Archive for the ‘Obama Lack of Leadership’ Category
Navy SEALs Slam Classless Obama for Politicizing Bin Laden Killing
Who the Hell Would Not Have Killed Bin Laden? It’s No-Brainer. But Obama Dithered for 16 Hours Over Whether to Give the Green Light to Let the SEALs Kill the Terrorist.
U.K. DAILY MAIL: Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit
for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign.
The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’.
In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed.
Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of the SEAL Team Six raid that killed bin Laden inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan with a series of briefings and an NBC interview in the Situation Room designed to highlight the ‘gutsy call’ made by the President.
Obama calls British Embassy the “English Embassy.” Does he know the difference between Great Britain and England?
But the media keeps telling us Rick Perry doesn’t know much
It’s also possible Obama was intentionally insulting America’s closest ally — in the same vein as returning the bust of Winston Churchill, giving the Queen an iPod as a gift, and revealing the U.K.’s nuclear submarine locations to the Russians.
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: It is gratifying to see President Barack Obama condemn the disgraceful 
storming of the British Embassy in Tehran by thugs acting at the behest of the Iranian regime. After all, Obama has been notoriously slow in the past to criticise the brutal actions of the Iranian government after initially extending the hand of friendship to it. But did he really need to make another embarrassing foreign policy gaffe while doing so?
In a press conference this evening, the president referred in stumbling fashion to the “English Embassy” in Iran instead of the British Embassy. One can only imagine the kind of howls of derision that would greet any presidential contender if that kind of basic error were made before, say, the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can watch the video above.
FLASHBACK: Watch Obama tell us “the stock market has come roaring back”
The Dow has dropped 11% since the debt deal last Monday.
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This Emperor Has No Clothes: Sunday, July 31, 2011 is the day Barack Obama became a one-termer
JON PODHORETZ-NEW YORK POST: If Barack Obama loses next November, we’ll look back
on Sunday — July 31, 2011 — as the day he became a one-termer.
He demonstrated the one key quality common to all unsuccessful leaders: Haplessness.
In the most confrontational partisan moment of his presidency, Obama ended up looking remarkably powerless. He didn’t get his way. To put it mildly.
The deal he endorsed on the debt ceiling will long be an object of debate for both right and left. There’s so much for everyone to dislike in it that people are lining up to rage against it, even
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Obama’s ‘I’ Presidency . . . and why finding bin Laden would not have happened if Obama’s policies had prevailed
VICTOR DAVIS HANSEN-NATIONAL REVIEW: Here are a few excerpts from President Obama’s speech on Sunday night about the killing of Osama bin Laden.
“Tonight, I can report . . . And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta . . . I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . . I’vemade clear . . . Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear . . . Tonight, Icalled President Zardari . . . and my team has also spoken. . .These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief . . . Finally, let me say to the families . . . I know that it has, at times, frayed. . . .”
Most of these first-person pronouns could have been replaced by either the first-person plural (our, we) or proper nouns (the United States, America). But they reflect a now well-known Obama trait of personalizing the presidency.
The problem of first-personalizing national security is twofold. One, it is not consistent. Good news is reported by Obama in terms of “I”; bad news is delivered as “reset,” “the previous administration,” “in the past”: All good things abroad are due to Obama himself; all bad things are still the blowback from George W. Bush.
Two, there is the small matter of hypocrisy. The protocols for taking out Osama bin Laden were all established by President Bush and all opposed by Senator and then candidate Obama. Yet President Obama never seeks to explain that disconnect; indeed, he emphasizes it by the overuse of the first person. When the president reminds us this week of what “over the years I’ve repeatedly made clear,” does he include his opposition to what he now has institutionalized?
Guantanamo proves to have been important for gathering intelligence; Barack Obama derided it as “a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.”
Some key intelligence was found by interrogating prisoners abroad; Barack Obama wished to end that practice: “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of law.” “That will be my position as president. That includes renditions.” Renditions have not ended under Obama, but expanded.
Obama: America’s Commander-in-Hiding
FRED BARNES-WEEKLY STANDARD: President Obama isn’t quite in hibernation. But he’s
saying less, proposing less, appearing in public less, doing less, interacting with Congress less, plugging his health care plan less, and singling out a Republican demon less. It took two years and the harsh rejection of a midterm election for Obama to figure out what shouldn’t have been a secret: The magic of the presidency declines with overindulgence.
Now several days go by at the White House with the president listed as having “no public schedule.” Or his calendar will feature only a string of Oval Office meetings described as “closed press.” That’s Washington lingo for no media coverage whatsoever.
The shift from overexposure to carefully targeted public appearances is the smartest political move the White House has made this year. Americans appear ready for a president who’s not in their face day after day, hectoring, sounding an alarm, and, more often than not in Obama’s case, boring everyone. The less Obama does in public, I suspect, the more popular he’s likely to become.
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The Obamas cut Spring Break short
THE HILL: Somebody in the White House had the presence of mind to tell
the president that perhaps taking the kids to visit the Mayan ruins wouldn’t be the best thing to do when he has just ordered our Air Force to start bombing Libya.
The truly fascinating question is, What took him so long to make that decision?
The president’s trip to South America has been billed as a trade mission. And of course, trade is an important part of any strategy to boost our economy. Unless, of course, you are part of the union leadership, which has desperately tried to sink all trade agreements, including ones with Colombia and Panama. And by the way, the unions happen to be to biggest supporters of this president.
The Mayan civilization collapsed, scholars say, in either the 8th or 9th century. One theory holds that the reason for its decline was the collapse of trade routes, which would make the president’s visit somewhat germane in that our economy will collapse if we don’t keep trading. But that’s a pretty big stretch in the best of circumstances.
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Our Tourist-in-Chief
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Immersing himself in Brazil’s poverty and pride, President Barack Obama on Sunday held up the South American nation as a model of democratic change in a time of uprisings and crackdowns across the Arab world and yet another war front for the United States.
From Rio’s glamorous beaches to a notorious slum to an elegant theater, Obama glimpsed the city’s cultural extremes and offered the kind of personal engagement that can pay political dividends for years. Less than one day after announcing U.S. military strikes against Libya’s government, Obama made time to kick a soccer ball around with kids in a shantytown.
The competing stories of Obama’s itinerary — a war front in Africa, an economic commitment to South America — divided his time in incongruous ways. By morning, he spoke with his security team about the international assault against Moammar Gadhafi’s defenses; by night, he stood atop Corcovado Mountain and drank in Rio’s storied statue of Christ the Redeemer and the city lights far below.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes pounded faraway Libya.
Here are some especially bad optics from his Brazil vacation
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Impeachment? Dennis Kucinch says Obama violated Constitution by not getting Congressional authority to launch war against Quaddafi
Kucinich makes lots of good points here
Give Kucinich credit for consistency on this.
So here’s what Barack Obama said on December 20, 2007, about a President who launches a unilateral military attack on another country without Congressional authorization:
“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
George W. Bush, you might remember, spent more than a year making the case for removing Saddam Hussein. There was an overwhelming majority vote in Congress authorizing President Bush to do exactly that.
Whatever you think of the Iraq War now, Bush had the proper Congressional authority to liberate Iraq.
Where’s Obama’s Congressional authority? Where’s the deliberation? There’s been plenty of dithering, but no deliberation. And how about explaining the policy to the American people, as George W. Bush did?
Can anyone say what the “Obama Doctrine” even is?
