The President's 'Moral Muddle'

From Michael Goodwin in the New York Daily News:
The outlines of an Obama Doctrine are taking shape. Our President's world view can be summarized as "Everybody is a little bit guilty, especially Israel."
His demand in Cairo that Israel make major concessions before Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist was a pander of the rankest sort. What a difference a year and the audience make. Exactly a year before his Cairo speech, on June 4, 2008, candidate Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee he would "never force Israel to the negotiating table" or to make "concessions."
He cited Iran's vow to eliminate Israel and said, "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything."
In Cairo, he was vague at best and inviting at worst on the nuke issue, saying, "I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons."
Feeling the mad mullah's pain won't mollify them. Nor was it a sign of courage to ignore Anwar Sadat, the brave Egyptian leader who made peace with Israel in 1979 and was later assassinated by Islamic extremists.
To judge from this speech and others, the Obama Doctrine holds that all guilt is morally equal and the solution is to split the difference and call it even.
Take women's rights, where he interchangeably indicted a debate in Europe about women wearing head coverings in school and the Taliban's whipping of women for going to school.
The result is the jarring sense he is equally offended. "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality," he said.
As if to show absolute even-handedness, he allowed that while some Islamic countries have had women as national leaders, "the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."
That's rich coming from the man who defeated Hillary Clinton.
The moral muddle is a shame because the spectacle of this charismatic President on the global stage is stirring. It is always a point of pride for Americans when our President is admired abroad and there is no greater advertisement for our unrivaled openness than Obama's "Hussein" middle name and mixed-race parentage.
But the Obama Doctrine subverts the outcomes he envisions and the detachment from facts is striking for a man so highly educated. Unmolested by experience, he obliterates the truth of history in his desire to assign equal blame for it.
Again, Israel proves the point. He was brilliant in saying that denying the Holocaust "is baseless, it is ignorant and it is hateful." Then with a glib "On the other hand," he jumped from the 6 million Jewish dead to the lack of a Palestinian state.
"For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation," he said. "Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead."
But whose fault is that? Arab states refuse to absorb Palestinians (Egypt blockades Gaza, just as Israel does) and keep them caged up as a weapon against Israel.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders fumble every chance for a state, their corruption and violence the biggest obstacles to peace and land.
Obama acknowledged most of that, but minimized its impact and even suggested the Palestinian plight is akin to slavery in America and apartheid in South Africa. Shades of Jimmy Carter there.
Near the end, Obama said, "If we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward."
A more fitting line is "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it."