Obama's Misdirection Strategy

Obama's Misdirection Strategy
By Ben Shapiro
6/15/2011

President Obama loves the smell of humus in the morning. Smells like ... victory. At least, that seems to be the message resonating from this suddenly imperialistic White House. According to the UK Guardian, "American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement, which is likely to see U.S. troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades."

Meanwhile in Libya, President Obama continues to escalate the conflict, despite the fact that he will be in violation of the War Powers Resolution in five days. And in Israel, Obama is attempting to force our ally to come to the negotiation table with a Hamas-backed regime, and to pre-emptively give up all claims to anything beyond the pre-1967 lines, save a few choice areas.

Why Obama's sudden shift from passive-aggressive in the Middle East to aggressive-aggressive? Because he's running out of time.

Desperate to shift Americans' attention from the looming double-dip recession of his own making, President Obama is now attempting to refocus Americans on overseas conflicts. And he's doing so in perfect Clintonian fashion. When President Clinton fell under scrutiny for engaging in illicit acts in the Oval Office, he immediately shifted his focus to militarism across the globe.

Clinton fired off missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan, missing Osama bin Laden but nailing a drug factory. He targeted Israel at Wye River, forcing our ally into concessions from which Israel gained precisely nothing. A few months later, he launched a useless war in Yugoslavia using NATO -- a war in which there was no discernable American interest.

This is the Democratic playbook, and Obama is running it to perfection. When you're stuck on domestic politics, start a war somewhere. When you're stuck on foreign politics, bring forth a major domestic initiative. When you're stuck on both, attack the opposition as racist.

We've already seen the first scenario. Watch as President Obama now attempts to shift focus back to domestic politics by pushing a regulatory regime that "simply can't wait." Whether it's immigration reform or a Wall Street crackdown or global warming, President Obama will attempt to shift American attention away from the foreign sphere with a shiny new policy.

When that fails, Obama's opposition will focus on race. In fact, they're already doing so. The tea party, you'll remember, has been slandered over and over again without racist. This week, the target is Eric Bolling, a host on Fox News Business, who covered President Obama's meeting with corrupt Gabon president Ali Bongo Ondimba. Recalling Obama's similar White House invite to rapper Common, Bolling remarked, "Guess who's coming to dinner? A dictator. It's not the first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse." Then he hammered the language home: "What's with all the hoods in the hizzy?"

This sent the left into spasms of apoplexy. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic called the incident "open and revolting racism at Fox." The George Soros-funded Media Matters called Bolling's comments "overt racism." A misguided linguistic choice? Definitely. "Overtly racist?" Come on.

The left had no similar problem with black commentator Alonzo Rachel, who did a video in May titled "Common in Da Hizzy Wizzy." Nor did they seem to care when George Clinton rapped about painting the White House black, along with Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Yo-Yo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Public Enemy, Shock G & Pupa Curly, or when Ludacris did the same. Apparently, hizzy and hizzouse are the new N-words: only black people can use them.

Or it's possible that this is the latest desperate ploy by the left to paint its opponents as racist. That would be merely the latest in a series of desperate ploys designed to direct attention away from President Obama's incompetence, at all costs. It is a strategy doomed to failure. Misdirection can only last for so long.
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