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From CBSNews.com:

Just in case being president of a United States engaged in two wars and mired in economic difficulties wasn’t enough responsibility, Barack Obama was named the world’s most powerful man by Forbes Magazine.

With just 67 spots on the list, the magazine says it considered these questions before tabbing its all-star team of world powers:

“Do they have influence over lots of other people? Do they control relatively large financial resources compared with their peers? Are they powerful in multiple spheres?”

Rounding out the top 10 are:

- Hu Jintao, president of China
- Vladimir Putin, prime minister of Russia
- Ben Bernanke, chairman of U.S. Federal Reserve
- Sergey Lin and Larry Page, founders of Google
- Carlos Slim Helu, CEO, TelMex
- Rupert Murdoch, chairman, NewsCorp.
- Michael T. Duke, president, CEO of Wal-Mart
- Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, ruler of Saudi Arabia
- William Gates III, founder of Microsoft

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Whether it is winning the Nobel Peace Prize or being named the WORLD’s most Powerful Man, we know that POTUS’s greatness weighs heavily on his shoulders. He is being punched shoved, and batted around by a political press that has no respect for the grave issues facing our nation. While I do not always agree with Andrew Sullivan, I believe these remarks on the Afghan decision making process are dead on point here:

“What strikes me about this is the enormous self-confidence this reveals. Here is a young president, prepared to allow himself to be portrayed as ‘weak’ or ‘dithering’ in the slow and meticulous arrival at public policy. He is trusting the reality to help expose what we need to do. He is allowing the debate — however messy and confusing and emotional — to take its time and reveal the real choices in front of us. This is politically risky, of course. Those who treat politics as a contact-sport, whose insistence is on the ‘game’ of who wins which news cycle, or who can spin each moment in a political storm as a harbinger of whatever, will pounce and shriek and try to bounce the president into a decision. And those who believe that what matters in war is charging ahead regardless at all times will also grandstand against the president’s insistence on prudence.”

Sullivan aptly describes the political conundrum Obama faces daily, while acknowledging the supreme confidence of the most divine POTUS we have ever seen in our lifetime.

I am grateful that President Obama is giving this decision all the gravity it deserves. This country’s political media is too busy trying to think everything is a popularity contest. Every day we are treated to issues being polarized and spun rather than cogent analysis of problems along with possible solutions.

Afghanistan is a decision that will impact the lives of our soldiers and their families, send young men and women to their deaths, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and potentially achieve nothing. At the same time, they are saying that he’s moving too quickly on health care, and that he should take more time on such an important decision to make sure he gets it right, even while hundreds are dying every month from lack of access while insurance executives are getting rich on the suffering of others.

The sheer hypocrisy of the political media is simply staggering!

The complexities of these issues they attempt to reduce to snide and derisive commentary like ‘dithering’ or inflame and create wedge issues like abortion vs. discussing core issues of HCR and then there is the whinning about the financial crisis where time was of the essence to prevent economic collapse..but yet Obama is blamed for the stagnation of the economy? This Presidency is still in it’s infancy.

Sometimes listening to all of this is just surreal. It makes my head hurt and I get dizzy from the elaborate lies, distortions and misquotes. These military leaks are nothing but the same crass dismissivness of the issues to create some partisan rallying point just like the insurance lobbyists do with health care. Because let’s not forget WAR IS BIG BUSINESS we are spending 2B a week on this war, and unable to take care of our domestic issues because the military industrial complex is sucking the economic life out of America. Only the munitions people and defense contractors are getting rich and richer, just like the insurance people.

Obama is in the DC labyrinth of structured power, being squeezed from both ends by the biggest lobbies in DC…Defense and Healthcare…and smack dab in the middle is the economic banking crisis and investment banks…it is one HUGE clusterphuck.

But therein lies the machiaveillan beauty of being the world’s most powerful man.

They think Obama can’t see their clandestine structures of subterfuge but he gets the complexity and they can’t move him on the chess board like they could Bush, Clinton and Reagan who did the bidding of the powerbrokers in DC. Obama is not beholden to them and he will NOT be MOVED. More importantly his brilliant mind sees through their multi-layered webs of deceit and skulduggery.

Obama SEES the Big Lie of national defense for what it is: theft from every other priority in our society.

Twenty years after the cold war, and we’re spending even more? This is lunacy, plain and simple. Afghanistan is a failed state for a very good reason: it’s people have no abiding interest in developing a successful state. Tribal societies will never be nations, in the western sense. There is not a military solution to every problem, and using our military to teach civics lessons through interpreters is preposterous. Obama knows this and they are having difficulty pushing him into an endless war. He sees the bright lines…they attempt to obscure. I can’t even imagine what a hell hole we would be in right now if that WARMONGERER HRC was President. She would be so anxious to prove she had balls that she would have already sent more troops and probably re-instituted the draft so she could send more American kids to die in the sand for a worthless cause.

When is the last time we have had anyone tell us WHY we are in Afghan? I am waiting because I knowObama is going to break, it. down. when he reaches his decision, he is going to give a tutorial to the nation on why we are there, how long we are staying, what he plans to accomplish and when he will bring our troops home.

The President needs to back these NationalDefense WARMongerers of the Military Industrial Complex folks up even further: who actually owns this problem? If no one, then why should the United States suddenly decide that we’re best prepared to solve it? And what should the relative priority of this solution be, given that we have so many other domestic matters to address?

Obama is asking the tough questions, that they ain’t NEVA had to answer, and they are not use to that. Moreover, they have nothing to squeeze this POTUS with, no scandals, no payoffs…he ain’t buying…so what do they do

LEAK, LEAK, LEAK….but they done found out this President ain’t weak….he will NOT BE MOVED.

Those military folks might believe they are rock, but rock meet water. POTUS is fluid like water and he steadily drips on that rock. Errybody knows what happens to rock under the steady drip of water…erosion.

Obama is more surreptitious than all those who believe they wield power in Washington. As the world’s most powerful man, POTUS impresses upon them the power of his example moreso than the example of power they desire him to use.

Take your time Obama, get it right…show them you are truly the WORLD’s Most Powerful Man and the power of America resides in very wise hands.

ALL HAIL to THE CHIEF!!



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