Political analyst Dick Morris called President Obama's commencement speech at West Point "a defense of weakness" and a rationalization of his administration's retreat from a world in dire need of American leadership.
Describing foreign policy as a character test of every U.S. president, Morris on Thursday told Newsmax TV that "when you come to Obama, we're learning that he's weak."
The president on Wednesday
told new graduates of the United States Military Academy "the landscape has changed" and "to say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution."
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Morris, speaking with "America's Forum" host J.D. Hayworth, said the foreign policy laid out at West Point reflects Obama's sincere disbelief in the idea of America as an exceptional, indispensable nation.
"I just don't think Obama shares that perspective," he said. "He disagrees with it from his fundamental core."
He said the speech's timing could hardly be worse, given a Russia "on the verge of seizing the Ukraine" and making other Eastern European capitals "increasingly nervous"; the spread of al-Qaida in the Middle East and Africa; and China's growing territorial belligerence toward American allies such as Japan and Vietnam.
Morris said today's world "is so much more dangerous, and everybody cites the same reason: Obama's weakness. And that speech was essentially a defense of weakness."
Turning to domestic issues, Morris seconded
the prediction by Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and devout Mormon, that "gay marriage is going to be the law of the land."
"The public has decided that gay marriage is OK," said Morris. "They've accepted it. The gay community has worked very hard to influence TV shows and movies and people coming out. and they've created an environment in which people are accepting gay marriage as the norm."