Being a superpower ain't all that, at least according to President Obama.
In a little-noticed remark at the close of the two-day nuclear security summit in Washington, D.C., this week, President Obama suggested the United States is somehow burdened by its military might -- a comment that drew a stern rebuke from his former rival in the presidential campaign.
Obama was responding to a question Tuesday about how the summit would play into peace-making efforts in the Middle East when he addressed the downsides of -- by virtue of America's world stature -- being obligated to intervene in international conflicts.
"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them," Obama said. "And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
This is not journalism. This is another case of Fox News imposing its right-wing bias on its readers in an effort to mischaracterize President Obama's comments, twist his words and frame him in the worst possible way.
Later in the article, the increasingly irrelevant Sen. John McCain launched a blistering attack on the president to try and appease his hungry far-right base (a base that has become disenchanted with him as he is in an election with a far-right extremist, J.D. Hayworth).
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., slammed the leader of the free world Thursday, calling the remark a "direct contradiction to everything America believes in."
"That's one of the more incredible statements I've ever heard a president of the United States make in modern times," McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, told Fox News. "We are the dominant superpower, and we're the greatest force for good in the history of this country, and I thank God every day that we are a dominant superpower."
What has happened to John McCain is sad, but not surprising. He was not a maverick when he ran for president in 2008. He might have been, once upon a time, but that time has passed.
Now, he is a shell of the great public servant he was once. These days, he is just another far-right political hack resorting to extremism to try and satisfy a far-right base that wants nothing to do with working with the president for a better United States of America.
Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/15/obama-america-superpower-like/
