Well that was pretty fast Globalist Joe, so you’re on your way?
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Tag Archives: foreign policy
Force, safety, Trump and foreign policy
My position has been distilling for some time. The more we see the more reason to question current circumstances.
Our policies have been a hodgepodge of standard and all too predictable positions. A left over from all the so-called experts and interests that gave birth to it. ‘That’s just the way it is,’ rings the answer to any questions raised. The current policies have not been working.
Obama has taken an ideologue approach, on top of it, That really has no parallel. Both at home and abroad, he’s had a witch’s brew of tonics for whatever the ailment. Snake oil.
Now this will break even English rules… Because we have been in this holding pattern for so long — cruizing between bad medicine and bad results — isn’t it about time to land the plane and actually do something to make a difference in our situation? But those actions could ruffle some feathers abroad with friends, allies and enemies. So be it. Those actions may also ruffle some feathers here at home. Well, that’s okay too.
For too long our policies have been driven by all kinds of motives. It’s time we get past that. If this brings in an era of unpredictability, then that is not such a bad thing. If some want to accuse us or question our motives and actions, so be it. They already do now.
Foreign policy cannot be our only consideration, nor at this point can domestic policy be our only consideration. They are not mutually exclusive either. It may not be a zero sum game, but there are collateral effects on each. However, there are some common denominators to domestic and foreign policies. One is economics.
In a lengthy interview with NYT, Trump said:
“I’m a person that – you notice I talk about economics quite a bit, in these military situations, because it is about economics, because we don’t have money anymore because we’ve been taking care of so many people in so many different forms that we don’t have money.”
Finally, the E-word is dropped. Sure we could ignore economic effects, but that doesn’t mean there are none. It is time to give economic concerns some weight and attention.
This is going to have to be a parted out subject
RightRing | Bullright
Search for Clinton emails with MoBro
You had to know there were more questions about Hillary Clinton’s emails coming.
Judicial Watch Sues For Clinton’s Emails With Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
Katie Pavlich | Mar 05, 2015 | Townhall
After ignoring a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in August 2014, government watchdog Judicial Watch has issued a lawsuit against the State Department for all emails between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her top aide Huma Abedin and wife of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, Nagla Mahmoud, from January 2009 to January 2013. It was discovered earlier this week that both Clinton and Abedine used personal email accounts to conduct government business, potentially violating federal records laws.
The Judicial Watch lawsuit specifically seeks the following:
A. Any and all records of communication between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013; and
B. Any and all records of communication between former State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and Nagla Mahmoud from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013.
“Now we know why the State Department didn’t want to respond to our specific request for Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s communications,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The State Department violated FOIA law rather than admit that it couldn’t and wouldn’t search the secret accounts that the agency has known about for years. This lawsuit shows how the latest Obama administration cover-up isn’t just about domestic politics but has significant foreign policy implications.”
Surprise, welcome to Casablanca. The servers were in her home. Now she releases a statement that she wants the public to see her emails. It all sounds so Clintonesque.
And the search goes on, and on and on and on….
Obama in the sea of denial
Now leaks from senior officials reveal a family feud engulfing the land of disenchantment. Not content sitting in his Ebola and national security meetings.
Leak week: Obama team shows signs of strain as anonymous officials take gripes to media
Published November 01, 2014 | FoxNews.com
WASHINGTON – The White House ship is springing some leaks.
Trouble-making personnel inside the Obama administration have taken to the press at a steady clip in recent days to badmouth senior officials, as well as a key American ally. And as President Obama enters his seventh year in office, the whispers and potshots are running the risk of undermining the once-cohesive image of the “no drama Obama” team.
Whether it’s a few leaky apples or the sign of a larger morale problem is unclear. But several stories with sharp-edged quotes attributed to unnamed administration officials have culminated in an embarrassing week for the White House — complete with plenty of backpedaling and clarifications to assert a polished narrative that all is well.
But the tarnish may be showing.
Frustrated officials have started to air their grievances on everything from the current relationship between the U.S. and Israel to the military response in Syria.
The latest batch of stories started on Monday, when The Atlantic magazine quoted an anonymous official describing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “chickenshit.” The comment follows weeks of heated exchanges between Netanyahu’s government and Washington over disputed settlement-building.
“The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit,” the official was quoted as saying.
The article caused a furor, as Republicans demanded accountability for the anonymous insult to America’s ally. White House and State Department officials insisted the remark does not reflect the administration’s views, and White House officials reportedly were calling lawmakers to hammer home that point.
Oh, the tarnish is showing all right.
Just when you think he reached an all time low, you have this which probably is more dear to Obama’s desires than anything.
The shots aren’t just coming from inside the administration, either. On a lighter note, another influential figure badmouthed the president this week — Michael Jordan.
When asked about the president’s golf game during a recent interview Jordan said, “I’ve never played with Obama, but I would.” He added, “I’d take him out. He’s a hack and I’d be all day playing with him … I never said he wasn’t a great politician. I’m just saying he’s a shi–y golfer.”
Obama is in direct conflict with himself.
As one NYT’s columnist preforms an autopsy on Obama’s demise, he says in “How Obama Lost America”: “The public’s confidence is gone, and it doesn’t seem to be coming back.”
Well, yea but in listing possible causes he stumbles on a pertinent one. The big feather in Obama’s hat — as fictional as it was — was foreign policy. Like it or not, and I don’t, he was constantly trying to beat up Mitt Romney projecting his own steady hand on foreign policy. As with everything about Obama, it didn’t have to be true. Perception is king, long as you can make enough people believe it. So there were the carps to Romney about the 80’s calling and wanting their foreign policy back. Others misunderstood the real threats.
So now that the Obama dynasty is deconstructing faster than Humpty Dumpty can fall, he is left with the reality of nothing in his quiver of lies. The foreign policy component is now a proven failure. He has nothing left with which to throw at his opposition. So the best he could muster was that these are all the folks who supported me in 08, and reaffirmed it in 2012. In other words, I still won in the last election. As to actual accomplishments or successes, they matter not. And in other words, keep believing despite what you see all around. It is the echo of all infamous tyrants and dictators in the final scene.
NYT frames it this way:
The public trusted him on foreign policy. But that trust began to erode with the Edward Snowden affair, it eroded further during our non-attack on Bashar al-Assad last fall, and recent events in Ukraine and Iraq have essentially made Obama’s position irrecoverable: His approval rating on foreign policy is around 35 percent in most recent polling.
And so, once again, I have to ask about the sanity of that 35% who do find approval with his foreign policy? The piece goes on to add that this disapproval is not an indictment of the liberal ideology, but only on the misapplication of it. So salvage the ideology at the expense of Obama. That is the message.
In a Politico piece, “Another Obama veteran adds, “the bully pulpit is gone, maybe forever.”” Well, that is drastic!
But defiant Obama admits having plans, in the event of a Republican Senate, to roll out a bunch of Executive actions to set Republicans back on their heels. But with the bully pulpit gone?
And now his aides have nothing to look forward to except the “Obama comeback story.” Faulty caricatures be damned.
RightRing | Bullright
The Credibility Deficit
New polls say that this president has plummeting approvals on his foreign policy. Michael Barone describes the nuances here.
Booking a tee-time, seeking advice on brackets, or planning next va-k? What diff does it make?–(WhiteHouse.gov Flickr)
(6/17/14) The most recent Pew Research Center poll conducted for the Council on Foreign Relations shows that 52 percent of Americans — the highest percentage in the last 40 years — think the U.S. should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own. Evidently they don’t want to see America being, in the old phrase, the policeman of the world.
Barack Obama seems to be following the polls, yet more and more voters express disapproval of his foreign policy — 50 percent in a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, with only 41 percent approving, a new low in that survey.
But history tells us something else about Americans’ attitudes. They have understood, no matter how little they want to be bothered or to see their fellow citizens suffer casualties, that Americans have a stake in what goes on beyond our borders and across the seas.
More National Review
Ask Churchill about frivolous voters. They decided not to punch his ticket in 1945, in pursuit of domestic programs. Churchill had been beloved seeing them through the war. Still admired as a hero, they replaced him with Attlee opting instead for a welfare state.
Obama has been the beneficiary of the whimsy of voters, when it suited his fancy. He’s been fortunate in that, based on nothing but his rhetoric and sound bites. He fashioned himself to fit even against other liberal contenders. Of course, Obama wants legend status without being a legend — only in his mind.
But Obama would represent the Chamberlain faction of appeasement. All that is ancillary, only to show that there is a public perception no matter what Obama seems to think. So far everything has been one way, his. The recess appointment decision verified that.
So he recognizes public opinion when it suits him, when it doesn’t he doesn’t need it. The quintessential tyrant. Now it seems any of his credibility is being challenged, from all sides. The empty suit has a design flaw, and it’s showing.
Now he once again calls scandals phony, a fabrication of Washington.
Obama’s latest rhetoric is designed to blame public disgust and cynicism he created in the White House on everything else in Washington. Since his Supreme smack down, he needs to blame anyone. These are his issues, policies, and his economy; yet he is projecting all the blame on others. Then adds he will take more action on his own.
“They’re phony scandals that are generated,” Obama said. “It’s all geared towards the next election or ginning up a base — it’s not on the level. And that must feel frustrating, and it makes people cynical and it makes people turned off from the idea that anything can get done.”
Obama did not specify what he meant by “phony scandals.”
Obama was a little more specific when he spoke at a congressional campaign fundraiser Thursday night, saying lawmakers should focus on people like the working mother with whom he had lunch that afternoon.
“We talk about phony scandals,” he said, “and we talk about Benghazi, and we talk about polls, and we talk about the tea party, and we talk about the latest controversy that Washington has decided is important — and we don’t talk about her.”
That SCOTUS decision was not a “controversy” you created, it was abuse of power.
But don’t talk about all those victims you left in your wake, Obama, by your administration. All those IRS victims, all the VA victims, the Benghazi victims, or still countless others you blame for the condition of the country, when it is you that is directly responsible for the malaise. What about the whole country of victims you created?
Plus he has no credibility or trust to start with… and no ‘good faith’ credit.
RightRing | Bullright
Finally a foreign policy doctrine emerges
Well, after countless attempts by media to describe Obama’s doctrine and many questions to the White House, it finally oozes out. Like anything this administration does when attempting to drive a message, they repeat it until it becomes part of the news cycle. Apparently it finally reached the saturation level. This report comes from Politico.
‘Don’t do stupid sh–‘ (stuff)
By MIKE ALLEN | 6/1/14 | Politico
Forget The New Yorker’s “leading from behind,” and even President Barack Obama’s own “singles … doubles.” The West Wing has a preferred, authorized distillation of the president’s foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid shi*t.”
The phrase has appeared in The New York Times three times in the past four days. So, if the White House’s aim was to get the phrase in circulation, mission accomplished!
The phrase – as “Don’t do stupid stuff,” with a demure disclaimer that the actual wording was saltier and spicier than “stuff” — appeared in the Los Angeles Times at the end of Obama’s Asia trip this spring, was reprised in the lead story of Thursday’s New York Times.
But the West Wing hit the jackpot Sunday when it was used twice in The New York Times — once in the news columns, and once in a column by Thomas L. Friedman, who had been part of an off-the-record roundtable with Obama on Tuesday.
The Columbian newspaper of Vancouver, Washington, actually had the scoop, when it reported in February that it kept selling out of mugs that are emblazoned: “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff.” http://goo.gl/9oQ8d3
Here is a timeline of the phrase’s propagation in the press:
— Christi Parsons, Kathleen Hennessey and Paul Richter in the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune of April 29: “The president’s aides have scrambled to put things in simpler terms. ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is the polite-company version of a phrase they use to describe the president’s foreign policy.” http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-obama-military-20140429-story.html
— Christi Parsons and Kathleen Hennessey in the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune on May 25: “Privately, White House officials have described the working label for Obama’s doctrine as ‘Don’t do stupid stuff.’ Within the tight circle of foreign policy aides in the White House, the shorthand captured Obama’s resistance to a rigid catch-all doctrine, as well as his aversion to what he once called the ‘dumb war’ in Iraq.” http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-obama-foreign-policy-20140525-story.html
— Mark Landler, in the lead story of Thursday’s New York Times: “In private conversations, the president has used a saltier variation of the phrase, ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ — brushing aside as reckless those who say the United States should consider enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria or supplying arms to Ukrainian troops.” http://goo.gl/WG20of […]
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/dont-do-stupid-shit-president-obama-white-house-107293.html#ixzz33p8jeIxX
Okay, so you see the pattern and the point with the examples. So now I ask if the trade of one deserter, potentially a traitor, for 5 top Taliban does not qualify under the “Don’t do stupid stuff” banner? Why not since he did it?. So if that is one’s foreign policy doctrine, doesn’t it open you to criticism? Doesn’t it just cry out for criticism, if that is the standard? That’s my theory why they didn’t put one out before, fear of criticism.
Hey, these are young idealist speechwriters and they didn’t come up with one before? I mean they create narratives out of thin air about terrorist attacks or statements that were not received well by the public. They’re creative if anything, i.e. “change you can believe in”? Wouldn’t they have come up with one? Not for lack of inspiration, certainly, but because they did not want their words to be judged, or held to them. It might open them to attack based on a doctrine.
I wonder why they see fit to put forth one now? Why so simplistic, you could even call it dumb? As many times as they repeat it, there must be reason. I have some theories. Is it the go to excuse when asked about a failure to act, or failure to react — that they don’t want to do “stupid stuff”?(something you’ll regret) It’s a catch-all answer to “why not?” Or when you got a bunch of yahoos in your ranks, maybe they need a constant reminder.
But I’ve said before, his real doctrine is denial. To those of us who thought we heard it all, apparently we’re not even close.
Exhibit A:
When visiting a Pennsylvania diner, a reporter asked a foreign policy question and Obama said, “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?”
RightRing | Bullright
Obama foreign policy insanity
Many people will remember back in the 80’s those commercials for Crazy Eddie’s electronics stores in the greater NYC area. If not, here’s a reminder.
(“Dr Jerry” Carroll was the pitch man, not Eddie.”) “His prices are insaaaane!”
“People want hope and dreams, we’ll sell them hope and dreams,” Eddie said.
Obama’s foreign policy has no better analogy than that. His policies are insane. The problem is the whole world knows it and is on to him. The deals are “insane”. So everyone wants to make one of those crazy deals that they could not get in American history before. He’s practically giving away the store, deals are that good.
Dropping the missile defense program in Europe for nothing was one such deal, who could refuse that? Then telling Medvedev to relay the message to Russia that after his “last election” he would be [even] more flexible was yet another insane gesture.
Then there’s Iran negotiations. We should have had one of those ads in 2012.
But eventually people caught on to the massive fraud going on under the Crazy Eddie name. Here’s a brief documentary on the Crazy Eddie story. Note the parallels.
We can only hope to see Obama’s fraud collapse around him. Any one of his scandals is only a microcosm of the whole — but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Benghazi gave us the indicative hint that that there was only a wall of politics going on in place of substance. And that was just the campaign season for a second term.
Can we all say “insane”? Everyone is probably looking to cash in on the Obama phenomena while he’s still around. It’s like a sign hanging out there, and every foreign leader knows this is the best time in history to get a deal of the century and take us to the cleaners. Stick it to America with no consequences. “Get us some.” Team Obama will not care; it just gave them what they wanted, as if it had no other choice. But that was the scam all along, to give away the store, except team Obama are the ones laughing.
The old “bait and switch” campaign at home.
But what we got is Obama’s SOTU speech telling us he will do end-runs around Congress, and half of Congress stood up and cheered him. “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” Meanwhile, his deals to everyone else are insane. Blame a video for the Benghazi attack, don’t label Boko Haram terrorists. Don’t secure the borders, release illegals and criminals from prison. Loosen sanctions on Iran, and threaten Congress not to even “talk” about strengthening them. Kerry accuses Israel of apartheid. All in a day’s insanity.
RightRing | Bullright
JFK’s ‘foreign policy’ Dems never talk about
Politics of incompetence
Ann Coulter has busted the myth about the golden child, JFK’s foreign policy disasters. (right, its plural)
“Crimea River” goes to the heart of JFK’s foreign policy, which brought on the bay of pigs, and where Khrushchev walked all over the amateur bootlegger. That’s the part Dems never talk about with JFK. It’s the moon or his fiscal policy they point to. But it sure doesn’t appear he carried any gravitas overseas.
Ann points out how they even turned JFK’s bay of pigs into a myth.
The Kennedy Myth Machine has somehow turned JFK’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis into a brilliant foreign policy coup. The truth is: (1) Russia would never have dared move missiles to Cuba had Khrushchev not realized that JFK was a nincompoop; and (2) it wasn’t a victory.
But its about much more than JFK. Read it here, good for a few reality chuckles:
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2014/03/05/crimea-river-n1804802
One small leap for mankind, one giant JFK myth busted.
Truth never seems to have any consequences for progressives. But it does leave a stain.
RightRing | Bullright
Foreign Policy of the Desperately Absurd
So Kerry announces that he will be going to Kiev, Ukraine. But Putin doesn’t care much what Kerry says, only what Obama says and does. He’s smart.
Just yesterday Kerry said Putin doesn’t have the strong hand.
On one hand Kerry called Putin’s move a “brazen act of aggression”.
On the other he declares Putin is acting out of “weakness” and “desperation.”
Russia is holding two Ukraine ships, forcing surrender. More weakness.
“That’s not the act of somebody who’s strong,” Kerry added, saying Putin is acting out of “weakness” and “desperation.”
On ABC’s “This Week,” Kerry called Putin’s move a “brazen act of aggression” and raised the possibility that allied nations would move to kick Russia out of the Group of 8 in addition to boycotting the G-8 summit in Sochi this summer.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/europe/199645-putin-acting-out-of-desperation#ixzz2uvOYZrLQ
This is the same Obama that threatened congress for even talking about sanctions for Iran. Now he demands Congressional action. Some people!
Michael Crowley of TIME had a tweet that illustrated the situation.
“not a character judgment, but this does kind of capture the moment “
Putin is the consummate opportunist. You really can’t blame him, considering the holes Obama gives him. It’s not “desperation”, it’s pure opportunism. Putin has been fortunate in opportunities. And it’s not weakness.
But it’s Obama that is operating out of “weakness and desperation”… with limited opportunities.
I think I know what happened, the Obama regime leaned “forward” so far it fell over.
RightRing | Bullright
Truth comes out: sobering effects of Obama’s Iran policy
Iranian Oil Exports Soar as Sanctions Collapse
Iran to get ‘well more than $20 billion’ in sanctions relief
BY: Adam Kredo | Free Beacon — February 14, 2014 11:29 am
Iranian oil exports soared in January, hitting new highs just months after the United States consented to billions of dollars in economic sanctions relief under the interim nuclear deal.
Exports of Iranian crude oil jumped to 1.32 million barrels, up from December’s high of 1.06 million barrels, according to data from the International Energy Agency.
The spike in exports—mainly to Japan, China, and India—has helped Iran’s once-ailing economy stabilize and decrease inflation.
Iranian oil exports have steadily risen since negotiations with the West restored confidence in Tehran’s economy. The increase runs counter to a promise by the Obama administration that “Iran’s oil exports will remain steady at their current level of around 1 million barrels per day.”
http://freebeacon.com/iranian-oil-exports-soar-under-sanctions-collapse/
Back up to 2012
Sanctions on Iran: Is there a limit to their effect on Iran’s oil production?
By Daniel J. Graeber, Guest blogger / October 2, 2012 | Christian Science Monitor
OPEC figures show a general decline in Iran’s crude oil production after Iran was hit with economic sanctions this summer, according to OilPrice.com. But has the effect of the sanctions on Iran’s oil production reached a limit?
The Iranian oil sector may be lagging because of declining revenue needed to keep the domestic sector afloat. The country was hit with economic sanctions during the summer amid growing concerns over its nuclear ambitions and OPEC figures show a general decline in crude oil production from the Islamic republic. U.S. energy statistics, meanwhile, predict Iran’s crude oil production should fall more than 20 percent compared to last year’s figures. From the Iranian perspective, however, all is well for No. 3 among OPEC nations.
Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said neither crude oil sales nor production is impacted by sanctions imposed by Western governments. The U.S. and European governments during the summer targeted the country’s energy sector as punishment for transparency issues with nuclear research.
More at CSMonitor.com
By the way, in 2012 when Iran’s production declined OPEC’s production rose.
Obama in his 2014 SOTU address:
“The sanctions that we put in place helped make this opportunity possible. But let me be clear: if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it.”
But how about the “talks” derailing sanctions?
“For the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed.”
Its a bit contradictory, like his policies for the US: his political success is failure for the US economy. The question is what diplomatic success looks like to Obama?
So , in a swoop of months, Obama has undone the effects of the sanctions. It’s the ‘carrots with no stick’ Iran policy.
RightRing | Bullright
Filthy “Pool” for O-regime, what do you expect?
The column did not need a subtitle, but the author supplied one anyway.
Dirty “pool”(report) in China? Big surprise.
Dirty Pool
Column: The rise of secretarial journalism
BY: Matthew Continetti | Free Beacon
December 6, 2013 5:00 am
It was a sunny day in Beijing on Thursday—refreshingly sunny, to be more precise—when Vice President Joe Biden met Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. I know this because I have read the pool report of the occasion, a pithy and practically content-free piece of journalism that is nevertheless one of the more entertaining things to enter my inbox in recent days. The pool report confirms the lingering suspicion—if it hasn’t been confirmed a million times already—that the line between journalism and Democratic Party cheerleading has more than faded. It has become invisible.
Pool reports are summaries of official events distributed to reporters, who then use the information to write articles or produce news packages. The building blocks of journalism, involving basic details such as names, places, and local color, pool reports are typically written by members of the periodical press. But the Internet has thrown open the question of what the periodical press is. And in the case of Vice President Biden’s visit with the Chinese collective oligarchy at the Zhongnanhai Leadership Compound, the pool report was composed and issued by someone who is not a member of the periodical press, someone who is not really “a journalist,” as the term is broadly understood, at all. His name is Steve Clemons.
Clemons is a Washington hand and bon vivant who has spent a long career working for a Democratic senator, working for think tanks, and working in the interstices of online journalism, event programming, and D.C. social climbing. For some time he has been parked at the New American Foundation—a center-left think tank that recently hosted an event for an anti-Israel screed written by the son of a top Clinton confidante—and at the Atlantic Monthly, where he is “Washington editor at large.” Politico has described him as a “foreign policy ‘super-agent,’” and the foreign policy for which he flacks lines up remarkably closely with the “realist” policy of the Obama administration: eager to negotiate with traditional adversaries, convinced that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the cause of Middle East turmoil, and determined to prevent neoconservatives and the dastardly Israel Lobby from committing America to foreign entanglements. Clemons was a key player in the campaign to install as America’s secretary of defense the embarrassingly stupid Chuck Hagel. He is not, let us be clear, a “disinterested observer.” I look forward to Sean Hannity’s pool reports from President Ted Cruz’s state visit to France.
Clemons’s prose is clichéd. “Good morning from refreshingly sunny Beijing where the skies are robin egg blue,” began his first report. Biden did not just greet his Chinese counterpart, Clemons said. Biden “warmly greeted” him. After an exchange of pleasantries, “your pool was then escorted out to brisk air, sunny skies, and a momentary look at the gardens and other pavilions of the exclusive Zhongnanhao Compound.” I hope your pool made the moment count, since he got closer to the center of Chinese authoritarian decision-making than most Chinese ever will. Dan Balz can rest easy: Clemons is not coming for his job anytime soon. Biden Deputy Chief of Staff Shailagh Murray, on the other hand, who used to be a “journalist” herself—well, Shailagh, you better watch out.
“An awkward thing happened in which your pool inadvertently became part of the story,” Clemons reported. The awkward thing was this: The vice president, in conversation with Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, began gesturing at Clemons and saying, “He is a very important man. Seriously he is important.”
“Your pool demurred as best he could”—I’m sure he did—but Biden continued, telling Li that he should bypass the diplomatic niceties and talk directly with Clemons. “He is the one you really want to speak to. Seriously.” Later Biden bought Clemons a Magnum ice cream bar. But do not assume that the gift of delicious ice cream from a powerful admirer would affect our correspondent’s reportage. “Your pool decided to find out how much the Magnum bar cost and return that amount of yuan to Vice President Biden.” And the First Amendment endured.
Remarkably, no one in the traveling press corps seems to have thought it weird, much less wrong, to assign pool reports to a Beltway player so in sync with the administration’s foreign policy, so beloved by the vice president. “Thanks again to @SCClemons of @The Atlantic for a colorful pool report from the Biden trip,” tweeted CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller. “Colorful” is one word for it. “Useless” and “self-indulgent” are others. The vice president himself, by continually referring to “your pool,” seems to have understood better than the traveling press the conflict of interest presented by Clemons. Or perhaps the press, in giving Clemons the pool assignment, sought to show to the world, in a passive-aggressive way, just how phony and strained the coverage of this White House is. Whatever their reasons, neither Clemons nor anyone else in the press corps traveling with Biden seems to have asked what the vice president’s son Hunter, a former lobbyist with manifold business interests, was up to while accompanying dad on his East Asian tour. Or would asking that question hurt one’s future job prospects?
Adversarial journalism has been replaced by secretarial journalism. Obamacare’s glitches have not slowed the trend. While Robert Pear of the New York Times has been skeptical and critical of the Obamacare rollout, his colleagues on the paper’s political team are eager to return to boosting the program’s namesake. “Democrats’ Latest Campaign for Health Care Law Begins,” read the front-page headline on Thursday’s paper. “Seizing on the good news of an improving health care website and rising enrollments,” write Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear, President Obama and his allies on Wednesday “highlighted parts of the law that are popular with the public and reminded Americans, and the law’s opponents, of what would be lost if the Affordable Care Act were repealed.” […/]
Continue reading more> http://freebeacon.com/dirty-pool/
Leave it to Biden to perfectly demonstrate the purpose of a free press, especially in China. (Not) Well, go Joe, show ’em just how it’s done! What better place to roll out your expertise in pool reporting control? The other non-surprise is how all this seems to go over rather well with the press “corpse” in general — alas, the errant word fits here.
All this irony is lost on Biden and, naturally, on Clemons. Both he and Biden continually refer to “your pool”, like some British Lord. “Lord of Pressland” maybe?
Compare the salutation to “your honor” — “your pool”. Or maybe he could be dubded “your Pookie“, since Obama is fond of the name — like a composite reporter?
RightRing | Bullright
“Syria: Decisions, Decisions…”
[Thoughtful analysis — author: “The Quest for Justice in the Middle East”]
There’s increasing talk these days about American and other Western military action aimed against the Assad regime in Syria. It appears the latter used some of its enormous stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (poison gas, that is–you know, what Iraq’s Saddam also had, used, murdered many folks with, transferred to Syria, and then others claimed that he had no WMD) against the wrong enemy–Arabs instead of the “Zionist entity.” Who knows what the world reaction would have been to the latter scenario these days? Of course, Syria, as it is known today, would probably cease to exist afterwards.
Analysts whom I respect are talking about doing this the “right way” and cutting off the head of the snake–targeting the Assads themselves.
Look, I don’t want to see any folks gassed–or killed in any other way either, as long as they’re not targeting others first.
But, the West has ignored the true forces of moderation in Syria–and millions do exist, like the Kurds, some more tolerant Sunnis, some Christians, and Druze, for example, who begged for support. Instead, Obama’s Washington, in particular, has been gravitating towards Muslim Brotherhood clones as long as they do not overtly wear al-Qaida headbands. Recall that the war began back in spring, 2011, and poorly equipped, moderate militias, like “Sheikh Omar’s” Ghurabaa al-Sham, were soon rendered incidental by the much better organized, funded, and equipped Islamist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra,
Now, what I am going to state next may first sound a bit distasteful, but please think carefully about what I am saying.
Since the choice in Syria really comes down to supporting a murderous, totalitarian despotic regime or enabling the creation of yet another murderous, totalitarian, Muslim Brotherhood/al-Qaida-type state (which will undoubtedly be even less tolerant than that which it supplanted), my feelings are that the opponents should be allowed to continue to blow each other apart. The reality is that the Islamists will do what they need to in order to gain sympathy and power (as was done in Morsi’s Egypt and elsewhere), but will return to their true colors if they succeed. That, indeed, is part of Islamist teaching. Both sides use women and children as human shields–what Israel faces each time it has to go after the latter-day Arafatians of Fatah or other Islamists in Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
After both sides exhaust each other, perhaps there will then be a chance for the true forces of tolerance to make their move and actually gain some world support. And If it means Syria splitting into at least 3 parts–with an independent Kurdistan bordering Iraqi Kurdistan, etc., for example–then so be it.
There are about five million Arabized and non-Arabized Kurds in Syria. When representatives of the latter met with “moderate” Arab opposition forces in Washington a while back, they had just one favor to ask. The Kurds and some others wanted the post-Assad state to be known as the Republic of Syria–instead of the Syrian Arab Republic. They were virtually laughed out of the room. Unfortunately, that’s the dominant ruler and ruled mentality in the so-called “Arab” world–and it does not bode well for tolerance or Western-style democracy. It was typical, for example, for Kurdish children to be forced to use Arabic and adopt Arab culture in Syrian schools–etc. and so forth. On this same note, think about what is documented in Professor Ismet Cherif Vanly’s book just by glancing at its title–The Syrian ‘Mein Kampf’ Against The Kurds (Amsterdam, 1968).
As in Egypt, while there are some moderate forces in Syria, the best armed, organized, and most powerful are, once again, the Islamists who are funded and supplied by Arab oil potentates, Turks, and other like-minded folks. President Obama and the State Department seem to have an attraction for them as well. They will be the beneficiaries and successors to the Assads after we do unto the Alawis what we did unto the Serbs during President Clinton’s days and for other deceptive reasons of State. The reality back then was the same as it is now–atrocities were being committed by both sides and had been going on for centuries. The first Battle of Kosovo was in 1389–the Serbs trying to stop an earlier jihad, this one with Turks in the lead.
So, forgive me, but I disagree with Ambassador John Bolton, The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens , and others whom I’m frequently on the same page with. I’ve done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs myself and have also been a keen observer of the region for decades.
I’m for doing nothing “explosive” right now, if you get my drift, with the possible exception of trying to better organize, develop, protect, supply, and work with the true forces of moderation in that country–something the State Department and our current President seem to have a problem with.
While I’m aware of some of the “complicating factors” involved in this (especially when the word “Kurd” is mentioned), other such complications do not seem to hinder President Obama’s and the State Department’s push for the creation of a destabilizing 22nd Arab state in the region–whether it turns out to be Fatahland or Hamastan, regardless of the consequences for a minuscule Israel.
Furthermore, what’s perhaps even more disturbing is that, after the dust settles, Washington would probably support the new Syrian Islamist regime in its attempt to squash the Kurds’ and others’ bids for some semblance of justice and freedom after the Assads’ exit.
http://q4j-middle-east.com
Red Line
Obama’s Meaningless ‘Red Line’?
8:55 PM, Apr 25, 2013 • By LEE SMITH
The Obama administration now believes that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons. Today the White House released a letter explaining that the American “intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specially the chemical agent sarin.”
Now that Assad has crossed an Obama redline, will the administration’s Syria policy get tougher? Don’t count on it. Obama announced last summer that the use of chemical weapons “would change my calculations significantly.” Britain, France and Israel have all reported within the last two weeks that Assad used chemical weapons as recently as March and likely more than once. But the administration still wanted more proof.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-meaningless-red-line_719144.html
CBS news:
The White House said the evidence of Syrian chemical weapons attacks is still too thin and President Obama’s red line has not been crossed, and that means military intervention by the United States in the Syrian civil war is not imminent and not guaranteed but more study and investigation is needed.
When Obama said WMD would be “a Gamechanger” he meant it starts a new game.
A little trouble in the communications dep….
Its no April Fools joke, and it isn’t Halloween
But it seems spooks are getting spooked by Obama
Earlier this month in the Free Beacon, Bill Gertz outlined the growing troubles in the intel community with the WH’s narrative about al Qaeda and Mid East promoted Islamic terrorism.
Revolt of the Spooks
BY: Bill Gertz
October 5, 2012
Intelligence officials angered by Obama administration cover up of intelligence on Iranian, al Qaeda surge in Egypt and Libya
…/The Morsi government has turned a blind eye to both the increased jihadist activity and Iran’s support for it in the region, particularly in Libya and Syria.
However, the administration is keeping the intelligence under wraps to avoid highlighting Obama’s culpability for the democratic aspirations of the Arab Spring being hijacked by Islamists sympathetic to al Qaeda’s terrorist ideology.
Intelligence officials said in Egypt—currently ruled by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood—one of the key al Qaeda organizers has been identified as Muhammad al-Zawahiri, brother of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Muhammad al-Zawahiri was released by Morsi in Marchafter having been sentenced to death for terrorist acts in Egypt.
In recent months Egypt-based al Qaeda terrorists were dispatched to Libya and Syria, where they have been covertly infiltrating Libyan militia groups and Syrian opposition forces opposing the Bashar al Assad regime.
In addition to Egyptian government backing, intelligence from the region has revealed that operatives from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the main spy service, and from Iran’s Quds Force paramilitary group and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are also facilitating al Qaeda terrorists based in Egypt that are preparing to conduct operations to increase instability throughout the region.
…./ Other news outlets in recent days have revealed new internal U.S. government information that contrasts sharply or contradicts official Obama administration statements that appear designed to minimize the rise of Egyptian-origin terrorism.
Read more: http://freebeacon.com/revolt-of-the-spooks/
Obama’s foreign policy is a phony facade that is unraveling daily in the Middle East, while it masquerades as the success of his administration. There is nothing true or good about it.
This is the picture he wants us to see:
And this is the picture that is etched on our minds…
After all there was this reminder….
Move over Gadaffi, we can do it better without you.
The American Thinker reported, just prior to the foreign policy debate:
“A recent Zogby poll showed America to be less popular in the Arab world than before Obama took office. In Egypt, 30% viewed America favorably before 2008, compared to 5% today. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a Republican Senate candidate, says the 2009 Cairo speech “upset the whole apple cart. His Cairo speech was about apologizing and thinking he could singlehandedly change the Middle East dynamics because of the power of his phenomenal personality.”
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/spotlighting_obamas_foreignpolicy_failures.html#ixzz2AXRvP3Pb
The incredible lying machine
The only question I have is which lie will Obama lead off with tonight, in the last debate, and what new ones will he add to the list?
I especially look forward to one about his off-mic words to Medvedev where he promised him after his last “election” he could be more flexible. There is no way to parse that remark, like he always does, to try to mean anything else. The lie about that might be historical.
(AP Photo)
“I understand you. I transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you.”
“On all these issues, but particularly missile defence, this can be solved.
But it’s important for him to give me space. This is my last election…
after my election I have more flexibility.”“I understand,” Mr Medvedev responded. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”
The one I always look forward to hearing is that he is so great on foreign policy. Maybe he will lead with that one, just to break the ice and try to raise expectations. But the best part of all will be the finale, it usually is. Which one will he end with to seal the deal? So many to choose from.
Let the spin begin.
[photo credit to AP]
Pre-debate Spin Saturates Media
The spin machine must be cranked up to max in Chicago and Washington. As the focus is shifting to the debates, the Democrats theme is that Mitt has had more practice and is fairly good at debating. (Gibbs, Messina, Axelrod et al) So the White House appears to be parsing expectations for Obama, at least the first debate – domestic issues.
“Gov. Romney is a very skilled debater,” said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. His boss, by contrast, is long and windy, “so clearly the governor has the advantage.” — exactly what Gibbs said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/22/debates-obama-camp-downplays-expectations-romney-looks-for-game-changer/#ixzz27LUvCA12
I saw a consensus among Dem operatives pointing out Romney has done a lot of debate prep already and playing down the abilities of Obama. What reason could they have for patting Mitt on the back? It’s about winning and losing, just like the election. Hedging his bets. If debates don’t go well, Obama can dismiss them as irrelevant: “What really matters is the election”, they’ll say. Is that his strategy, to discount the relevance of debates as overblown?
If the media does not spoon-feed Obamessiah a victory: first declare it anyway, then they redefine the weight of debates. He’s usurped everything else he can get his hands on, so why not the debate process too? Thereby try to deprive Republicans of any claim of victory.
Or basically, just what you would expect from a self-serving jackass.
What Debates?
October 3, 2012
Topic: Domestic policy Air Time: 9:00-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Location: University of Denver in Denver, Colorado (Tickets)
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Participants: President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
Moderator: Jim Lehrer (Host of NewsHour on PBS)
The debate will focus on domestic policy and be divided into six time segments of approximately 15 minutes each on topics to be selected by the moderator and announced several weeks before the debate.
The moderator will open each segment with a question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion of the topic.
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-debate-schedule/2012-presidential-debate-schedule/
1st debate – Domestic Policy (Lehrer)
VP debate – Foreign and Domestic Policy
2nd debate – Town Hall: questions foreign and domestic policy (Crowley)
3rd debate – Foreign Policy (Schieffer)
Right Ring 