The Left is chortling about what a big, bold he-man Obama is, not actually forbidding the US Navy’s use of armed force to rescue the hostage American ship’s captain.

Jules Crittenden appreciates the irony.

Lefty bloggers are crowing about how tough their guy is because some SEAL snipers whacked three pirates. The lefties seem to mainly be interested in this as an opportunity to snark on the right, claiming that pirate whackage or the lack thereof was set as some kind of definitive right-wing benchmark of Obama’s wieniness. That’s OK. This is their special moment. …

In fact, news reports indicate the dithering has already begun. Never mind that. I just want to say I’m thrilled about the handwringing, Kumbayah-singing, peacenik left’s new enthusiasm for swift, extra-judicial 7.62 justice by executive order, and the lack of calls for human rights investigations, prosecutions, etc.

Special Ops service veteran Jeff Emanuel is less impressed with the Obama administration’s performance.

Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama administration and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the Indian Ocean and declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put paid to questions of the inexperienced president’s toughness and decisiveness.

Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants’) attempt to spin yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.

What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location — became an embarrassing four-day-and-counting standoff between a rag-tag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship. …

[I]nstead of taking direct, decisive action against the rag-tag group of gunmen, the Obama administration dilly-dallied, dawdled, and eschewed any decisiveness whatsoever, even in the face of enemy fire, in hopes that the situation would somehow resolve itself without violence. Thus, the administration sent a clear message to all who would threaten U.S. interests abroad that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no idea how to respond to such situations — and no real willingness to use military force to resolve them.

Any who think they weren’t watching every minute of this are guilty — at best — of greatly underestimating our enemies. …

Like the crew of the Alabama, which took swift and decisive action to take back their own ship rather than wait for help from Washington that they knew could not be counted on, Captain Phillips took matters into his own hands for the second time in three days, leaping into the water to create a diversion and allowing the NSWC team to eliminate his captors. The result, of course, was the best that could possibly be expected: three pirates dead, the captain unharmed, and a fourth Somali man who had surrendered late Saturday night in custody.

One thing that will bear watching will be what the Obama DOJ attempts to do with the captive pirate. My money is on a life of welfare checks, a plot of land (in a red state, naturally), and voting rights in Chicago, New York, and Seattle.

The Somali pirates’ attempt to reinforce the lifeboat holding captive American merchant ship Captain Richard Phillips using the captured German Hansa Stavanger adding another 24 hostages to the pot was foiled by US warships who compelled the pirates to turn back.

CNN

The New York Times in customary fashion stroked its chin and concluded the whole thing simply demonstrated once again the ineffectiveness of US military power.

The Indian Ocean standoff between an $800 million United States Navy destroyer and four pirates bobbing in a lifeboat showed the limits of the world’s most powerful military as it faces a booming pirate economy in a treacherous patch of international waters.

The New York Post demanded that the Navy should immediately sink the pirates.

Meanwhile, over at Huffington Post, Johann Hari a sensitive British sodomite, thinks the pirates are perfectly justified.

James Lewis thinks this incident is a test, which Barack Obama is failing.

Gerald Warner has a few choice derisive comments on the European accomplishments and foreign policy prospects of the man he describes as the “new surrender monkey on the block.”

President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you’d notice.

Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets – suddenly it is flag-day in Aberdeen.

Raymond Ibrahim at Pajamas Media contemplates the historical context and semiotics of Obama’s bow.

Is Obama’s deep bow (with slightly bent knee) to the Saudi king as bad as it seems? The White House, apparently forgetful that we live in the Internet age, where everything is swiftly documented and disseminated — or else thinking it leads a nation of the blind — insists the president did not bow. He supposedly always bends in half when shaking hands with shorter people, though he certainly seemed quite erect when saluting the British queen, who is much shorter than the Saudi king.

Obama bowed; this much is certainly not open to debate. All that is left now is to place his odious obeisance in context. As such, history has much to say about the seemingly innocuous bow.

Millennia before the current war between the West and Islam — the war Obama insists does not exist in the first place — the ancient Greeks (forebears of Western civilization) warred with the Persians (forebears of the soon-to-be-nuclear Islamic theocracy, Iran).

Writing in the 5th century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus explained: “When the Persians meet one another in the roads, you can see whether those who meet are of equal rank. For instead of greeting by words, they kiss each other on the mouth; but if one of them is inferior to the other, they kiss one another on the cheeks.”

This explanation reminds one of Bush’s hand-holding/kissing sessions with the same Saudi monarch, which some insist exonerate Obama’s bow. Not so; as the Greek historian explains above, such behavior is representative of equal rank in Eastern cultures.

As for Obama’s conduct, Herodotus continues, “yet if one is of much less noble rank than the other, he falls down before him and worships him.”

“Much less noble rank”? Could Obama, like his wife Michelle, who only recently became proud of America, be operating under the conviction that being American is not all that noble?

As for “falls down before him and worships,” this phrase is a translation of the Greek word proskunesis, which means “to make obeisance,” to “worship, adore,” as one would a god, or king, or god-king. Basically, to fall on one’s face in prostration to another. Connotatively, it implies “to make like a dog” — base, servile, and submissive. …

Whatever prompted that rather instinctive bow — Obama may be used to bending the knee to Saudi royalty, considering that Saudis may have paid his college tuition — and regardless of antiquated notions of “honor” and “dignity,” merely diplomatically, it was a bad move.

Jon at Exurban League has the President’s remarks.

Since the pirates are still holding the captain, I have sent FBI negotiators to facilitate his safe and speedy release. I assure his friends and family that I will not stop until this man-made disaster is resolved in a peaceful, tolerant and ecologically-sound manner.

Obviously, this incident has raised many concerns among Americans. There have been calls for justice and even violence against the misguided perpetrators. But such an emotional reaction has led to the disparagement of entire groups with which we are unfamiliar. We have seen this throughout history.

For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates.

The past eight years have shown a failure to appreciate the historic role of these noble seafarers. Instead of celebrating their entreprenuerial spirit and seeking to partner with them to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Some of us wonder if our current Overseas Contingency Operation would even be needed had the last administration not been so quick to label Pirates as “thieves,” “terrorists” and worse. Such swashbucklaphobia can lead to tragic results, as we have seen this week.

To address this issue, I have instructed Vice President Joe Biden to create a cabinet-level Czar of Pirate Outreach and Buccaneer Interrelation. In addition, June 1-7 has been designated as Pirate Awareness Week, during which all federal buildings will fly the Jolly Roger and sponsor sensitivity training. Thankfully, my American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will fund free grog and hard tack for all attendees.

Finally, to all pirates listening to international broadcasts, shortwave services and ship-to-shore radio, let me say this:

Ahoy, me regret arr relationship has set sail in a scurvy manner. Arr people share many mutual ‘alues and concerns on t’ raging main. Perchance, could ye handsomely release the cap’n o’ the ship and I assure that no harm will come t’ ye or ye hearties. Let us smite t’ reset button and launch our seabond on a new pegleg. Savvy? Godspeed t’ ye and t’ ye beauties. Aye, me parrot concurs.

Jon Ward, at the Washington Times, explains that making concessions to the other point of view, then pivoting and asking for favors, concessions, and understanding of the American perspective is just President Obama’s characteristically preferred technique of deal-making and consensus-building.

Besides incorporating the president’s preferred approach in all circumstances of conflict of sweet-talking manipulation, Obama’s apologies also provide undoubtedly agreeable opportunities for continuing the partisan Bush-bashing, America-bashing narrative fundamental to the left’s world view.

America, to hear President Obama tell it, is an occasionally arrogant nation struggling with shameful legacies of racism and discrimination, one that bears a large share of the blame for the world’s economic and climate crises. Oh, and our train service is lousy.

Mr. Obama’s just-concluded eight-day trip abroad, his first major international foray, also marked the debut of a more humble foreign-policy style, one that sought to use cultural concessions and admissions of past mistakes to disarm other countries before challenging their own policies and attitudes toward America.

Repeatedly on a trip that included stops across Europe and in Iraq, Mr. Obama tried to pre-empt criticism of the United States by expressing it first himself – a sharp break from the practice of President George W. Bush.

Mr. Obama told Europeans that “America has shown arrogance” toward their continent, conceded that the United States bears much of the blame for the world’s economic plight, and said in a speech broadcast throughout the Middle East that America is still dealing with its “darker” legacies of discrimination and mistreatment of minorities.

David Axelrod, one of the president’s closest advisers, said Mr. Obama’s approach is one “he’s always believed in. …

There were moments when Mr. Obama’s determination to show deference to other cultures – countering the image of America as a cowboy nation, uninterested in anything beyond its shores – bordered on the bizarre.

Asked in Strasbourg, France, about a proposed Afghan law that human rights groups say gives husbands the right to rape their wives, Mr. Obama condemned the law, but also said America should be “sensitive to local culture.” His bottom line was that in Afghanistan, the U.S. focus “is to defeat al Qaeda,” but the comment came across as a rationalization of abuse against women.

Terry Jeffrey, at Town Hall, finds that the Obama Administration is already selling the 2010 Census as a welfare project.

The Constitution mandates that a census be taken every 10 years so that the members of the House of Representatives can be apportioned among the states according to their population.

But as the Census Bureau prepares to undertake the 2010 census, it is planning to stress a far different purpose for the population count, according to its own carefully crafted communications plan.

This plan is detailed in a 351-page Census Bureau document titled “2010 Census Integrated Communications Campaign Plan” that is posted on the bureau’s Website.

On page 10 of this plan, the bureau states that the “unifying idea for all communications” about the 2010 census is: “Only you can make the census ours.”

It says that this idea will be “expressed in the marketplace” through the phrase, “It’s in our hands.”

“This is the broad, overarching platform, unifying all messaging,” the plan says of the phrase, “It’s in our hands.”

Now, these phrases may look to you like lyrics from a Barry Manilow song, but to the people running next year’s constitutionally mandated count of all people in the United States, they are very serious words. …

On page 29 of its plan, the Census Bureau explains “What ‘Only You Can Make the Census Ours’ Means” — doing so in the imagined words of a U.S. resident being asked to participate in the census.

Participating in the census, it turns out, is all about “change” and “more funding.”

“I have an opportunity to help make a difference for my community, my family and myself,” says the imagined resident. “It’s literally in my hands, in the form of the 2010 Census questionnaire. The Census is much more than a piece of paper. It’s a tool that I can put to work to ignite positive change.

“My participation in the 2010 Census can be the tipping point that helps make change possible,” says the Census Bureau’s imagined U.S. resident. “And the more of us who fill out and mail back the Census, the more of us who want to tell a friend, to tell a friend, to tell a friend, the more funding we might get to help improve our lives and the lives of those who are important to us.”

In other words, the person the Census Bureau imagines it is targeting with its communications plan is not someone who looks at himself as a net payer of taxes but someone who looks at himself as a net taker of government funding.

It’s really about making the contents of your wallet “theirs.”

Is how Camille Paglia, in Salon, describes Obama’s bow to the “Custodian of the two Holy Mosques.”

Obama bows.

Paglia urges Obama to get himself a Chief of Protocol and learn some manners. And, in impressive defiance of the MSM coverage embargo, she actually comments on Obama’s stonewalling on his birth certificate and education records.

Arriving at the White House, he understandably stayed in his comfort zone by bringing old friends and allies with him — a team that had had a fabulous success in devising the hard-as-nails strategy that toppled the Clintons, like crumbling colossi, into yesterday’s news. But these comrades may not have the practical skills or broad perspective to help Obama govern. Like Shakespeare’s Prince Hal ascending the throne, Obama may have to steel his heart and banish Falstaff and the whole frat-house crew.

Obama’s staffing problems are blatant — from that bleating boy of a treasury secretary to what appears to be a total vacuum where a chief of protocol should be. There has been one needless gaffe after another — from the president’s tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister, followed by the sweater-clad first lady’s over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia. Why was protest about the latter indignity confined to conservatives? The silence of the major media was a disgrace. But I attribute that embarrassing incident not to Obama’s sinister or naive appeasement of the Muslim world but to a simple if costly breakdown in basic command of protocol.

Enough already! These slips are worsening the anti-Obama backlash, which began with the administration’s bungled handling of the grotesquely swollen stimulus package. Conservatives seem deliriously drunk with their cartoon picture of Obama, to whom is glibly attributed every pathology in the book. Yes, there were ambiguities about Obama’s birth certificate that have never been satisfactorily resolved. And the embargo on Obama’s educational records remains troubling. . But I am still waiting for hard evidence about the host of other charges that are continually being hammered against him — from his alleged fidelity to the crypto-tactics of Chicago leftist Saul Alinsky to the questions raised by right-wingers about the production of Obama’s two memoirs. Out of respect for the presidency, conservatives need to put up or shut up about these issues.

I found her “put up or shut up” demands concerning Obama’s assimilation of the political agitation techniques of Chicago radical Saul Alinsky and the theory originated by Jack Cashill that William Ayers might have ghost written Dreams from My Father less impressive.

Mr. Obama does a fine job of supplying proof of his commitment to Saul Alinsky-style agitation, the technique of seeking illegitimate forms of political power through media spectacles of public demonstrations of ressentiment by an aroused canaille manipulated into emotional paroxysms by the flattery of supposititious grievances.

The Obama Administration recently pulled off a very spectacular Alinskian tour de force reducing Congress, the mainstream media, and major portion of the American public to the stature of a howling mob over the manufactured issue of the injustice of AIG paying contractually-specified employee compensation bonuses subsequent to receiving federal bailout monies. When 1/10 of 1 percent of the federal contribution becomes the focus of national attention, and the public has no attention to spare concerning the disposition of the other 99.9%, you know that Saul Alinsky has triumphed.

The public firing of the CEO of General Motors was obviously another Alinsky moment in Obama presidency.

As to the ghost-written memoir theory, I don’t believe it rises to anything closely resembling the level of pertinence of the question of Obama’s Constitutional eligibility for the office he was elected to, or to that of his unsavory radical political background. There is also no real possibility of proving such a thing one way or another. Jack Cashill found several arguments for similarities between DFMF and William Ayers’s own memoir and other writings. Either one finds Mr. Cashill’s arguments persuasive or one does not. I don’t believe it is provable either way.

Stratfor’s George Friedman observes that Barack Obama’s European summit negotiations had little hope of accomplishing anything.

The spin emerging from the meetings, echoed in most of the media, sought to portray the meetings as a success and as reflecting a re-emergence of trans-Atlantic unity.

The reality, however, is that the meetings ended in apparent unity because the United States accepted European unwillingness to compromise on key issues. U.S. President Barack Obama wanted the week to appear successful, and therefore backed off on key issues; the Europeans did the same. …

Two fundamental issues divided the United States and Germany. The first was whether Germany would match or come close to the U.S. stimulus package. The United States wanted Germany to stimulate its own domestic demand. Obama feared that if the United States put a stimulus plan into place, Germany would use increased demand in the U.S. market to expand its exports. The United States would wind up with massive deficits while the Germans took advantage of U.S. spending, thus letting Berlin enjoy the best of both worlds. Washington felt it had to stimulate its economy, and that this would inevitably benefit the rest of the world. But Washington wanted burden sharing. Berlin, quite rationally, did not. Even before the meetings, the United States dropped the demand — Germany was not going to cooperate.

The second issue was the financing of the bailout of the Central European banking system, heavily controlled by eurozone banks and part of the EU financial system. The Germans did not want an EU effort to bail out the banks. They wanted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out a substantial part of the EU financial system instead. The reason was simple: The IMF receives loans from the United States, as well as China and Japan, meaning the Europeans would be joined by others in underwriting the bailout. … The United States therefore essentially has agreed to the German position. …

The reason there was no bargaining was fairly simple: The Germans were not prepared to bargain. They came to the meetings with prepared positions, and the United States had no levers with which to move them. The only option was to withhold funding for the IMF, and that would have been a political disaster (not to mention economically rather unwise). The United States would have been seen as unwilling to participate in multilateral solutions rather than Germany being seen as trying to foist its economic problems on others. Obama has positioned himself as a multilateralist and can’t afford the political consequences of deviating from this perception.

But wooing Turkey is key to competing with Russia for European influence.

Turkey is the key to all of this. If Ankara collaborates with Russia, Georgia’s position is precarious and Azerbaijan’s route to Europe is blocked. If it cooperates with the United States and also manages to reach a stable treaty with Armenia under U.S. auspices, the Russian position in the Caucasus is weakened and an alternative route for natural gas to Europe opens up, decreasing Russian leverage against Europe.

From the American point of view, Europe is a lost cause since internally it cannot find a common position and its heavyweights are bound by their relationship with Russia. It cannot agree on economic policy, nor do its economic interests coincide with those of the United States, at least insofar as Germany is concerned. As far as Russia is concerned, Germany and Europe are locked in by their dependence on Russian natural gas. The U.S.-European relationship thus is torn apart not by personalities, but by fundamental economic and military realities. No amount of talking will solve that problem.

The key to sustaining the U.S.-German alliance is reducing Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas and putting Russia on the defensive rather than the offensive. The key to that now is Turkey, since it is one of the only routes energy from new sources can cross to get to Europe from the Middle East, Central Asia or the Caucasus. If Turkey — which has deep influence in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Ukraine, the Middle East and the Balkans — is prepared to ally with the United States, Russia is on the defensive and a long-term solution to Germany’s energy problem can be found. On the other hand, if Turkey decides to take a defensive position and moves to cooperate with Russia instead, Russia retains the initiative and Germany is locked into Russian-controlled energy for a generation.

Therefore, having sat through fruitless meetings with the Europeans, Obama chose not to cause a pointless confrontation with a Europe that is out of options. Instead, Obama completed his trip by going to Turkey to discuss what the treaty with Armenia means and to try to convince the Turks to play for high stakes by challenging Russia in the Caucasus, rather than playing Russia’s junior partner.

This is why Obama’s most important speech in Europe was his last one, following Turkey’s emergence as a major player in NATO’s political structure.

“Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

3:05 video

—Barack Hussein Obama addressing young Europeans in Strasbourg.

Conservatives are understandably having conniption fits editorially today over the incongruity of an American president bowing from the waist to the king of Saudi Arabia and then kissing up to Europeans with a false and demeaning characterization of his own country’s foreign policy.

To subscribe to Mr. Obama’s nonsensical point of view, we’d need to believe there was some intrinsic moral superiority in the European cowardice and venality that favored selling Saddam Hussein French uranium and German arms components while ignoring blocked UN arms inspections in order to keep doing business with Iraq.

The enterprize of embracing one’s adversary’s point of view to the point of the invalidation and complete elimination of one’s own is a favorite and traditional liberal foreign policy approach. Ordinary common sense should suffice to predict that if one starts off at the far end of one’s negotiating partner’s own territory, one is unlikely to arrive at the conclusion of the process in the middle. But liberalism is never about results, it is always only about self-gratifying displays of righteousness.

A musical tribute to the Teleprompter of the United States.

3:36 video

Stuart Varney, in the Wall Street Journal, explains that the administration is actually resisting TARP repayments from certain banks. This Administration’s economic policies aren’t about money. They are about power and control.

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn’t much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street’s black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell ’em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration’s thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash — which was often forced on them in the first place — the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That’s what’s happening right now.

Here’s a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.