Obama:You Know You've Arrived When You Receive a Bill Kristol Endorsement

It’s not an endorsement Barack Obama probably expected — or wanted Now there's an understatement for you. Bill, I'm so far off my rocker I should have been living in a big house years ago, Kristol, Obama's new best friend.

I could find the picture but not the post.

Bill Kristol declares Obama ‘a born-again neo-con’ days after consulting with him on Libya policy
30/03/2011

It’s not an endorsement Barack Obama probably expected — or wanted — but Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol gave the president high marks for his recent foreign policy gestures.

In his “You’ve come a long way, baby” post Monday night, (below) Kristol praised Obama for his address to the American people about the action he took against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. On Wednesday’s “Red Eye” on the Fox News Channel, Kristol took things a step further and declared Obama “a born-again neo-con.”

Host Greg Gutfeld asked Kristol how he felt about Obama coming to him for help (reportedly the president had met with him and others prior to his Monday night address).

“He didn’t come to me for help, of course,” Kristol said. “I’m not going to acknowledge that. He came to me to make sure I was supporting his sound policies. Of course, since his sound policies are more like the policies people like me have been advocating for quite a while, I’m happy to support them. He’s a born-again neo-con.”

Throughout 2007 and 2008 in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama ran as the anti-war candidate. But Obama has taken on different stripes with this gesture, Kristol joked.

“What’s the joke – they told me if I voted for McCain, we’d be going to war in a third Muslim country?” Kristol said. “I voted for McCain and we’re doing it.” dailycaller

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
President Obama’s unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, not-shrinking-from-the-use-of-force speech.
By William Krystol

I knew pretty early on during tonight’s speech that President Obama had rejoined—or joined—the historical American foreign policy mainstream. It was when he mentioned Charlotte (the city, not the spider):

At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Gaddafi declared that he would show “no mercy” to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we had seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now, we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi – a city nearly the size of Charlotte – could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.

When American presidents want to justify foreign interventions, and are worried the American people aren’t quite with them, they often reach for a strained analogy or comparison that will bring the situation abroad home to their fellow Americans watching on the tube. Obama’s awkward interjection explaining that Benghazi is “a city nearly the size of Charlotte” is a classic of the genre. As Obama said it, I recalled Reagan explaining Nicaragua was as near to Texas as Texas to Washington, D.C., or some such thing, and similar clunky and earnest attempts at homespun appeals by George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. I found this reassuring.

As I found the rest of the speech. The president was unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, and didn’t shrink from defending the use of force or from appealing to American values and interests. Furthermore, the president seems to understand we have to win in Libya. I think we will. weeklystandard

Fucking nuts or what?