It Was Clinton’s Fault
By Larry Johnson on October 26, 2009 at 1:00 AM in Current Affairs
(Bumped up from Sunday morning.)
Republicans chafing over Obama’s continued finger pointing at the failings of the Bush Administration need to look in the mirror and check their own glass house. Why? Because 9-11 happened because of Bill Clinton.
Now I do not believe that. But when you try to discuss the failures of the Bush Administration in taking action that might have prevented 9-11 there are many on the right who insist this was Bill Clinton’s fault and Bush was just an innocent by-stander.
So I don’t want to hear any crocodile tears from Republicans and Conservatives about Obama refusing to accept responsibility for the mess he inherited from Bush. If it is good for the goose it is good for the gander.
Here’s what I think.
Let’s start with Bill Clinton. He did not do everything he could have to go after Bin Laden and what we now know as Al Qaeda. He approached terrorism, correctly so, as an isolated, infrequent event. Unfortunately he did not empower the government national security bureaucracy to pursue that threat aggressively. It is not about a “war” vs. “law enforcement” approach. Rather it means you put people in charge of going after Bin Laden and hold them accountable. The failure of the Clinton Administration to immediately retaliate for the attack on the USS Cole is a black mark in my book.
So Bill Clinton did not do everything he could have done to go after Al Qaeda. That is true. But his Administration did leave a sound blueprint for pursuing Al Qaeda and it was communicated to the Bush team clearly and repeatedly. And what did Bush do? NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.
The first meeting on terrorism policy occurred on 10 September. Bush and Cheney entered office treating the threat of terrorism as an even lower priority than the Clinton Administration. Those are indisputable facts. It took 11 September to energize them to deal with the threat. And rather than go after the Islamic radicals based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bush decided to attack Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda but, because of US aggression, created a rallying cry for Islamic extremists.
While Bush launched a war of choice in Iraq he also doubled downd on a spending binge reminiscent of a teenager with his first credit card and no spending limit. George Bush brought us bigger government, bigger deficits and questionable competence.
Which brings me to Barack Obama. Yes, you inherited an economic mess. Your predecessor engaged in irresponsible deficit spending. And your prescription? Quadruple the deficit spending. You are insane if you want to insist that deficit spending by Bush is bad but four times as much deficit spending by you is swell.
You also correctly noted during your campaign that the Bush Administration gave short shrift to Afghanistan. It did not have the troops or resources required to keep the extremists at bay. You promised to do more. You declared it a war of necessity. And then your handpicked general, Stan McChrystal, tells you he needs more troops and you do . . . NOTHING. You dither, whine and complain while American soldiers are dying.
I’m not interested now in what Bill Clinton did or did not do. It does not matter. Nor am I interested in what George Bush did to make things worse or failed to do to prevent a problem. He is not the President, you are. You promised to do certain things. Instead of a fresh start we are getting irresponsible fiscal policies that make George Bush look restrained. And when it comes to protecting our soldiers in the field you are weak and indecisive. I think the term is coward.
But we all know who is at fault. Yep, it is Clinton’s fault.
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9-11 is an overblown event. It was a lucky shot. It is horrible that nearly 3,000 innocent people died, but this country has completely gone off the rails with its reaction and the importance of 9-11. To give complete give away our freedoms and to go on a global rampage was completely out of proportionality.
I do not think there was much the U.S. could have done to prevent a small group of determined people from attacking the U.S.
We needed more “dither” back then and we need it now. Make the right strategic decision is absolutely key. McChyrstal is only one voice offering of option.
He is delaying until after the Nov elections. What a pathetic empty little man he is. He just wants the glory without any of the guts.
He won’t even go to the celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall. I don’t know about you guys, but I cried when I saw that on CNN 20 years ago. That was a pivotal historical event. And Obama will be absent.
I guess he’ll be golfing. This morning on ABC they said he’d been golfing 24 times. I wonder how the guys in Afghanistan feel about that. We mocked George Bush when he went golfing(with good reason, as far as I’m concerned). Obama is “glorified” for his golfing.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-goes-to-oslo-for-the-nobel-but-too-busy-for-berlin-wall-ceremony/2/
HARP,
You have entirely figured Obama out.
He waits, men are dying in Afghanistan while jobs and decent healthcare have not been competently or honestly addressed, and we the people are witnessing the emptiness of his pretense.
Well, you are wrong. There was a lot that could have been done and was not done. For example, the CIA refused to share with the FBI the intel that AQ operatives were inside the US. The FBI did not have an internal system for coordinating threats. The concern about Muslims taking flight training in Arizona did not get the attention it deserved.
Stop being a partisan apologist.
Bravo, Larry!
And thank you for the succinct line that should be set to music and used to serenade Barack Obama every time he plays the blame game: “He is not the president, you are.”
Larry, I’m wondering where you were during all this time? If you thought there was a lot that could have been done then you should have been ringing the alarm bell… LOL
To go back and blame Bill Clinton for this seems a bit of a stretch… I mean I think Bush was on duty for over 8 months before this happened and from all accounts he and his peeps let a lot pass under the bridge that was being brought to their attention!
Sometimes you’re just too much! LOL
Did you read what LJ wrote? Or do you have a severe case of cognitive dissonance?
Oh and LOL yourself.
Good grief, even the partisan apologists are of an inferior nature lately.
And there was the flight school owner in Florida who notified the FBI about some very suspicious behavior on the part of two of his recent students. They were taking a cram course in flying an airliner, but they weren’t interested in learning to land. The owner of the flight school thought this was the sort of thing a hijacker would do. So he wrote the FBI and also called them about it. They ignored him. Later the students were identified as 9/11 hijackers.
It was planned, for your information, and was not a “lucky shot”. Wow.
The meddling with our liberties (The Last Refuge of Scoundrels Act) as a result of 9/11 was the overblown part. Getting Al Qaeda should have been the prime target and not our Constitutional rights.
Tom, learn about Ali Mohamed and then tell me that 9/11 was a “lucky shot”.
Amen to that, Ferd!
“lucky shot”? that is the most insulting comment i have seen on here in a long time. geez, the quality of apologists is declining.
Bravo! His entire justification for not making a decision is entirely irrelevant. He needs to man up and actually do something or resign and let Biden (horrors!) do something. Indecision gets soldiers killed. He really needs to get moving or get out of the damn way. This just enrages me no end.
Ferd and Larry: Isn’t it clear that BHO is merely following orders? Personal traits like cowardice or bravery are irrelevant. Do you actually think that Barry has a plan, that he has seriously thought about these issues, weighed various options in view of their likely consequences, and come to his own conclusions on a rational course of action?
Since when does the President, any President, take orders? I believe you’ll have to be a bit more specific on this one. Do I think That One is a subsidiary of international corporations, his election being bought and paid for by them? Perhaps. That should not, however, stop him from taking action. The lack of a sturdy spine is his problem and he is accountable, irrespective of whom supported him.
Ferd, that idea about international corporations and the election being bought and paid for, etc., is plausible. Somebody paid big money to groom and coddle this fellow for a decade or two and finally install him in the White House. He will do exactly as he is told for as long as needed and then be quietly set aside or perhaps transfigured.
Transfigured? I guess they should start with his ears.
While you may be right, it is still his lack of a spine that is the crux of the issue. He is either spineless by taking those sorts of orders or spineless in being more concerned about how his decision will appear, or he is spineless for both reasons. Larry was correct in essentially calling That One a coward.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Mea culpa–The quote at the end is from Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)
He is accountable, but only to his handlers. The lack of a spine is one of his best features since it makes him absolutely malleable. The handlers would absolutely not want someone with spine, courage, an independent mind.
And you can bet your bottom dollar Amadinnerjacket is watching him waffle and dither, smiling.
Obama’s voting present, AGAIN.
Haha! Right on Mary!
Amadinnerjacket??
Amadinnerjacket!!
ROFLMAO!!
And an empty shirt, too.
That is just way too rich. Hahahahaha
You made my day, Mary
Spengler: Putin For President - of the United States
iw: I’m totally with you. I just laugh when people say Obama thinks this or that, etc. (However, I concur totally with Larry’s article). Obama is just a puppet. He doesn’t know squat about anything and probably cares less as long as he Kobe beef and the trips to Hawaii keep coming.
Does Ozero think … at all?
Ferd,
Obama is NEVER going to “man up”. Emotionally he is a 16 year old narcissist.
IMHO his theme songs are “You’re so vain..” and the one from Peer Pan “I won’t grow up”..
Unfortunately, you are correct. He doesn’t have it in him at all.
On a lighter note, my son and I have been having a discussion about the phrase “man up” and whether or not it is sexist. I am campaigning for “mom up” since moms are the toughest bunch I know.
That’s only one of many. Many times have I heard women using phrases like “grow a pair.”
I don’t think they’re talking about boobs.
I suspect you’re right!
As I recall, then Sen. Barack Obama fought hard to be the President. He is now the President.
What was it he had in mind once he got there!? [laughing out loud] Did he really envisionn himself whining about previous presidents, blaming them for his administration?
I recall he said it was to enact some “change” and instill “hope” in the country and the world; so let’s see it, Mr. President. You said you had the “judgment” we need; let’s see it, Mr. President.
“It’s Bush’s Fault.” — Obama’s Presidential Legacy to the World
“It’s Clinton’s Fault.” — Republicans’ Political Legacy to the World.
Obama claimed multiple times that he would hit the ground running on day one. Well, he kept his promise, he’s running alright……….away from his responsibilities.
Little did we know he was referring to his role in WH basketball games.
Indeed! the presidency is not a monarchy. Obama did not inherit anything — he applied for a job by stating that he was better than the competition, that he knew the answers and would get the job done. Well he got the job — so he needs to shut up and get to work.
yup, you run for it, you take the oath, you own it. barrack you can run but you can’t hide. we see you for what you are.
It’s Bush’s Fault is also the ONLY line the dumbuttdonkeys have left as well!
It’s sooooo old and I’m an X donkey!
(thankfully)
He is now the President. (But in a TOTUS state of mind)
…
Slightly OT, but the whole thing about blaming the predecessors requires a whole education in causal analysis: immediate cause vs. distant; necessary, sufficient, contributory causes, etc. It can get really complicated if you really get into it.
But in the realm of distant vs. immediate causes, the whole argument reminds me of teaching freshman English, the essay course that is required on many college campuses.
Many of the texts for those courses go through the Aristotelian modes: narrative, descriptive, compare/contrast/ classification, etc. And there is ALWAYS a causal analysis assignment.
The example from my years of teaching I like best is the pretty but airheaded freshman who turned in an essay about why she did something mean to her mother as a teenager by naming as the cause–wait for it–Eve. You know, that Eve, the one who brought sin into the world.
I, too, want this scapegoating to end. As many on this blog keep saying: Obama spent an enormous amount of money to land his job. He needs to own it and do it.
But, then, what’s the chance that a guy with such a short and spotty work history will actually put his nose the the grindstone and do some work, make some decisions, and let the buck stop at his desk?
it’s disappointing to see a woman reinforce the stereotype of pretty women being airheads. i have encountered this stereotype all through school, grad school included, and throughout my career. rarely are attractive men assumed to be airheads. seldom are men called airheads at all. this is a feminist issue.
without reading her paper, i can’t judge your student’s work but blaming her own misdeeds on eve at least suggests creativity. either her thinking was creative or it was reflective of a fundamentalist type of christianity that says little or nothing about adam being the first person to scapegoat someone else for what he did. if the latter were the case, that she was repeating an argument she was taught, i would still have judged the paper on her writing ability and how well she carried out the causal analysis. of course i would have made margin notes about satan’s role and adam’s role, and tried to encourage her to think about the scapegoating of eve and women in general.
I was talking about one pretty airhead. I didn’t say all pretty freshmen girls were airheads. This one was. The paper was very poorly written the “connection” between her bad behavior and her blaming it on Eve was not clearly made, at all. It was, instead, a simple rationalization that she couldn’t help herself because she was “born in sin,” which Augustinian theology pins to the incident between Even, the snake (Satan), and Adam.
So, yes, you absolutely didn’t read the paper. She was not examining the theology at all. I was making the point that sometimes an event in the late twentieth century between two individual people can’t clearly be connected to an event at the beginning of time (and that beginning of time is one based on a Chrisitan belief system is Christian). It you have to go back too far to a distant cause and not examine the many, many contributing causes that accrue over time as you near the event, the analysis becomes meaningless.
The point of the essay was to really examine the cause and effect of a situation in a meaningful way.
By the way, I am also a feminist. But on this you need to lighten up.
In other words, she was being perfectly serious and trying to pull off the old Flip Wison “The Devil made me do it” routine.
Wow, I hardly call Diane talking about 1 student and her paper reinforcing the stereotype that pretty women are airheads. I’m sure IF she believed that, this one students work would not have stood out.
Also I didn’t read anything about how Diane judged or graded the paper and what she considerred when grading it. I thought it was a perfect example of people who refuse to take blame for their own actions and looking for a scapegoat.
Diana: all theories aside, presidents do this because it works. Look at how many Republicans you know who are already convinced that every problem in this country started in Jan. 2009 and how many Democrats believe Obama is wonderful and Bush was the whole problem.
Poor Bill Clinton; first the Republicans blamed him for everything that went wrong, then Obama started blaming him for everything that’s wrong in the country! lol!
tek,
Yes, we talked about this also as we discussed the “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy, also while discussing causal analysis. It is usually political examples of this fallacy that come up. It really IS frustrating at the lack of logical thinking in America sometimes.
Smart Blonde’s use of the word “creative” gave her away to me. Students in our high schools are always being told to be creative, but almost never told to be logical. Those freshmen courses are required supposedly to teach them academic writing, not creative writing. But so many freshmen come in thinking they should be “cute” in their papers.
It certainly is. And the biggest post hoc ergo propter hoc of recent note is Dickweed Cheney’s continued insistence that the because of Bush’s policies, we weren’t attacked again after 9/11. He may as well have said that, in addition, because of their Administration, the sun was seen to continue to rise in the East each morning.
Hell’s bells, there could be any number of contributing factors to the lack of an attack besides their color-coded nonsense and systematic dismantling of the Constitution, as in perhaps they were busy elsewhere like Iraq, Spain and Indonesia, for starters.
If Obama could just stop with his whining, it would be a good first step.
Indeed. He should also refrain from all the inconsequential nonsense such as taking on Fox News as a means of diverting attention from the *real* issues confronting us. I’m truly weary of the diversionary, irrelevant molehills for which these boobs are becoming infamous.
Yes, the only wars Obama seems to be able to work up a sweat about are wars against other Americans and/or the American press.
The war in Afghanistan — the war Obama told us was a war of “necessity” and a war we “had to win” — is a war he needs more time to think about, although the war has been ongoing for eight years now and it shouldn’t have come as a shock to him that as president (which he wanted to be) he would have to make decisions to deal with that war.
Open Letter to the President on Afghanistan.
the only people profiting from obummer’s war of fox is fox.
Not only is he the kid in the candy store, but he “owns” the store now. Do you think he will stop taking rides in “his” plane. playing ball with “his” logo on it, stop throwing parties at “his” house, stop promoting himself as The One, etc. His only plan is to ride the crest of this wave for his own benefit. He is and will continue to be a superficial, egocentric piece-of-work.
Like GWB, BO sees the presidency, at best, as a figurehead position, much like the role of of royalty in the UK, and at worst, as a brand. In any case, he’s waiting for someone else to make the hard decisions while he fronts the PR side of things. His state of indecision is based on what it will do to his brand, since he has to calculate every angle so that he will emerge resplendent, regardless of the “policy” pursued.
trixta: I see what you’re saying and agree with the general idea, but I’d change the emphasis. Obama did not create his brand, they (his backers, handlers, operators, billionaire nation makers and breakers, those who “make the hard decisions”) created this useful tool. He remains catatonic while they “calculate every angle” and when they’ve decided what he’s to do they strike his knee with a rubber mallet or provide the necessary stimulus, a teleprompter maybe, and the appropriate conditioned response follows.
I wouldn’t say BO is catatonic, but I would argue that he is a willing participant who is only interested in maintaining his glorious image.
He waits in a hypnotic trance until the magician snaps his finger.
Well, he has to give the media their talking points…its’s Bush’s fault. It’s Clinton’s fault. I didn’t know it would be this hard…Nobody else is mopping… Wah wah wwah.
Hey, Lana, the acronym KADs you came up with somewhere in this thread was great. These KADs will rue the day, etc.
Thanks! I was surprised at how well it fit. I could pretend I was being wise, but really I was just too lazy to type out kool-aid drinkers.
Without a doubt Obama inherited problems, as did Bush. However, the cause of those problems is not the previous President by himself. It is caused by Congress and by government in general. I don’t doubt that the recession we are feeling now was not caused by Obama’s Presidency. After all, it started before he took office. But nor is it entirely, or even mostly, Bush’s fault. The President may be at the pinnacle of power but he is not the cause of everything a la Jehova. Just for instance, the housing crisis was apparently caused in large part by bad government regulation of mortgage lending, which caused mortgages to be granted to many who had no chance of paying. This was a scandal even before the recession started, but various politicians such as Barney Frank are on record (and on video) as minimizing the dangers and preventing a fix that might have reduced or prevented the collapse which seems to have triggered the recession.
Bush is hardly innocent in all this, as he supported a bailout, which support was predictable, and which predictability helped to create the incentive to lend to people who could not repay. The certainty of a bailout meant that the lenders were not really risking their own money.
I know he didn’t DO any actual work as Senator, BUT Obama WAS Senator the last 2 years of Bush’s presidency and when the recession started, stimulous passed ect. Also ACORN and their lawyer Obama played a BIG role in the housing problem when they whined and forced mortgage companies to give morgtgages to people who could NOT afford them and most likely would default. So Obama and his freinds handprints are all over alot of the problems we have now, that he is whining about.
Good points, Lyn.
Wow, I can only say that I’m certainly happy that we had someone of intellectual gravitas running the WH just prior to WWII or we might have attacked the wrong enemy, say for instance, Korea instead of Japan, just called it a lucky shot and went on our merry way shopping, or worst of all declared martial law and started rounding up everyone with any ties, no matter how loose, to the Axis. That isn’t to say I thought the internment of the Japanese was the right thing to do but at least it was an understandable reaction to a surprise attack.
Bush’s reaction and That One’s empty promises and current indecision are not understandable in any way form, or fashion.
Excellent! I’m sick of the blame game too. I’m tired of the inability of so many people to judge a president by his (don’t have to add the “her” yet, unfortunately) own actions, or lack therof.
Larry, may I ask a question, and I am not looking to excuse anyone, it’s a genuine question…so please don’t jump on me! Didn’t the final report regarding the Cole come out just after Bush became president? Could that have had anything to do with how Clinton handled things, or was it well known in higher circles exactly what occurred and who was ressponsible?
I understand that Clinton didn’t want to act on the Cole in an aggressive way in deference to the incoming Bush administration whom he thought would act on the matter. If this is so, one could argue that Clinton’s position was reasonable. In hindsight though Clinton should have set the policy on the Cole matter in spite of his rabid critics who would have accused him of insinuating himself on the new GWB administration. Remember how they used to refer to Clinton as the Imperial President? Given the CDS at the time, I don’t think any action by Clinton on the Cole would have been acceptable by his naysayers. As I recall there was an aggressive campaign by the msm and the Right to discredit Clinton’s exit from the WH. The Cole would have been another drummed up scandal, regardless of how good the policy was.
trixta: Right on!
In today’s political climate I can see how some people would believe this and play a blame game. I would however, remind all that at an earlier time the citizens of this country and the president representing them did not choose to sit back and await a report about an attack on our military. I write of course about Pearl Harbor and the attack on our navy ships, a similar theme to the attack on the Cole to my way of thinking. It did not take long for rumors about Bin Laden being behind the attack on the Cole to surface. I wonder if the Citizens of the country would have simply sat back and waited for proof if the President had not immediately declared war back then. In truth the people would have been calling for the ousting of the entire administration had quick decision not been implimented. The outlook of the country about war changed drastically in Vietnam and we still view the military through the same glasses we did in the sixties. How difficult it must have been for the members of the Navy and other branches of the service to sit back and do nothing after a member of their own family was so brutally attacked. Should Clinton have acted? Yes, I believe so. In this I hate to say, but I do view it as a major failure from a President that I really admire more than any other in the last fifty years.
I have a question to ask as well. I have been bothered by the reports of 9/11 that an airplane crashed into the Pentagon causing the damage it did. I recently went to Australia and had the privilege of speaking to some Royal Air Force pilots. They said that the Pentagon was hit by friendly fire.. a missile from one of the fighter planes deployed to go after the commercial airlines hijacked. They believed that the damage was not caused by an airline or a small plane as indicated in the report.
He’s been caught by the short and curly’s (sp)
His wife told us he had not done enough. He wanted this position with his thin resume.
Did he actually look over the job description before running for office? Plus we saw how dirty he fought for the top slot.
He never held a meeting about Afghanistan yet he was in charge of this board
Since taking office he’s been on the world apology tour. The nonstop campaigning since taking office and the acceptance of the NPP.
It was his decision to put Stan McChrystal, in place and once he told him what the previous general told him he does nothing absolutely nothing.
The best thing he could of done was to of turned down the NPP put the country first and showed solidarity by standing with his General and military on the ground.
There’s no point in going for a job and once your employed each time something goes wrong you blame the person in the position before u?
He’s making himself the laughing stock of the year not the NPP winner!
Let’s repeat that, for all to remember:
He was IN CHARGE of the Senate’s subcommittee on Afghanistan. He did nothing. Not one meeting. And he voted for every single military funding bill Mr. Bush put before Congress.
One would think that the subcommitte’s chairman would be informed and aware enough, to not need 2 months to make a decision about what to do now, wouldn’t one?
This “new” strategy in Afghanistan since March is Obama’s strategy, not George Bush’s. It is Obama’s hand-picked general, not George Bush’s.
Suck it up, Obama. DECIDE.
BO was assigned that committee on Afghanistan to beef up his credentials. Even so, he did NADA, ZIP, JACK SQUAT!
Well, yes. John Kerry thought the new, green Senator — clearly CHOSEN to be the up and coming Messiah—needed some creds on his resume.
What a putz. Both of them.
He wasn’t just assigned it, he BEGGED for it because it would look good on his “resume”. Of course the MSM spewed their assigned talking points that it was a perfectly reasonable excuse not to hold 1 meeting, because he was busy campaigning. (IF he couldn’t do it why didn’t he step down from the chair and say this is important I can’t lead this now, for the good of the Country let someone else have this position?)
and of course anyone that mentioned it SHOULD concern people was just “playing politics” or were RAAAAAcist
Well said. Thank you.
As Senator,Obama did nothing on his subcommittee on Afghanistan as he was too busy grooming for, and running for President.
He has no experience at all as a junior United States Senator, and even less as POTUS. Since he has shown us he has no spine, the combination is lethal.
Bravo, Larry. The finger pointing from both sides of the aisle is counter productive and most voters are damn weary of listening to it.
Bill Clinton was far from perfect, even though I think by the current yardstick, he was a pretty good president. Complaints against Bush&Co are well-deserved [amnesia serves no one] and Obama is proving to be the empty suit I always thought he was.
Regardless of whether we go back 9 or 30 years to assess blame, we’re still in a bloody mess right now and this Administration has only provided sleight of hand for gross negligience in Afghanistan, tinkering around the edges of our financial crisis, while amassing gargantuan debt, spending all its capital on this monstrous healthcare reform [the reform part makes me gag at this point], and flip-flopping on everything else.
Is the man a coward? I don’t know. But his slick talk and promises are proving very hollow and very dangerous.
Ozero is doing more to improve Bush’s legacy (in comparison with his) than anything that Bush ever did.
Message for Obama:
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2009/10/25/
Today’s comic, Non Sequitur, by Wiley, has the answer.
“I stayed out there for weeks (following the deer as advised by the elder) and came to realize that the past is gone and the future doesn’t exist. All we have is what is front of us Now…and that it’s always Now.”
Right on! And that’s the truth. That Obama actually capaigned against the very things he is doing, makes it so much worse. He even had history on his side not to repeat. Well, I guess he isn’t, he’s doing so much worse, which after our recent past, serves as a disaster for us.
Thank you, Larry. It’s posts like this that keep me reading NQ.
Obama is a brand. Period. When you stop thinking of him as a president who has a certain set of skills and expertise and start thinking of him as the new world image of America, it saves alot of heartburn. He’s merely an image, promoted, and fawned over much like the latest Mercedes, 50 inch TV, or pharmaceutical designed to make your life “better”.
The real question is: Who IS calling the shots?
Brand Obama? Narcissist Obama? Chicago thug Obama? Hapless loser Obama? The Obama Czars? (There’s a truly scary thought!) His handlers? (Wide open to interpretation there.) etc… The list is endless.
As scatter-gunned an approach as this Administration appears to be taking with everything, having all the sundry Czars going their own way about their despotic duties, I rather doubt anyone is actually calling any of the shots. Ready, fire, aim is their motto. They’ll figure out the damage later.
Ah, you got the point. Good one. The republicans and/or independents would do well to study the weaknesses of the administration and act accordingly. It shouldn’t be too hard because the weaknesses are blaring.
Are you ever so spot on with that statement. Those weaknesses just jump right out at anyone who is paying even a modicum of attention. Deafening sirens, bells, and whistles should be going off.
And yet the KADs (Kool Aid drinkers) are still singing his praises. Their numbers are dwindling ever so slightly, but the fact that anyone can still be defending him is downright unbelievable.
Yeah, it’s the same song, different verse when compared to the bushbots of yore. I just never thought my former party would fall lock, stock, and barrel for the blue version. Was I ever a dope. And what really gets me is that when you confront these newest versions of dittoheads, they are absolutely aghast that you would even make the comparison. That they can’t see it makes them even more dangerous.
“We’re different!”, they proclaim, as they chug some more of the blue crap, wiping their chin with their sleeve. Wow, what a visual. Now imagine them wearing a little beanie with propeller and chin strap holding a bag of cheetos. The picture is complete.
The picture is complete.
and so is their journey to the Dark Side
Well said, Ferd. They ARE Obama’s dittoheads.
Not to worry, Ferd.
Michelle can hoola hoop, and Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger has a new hobby: writing reports about what women really need, while she gets driven home by her chauffeur , to her maids and her nannies.
It just makes me wanna spit.
Or Maria drives her own car while talking on the cell phone-good role model…
I believe Maria Shriver (like Elizabeth Edwards) sits on the board of Think Progress (TP), one of Soros’ think tanks. I believe Shriver is spewing TP’s agenda, which is continuing the feminization of labor (i.e. women & children only), thereby creating a pool of workers who are malleable and least resistant to poor working conditions and low wages. This is part and parcel of globalization.
You might like this op-ed piece on the progress of women. I must have nodded in agreement at least a dozen times–maybe even threw a few out-loud Amens to it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/opinion/24lipman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&em
Yeah and she can also turn perfectly good couch material into something to wear that is far too hideous for publication, the early American Sofa collection. Oofdah, I’m blind.
Laughed out loud on that one, Ferd!
you forgot, she also has mad BeDazzle skills..
Bear in mind Obama was the head of the committee to oversee Afghanistan’s issues and how they relate to the US. While he was the head of the committee he did not hold any meetings ..it sat like he did, doing nothing. 18 months in the US Senate produced nothing..why should his presidency be different? 8 Years as an Illinois State Legislator and he did nothing but sure up his connections to Rezko, Daly, Jarrett et al..nothing in terms of accomplishments..ask those people living in the slum he gave Rezko 100 million to repair? What did they get? A new sign..does that sound familiar, yet again? This man is evil as is his wife. A great pair of do nothings…
Maybe someone wants to keep us in Iraq too:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091025/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
So the Iraqi public is fearful of what happens when we leave and the Afghans are concerned the US will never show up.
WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS?
BO says it ain’t him. I say bullshit!
We don’t care who is at fault. He said he had solutions and would correct the mistakes. We knew he was a liar, an incompetent and nothing but a dirty thief. He’s a dismal failure in bringing anything positive to the USA…but truthfully, he never intended to do anything but bring down the country. In that, he’s being very successful. He’s a hateful POS. End of story. 2010 can’t come soon enough.
“I’m not interested now in what Bill Clinton did or did not do. It does not matter. Nor am I interested in what George Bush did to make things worse or failed to do to prevent a problem. He is not the President, you are. You promised to do certain things. Instead of a fresh start we are getting irresponsible fiscal policies that make George Bush look restrained. And when it comes to protecting our soldiers in the field you are weak and indecisive. I think the term is coward.”
Exactly how I feel. Thanks.
This article is joke. 8 years of terriost attacks from Bin Ladden and Clinton didn’t do jack crap! Bill could have taken Bin Laden out and it was Clinton who called off the attack. Now that is fact. Heck no Clinton’s hands are bloody!
Move on…as your Soros friends might say…
Love it, MWC! I’m going to have to remember that one!
Hey Jon—Smell any rubbish burning? You should as your pants are ablaze.
Could be true, but it’s rather a moot point to stay stuck in the past. The question is what is Obama doing NOW?
Obama -= Mr. Messiah, Mr. World Leader (oh, please!), Mr. Urbane Intellectual, Mr. All-knowing, Mr. Squeeky-clean with no discernible past, Mr. Blend of all ethnicities!
What is Obama doing? Zip, nothing, nada, nyet, nope!
Jon S, and it was GWB and his advisers who ignored the WH daily briefing memo on August 6, 2001– “Bin Laden determined to strike in US.”
I bet you give GWB a pass on that one too.
This is a hell of a post, Larry.
I remember one scene in The Looming Tower, during the Clinton admin., in which there were reports that bin Laden would be in a certain building and Michael Scheuer argued stridently that it should be bombed. But it was uncertain and the civilian deaths in the crowded area greatly worried the DOD, NSA, etc. Scheuer went ballistic.
Trying to remember. Need to look it up in the book again. But as i recall and hope am correct, the excellent 1990s bin Laden team was disbanded. Too bad since there were some great FBI agents/interrogators on the team.
Bin Laden was very well known to the Clinton administration, and they did do good work. Just not enough, as you point out.
Remembering the name of the great FBI agent: Dan Coleman. He was extremely good at interrogating the suspects in the African embassy bombings, and enabled their successful prosecutions.
The FBI also had a great young agent with an ME background and fluent in Arabic. He did some amazing work, but left the agency. Sigh. The FBI had too few such agents (with knowledge of ME and Arabic language). There should have been more effort to recruit/train such agents.
Btw: That agent spoke Arabic like it was his native tongue. Pat Lang told me once that it is extremely difficult to acquire sufficient skill in Arabic to make it useful — e.g., four years in college is not enough. I forget why that is so. Maybe all the variants depending on locality
Because any language spoken in any academic scenario is a limited linguistic register which does not reflect the language spoken in more common and wider registers (i.e. “street” and quotidian registers), and in different cultural scenarios. That is to say, academic foreign-language environments are very limited in discourse and content.
There is literary arabic - the language of the Quran - and then there is spoken arabic. Some dialects of spoken arabic are very far from eachother, more so than any 2 variants of North American English I have ever heard, or even than I have heard in England. But all Arabic newspapers (for instance) use the same Arabic. Basically there is one written arabic and many spoken. And nobody “speaks” literary Arabic at all.
For instance I speak “levant Arabic”, and I have difficulty with some Gulf dialects. I could certainly “interrogate” someone from Bahrain, but if I were to teach an English speaker “levantine arabic” he or she might have difficulty.
Most non-native arabic speakers speak “Egyptian”, and it would be a great choice should you wish to learn Arabic because most Arabic language movies are made in Egypt, by Egyptian actors. Its sort of the Bollywood of Arabia.
Also, literary Arabic has a perfect matching between its sounds and its letters - none of this C and K both sound like C except when C sounds like S, or the silent B at the end of thumB (wtf) that makes English so charming to master.
Another point in this matter (a fairly obvious one) is that some languages are easier to learn than others. The European languages (French, Spanish, German, etc.) are relatively easy. On the other end of the spectrum are the languages that require a different way of thinking (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) It is hard to get an exact translation with these as the concepts often don’t translate exactly and the words rarely or not at all. It takes longer to become fluent in Arabic.
Arabic doesnt use pictograms or a particle construction strategy like Turkish or Chinese or Japanese. So its not hard to understand how the language “works” for English speakers. Letters make sounds that make words. The letters and sounds are just about a perfect match to the language called “literary arabic” - there arent 7 ways to make the K sound, and silent letters really dont happen (hihi thumB). English is the devil for being freeform, easy to speak hard to master.
Its more that the “official” language (language of Quran) is such a mismatch with what you will hear spoken anywhere. And that none of the local versions of Arabic has a written version. What a Qatari speaks will be very different from a what a Lebanese does, but they will both read a newspaper in “Literary Arabic”, a language NOBODY speaks. So silly. Where I grew up in school we learned Literary Arabic, then French, then English. We never learned the language everyone was speaking.
In fact there shouldnt be one “Arabic”, it should be 12 languages. Thats probably what makes it hard to master.
Why English speakers have a “hard time” learning foreign languages is that they can never escape English. It has nothing to do with inclination or attitude in my opinion.
Harbor Master, Bill Clinton himself has said that one of his biggest regrets was not getting OBL.
Compared to Bush saying “We don’t pay it much attention to it”.
Cpmpared to BO?
January 15, 2009
Obama pledged to hunt Osama down during the October 2007 debate. Here’s a short quote from CNN’s report last year:
“The Obama team believes the Bush administration has downplayed the importance of catching the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist because it has not been able to find him.
“We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority,” Obama said during the presidential debate on October 7.”
Ahhhh. But that was “before” the election.
Just words. Yes. Leader? Don’t think so.
The British Press sees Obama for what he is…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/9614177/Barack_Obama_and_the_CIA_why_does_President_Pantywaist_hate_America_so_badly/
This is a great article! The comments are also very interesting. Thanks sowsear! Check this out everyone!
socalannie–you are so right. I went there on your urging. It’s a must read. One quote”
Wow - “President Pantywaist: Why Does Obama Hate America So Much?” — so our British cousins and hopefully all of Europe are starting to see the light. Maybe it was that Nobel Prize thing. If that’s the case - I take back my opposition to the Nobel Committee….
Thanks so much for posting this sowsear - made my day…..
What did Congress do or not do in Bill’s Presidency to halt/delay/undermine going after Al Qaeda? I seem to recall Bill saying he asked Congress for such and such and didn’t get it, and then telling incoming GWB the score.
In mho, it’s amazing that Clinton was able to accomoplish anything, given that he spent most of his two terms fighting lawsuits.
accomplish, that is.
As a group I agree.
But as an individual, I do not recall Bill Clinton personally blaming GHW Bush for anything and I do not recall GW Bush personally blaming Bill Clinton for anything. If someone has a link to a speech that does show blame then I would like to know.
Obama cannot get through a day without HIM blaming Bush for everything - even for bad food.
As political parties of course they always blame each other for inheriting messes. But Obama has taken it much further.
Yes, hokma. I agree. Every president ‘inherits’ a situation not of his creation. (I almost did the his/her thing and sadly realized it was not necessary.) And given the seesawing of parties occupying the White House, it would be easy to blame everything on the last president and his faulty beliefs. But only That One has kept up the whining for so long. It’s time to give it a rest! I don’t put up with it from my kids and I certainly won’t put up with it from
mythe president.I dont much care what political partisans, talking heads and the guy on the bus says about this president, the last president or whose fault what is. Shit happens and some of it is really terrible. Even if nobody makes any mistakes at all (not saying nobody did), terrible can happen.
What bugs me about Obama is that he constantly and stridently blames Bush for everything. From the Oval office. It is very unbecoming.
Obama was not drafted, he ran aggressively for the job and won/stole/whatever his way in. And now he sounds like a crybaby.
Our president is a mealy mouthed whiner whose best idea when feeling the heat is to resort to what he knows - electioneering. It does not bode well.
I dislike the persistent electioneering and blame-placing, although I tend to see it as a largely defensive response.
One can’t help but notice that the right’s approach to Barack Obama has been a persistent, no-holds-barred attack that has embraced and encouraged the energy of sometimes irrational anger. They’re relying far more on pushing a negative perception of their opponents’ personalities and motives than on discussion of and argument for their own alternative policies. In most cases, I’m not even clear what those alternative policies really are. This, of course, is blamed on the prevailing left-leaning media bias, which doesn’t allow their alternative policies and proposals to be heard.
Yet I’m not hearing those alternatives on FOX, either. Only that they’re being blocked.
Bingo, ziggy! The Bush administration left the Republican party in such chaos that it seems not to know what it stands for any longer.
I’m a former Democrat who looks desperately to the Republican party for a viable alternative to the group of juveniles we have running the White House these days. I’m not seeing it. They don’t have any trouble telling us what they’re against but they’re having a hard time articulating what they’re for.
Lets hope their answer is not
Newt Gingrich !!
I don’t know why some Repubs think he is so wonderful. He left a wife that had cancer and cheerleaded the Clinton impeachment.
remember how bill clinton was accused of ordering bombing raids trying to kill osama bin laden as a way of ‘wagging the dog’ to distract attention from his escapades with monica lewinsky? remember how he was blamed for mogadishu when it was poppy bush who sent troops into somalia in december before clinton’s inauguration in january? i always thought the latter was the reason clinton didn’t order any new actions against bin laden after the cole attack.
also, the cole attack was on 12 october 2000 and a clinton action before the election would have had the gop screaming that bill was trying to help gore win the election. the election wasn’t decided by scotus until 12 december so action after that date would have been criticized as clinton trying to get back at dubya. maybe if it had been decided in november, as elections normally are, clinton would have felt he could retaliate against bin laden without being accused of partisanship. perhaps someday he’ll tell us what his thinking was. i haven’t read his biography so it may tell us.
I remember that was the constant story from the talking heads on FOX at the time. They were obsessed with getting the Clintons and had a field day with Monica. A few years later they were obsessed with getting Saddam. Never mind Afghanistan. They managed to convince half of America that Saddam was involved with 9/11, was stockpiling WMDs, and that those who opposed an invasion of Iraq were traitors to their country. Now it’s all about getting Obama. Not agreeing with that is un-American.
Is there a pattern here?
About “retaliate for the attack on the USS Cole”, I thought Clinton had his hands tied. Wasn’t the House and Senate controlled by the GOP at that time? I remember a lot of screaming just for air patrols in northern Iraq at that time. Seems kind of pathetic compared to what Presidents get away with today.
I blame them all, Mr. Johnson, every Democrat and every Republican, every President and every member of the House and Senate going all the way back to LBJ, for their callous exploitation of the very real, vital patriotism of our military and for their cynical political manipulations that have led us to this point.
As for what President Obama is doing at this point–blaming his every difficulty, his every misstep on President Bush–it’s reprehensible, yes, and it’s a distraction from the truth, but then, that’s just SOP for politicians. Have you ever heard the old joke about the Soviet Union? The the punch line is, “Prepare three letters …”
Bill Clinton was the greatest president in the 20th century.
While I’m a big supporter of Bill and Hillary, I wouldn’t go quite that far. Were Churchill alive today, I’m sure he could name one just slightly better.
How about “the greatest President in the second half of the 20th century”?
That would be entirely appropriate, jwrjr. I just think that only a select few presidents can be compared to Roosevelt. If any President ever had his plate full to overflowing, it was him (and Lincoln) with just the sheer weight of the decisions that had to be made in rapid succession, with our entire country’s future hanging in the balance.
I reserve my finger-pointing for the voters who put an inept Bush in the White House, and literally turned the country over to Cheney and Rumsfeld.
To further compound that, they elected a rookie whose only talent is reading someone else’s speeches. Now Rahm and Biden are the head honchos.
Now these same voters are cross-eyed from expecting assistance from some quarter…just keep hoping!
I concur, Sassy. You are quite correct.
I voted for Hillary in the primary and McCain in the general.
There is no way to know about their accomplishments as President, but I can’t believe either would have been led around by the nose!
Both have courage, and would have fought for what they believed in, and we could ask no more.
Barack Obama has played more golf in 9 months than G.W. Bush did in two freakin’ years. The country is in a financial and geo-political crisis, and he’s playing golf.
Well, at least he DID play one round of golf with a woman.
http://www.politico.com/click/stories/0910/obama_ties_bush_on_golf.html#
Only after several articles, blogs, and videos called him out on not including women in his various sports outings.
Obama is an empty vessel, like Charlie McCarthy or any other puppet. Whoever he has allowed to pull the strings is giving the orders and Obama takes them. I do not believe he cares one iota for America, Americans, soldiers, our constitution, 9/11 victims, or our suffering. He does seem to care about countries and dictators who wish to do us harm. Obama has his priorities all messed up. His foreign upbringing and training in islam has twisted his viewpoint until he does not understand what America is about and does not see the good of Americans. He constantly apologizes for us to dictators who have no human rights, and somehow feels we deserve all the bad that happens to us. Why is this man our president?
9 months in and president jack squat has accomplished nothing but tear this country apart. maybe that was his intention since his mentality has always been “us against them” “them” being anyone who opposes him. he is not going to the climate summit in copenhagen because they didnt give him the olympics (boohoo). he’ll show them. he wont grace them with his magnificent presence because they made a fool of the fool. actually its oslo he should not be going to ,to pick up his ridiculously undeserved nobel prize. instead he should be ashamed of claiming a prize he absolutely didnt deserve. has this man no shame?
The former president came to office following 8 years of peace and economic prosperity. He left with the nation stuck deep in two foreign wars and the national economy teetering on the brink of total collapse. I won’t say “It was all Bush’s fault.” I will say that the new president was left with a very tough row to hoe. Nine months in, things could certainly be a whole lot worse. But hate him and hope for his failure if you want too. I suppose that’s your unalienable right. No doubt the republicans would have handled things much better and all of our troubles would be over by now.
Fault is an irrelevant argument as it doesn’t address the issue of what That One is going to do. No one forced him to run and frankly I wish he hadn’t. That this country was in trouble wasn’t a secret and That One did make a lot of promises, pandering to everyone in sight to get elected–promises that I’m sure his woebegone supporters expect him to keep. All I expect of him is that he not f*ck up too bad until we can elect a suitable replacement in 2012. He was, is, and will forever be unfit, unqualified, and too dangerous to hold such an important position. That isn’t hate, buster–it is the truth.
As for that you economic collapse you mentioned, we aren’t out of the woods, yet.
The only thing that would have changed our country for better would have been President Hillary Clinton.
By now Hillary would not be hiding for political cover as Obama has on Healthcare, Afghanistan, & Jobs.
A clip on CNN seen about a month ago was quickly taken down. What was it? Hillary with a stern face answering a question put to her about Afghanistan. She said, “If you think the terrorists won’t be back as soon as we’ve left Afghanistan, you are wrong”. At which point it was taken off air while she was speaking. Seemed comment was made out of USA as it showed her speaking from a distant TV screen. Clearly it was being edited off the air.
I never saw this again anywhere. Hillary is hawkish on Afghanistan and Pakistan as she’s said as much when allowed to be quoted, which is rare.
Obama cannot decide to do anything and yes, our military remains at risk as there is no clear strategy or execution formula.
I think of HRC all the time. Obama is worse than I thought he’d be, and his handlers of influence are deplorable and inexperienced on the military side, & his financial advisory cadre and cabinet are the exact same group who helped getting us into this mess and Obama uses this bunch as advisory now.
We are really in deep dodo. Hillary’s loyalty to her country coupled with her courage and brilliance, has accomplished far more as SOS than Obama has as the President.
The Chicago machine runneth over and I deplore what is coming from the WH. The latest ham handed screwup
aout Fox lets us see how clumsy this group is. And how inherently wrong. So, Instead of exulting that the over 65 white right wing is listening loyally to Fox & therefore allowing us to see them as the damaged GOP, Obama and company clumsily defies the 2nd amendment and makes Fox super important on the national media. Very stupid move. Olympics another stupid move.
Obama waiting and ducking in the wings until he can claim success after whatever piece of garbage emerges as “reform” is obvious by now. His posture on Snowe as being the symbol of bi-partisanship is so phony and absurd, it’s sickening.
We now see that he cannot make decisions clearly or boldly and lacks the courage to take strong stands on our prioities. Jobs, healthcare, Iraq, Afghanisan.
Obama dithers and plays Chicago politics. We are being rolled over.
I don’t mean to defend Bush… but he did have that little episode in April 2001, with the Chinese where they detained the crew of US NAVY EP-3 for almost 2 weeks, when it made an emergency landing in China after airborne collision with Chinese fighter acft. That might have diverted his attention a bit…