Obama’s foreign policy of “Follow the Follower” isn’t working

Announcer: President Obama’s foreign policy has come under serious scrutiny lately. Dick and Janey, talk show hosts of Yucky World, will be discussing this with retired U.S. State Department diplomat J. Foghill Bottom.

Janey: You’re considered to be one of the deans of American diplomacy, Mr. Bottom. To what do you attribute your success?

Bottom: A long life and a lot of luck.

Dick: What were your greatest accomplishments?

Bottom: Not being where the wrong decisions were made.

Dick: Where was that?

Bottom: Washington, Kyoto, Iraq, Afghanistan…

Janey: But what about today? How is the President doing?

Bottom: If rhetoric were reality, he and his advisors would be doing very well.

Dick: You’re not saying the President’s delusional, are you?

Bottom: Illusional would be a better way to put it.

Janey: Can you give us some examples?

Bottom: Sure! Let’s start with the idea of leading from behind.

Dick: I prefer that the President lead with his head!

Janey: Dick, please! But what’s wrong with the U.S. letting other countries take the lead?

Bottom: Most of them are dictatorships. And what’s wrong with leading?

Dick: Yeah! When was the last time you played “Follow the Follower”?

Bottom: How about the idea that climate change is a weapon of mass destruction?

Janey: But it was Secretary of State John Kerry who said that.

Bottom: You do remember when the President said that his election would mark the “moment when the rise of the oceans begin to slow and our planet began to heal…”?

Dick: I’m sticking with delusional.

Bottom: How about Obama’s reneging on our missile shield agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic?

Dick: And on the anniversary of the start of World War II.

Janey: But that was because of our “Reset” policy with Russia.

Dick: The only thing Putin wants to reset is Russia’s boundaries.

Bottom: And the President did tell Putin that he would have more flexibility after he was re-elected.

Dick: Well, I suppose spinelessness is a form of flexibility.

Janey: That’s not fair, Dick. The President had Osama bin Laden killed, and he has also ordered a lot of drone strikes to kill terrorists.

Dick: Killing bin Laden is not a policy.

Bottom: And drone strikes do not take prisoners. That means no interrogations and no messy decisions about what do with the prisoners.

Dick: Like housing them at Guantanamo.

Bottom: What about Obama’s accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing nothing?

Dick: Nothing’s looking a lot better right now.

Janey: Well, maybe the committee based their decision on “hope and change”.

Dick: I think a lot of American voters were under the same delusion, but now it’s a hope that’s become deranged.

Bottom: What about drawing a red line over Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then not following through?

Janey: But with Putin’s help they’re being destroyed.

Bottom: Allegedly…and by Assad, whom, you may remember, the President said had to go.

Dick: The only place Assad’s been going to a lot lately is the bathroom.

Janey: Ri-i-ght, Dick. Still, Obama has stopped Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb.

Bottom: Paused not stopped! And, believe me, Iran will restart as soon as it’s in their best interests.

Dick: Iran’s playing the old shell game with Obama: find the pea or find the bomb. Either way, they’re stalling in a game that’s already been rigged.

Bottom: What about blaming a video that was never seen for causing a protest demonstration that never occurred as an explanation for terrorists killing four Americans in Benghazi?

Janey: Well, al Qaeda is on the run.

Dick: Sure, and so is Wiley Coyote.

Bottom: It is truly a sad day for our country’s foreign policy when cunning and glib pass for wise.

Janey: That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?

Dick: Well, then how about this for a description of Obama’s foreign policy: Speak sophistry and carry a flexible stick!

Author: Chuck Rivetto

Retired high school teacher (government and English.) Some believe Rivetto's creation of "Yucky World" with talk show hosts Dick and Janey has revitalized the satiric literary genre of sophomoric cornballism; others believe he shouldn't have quit his day job! (^-^)