you to support the continued destruction of the extremists in that religion...but of course you won't do that because you're too busy trying to gain the approval of Ahmanutjob and his ilk.

15 posted on 12/11/2008 10:07:30 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Looks like 0bama is getting ready to throw human rights under the bus and crawl into bed with some of the worst two-legged slime in existence.


16 posted on 12/11/2008 10:12:56 PM PST by Post Toasties (It's not a smear if it's true.)
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To: Tarpon

How do you justify your faith in 0bama?


17 posted on 12/11/2008 10:14:34 PM PST by Post Toasties (It's not a smear if it's true.)
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To: TheClintons-STILLAnti-American

Does Barack Hussein Obama, or his Indonesian name, Barry Soetero give you any indication to whom his allegiance lies?


18 posted on 12/11/2008 10:39:24 PM PST by wac3rd (In the end, we all are Conservative, some just need their lives jolted to realize that fact.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

19 posted on 12/11/2008 11:14:22 PM PST by JeepInMazar (http://www.truthformuslims.com)
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To: Post Toasties
I have NO, NONE, NADA faith in Obummer about anything. As far as I am concerned he is a Kenyan Communist pulling off a huge scam on the American people with the help of the drive by media.
20 posted on 12/12/2008 6:48:36 AM PST by Tarpon (America's first principles, freedom, liberty, market economy and self-reliance will never fail.)
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