Opposing Lawlessness, At Home and Abroad

Washington Examiner ^ | Melanie Sturm

[Aspenhuskerette]

Since Teddy Roosevelt counseled, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” U.S. presidents have mostly followed his advice, cautioning adversaries to resolve conflicts peacefully or suffer consequences.

Even President Carter brandished America's big stick upon learning that bad things happen when you're not respected, prompting him to reconsider deterrence, given “the Soviets' ultimate goals.”

But today, after unilaterally “resetting” relations with repressive regimes, including Iran and Russia -- whose Ukraine incursion is “the gravest threat to European security and stability since the end of the Cold War,” proclaimed NATO's chief -- America's posture is more akin to “speak loudly and carry a toothpick.”

By not anticipating and mitigating gathering threats or adhering to our peace-through-strength tradition, America now "leads from behind."

We neither back good actors nor punish bad, nor are we perceived as tough and reliable enough to deter menacing behavior, rendering us “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend,” as Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis feared would happen.

Conversely, on the domestic front, President Obama speaks powerfully and wields a bludgeon -- a pen, a phone and a pledge to circumvent Congress by unilaterally re-writing, ignoring or negating laws he is constitutionally bound to “faithfully execute.”

Testifying before Congress on accumulating separation of powers violations, constitutional law professor and Obama voter Jonathan Turley warned that Obama is “not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system, he’s becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid — the concentration of power in any single branch.”

To assert its branch's authority, the House recently passed legislation providing legal recourse when the executive branch disregards the law, provoking a veto threat despite remedying the power abuses for which then-Sen. Obama lambasted President Bush.

Meanwhile, though Obama declared Washington a negotiation-free zone on spending and debt issues, ruthless dictators

[RobinOfKingston]

... "leads from behind."

There is no such thing. It is as unreal as the "Breathairian" philosophy.