Films/DVD Asylum

RE: " Focus was objective"

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In Reply to: RE: " Focus was objective" posted by volunteer on August 28, 2012 at 10:46:28

The journalist failed to understand what she was watching (and by the way, she fails to report that she's a die-hard Obama supporter), so this does nothing to counter my assertion that D'Souza's look at Obama is objective.

But it's difficult to see how Obama's political leanings could have been so directly shaped by his father, as D'Souza claims. The elder Obama left his wife and young son, the future president, when Obama was 2 and visited his son only once, when Obama was 10. But D'Souza frames that loss as an event that reinforced rather than weakened the president's ties to his father, who died in a car crash when Obama was in college.

Actually D'Souza makes the point that it was Obama's IMPRESSION of his father, reinforced mainly by his mother, that helped shape his views. The ties to the father are made totally objectively using many of Obama's own assertions in Obama's own words from Obama's own autobiography, Dreams from My Father. To then claim Obama's psyche wasn't profoundly shaped by his impression of his father (vis a vis his mother and other influential figures in his life and education) is not terribly accurate.

Let's go over some of the journalist's other points.

— D'Souza rightly argues that the national debt has risen to $16 trillion under Obama. But he never mentions the explosion of debt that occurred under Obama's predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, nor the 2008 global financial crisis that provoked a shock to the U.S. economy.

D'Souza's point is not who to blame for the debt but to examine Obama's willingness to expand our debt at all. You have to admit that it does seem odd for a president who promised to cut it in half by 2012 to not even show leadership to pay it down at all.

— D'Souza says Obama is "weirdly sympathetic to Muslim jihadists" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He does not mention that Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the drone strikes that have killed dozens of terrorists in the region.

D'Souza's point was not unique to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama has shown great respect to rioters on the arab street in ways that rolled back some of the most progressive arab regimes (e.g., in Tunisia and Egypt that had westernized laws supporting women and family rights). Now the Islamists are in charge there. This is really unprecedented. We had a 40-year ally in Mubarak and to ask him to step down immediately, basically handing control of such a critical country to the Muslim Brotherhood just because of rioters and facebook activity, was unheard of in foreign policy. It is now a less democratic, less free country, especially for women and nonmuslims.

—D'Souza wrongly claims that Obama wants to return control of the Falkland Islands from Britain to Argentina. The U.S. refused in April to endorse a final declaration on Argentina's claim to the islands at the Summit of the Americas, provoking criticism from other Latin American nations.

Obama's position on the Falklands is quite clear and a matter of record. The fact that he can't alter US policy on this speaks more to our relationship with the UK and the state department's refusal to alter this particular stance.

—D'Souza says Obama has "done nothing" to impede Iran's nuclear ambitions, despite the severe trade and economic sanctions his administration has imposed on Iran to halt its suspected nuclear program. Obama opposes a near-term military strike on Iran, either by the U.S. or Israel, although he says the U.S. will never tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.

It's already known that sanctions do nothing to deter Iran's manhattan project. The journalist's use of the word "suspected" proves that she sees no need to take action.

— D'Souza says Obama removed a bust of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office because Churchill represented British colonialism. White House curator William Allman said the bust, which had been on loan, was already scheduled to be returned before Obama took office. Another bust of Churchill is on display in the president's private residence, the White House says.

This is not accurate. As the British press reported, after 9/11 Britain had loaned to Bush a bust of Churchill as a show of solidarity for one term. When the term expired they extended the loan for a second term. When Obama won the presidency, the British government offered to extend the loan to Obama, but the Obama administration said no. And it was returned to the British embassy.
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