Poor Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama visited Charlotte, North Carolina, to support the election campaign of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Obama flew to Charlotte in the official Air Force 1 jet. The cost of fuel for one hour’s flight in this jet is about $200,000. The flight between Dulles and Charlotte is about one hour, so the fuel used for this trip must have cost $400,000 there and back.
In response to criticism that Obama used the official presidential plane to support an election campaign, the White House said that in the event of political travel by the president, there are rules that the federal government must be reimbursed by the appropriate political organization for the costs of the travel. “The White House, of course, follows all rules and regulations that apply to the president’s political travel,” it said. A Clinton aide, meanwhile, told ABC News, “As is the standard practice, the campaign will cover its portion of the costs.”
I remember hearing Professor Burhan Kuzu when he said “Poor Obama” back in 2013, referring to the president’s “poor” constitutional powers in the U.S. Indeed, this Obama really is in a poor state.
In the last two elections here in Turkey, the president used all means of the state to conduct political campaigning. He continues to do so. If there is no rally where he can deliver a speech, he gathers masses in the presidential palace, spends the budget made up of our taxes, and keeps campaigning.
In line with this, he even went to the U.S. to attend Muhammed Ali’s funeral in June. Things did not work out as he expected there, but it was us who had to pay the costs of that trip, (also attended by his son-in-law and grandchild).
Well, this is normal for a country where the constitution has been suspended.
‘Superior mind’
The other day Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım gave a lecture at the AKP Political Academy on “Great Power Turkey.”
“Turkey is in a difficult region. There are calculations that have been postponed for 100 years. One calculation was postponed with the Lausanne Treaty. That calculation has been pushed in front of us once again. Certain ‘superior minds,’ which we regard as our friends, are involved in calculations that are no good for us,” he said.
Maybe I have been reading too many crime novels and watching too many crime films. But I have been wondering about this “superior mind” for many years. I am trying to find out who this person is or these people are.
Those who represent the “inferior mind” are always referring to this “superior mind.” They hold it responsible for all the disasters we have to go through. But somehow they never disclose who this “superior mind” is.
In the president’s speeches I sometimes catch hints that this “superior mind” is the United States. But then after these words we see him posing for photographs hand-in-hand and arm-in-arm with President Obama. How could a person have such photographs taken with the “superior mind” itself?
There was a similar clue in Prime Minister Yıldırım’s recent speech. Since the “superior mind” is now activated and motivated to do what it was not able to do during the Lausanne talks after the First World War, then it must be one of the powers that was sitting at the other end of the table from us in Lausanne.
One of the negotiating states facing the Turkish negotiator İsmet İnönü, Yugoslavia, does not exist anymore. Japan is too far away. Belgium has its own secession problems. If you say Greece, Romania, Bulgaria or Portugal, they would not even be mentioned beside the “great power Turkey.”
The remaining states at Lausanne were the United Kingdom, France and Italy. So are these states the “superior mind” that is today stirring up Turkey, undermining its economy, and preventing it from making Nobel-worthy research in its universities?
If they are indeed what is meant by the term superior mind, then we would not even be able to call the ruler of the “great power Turkey” an “inferior mind.”
