Rookie Mistakes Cost

When Thomas Sowell speaks, you should listen.

In this post, he argues that Obama is a rookie who will cause America to lose some very important policy objectives due to his complete and utter lack of experience with any thing of any importance.

Harsh but true.

Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other presidents in American history have ever been. It is not just that he has never been president before. He has never had any position in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome.

And...

There is no sign that President Obama has impressed the Russians, the Iranians, or the North Koreans, except by his rookie mistakes — and that is a dangerous way to impress dangerous people.

What did his televised overture to the Iranians accomplish, except to reassure them that he was not going to do a damn thing to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb? It is a mistake that can go ringing down the corridors of history.

In the name of “change,” Barack Obama is following policies so old that this generation has never heard of them — certainly not in most of our educational institutions, where history has been replaced by “social studies” or other politically correct courses.

Seeking deals with our adversaries, behind the backs of our allies? The French did that at Munich back in 1938. They threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves and, less than two years later, Hitler gobbled up France anyway.

This year, President Obama’s attempt to make a backdoor deal with the Russians, behind the backs of the NATO countries, was not only rejected but made public by the Russians — a sign of contempt and a warning to our allies not to put too much trust in the United States. ...

However much Barack Obama has proclaimed his support for Israel, his first phone call as president of the United States was to Hamas, to which he has given hundreds of millions of dollars, which can buy a lot of rockets to fire into Israel.

Our oldest and staunchest ally, Britain, has been downgraded by President Obama’s visibly unimpressive reception of British prime minister Gordon Brown, compared to the way that previous presidents over the past two generations have received British prime ministers. President Obama’s sending the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House back to the British embassy at about the same time was either a rookie mistake or another snub.