Dismissing criticism from the right, Obama said, "It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States."
That is one opinion. History has shown that it is, in fact, very likely.
"I love [the] proposition of cutting off all communication with [a] nation which has conducted itself... atrociously. This may bring on war. If it does, we will meet it like men; but it may not bring on war, and then the experiment will have been a happy one."-Thomas Jefferson, 1794.
"[If another nation throws] down the gauntlet of war or submission as the only alternatives, we cannot blame the government for choosing that of war, because certainly the great majority of the nation [would think] it ought to be chosen, not that they were to gain by it in dollars and cents; all men know that war is a losing game to both parties. But they know also that if they do not resist encroachment at some point, all will be taken from them, and that more would then be lost even in dollars and cents by submission than resistance. It is the case of giving a part to save the whole, a limb to save a life. It is the melancholy law of human societies to be compelled sometimes to choose a great evil in order to ward off a greater, to deter their neighbors from rapine by making it cost them more than honest gains... We must consider... that although the evils of resistance are great, those of submission would be greater. We must meet, therefore, the former as the casualties of tempests and earthquakes, and like them necessarily resulting from the constitution of the world."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1814.
The measurement for success of our foreign policy is not how well they like us, how popular the president is abroad, or how many despots are happy to shake our President's hand. The success will be measured on deeds: disarming North Korea, stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan, preventing Russia from invading Georgia, preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons, preventing Islamic-terrorists from taking over Pakistan, providing safe passage for our ships and goods on the high seas, assuring that our goods and services find open markets on foreign soil, and preventing a terrorist attack on our shores.
Foreign relations is the prime directive of the Federal government. Domestic matters are the responsibility of the states.
More from Ms. Mitchell:
From his first trip overseas last summer to his tour de force during the G-20, Obama has projected a rare combination of charisma and humility, in contrast to the stereotype of a domineering U.S. president trying to dictate by fiat to the rest of the world.
The Obama World Tour has been nothing more than an embarrassment and dangerous.
"I never doubted the propriety of our adopting as a system that of pomp and fulsome attentions by our citizens to their functionaries. I am decidedly against it, as it makes the citizen in his own eye exalting his functionary and creating a distance between the two, which does not tend to aid the morals of either. I think it a practice which we ought to destroy and must destroy and, therefore, must not adopt as a general thing even for a short time."-Thomas Jefferson, 1800.
It is Obama's vanity that is the most dangerous aspect of his character.
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