Smiling at Chavez

A lot has been written in the past weeks about President Obama's first turns on the world stage, in Europe and then Latin America. Obama has been spending a lot of time apologizing for the past policies of our nation in foreign circles, including in France, Turkey and Trinidad/Tobago. It seems that wherever Obama went, if George Bush had been for it, Obama declared he was against it, and vice versa.

The apology/contrition bit is tiresome and counterproductive, for sure. There is a certain arrogance in apologizing for your predecessors, especially when there is so little to apologize for. Lest you think that Obama's bashing of his predecessors was merely partisan, consider that he took a swipe at fellow Democrat John F. Kennedy when he suggested that he (Obama) should not be blamed for the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which occurred when "I was only 3 years old" (he was actually unborn at the time). But when the Apology Tour morphs into an embrace of dictators and depots, the danger signals go off.

Obama seems obsessed with establishing "new relationships" with thug regimes like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. At the conference of the Organization of American States in Tobago, Obama encouraged direct talks with Cuba in order to overcome "decades of mistrust," essentially putting Cuba on the same moral footing as the U.S. He had already removed restrictions on travel to the country as well as restrictions on remittances.

Obama also had a few "chance" encounters" with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, which frankly he seemed to enjoy overmuch. Debate ranges on which leader approached the other first, but there is no doubt Obama seemed charmed by the autocratic thug. Obama was photographed gripping and grinning with Chavez, and videotape shows Obama accepting from Chavez the "gift" of a a book called "The Open Veins of Latin America," a sort of bible for Latin-Left anti-capitalists and West-bashers. And Obama seemed unperturbed by the 50-minute diatribe against America and Europe by Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, avoiding any response to it which might signal displeasure with the Sandinista killer.

All this disturbs the commentator and moral observer Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who wonders why Obama spends so much of his obvious charm and talent in wooing the globe's worst dictators. Boteach reminds us not only of the evils of men like Chavez and Castro, but also of others courted by Obama, like the Saudis (who regularly oppress their women and kill religious apostates) and the Turks (who have never acknowledged their slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the 1920s). While he thinks Obama is a "nice guy" who means well, Rabbi Shmuley asks:

Suppose Obama succeeds in building friendships with Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad and the Taliban. What then? Does America still get to feel that it stands for something? Will we still be the beacon of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world, or will we have sold out in the name of political expediency? And do any of us seriously believe that presidential friendship is going to get a megalomaniac like Hugo Chavez to ease up on the levers of power, or are we just feeding his ego by showing him he can be a tyrant and still have a beer with the president of the United States? Will the Iranians really stop enriching uranium through diplomacy rather than economic sanctions?

It would be nice if Obama's adoring cheerleaders in the media would take the time not just to report on Obama's new tone towards our enemies and antagonists, but also to ask and analyze the questions that Shmuley Boteach poses.