Charles Krauthammer and the Clowns at Fox Are Self Indulgent Brats

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I got a kick reading Charles Krauthammer's column in the morning paper, in which he parrots the current right wing critique of Barack Obama's foreign policy.

Remember how Shirley Temple used to stamp her feet and toss her curls, with that adorable pout, when she didn't get her way?

That is pretty much how conservative commentators like Krauthammer are acting these days—minus the cute.

Those who are not explicitly accusing Obama of treason are, like Krauthammer and the clowns at Fox, merely suggesting that the president is selling America out.

Let's review what Krauthammer says about his country's president.

Obama has been in office for less than three months, remember, and inherited something of a mess from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but that doesn't stop Krauthammer from indicting the president with some pretty impressive name-calling.

Fatuous. Farce. Drastic. Useless. Sideshow. A basket full of mea culpas. Obsessive denigration. Fiction. Strange. The essence of Obama's foreign policy, Krauthammer concludes, is to "celebrate his own country's decline."

Gee. And I thought the trip went pretty well.

As with many of Obama's critics, Krauthammer doesn't actually have alternatives to offer. He's content to call Obama a sellout because the North Koreans tested a rocket, the president agreed to renew strategic arms talks with the Russians, and has sought to repair the U.S. alliance with Europe.

Apparently, the U.S. would be better off by, what? Sending a couple hundred thousand U.S. kids into war with the crazy, nuclear-armed North Koreans? Bringing back the Cold War, and a nuclear arms race with Russia? Canning the test ban treaty? Bullying our NATO allies? Gratuitously insulting the Chinese creditors?

Of course not. Krauthammer, and many like him, are living in the past—in some frothy, wishful concoction of a time when America was rich and powerful and unrivaled and all it needed to get its way was some presidential chest-puffing.

The reality is that the United States is in relative decline. It's not so much that we are collapsing, but that other nations are getting stronger.

And Bush and Cheney—can we agree?—did not help things.

So Barack Obama, two months in office, has been dealt a particularly lousy hand to play. He has put together an experienced team, and has a strategy that he's begun to unfold.

Just who is the patriot, Charles? Is throwing a self-indulgent, partisan and gratuitous snit really what your country needs right now?

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