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Posts Tagged ‘Dictator’
February 24th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Italy’s Berlusconi Too Good to Gaddafi

Time magazine reports that scandal-plagued Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi can add another rotten olive wreath to his spoils: first friend of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  Berlusconi’s acts of fealty include not only a bow to the strongman, but also kissing his hand.

Not even President Barack Obama has gone that far (yet).

June 10th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
So Obama Will Meet with Dictators, But Not CEOs?
Posted by Print

“Americans don’t blame Mr. Obama for the oil spill, but they are beginning to doubt the competence of a President whose decisions suggest political panic more than careful policy.”

That was the cogent observation of The Wall Street Journal today, and it captures the essence of why Americans now rate the federal government’s response to the Gulf oil spill even worse than its 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina.  It obviously wasn’t Barack Obama that caused the oil rig collapse, but he’s ultimately responsible for the manner in which his administration has reacted.  For example, Obama’s order of a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling has exacerbated job loss in the region and further eroded our ability to access non-foreign oil sources.

And now, the same Barack Obama who breezily offered to meet such dictators as Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without preconditions” now refuses to even meet with the CEO of the corporation desperately trying to cap the oil leak and minimize the damage that will ultimately hit its bottom line.  In a video interview for NBC’s Today show, Obama proclaimed his childish refusal to sit down with British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward:

I have not spoken to [BP CEO Tony Hayward] directly, and here’s the reason.  Because, uh, my experience is, uh, when you talk to, uh, uh, a guy like, uh, a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me.  I’m not interested in words, I’m interested in actions.”

And precisely what do you expect from murderous dictators with whom you gladly offer to meet?  Earnest concessions?  Honest negotiation?  Substantive results?

Is it possible that Barack Obama actually holds corporations and their CEOs in higher contempt than genocidal dictators?