Obama: The Undemocratic Democrat

By Johanan Raatz

When Americans elected Barack Obama they assumed they were electing someone who adhered to democratic principles. After all, Obama's flowery rhetoric was quite convincing, and "hope" and "change" were in the air.
Now however that these vacuous slogans have been filled with substance we find that the actions do not meet the rhetoric . After the fact it is starting to appear that the Democratic party has nominated and the American people have elected a rather undemocratic Democrat to the presidency.
In America his domestic policies thus far have been mostly ruinous. Unfortunately, Americans are not the only people affected by his policies. Being a leader on the world stage, what happens in America often affects politics across the globe.
Traditionally America has used it's influence to promote the ideals of freedom and democracy abroad. President Obama appears to be changing all of that though. Instead of championing the ideals of democracy he has used America's influence to oppose it. Thus far he has:

I.) Attempted to foist a Chavez like dictator onto the Honduran people: After forcibly attempting to change the Honduran Constitution in a step towards becoming president for life, Manuel Zelaya was removed from the presidency and exiled by the Honduran Supreme Court, under Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution. Obama has since condemned this legal action as a "coup" and attempted to put Zelaya back in power. Only 28% of Hondurans want him to return though.

II.) Imposed upon the Dominican Republic to remove a newly passed amendment to their constitution, banning abortion throughout their country. The vast majority of Dominicans see fetal homicide as murder and oppose it. Additionally, of the 210 members of the Congress, 171 members voted in favor of the amendment while only 32 voted against it. Apparently cultural imperialism is wrong unless one is trying to push the counterculture and its moral degeneracy down others throats.

III.) Resisted supporting the Iranian people in their democratic movement against the corrupt theocratic regime in Tehran. Ahmedinejad's recent overreach and the subsequent reaction to it was an excellent opportunity to promote democracy in Iran. However, instead of vigorously supporting the Iranian people in their struggle against a dictator, Obama took the cowardly approach and needed to be dragged by his hair to finally -and halfheartedly- take the right stand.

Though I did not vote for him I can not help feel a sense of responsibility towards the people of the world for this man's behavior. Perhaps I could have done more to oppose him while there was still time.
I believe I owe an apology towards the people of these nations for the abhorrent behavior of our current president. I only pray that in time they will forgive us. Hopefully, by then Americans will take their role in the world seriously, and be more responsible in whom they elect to the presidency.

The Democrats Declaration of War on the CIA

This week the House Democrats alongside Attorney General Eric Holder declared war on the CIA.

The House Democrats did so by the fact that the members of the Intelligence Committee signed a clearly partisan letter in which they complained that they were not informed earlier of a plan to assassinate Al-Qaeda leaders after 9/11. This is faulty for a number of reasons. First of all, the plan never went operational. It was only in the planning stages. Also the Democrats would also like more people briefed on possible covert operations, to a maximum of 40 people. That is ridiculous. How are we supposed to keep things secret with so many possible leaks? In addition,. the Democrats can't seem to help themselves. They want to be considered tough on national security yet complain about the CIA's activities.

In a related story, Atty. Gen Holder is going to allow a special prosecutor to investigate CIA operators who were involved in interrogations. This however is a slippery slope. Will it be a witch hunt that'll go so far that it'll lower morale at Langley? Or will it do this AND go further? Will it go after a number of Bush Administration officials? This is an absolutely horrible idea and hope it doesn't go to far.

They Just Don't Get It

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, she gave her support in the fact that she is supporting Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to mediate an end to the crisis. But what end is this administration after? A restoration of Zelaya to be president? In her statement that can be seen in its entirety below, she seems to support the restoration of Zelaya and to respect democracy. What she, and President Obama do not realize though, is that Zelaya sought to subvert the democratic system in his country, not uphold it. The military and Supreme Court acted in the best interest of Honduras, but it seems the people in positions of power aren't realizing the obvious.

Barack Obama and Honduran Democracy

It would appear President Obama cannot get out in front of the recent coup in Honduras fast enough.

To give you all some background, this past Sunday, the military arrested President Jose Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile in Costa Rica. This was done to prevent a referrendum from being enacted that would allow Zelaya to tun for reelection an unlimited amount of times, rewriting their constitution. This has been attempted by Hugo Chavez in the past to install himself as President for Liife, so it isn't beyond the realm of belief that Zelaya, an all of Chavez would attempt a similar move.

In the run up to the refendum though, the Supreme Court ruled it as being unlawful. Not suprisingly Zelaya rejected their ruling and then fired head of the armed forces, Romeo Vasquez Velaquez refused top aid in the referrendum. He was however reinstated when both the Supreme Court and Congress deemedit unlawful.

The coup was then ordered by the Supreme Court for June 28th. Head of the Congress, Roberto Micheletti was then sworn in as president.

In the wake of these events condemnation pured in fairly quickly by such organization as the Organization of American States, UN, and EU. However, President Obama was one of the first condemn the coup. This is interesting for the reason that he got outy in front of this right away, yet he waited days upon days to say anything about the Iranian protesters, even the slightest words of solidarity.

Now, he views it through the liberal prism, that the military overthrew a democratically elected government. What he doesn't see or at least is mentioning is that Zelaya was atempting to subvert democracy by the referrendum he wanted to enact. So who is really the one who's undemocratic here?

President Obama, you can't pick and choose which batttles you're going to fight, who's easy to support, and who's not. Plus, anytime you're on the same side as Hugo Chazez, you have a problem.