RON HART: Bad acting Bond villains vex the Messiah

With all the things Obama is trying to “change” until he is exposed, along come a couple of despotic, tinhorn leaders of statist countries.

Kim Jong Il, the four-foot-tall leader of North Korea (when it is humid his pompadour hairdo ekes out that last inch) who wears Harry Caray-sized women’s glasses, is as bat-mess crazy as he appears.

Then there is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Members Only jacket-wearing, Holocaust-denying crackpot in charge of Iran. He looks like a barker for one of those Oriental rug shops that have been going out of business for the last nine years.

Both men are just an eye-patch and a hairless cat away from being James Bond/Austin Powers villains. Yet they appear to be toying with our fly-killing president, who seems to want to vote “present” on this one.

Apparently, the only no-fly zone Obama is willing to enforce is in his office during an interview. PETA was very upset with the president for killing the fly. I guess they would have preferred that he capture and rehabilitate it.

Always avoiding conflict except where he can shake down people for control or money, Obama said he did not want to “meddle” in Iran and tell it what to do. Just be glad you are not a bank or car company, Iran!

If only Iran had unions, Obama might send money.

I am not saying that Obama needs to get all western gunslinger, trigger-happy like Dubya with his “ready, fire, aim” “strategery,” but he needs to show a little more backbone through his teleprompter than he has so far.

At least he could give a shout-out of support for those risking their lives for democracy.

In reality, these not-ready-for-democracy players in imperialistic parts of the world are better served in the short run under the control of a strong-armed leader.

“Thug-ocracies” can be fine for keeping countries under control until democracy can take its natural course; China and Russia come to mind as examples. We just have to make sure we protect our borders from crackpot leaders until reason prevails.
Invading a country just causes locals to instinctively fall in line behind the leader we are trying to replace. Then we face Colin Powell’s

“Pottery Barn” outcome — if we break it we own it. Unless our interests are directly attacked, such an intervention does not historically end well.

Instead of electing a Naval Academy grad with Vietnam fighting experience, we went with an ACORN community organizer whose only war experience has been with Fox News — and he is losing that one. Having an ACORN organizer would be good for us if we were covertly attempting to rig an election in North Korea or Iran, but absent that, the job experience has scant value.

It will be interesting to see how a “turn-the-other-cheek” style works in international diplomacy. Maybe it will.

We clearly do not have the money or temperament to involve ourselves militarily in every international incident where some leader who looks like the only gastroenterologist in town takes our insurance and gives us the finger. We tend to step into a pile of Shiites when we do.

We do not want to become that friend we all have who gets into a fight every time he is drinking in a bar because he perceives someone “disrespected” him.

We would have served ourselves best had we stuck to a policy of no nation building. Yet at some point, the Obama rhetoric, which is his main skill, should pay homage to those risking their lives for democracy in Iran and North Korea. It is very telling when he is so slow to react to a strong armed government that wants to control all aspects of its people’s life.

Perhaps he considers such restraint professional courtesy.

Ron Hart is a Southern libertarian columnist who writes a weekly column about politics and life. His e-mail is RevRon10@aol.com.