It is time you get Smartenized about foreign policy. Any strong statement by the U.S. government backing the protests will be used as an excuse to ratchet up the crackdown. Ahmadinejad would say this is further evidence the protests are the creation of outside powers. He would then gleefully snatch up all the leaders and you would never hear from them again. Of course, he is already doing this to a certain extent, but let’s not give him anymore cover than he already has.

Even the majority of the idiots realize the U.S. ideologically supports these protests. Adding a few strong words from the President or a senior government official won’t do anything positive.

What I’m hearing is that the Iranian opposition considers that official US govt support for them (as opposed to their general civil rights to peacefully protest, etc.) would be the kiss of death to their movement. Even without the fact that Ahmadinejad is already claiming the movement is foreign in origin — I can’t blame the Iranian people (as opposed to the insane government) for (1) wanting to take care of this themselves, as a civil rights movement and not a revolution, and (2) not really wanting another round of the type of US “help” that landed with them with Reza Pahlavi and, probably, the ensuing revolution.

Blowback’s a bitch.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that Obama is going to continually try to please as many people as possible by not taking a position on anything. All of his “present” votes in the Illinois and US Senates that I dismissed as dirty campaigning on the part of his opponents I’m now seeing as a warning sign I should have heeded.

He really didn’t seem that bad and didn’t seem to be the huge “people pleaser” Clinton was especially when he ran against her. A president cannot simply “no comment” his way out of every issue, but given Obama’s track record, it seems to be his M.O.

I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like we have another ineffectual Carter presidency on our hands. Obama-the-candidate I think was extremely qualified for the job and had the potential to be a great president. It’s too bad Obama-the-president has apparently kidnapped Obama-the-candidate and won’t tell us where he is.