Obama Spokesman: Obama Thinks We Are Still Working On Our Democracy But Don't Worry, He's Making Historic Steps In That Direction

It's pretty clear that at best, Obama thinks the United States is just another country on the UN roll call, right between United Republic of Tanzania and Uruguay. At worst, he thinks the United States has done far more evil than good in the world.

While talking to the President of Kazakhstan (a country which the State Department says is a human rights violator), Obama seems to indicate there are some similarities between the countries.

NSC senior director Mike McFaul said on a conference call with reporters Sunday. "Both presidents agreed that you don't ever reach democracy; you always have to work at it. And in particular, President Obama reminded his Kazakh counterpart that we, too, are working to improve our democracy."

The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman asked McFaul to clarify.

"You seemed to be suggesting there was some equivalence between their issues of democracy and the United States' issues, when you said that President Obama assured him that we, too, are working on our democracy," Weisman said. "Is there equivalence between the problems that President Nazarbayev is confronting and the state of democracy in the United States?"

"Absolutely not ... There was no equivalence meant whatsoever," McFaul said. "[Obama's] taken, I think, rather historic steps to improve our own democracy since coming to office here in the United States."

I'd be curious to know in what way, beyond say allowing armed thugs to intimidate voters, the US is working on democracy or what historic steps Obama has taken on the matter.

Now, Kazakhstan may not be a nice place but it is in a rather important part of the world and does allow some supplies through to Afghanistan so blasting the guy wasn't going to be a good idea either. Still, there's a way to politely deal with uncomfortable allies that don't include lowering the United States. It just seems that lowering the United States is the default position of this administration.

On the upside, given the help Kazakhstan is giving us, one might call them an ally. This might be the first time Obama hasn't blasted one of them, so there's some good news. I guess Obama's desires to insult America and cozy up to strongmen outweighed his natural inclination to attack those helping us.

posted by DrewM. at 02:22 PM

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