Bold Strokes

Tangled
While tangling with the leaders of two cold war antagonists of the United States is nothing new, the two bruising encounters in such a short span underscore a hard reality for Mr. Obama as he heads deeper into a second term that may come to be dominated by foreign policy: his main counterparts on the world stage are not his friends, and they make little attempt to cloak their disagreements in diplomatic niceties. Even his friends are not always so friendly. (NYT, 6/18/2013)

Well we are confused. President Obama's entire foreign policy approach has been predicated on getting the world to like us. But it seems that no one likes us. Time to try a different approach? Maybe - as RedStateVT has advocated - we should want other countries to respect us some and fear us more. 


Broken
Within hours of opening an office for peace talks in the Gulf emirate of Qatar, Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan launched a deadly ambush on an American convoy, and the Afghan government separately broke off talks on military cooperation with the United States. (NYT, 6/19/2013)

The Taliban was apparently miffed that their opening gambit in the peace talks was not well received. Their opening position being as follows: "All Americans must convert to Islam."


Line Up
The Boston School Committee is set to vote Wednesday night on a new health policy that would make condoms available in the district’s high schools, bringing this city in line with New York and Los Angeles. (NYT, 6/18/2013)

RedStateVT readers are asked to choose one of the following three responses to the above excerpt:

1) What Liberals mean when they say: "More money for education."

2) Why Johnny can't read.

3) Jesus wept.