Obama and the military

Obama's feelings about the military seem to have evolved since he came into office.

As a young Marxist, he probably had the reflexively anti-military attitude common among those of his ilk. (How many of you believe his assertion that he had "seriously" considered joining the military as a young man?) The young (i.e., up until 2008) Obama undoubtedly saw the US military as a tool of the oppressor -- you know, Amerika. Otherwise he wouldn't have felt obliged to spend the first part of his Presidency apologizing for our imperialist history.

But now that Obama has been in the White House for two and a half years, now that the economy has soured even further, now that more and more people see him for what he is, his attitude seems to have changed. He has found that the public only unites behind him only when he is involved with something like taking out some Somali pirates, or Osama bin Laden, or, four days ago, al Alwaki. This allows him to bask in the soldiers' reflected glory, to universal approval. As a result he has developed a sort of soft spot for them.

Witness the 13 White House Fellows for 2010 -2011:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/fellows/2010-2011

Three of the thirteen are from the military. Had the 40-year-old Obama chosen 13 outstanding young people across the country, it's doubtful he would have looked to the military. (He would probably have picked a group of like-minded leftists.)

Political correctness has not entirely deserted him, however. It's hard not to notice that 5 of the 13 are black. (Doesn't that 38% statistic reflect the sort of disproportion, or disparate impact, that Obama has spent much of his life railing against?)