Faced with similar circumstances as FDR, Obama rose to the challenge…not.
Franklin Delano Obama
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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As brilliant as ever! The stark contrast between the two presidents presented with similar circumstances…plain as can be. Don’t we also have to be afraid of being “isolationist” if we “give up” on the many wars on “terror”?
Gotta fear those credible but unconfirmed terrist threats too. How else can we be vigilant about suspicious behavior like driving cars across bridges?
Ted,
Want to bet on the one thing Obama will show forceful action on? The next 9/11 attack.
Politically, he’ll have to go in like John Wayne. Nothing about the Preznit demonstrates that he can make a stand for rational action, and with re-election coming up, you know he’ll start cheerleading for the warhawks as soon as they give him his cue.
And what do you think another 10 years of war will do? We’ll have to go to war, or else–the warhawks will shriek–it means the terrorists have won, the terrorists have shown that they can beat America. Not fighting back will tell the terrorists that they can come here and kill us all in our sleep, etc., etc.
I think bin Laden’s target on 9/11/01 wasn’t the Pentagon and the WTC. His target was the next 9/11. The first one just about bankrupted us morally, economically, and politically. The next one will finish the job quite handily.
[On White House Letterhead]
To Adm. Yamamoto,
Please do forgive us for putting our fleet and planes in the way of your bombs. Those responsible for this have been pusnished accordingly.
F. D. Obama
Peter Sagal said something to the effect that, if Bush, Jr had been President in ’41, he’d have immediately mobilized the US, used words like ‘Day of inflamby’, and then sent the US into a massive war against Bulgaria.
Mr. Rall says Obama would have ceded Hawaii.
I’m sure Sagal was right about Bush, Jr. (maybe he would have declared war on Thailand instead of Bulgaria, but he certainly would never have declared war on Japan, a major ally from whom he would have solicited major contributions to his campaign).
Obama, however, only kowtows to Republicans, not to Japs: if the Republicans had devastated Hawaii, I’m quite sure he would have just ceded the islands to them. Oh, wait, I think he already has.
But not if it were Japs. Them he’d nuke, just like Truman did.