In the midst of everything else the Obama administration is doing wrong, there’s the ongoing saga of how he’s handling the Middle East. Earlier last year, he spoke glowingly of the inappropriately named Arab Spring. What a boon this was going to be for the world. Now that Egypt has held its elections, the results have not been encouraging. Egypt is even holding nineteen Americans for trial who are primarily aid workers. I was hardly the only one who warned this development was inevitable, but the president and his administration seemed blissfully unaware of the trajectory of the protest movement. It has turned out as predicted:

Radical Islamists now effectively control Egypt. Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a bill that will stop all foreign aid to that country; I support it. Egypt is now another potential Iran.

Speaking of Iran, the effort to build nuclear weapons continues apace. This is the regime, when Obama was running for president back in 2008, that he said he could connect with—that Bush just didn’t try hard enough to communicate. Was this the height of foolishness or was this height of foolishness [sorry, I don't see another viable option here]? While he is now finally implementing some sanctions, it may be far too little, and it is probably far too late. A nuclear Iran? That’s not a problem, right? Anyone who can look past this threat and declare we have nothing to fear from it is truly living in fantasyland. Obama, although confronted with a genuine enemy, nevertheless has his own favorite “enemy” in that hostile region:

Obama has never liked Israel. He considers that anomaly in the middle of Muslim states to be the main obstacle to peace. All one has to do is recall his twenty years in attendance at “Rev.” Wright’s “church” to know where he stands. That “church” deplored Israel and promoted propaganda from Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Israel has no friend in President Obama. He treated Netanyahu with disrespect on one of his visits to America, and polls in Israel show the people there no longer see the U.S. as a trusted ally because of Obama. If we help that nation at all, it’s going to be only because of political pressure during his reelection campaign.

Obama’s foreign policy is just one of the many reasons he doesn’t deserve a second term, but it’s not a minor reason—our national security depends on having a president who has a clear vision of who our friends and enemies really are.

So what else has been happening this week besides presidential politics? Well, there were some other elections. In Ohio, Big Labor outspent the opposition and demagogued so successfully that the voters overturned the legislature’s law that attempted to control the collective bargaining power of government unions. They hail it as a victory. That’s because they think short-term and don’t stop to consider that this vote only worsens the financial situation. The result?

Those same Ohio voters, apparently confused by the concept of having a consistent philosophy of government, then rejected the individual mandate of Obamacare. Well, at least common sense prevailed on that one.

Back in Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder had to testify before a congressional committee about the Fast and Furious debacle. He refused to acknowledge that the plan to allow guns to migrate to the drug cartels led to the murder of a Border Patrol agent. He continues to act as if he’s not really responsible for those who operate under his authority. Does anyone see a pattern here?

Why bother?

Also hard at work was the so-called Super Committee trying to come up with a proposal for deficit reduction that both sides can agree on. Democrats walked out at one point. I can see the media spin on this one now:

Let’s not omit the president from this overview. In Europe for a G-20 summit, he and the French president found something to agree on—they both can’t stand Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The only problem is that the microphones picked up their comments; they didn’t know they could be overheard trashing the Israeli leader. Well, you know, he’s just such a pest!

Of course, he might have some legitimate concerns.

I’ve been concentrating on electoral politics lately. There have been other stories that deserve attention as well. One of those is the Palestinian effort to be recognized as a legitimate nation at the U.N. This comes to the forefront of what the media has dubbed the “Arab Spring.” The narrative goes something like this: despotic rulers are being displaced by freedom-loving moderates throughout the Arab world, so we should rejoice over this encouraging development.

Unfortunately, I believe this is closer to the reality:

Those freedom-loving crowds are the same ones attacking the Israeli embassy in Egypt and calling for death for all non-Muslims. The centerpiece of this Middle Eastern religious and cultural clash is the promotion of a Palestinian state. That’s why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made his trek to the U.N. last week to press for statehood. He gave a speech to the General Assembly, arguing the merits of this move:

The problem is that both factions of Palestinians—the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] and Hamas—have, as their philosophical foundation, the destruction of the nation of Israel. The most fanatical of them seek to kill all Jews. Of course, Abbas didn’t say any such thing in his address, but the undercurrent is present nevertheless.

No, he didn’t wear the t-shirt, but that doesn’t negate the underlying premise.

The Obama administration’s response, so far, has been in line with American policy in all the decades since Israel’s birth in 1948. We’re told we will continue to stand with Israel by vetoing, in the Security Council, any attempt to recognize a Palestinian state. But please forgive me if I still have some concerns about that. We have a president who is so sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—remember his “church” back in Chicago that put statements from Hamas in its Sunday bulletins?—that I’m not sure he will remain steadfast with that veto.

The only real hope that he will keep his word is that he needs the Jewish vote again in 2012.

Politics can be full of surprises. Just when you think everything is set in granite, and when the pundits believe they’ve got it all scoped out, their worlds can be rocked:

Last week, who really expected that Rick Perry would turn in such an awful debate performance?

And the biggest shock of all?

Looks like the frontrunners drew some rather short straws.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the political spectrum, President Obama is trying to shore up what used to be his base of support. One group, in particular, has been shoved to one side during his tenure. Now he needs to win them back. But why would they want to come back, given the policies he has followed in the Middle East?

He’s also doing all he can to broaden his base:

But if the latest public opinion polls are accurate, he may be losing even more support—in a place he never expected to lose it:

This election season is becoming more fascinating every week.

The intent of yesterday’s post was to ensure we understand that there have always been bad times in American history, and that we’ve been at the point of despair before. Our future as a nation is still open; the decisions we make now will determine our path.

Today I do want to emphasize the severity of our current problems, as a kind of counterpoint to yesterday’s hopeful thoughts. It’s important that we don’t put our heads in the sand, figuratively speaking. What are we facing right now, and how do these problems compare to previous ones? I’m going to provide what I consider to be the key list of issues with which we have to deal:

• As a nation, we have never been this deep in debt. Credit agencies are threatening to lower America’s rating for dependability in paying our creditors. In just two and one-half years of the Obama administration, we’ve added $5 trillion in debt, rushing rapidly toward a grand total of $15 trillion. That means more than one-third of that debt has accumulated on Obama’s watch. Yet he doesn’t even seem to take it seriously. There’s no attempt on his part to cut back on the spending. Instead, he hopes to pass another stimulus and raise taxes.

• We are going to burst through our debt ceiling in August unless we cut spending. But what solution do the Democrats offer? Keep raising the ceiling. It doesn’t work for governments any more than it does for individuals and families.

The logic used by the administration is fascinating:

• The ideology behind Obama’s policies is more socialistic than anything proposed by FDR or LBJ. He has taken over one-sixth of the economy by ramming through a very unpopular and unconstitutional healthcare bill.
• We are stuck in a recession that has similarities to the Great Depression. The housing market has now been declared worse than what we experienced in the 1930s. Obama’s socialist policies have undercut the free market, ruined small business, and kept unemployment high.
• On the education front, he has taken steps to end school voucher programs, such as the one that was working well in Washington, DC, forcing poor children into awful government schools where they will learn virtually nothing. He is in the pocket of the educational establishment, which is more attuned to maintaining its stranglehold on education than achieving results. The NEA, in particular, has a political agenda perfectly in line with Obama’s ideology. Any attempt by conservatives to change this broken system is met with hysteria and hyperbole.

• Culturally, we have degenerated to a place unparalleled in our history. Over fifty million unborn children have been murdered since 1973′s Roe v. Wade decision. Homosexuality, which was always considered a perversion of God’s gift of sex, is now being touted as a laudable lifestyle, no longer a choice but simply a genetic difference. Last week, New York’s legislature, pushed by Democrat Governor Cuomo and acquiesced in by enough Republicans, made homosexual marriage legal. The Rubicon has been crossed. Marriage itself is being trivialized and degraded. We have broken with Christian belief and tradition to our detriment.

• The homosexual advance has become so dominant that it is difficult to watch television without finding a sympathetic homosexual character on a program. It’s an all-out assault on basic Biblical morality.
• Speaking of morality, our political leaders have fallen short at a record pace lately. I don’t need to review all of the scandals; you know them. Anthony Weiner has become a classic symbol of all that is wrong with our moral compass.

• When we turn to foreign policy, we see the United States practically laughed at in most of the world, the takedown of bin Laden being the exception to the rule. Few in other nations, friend or foe, take Obama seriously. He has become Israel’s worst nightmare. He’s now expanding that bad dream by sitting down and talking with the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, operating on the illusion that they have renounced violence. What a fantasy world! Both are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the overthrow of Western civilization. This is a travesty of the highest order.

Have I forgotten anything really important? Possibly. I’m sure some of you could add to the list. Taken all together, this set of problems may signal the worst crisis we have ever faced as a nation. We could be on the verge of falling apart completely, morally and politically.

An essential part of the solution is to rid ourselves of the current political leadership, but that’s only a part of the solution. There is a more foundational need. That’s my subject for tomorrow.

The Arab Spring, so beloved by the media, is closer to the Islamist Ascendancy. Western blindness, as I’ve noted before, keeps us from recognizing the reality. In Egypt, the crowds listen to an imam who calls for the killing of all Jews. The streets erupt with jubilant agreement. Where are the reports of this? What is taking place in the Islamic world is the rise of the jihadists who want to kill us all. If you don’t think that’s the case, you’re not paying attention.

That’s why I’ve written so many posts with quotes from Mark Steyn’s America Alone. He gets it. Steyn comments,

If this were World War One, with their fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. Which the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there’s an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western Civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default.

What’s the nub of the problem?

Meanwhile, we fight the symptoms—the terror plots—but not the cause: the ideology. The self-imposed constraints of this war—legalistic, multilateral, politically correct—are clearer every day. “Know your enemy,” they say. They know us very well. Do we know them at all?

Steyn wrote those words in 2005, back when we had an administration that had a better handle on the problem [although Bush also gave too much credit to Islam as a "religion of peace"]. What do we face today with Barack Obama in the White House?

He may have made the final decision to take out Osama bin Laden, but that was merely one action against an individual responsible for running a terror network. Does he really understand the immensity of this network? Does he understand and not care? Where are his sympathies? Take a poll of the Israeli people, and you have your answer.

Blindness is one thing; empathy for those who seek to commit genocide is something else.

The past week or so has been filled with so much news I haven’t had the opportunity to cover it all. I did talk about the president’s comment on Israel’s pre-1967 borders, but I didn’t get to all the cartoons about it. Here are two of my favorites:

Some have suggested the United States go back to its pre-1959 borders, which would then exclude Hawaii. I wonder why they were wishing for that?

Meanwhile, some Democrat agency made a commercial trashing Paul Ryan’s budget plan by showing him pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over a cliff. One cartoonist used that image for his commentary:

Never mind that Ryan’s plan doesn’t change anything for people age fifty-five or older. That would be dealing with facts—something rather foreign to those who love to demagogue this issue:

Then there was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court—a 5-4 decision with Justice Kennedy providing the swing vote again—telling California to release thousands of prisoners because their rights were being violated by the crowded conditions in those prisons. They got that way, of course, because California is, for all practical purposes, broke, and unable to spend money on them. Well, actually, there would be money available if priorities were different, but that’s another story. This one has enough ramifications of its own:

Remember this card? It’s been altered slightly to fit the current situation:

Another reason not to live in California.