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Who asked Barack Obama to run around the world apologizing for America and, by implication, all Americans? Certainly not the American people. Nor have we seen any polls or news stories reporting that Americans want the President to apologize to anyone on their behalf.

I, for one, am deeply offended by our President using the occasion of his trips outside the U.S. to apologize for our policies, actions and past transgressions, as he may see them. Bill Clinton did the same thing on a trip to Africa in1998, when he said, "going back to the time before we were a nation, European-Americans received the fruits of the slave trade. And we were wrong in that."

What is it about the mindset of people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that makes them think apologies can change the attitudes of people who hate America and want to destroy us? Do they truly believe this will make them our friends or supporters?

We have bowed and scraped to the heads of Arab states for generations to keep their oil flowing in our direction -- and continue to do so. The latest occasion was Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia on his way to Egypt, where he delivered a major speech to the Muslim world.

However, the President and his State Department agreed to highly restrictive conditions for the reporters who travel with him while in Saudi Arabia: That they all be confined to the hotel where they stayed, that they were not allowed to independently report on Obama's meetings with the Saudi King, that they would only be allowed to use the official press releases of the Saudi government and finally that they not interview any Saudis, under penalty of imprisonment.

We may need their oil, but they are ingrates. We have provided the Saudis with military cover when they were threatened by their own neighbor, Saddam Hussein, who invaded Kuwait, which induced us to initiate the Gulf War to expel them. On his way out of their country, Saddam set the Kuwaiti oil fields ablaze and destroyed as much property as he possibly could, killing and torturing people as his forces were being driven out. So, should we also be apologizing for rescuing Kuwait and restoring their monarchy? Or, should we apologize to the Saudis for sending our military and planes to their country to shield them from a similar fate?

In the June 3rd issue of Morning Bell, "President Obama's Top Ten Apologies," the Heritage Foundation noted that the President has apologized for Guantanamo (in France and D.C.), the mistakes of the CIA, America's policy toward the Americas, for slavery and segregation (before the Turkish Parliament), the War on Terror (as if we started it), for attempting to dictate the terms of our relationship with other nations (at the Summit of the Americas), to the Muslim world in general, saying "We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect," and to France and Europe for the "times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."

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