President Barack Obama comments in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, June 25, 2009, on the importance of the passing of the energy bill. (AP)

“It is my deeply held belief,” Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly, that “in the year 2009 — more than at any point in human history — the interests of nations and peoples are shared.” That is of course the year Obama became president, and he wasn’t shy about referring in his second paragraph to “the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world,” though he assured us they “are not about me.”

Before Obama’s speech, I wrote that he seems “stuck in a time warp in which the United States is the bad guy.” Not any more, he seemed to say in his U.N. speech. He has ordered the closing of Guantanamo. He has prohibited the use of torture. He is “responsibly ending” the war in Iraq (no triumphalist talk of victory). He is promising substantial reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons. He has invested $80 billion in clean energy. The United States has joined the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.

All of which is a way of saying that nasty George W. Bush is no longer around with all his self-righteous swagger, and that with (as Obama did not fail to note) the first African-American installed in the White House, America is now on the same page with the rest of the world.

From the:

Democratic fears over President Barack Obama’s Afghan-Pakistan policy spilled into the open Thursday as House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey warned he is “very concerned that it is going to wind up with us stuck in a problem at nobody knows how to get out of.”

After nearly eight years of war, largely in Iraq, Obey said the United States risks becoming consumed by another eight years of conflict that would “devour” President Barack Obama’s ability to make progress elsewhere.

“We can’t approach problems as if we’re permanent President of the Optimist Club,” he said in what some saw as a dig at the White House. “We have got to look at realities.”

The Wisconsin Democrat, who had been largely silent, spoke out first at a committee hearing Thursday and then elaborated on his position in an interview with POLITICO. He said he still expects this panel to act in early May on the president’s new war funding request but in his mind’s eye, sees this as only a one year commitment unless more progress is shown by especially Pakistan.

Emphasis mine…and I don’t have much comment on this other than to say — Hahahahaha-ha-ha!

From the:

Democratic fears over President Barack Obama’s Afghan-Pakistan policy spilled into the open Thursday as House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey warned he is “very concerned that it is going to wind up with us stuck in a problem at nobody knows how to get out of.”

After nearly eight years of war, largely in Iraq, Obey said the United States risks becoming consumed by another eight years of conflict that would “devour” President Barack Obama’s ability to make progress elsewhere.

“We can’t approach problems as if we’re permanent President of the Optimist Club,” he said in what some saw as a dig at the White House. “We have got to look at realities.”

The Wisconsin Democrat, who had been largely silent, spoke out first at a committee hearing Thursday and then elaborated on his position in an interview with POLITICO. He said he still expects this panel to act in early May on the president’s new war funding request but in his mind’s eye, sees this as only a one year commitment unless more progress is shown by especially Pakistan.

Emphasis mine…and I don’t have much comment on this other than to say — Hahahahaha-ha-ha!