{"id":3574,"date":"2016-11-15T21:34:40","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3574"},"modified":"2016-11-15T21:45:10","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:45:10","slug":"lame-duck-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/3574\/","title":{"rendered":"Lame Duck Talking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lacks a touch of self-awareness old Barack, doesn’t he? \u00a0This<\/a> from the BBC:<\/p>\n

\n

Barack Obama has warned of a “rise in a crude sort of nationalism” following the Brexit and US presidential votes.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Greece on his final foreign trip, he said: “We have to guard against… tribalism built around an ‘us’ or a ‘them’.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This from the chap who went from promises of being a Great Uniter to running an administration in which an “us” and “them” mentality was the central pillar.<\/p>\n

He said the US was painfully aware of the danger of divisions “along lines of race or religion or ethnicity”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, we have all the race riots and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement during your Presidency to remind us.<\/p>\n

He also put the victory of Donald Trump down to “the view of the American people to just shake things up”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With those things to be\u00a0shaken up being what you call your “legacy”. \u00a0Obamacare, for example.<\/p>\n

He said again that he had been surprised by Mr Trump’s victory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, yes. \u00a0Clearly you believed the polls along with all the other idiots.<\/p>\n

Mr Obama said the UK’s vote to leave the EU and the US vote showed that people generally were now “less certain of their national identities and place in the world” and that had produced populist movements both on the left and the right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, what? \u00a0The UK leaving the EU meant the British were less<\/em> certain of their national identity? \u00a0Would he apply this same logic to Kenya becoming independent, I wonder?<\/p>\n

He said a suspicion of globalisation and elites, wrapped up in issues of religious or ethnic or cultural identity was “a volatile mix”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And have you made this situation better or worse during your time in office, Mr President?<\/p>\n

Mr Obama insisted his vision – where “the future will be decided by what we have in common, rather than what leads us into conflict” – was the right one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet somehow he exacerbated the divisions in the nation over which he presided. \u00a0Why, it’s almost as if his “vision” has little to do with how he actually governed.<\/p>\n

He also said he was responsible for facilitating a good transition, presenting to Mr Trump his best ideas about how to move the country forward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Er, yes. Thanks for that. \u00a0But you thought the best person to move the country forward was Hillary Clinton. \u00a0Now if you’d just leave the keys to the White House over there…<\/p>\n

Mr Obama will be using the European leg of his trip to try to reassure leaders about future US commitment to its international alliances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Future” in this case meaning the next eight weeks or so.<\/p>\n

Greek anarchist and left-wing groups are now holding protests “against the representative of imperialist powers”.<\/p>\n

Video footage showed a number of protesters on one street pushing up against police in riot gear, before they were forced back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If Trump has any sense he’ll give the place a wide berth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lacks a touch of self-awareness old Barack, doesn’t he? \u00a0This from the BBC: Barack Obama has warned of a “rise in a crude sort of nationalism” following the Brexit and US presidential votes. Speaking in Greece on his final foreign … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3576,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3574\/revisions\/3576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}