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Last night on Fox News’s Special Report, Charles Krauthammer
took the measure of President Obama’s news conference.
Apparently, things were happening in the world while Obama
was on vacation. Now that he is back in town he called a press conference to
show that he is the man in charge. At the least, he might have pretended to be
in charge.
He did neither.
National Review summarized Krauthammer’s remarks:
“Look I
thought that the president could no longer surprise me,” Krauthammer said. “I
was wrong. He shocked me today. The President of the United States, in the
middle of a real crisis, a few days after the beheading of an American,
deliberately sort of spitting in the face of the country and demonstrating his
cruelty, the president gets in front of the world and says, “I don’t have a
strategy.” If that is true, don’t say anything. Why do you announce that you
don’t have a strategy?”
But
even worse than the president’s statement that he had no strategy to
defeat the Islamic State, Krauthammer said, was his comment about Ukraine.
Krauthammer summarized Obama’s comment on his strategy in Ukraine by saying
Obama acknowledged that he had a strategy in Ukraine, which was “to do
absolutely nothing.”
“He
basically said, “We’re going to do nothing. I’ll wait until I chat with the
allies next week.” I thought he had a phone,” Krauthammer said. “How about
picking up the phone and talking with the allies? You know the phone is a way
to communicate rather rapidly.” He went on to say Obama could have said
today he would impose sanctions that have been discussed at great length. Host
Bret Baier then chided Krauthammer for talking about a
topic slated for the next panel discussion. Baier channeled Obama’s
words from earlier today, saying that Krauthammer was “putting the
cart before the horse,” to which Krauthammer responded, “But that’s
because I don’t have a strategy.”
Obama is doing his best deer-in-the-headlights
impersonation. Events are spinning out of control. He doesn’t have a clue. His
vaunted foreign policy team doesn’t have a clue either.
The menace of ISIS has been looming for months, if not
years. Now, Obama has figured out that he might need to have a policy.
Everyone joked about the “optics” of his golf outings.
Apparently, it wasn’t all optics. Our president really has checked out.
6 comments:
A little known story published 3 days ago strengthens the argument that the Obama administration is clueless about what’s happening around the world. Here’s one report from The New York Times: “Twice in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly launched airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya…”
The report goes on to say: “The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines.”
It should be noted that the Egyptian military officially denies any involvement in the airstrikes. Whoever is bombing Libya with airstrikes, they are doing it without Washington’s knowledge or approval.
Perhaps doing nothing IS his strategy--that's much more frightening.
Krauth is so full of it.
Syria and Libya would be peaceful now if Obama and Hillary hadn't taken the advice of interventionists and sent aid to rebel groups.
The rebellions would have been crushed quickly by Gaddafi and Assad--just like Israel's quick crushing of Gaza.
Also, if neocons like Nuland hadn't funneled 5 billion into Ukraine to foment a civil war, there would be peace there too.
"I thought he had a phone... How about picking up the phone and talking with the allies?"
He does. He doesn't talk to anybody. When was the last non-celebrity who received a call from Obama? Even Pope Francis called James Foley's parents and talked with them do 20 minutes about the loss of heir son.
There can be no doubt the ISIS threat has been in the President's Daily Briefing for many months. Many. Months.
"I don't have a strategy." Obama is channeling the Oprah approach to a topic: talk about where you are emotionally and people "awww" and clap for your vulnerability. The problem is that diplomacy, leadership and statesmanship are big normal talk show topics. ISIS sees empathy as weak, inferior, girly garble-gook.
Elizabeth Warren should be Secretary of State. John Kerry looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger after the past 8 days. Let's at least gig the person to the role Obama wants the to play. Gee, I can't imagine why Hillary Clinton would resign!
If the Obama foreign policy is "Don't do stupid stuff," then we all have to explore the threshold of stupid.
Anonymous @August 29, 2014 at 10:30 PM:
Which of the moons of Saturn do you live on? Please tell us. You are clearly not from Earth.
Libya, Syria and Ukraine AlLL would be at peace? I'm sure you'll tell us next that the Iranians have no true nuclear ambitions, and the North Koreans would stop testing if only we Americans weren't so persistent. After all, they need ICBMs now because we haven't fired our ICBMs after more than 60 years after the Korean War because we are such an... immediate threat.
And leprechauns brokered a Northern Ireland peace settlement.
Please go back under the rock you recently emerged from.
Anon 8/29 10:30 PM:
Go back to your Rand Paul rally and smoke some more pot.
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