Syndicated

Barack Obama’s Iran policy is getting questioned … by our center-left European allies. From the London Times:

David Miliband has raised questions over Barack Obama’s policy on Iran, which officials in Washington and Europe fear threatens to undermine the tough stance adopted by the West towards Tehran over recent years. …

British intelligence chiefs are understood to have identified Iranian nuclear proliferation as the second greatest security threat, behind Islamic terrorism but ahead of renewed aggression from Russia.

Let’s be clear. Our policy on Iran was developed with our European allies, especially the UK, France, and Germany. In abandoning it, Obama is advocating abandoning commitments we have made to our allies.

This is not the first time that our allies have expressed alarm at Obama’s ignorant, inexperienced proposals that break commitments we have made to our allies. Read on.

Miliband also noted:

They also discussed trade — with Mr Obama advisers saying that they still intended to renegotiate deals such as Nafta — and how much European support there would be for a US military surge in Afghanistan.

This should remind you of recent statements by the EU’s trade commissioner that were critical of Obama’s protectionism:

Peter Mandelson, European trade commissioner, has said the protectionist stances taken by the US presidential candidates risk taking the world trading system back by decades.

I would note that Mandelson is also a man of the center-left and a strong ally of Tony Blair. This is important. The European center-left is rejecting Barack Obama and the Democrats for abandoning our allies on security and trade issues.

And these guys are claiming to restore our global standing? Are they kidding?

Barack Obama says that John McCain has a lobbyist problem. But that’s only because Obama isn’t being honest about himself.

Barack Obama has lobbyist-bundlers. He doesn’t really admit it but … he does. Here at Redstate, we are going to introduce you to these people. The press doesn’t want you to know that these people exist, but we have ways of getting around the press.

The first one that we will introduce you to is Jim Johnson. Mr. Johnson was a lobbyist, US representative of a former African prime minister, former CEO of Fannie Mae, business partner with former Clinton UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and other things. Read on.

Mr. Johnson was a former CEO of Fannie Mae, who has promised to raise Obama between $100k and $200k. Johnson left in 1998. That wasn’t a good year for Fannie Mae, according to the Post:

An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight report in September accused the company of improperly deferring $200 million of estimated expenses in 1998, which allowed management to receive full annual bonuses. Had the expenses been recorded that year, no bonuses would have been paid, the report said.

In other words, he stole money from shareholders and put it in his own pocket.

In 2006 and 2007, he was a foreign agent for a former Prime Minister of Senegal.

Now, Mr. Johnson isn’t exactly a practitioner of new politics. From his own biography:

From 1977 to 1981, Mr. Johnson was Executive Assistant to Vice President Walter F. Mondale, where he advised the Vice President on domestic and foreign policy and political matters. Earlier, he was employed by the Dayton Hudson Corporation, worked as a staff member in the U.S. Senate, and was on the faculty of Princeton University.

So one of Barack Obama’s bundlers cheated shareholders out of money, represented foreign leaders, and was a Carter(!) administration official.

Just what America needs more of close to a President.