Thursday, August 14, 2014

President Obama's Finest Hour


PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FINEST HOUR

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, “peacemaking” at pepinsky.blogspot.com

August 14, 2014

 

                I generally avoid ranking human actions, but in today’s address on breaking the siege of the Yazidis in Iraq, and reacting to the police shooting and its aftermath in Ferguson, Missouri, I feel President Obama has just had his finest public moment thus far in his Presidency.  In yesterday’s blog post, I projected that the president’s sending of military advisers to Iraq was a slippery slope to sending in the troops.  My prediction was wrong.  In announcing the breaking of the Yazidi siege, he kept the level of US military involvement essentially as it is.  And he probably saved thousands from genocide.  He minimized the force necessary to avoid a slaughter.  I have a renewed respect for his conduct of foreign policy.

                As to the lethal police shooting and its aftermath in Ferguson, for the first time I have seen in the field of law and justice, he showed his skill as a constitutional law professor, right down to first amendment rights of free assembly and free press, and his instructions to his attorney general to follow through on potential civil rights violations, ending with an assertion of the people’s right to protest peacefully.  What leadership.  Thank you, Mr. President.  Love and peace, hal

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