Tuesday November 09, 2010
INDIA DINKS. I hate to bore you good people with repetition, but the Obama India trip has drawn more interesting commentary. The excursion seems, by the usual measures, to have gone well, what with the crowd-pleasing offer of a permanent UN Security Council seat, the juicy trade deals and all. It has even been praised by a writer at the American Enterprise Institute blog ("eased export restrictions on several Indian companies, and facilitated closer talks between private-sector leaders in both countries... There’s much more work to be done, but this was a good all-around effort. GRADE: A-"). If this, along with the major arms deal Obama pumped on the trip, seems ominous to regular readers, I would remind them that the President is a traditional Democrat, alas, rather than a socialist wrecker as advertised daily in rightwing blogs.
Speaking of rightbloggers, they continue to see the thing through their own special prism. Fausta's Blog sees Obama's call for Indians to "get involved in public service" as a call for "more bureaucrats," and denounces Obama's "distaste for private enterprise," which might surprise the business leaders he took with him on the trip.
Actually those leaders are part of the problem, says Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek, as their presence suggests that Obama's approach is to "bestow favors and privileges on politically connected firms." This seems a good point about partisan oligarchy, until Boudreaux explains that "these favors and privileges, such as tariffs and export subsidies, invariably oblige consumers to pay more – either directly in the form of higher prices, or indirectly in the form of higher taxes – for goods and services." The elimination of tariffs from American international trade policy would be interesting, as we haven't had such a policy since the founding of the Republic, due to the statism of the Founders. India might like it, though, since they haven't eaten enough American jobs. While we're at it we might as well stop making them irradiate their mangoes; bugs should be as free from government regulation as capital.
Next on the list of outrages is Obama's visit to the Gandhi Museum. It was hypocritical, for one thing, says theblogprof: "Was Ghandi pro-infanticide like Obama is?" he roars. (I'd be very interested to know what other Gandhi prescriptions theblogprof endorses -- it's a cinch he wouldn't approve the Mahatma's physical culture regimen.) "I knew there was something I never liked about that Gandhi guy," snarls Angry White Dude. neo-neocon agrees, though in daintier language: "History is history, and Gandhi’s is hardly all sweetness and light." She quotes: "All sense of proportion had vanished when [Gandhi] advocated non-violence not as a technique of moral pressure by a weaker on a stronger party, but as a form of masochistic surrender…" Clearly by his endorsement Obama wishes the same for all of us, and the arms sale he also endorsed was some kind of Alinskyite diversion tactic.
Obama also gave the Gandhi memorial "a piece of white stone from [Martin Luther] King Jr's memorial at Washington DC. It was set on a small black base that had the presidential seal and Obama's signature embossed on it," which Weasel Zippers reports as "Obama Gifts Gandhi Museum With Pet Rock From MLK Museum."
And of course there's the tried and true OBAMA BOWS! "Skreee," says Freedom Eden. "Skreeeeeeeee."
And so to Indonesia, about which visit National Review's Daniel Foster affects concern: "You know what seems a bad idea to me?" he says. "Publishing POTUS’s itinerary, right down to motorcade routes, during his visit to a country with a long history of Jihadist attacks on Western targets." His concern is touching.