"What if Obama can't lead?" :o

[DC Tom]

That's not what I saw. His body language is every bit the man who is realizing that what should have been a 20-minute call was turning into something that was about to interrupt a tee time.

 

I see hideous curtains.

 

Does anyone REALLY believe that's a picture taken during the call?

[B-Man]

I see hideous curtains.

 

Does anyone REALLY believe that's a picture taken during the call?

 

That's the picture that the White House released Tom,

 

surely you don't think that they would lie ?

 

 

.

[Chef Jim]

I see hideous curtains.

 

Does anyone REALLY believe that's a picture taken during the call?

 

No kidding. If I was President (God help us all) and I was on the phone with Putin and someone had a camera I'd go all Sea Penn v. paparazzi on them. But then again I'm not the egomaniac that Barry is so it's hard to determine the validity of that picture.

[DC Tom]

No kidding. If I was President (God help us all) and I was on the phone with Putin and someone had a camera I'd go all Sea Penn v. paparazzi on them. But then again I'm not the egomaniac that Barry is so it's hard to determine the validity of that picture.

 

If you're the president and on the phone with Putin, you've probably got at least two other people in the room with you.

 

I wonder what language the conversation was in.

[GG]

Who still holds a corded handset for a 90 minute call?

[DC Tom]

Who still holds a corded handset for a 90 minute call?

 

Anyone under the age of 12 looks at that picture and says "What's he holding?"

 

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that's the phone he actually used, though. This is government, after all.

[Azalin]

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that's the phone he actually used, though. This is government, after all.

which means the phone was expensive.

[Keukasmallies]

Looks like one of those, "Do you have Prince Edward in a can?" calls to me.

[B-Man]

President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy

Washington Post, by Editorial Board

 

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.”

 

That’s a nice thought, and we all know what he means. A country’s standing is no longer measured in throw-weight or battalions. The world is too interconnected to break into blocs. A small country that plugs into cyberspace can deliver more prosperity to its people (think Singapore or Estonia) than a giant with natural resources and standing armies.

 

Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior. Neither has China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is engaging in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and the weaker nations of Southeast Asia. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is waging a very 20th-century war against his own people, sending helicopters to drop exploding barrels full of screws, nails and other shrapnel onto apartment buildings where families cower in basements. These men will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power.

 

 

http://www.washingto...f39c_story.html

[DC Tom]

http://www.washingto...f39c_story.html

 

The "Editorial Board" of the Post wrote that????? I wouldn't have thought they'd have the courage.

 

If the NYT Editorial Board writes something similar, I may die of shock.

[B-Man]

If He Believes It, It Must Be So: Obama's scary interview.

 

by Elliott Abrams

 

On the eve of the Netanyahu visit to Washington, President Obama gave a lengthy interview to Jeffrey Goldberg that shows a chief executive who has learned next to nothing about the world in his five years in office.

 

First, kudos to Goldberg: he pressed Obama repeatedly, challenging vague formulations and seeking clarity. Goldberg pushed Obama hard, especially on Iran and Syria.

 

Obama isn’t good off the cuff, especially when challenged; he is far better with a prepared speech. And what emerged is an awful portrait of the president and his conception of the world.

 

Take Syria. Here’s what Obama said:

 

“I think those who believe that two years ago, or three years ago, there was some swift resolution to this thing had we acted more forcefully, fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the conflict in Syria and the conditions on the ground there. … Over the last two years I have pushed our teams to find out what are the best options in a bad situation. … But I’ve looked at a whole lot of game plans, a whole lot of war plans, a whole bunch of scenarios, and nobody has been able to persuade me that us taking large-scale military action even absent boots on the ground, would actually solve the problem. And those who make that claim do so without a lot of very specific information.”

 

Who are these people who have inadequate information, misunderstand the conflict in Syria, and think there is much more the United States could have done? They include both of Obama’s secretaries of state, Clinton and Kerry, his former defense secretary Leon Panetta, and his former CIA director David Petraeus—all of whom wanted much more U.S. support for the Syrian rebels.

 

{snip}

 

On Israel, Obama was harsh and unfriendly to Netanyahu just days before the Netanyahu visit—quite a welcome to Washington. But the errors of his own analysis are striking. He says we must give the Palestinians “the dignity of a state,” but the Tunisians and Egyptians and other Arabs who rebelled in the “Arab Spring” had a state. They lacked dignity because that state treated them with contempt, giving them no real freedom and jailing them if they asked for it. Under Mr. Obama corruption in the Palestinian Authority has exploded and they have gone five additional years without an election.

Mr. Obama says this:

 

“Palestinians would still prefer peace. They would still prefer a country of their own that allows them to find a job, send their kids to school, travel overseas, go back and forth to work without feeling as if they are restricted or constrained as a people.”

 

GOLDBERG:

So just to be clear: You don’t believe the Iranian leadership now thinks that your “all options are on the table” threat as it relates to their nuclear program -- you don’t think that they have stopped taking that seriously?

OBAMA:

I know they take it seriously.

GOLDBERG:

How do you know they take it seriously?

OBAMA:

We have a high degree of confidence that when they look at 35,000 U.S. military personnel in the region that are engaged in constant training exercises under the direction of a president who already has shown himself willing to take military action in the past, that they should take my statements seriously. And the American people should as well, and the Israelis should as well, and the Saudis should as well….

GOLDBERG

:

So why are the Sunnis so nervous about you?

OBAMA

:

Well, I don’t think this is personal. I think that there are shifts that are taking place in the region that have caught a lot of them off guard. I think change is always scary.

 

 

It’s pretty obvious to all analysts that Iran does not fear an American military strike much these days, especially after Mr. Obama’s failure to act in Syria last summer. But Obama denies it, referring to himself in the third person as someone “who has shown himself willing to take military action.” Drones, sure; a quick raid as well. But in Libya and Syria, he showed himself extremely reluctant to take military action. Remember “leading from behind?” If he genuinely thinks he is viewed as a scary guy with his finger near the trigger, we all have a problem.

 

Change is apparently not scary to Mr. Obama, who is confident all his policies are right. Those who disagree are uninformed, or itching for conflict, or ignorant about the risks they will soon face, or sadly unable to adapt to world events. This is the Obama who said of his own nomination that “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” If he believes it, it must be so. The Goldberg interview reveals that five years in, nothing has changed.

 

 

 

http://www.weeklysta...-so_783721.html

Edited March 3, 2014 by B-Man

[3rdnlng]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/03/my-brothers-keeper-obama-black-families-wedlock

Sadly, the message to minorities – and blacks in particular – is that we blacks can’t be expected to take individual responsibility for our lives like our white counterparts ... so the government has to do it for us. Blacks should find Obama’s assumptions more than disturbing. Young black men wouldn’t be wrong to find My Brother’s Keeper downright offensive. And everyone should realize that the first black president is not holding blacks accountable to the same standards as whites when it comes to parenting.

And parenting is the real problem here – not the often repeated media narrative of The Troubled Black Teenager upon which society inflicts so many ills , but the long overlooked and systemic problem of the broken black family.

The president knows the grim facts. “If you’re African American, there’s about a one in two chance you grow up without a father in your house – one in two,” he said in his announcement. “We know that boys who grow up without a father are more likely to be poor, more likely to underperform in school.”

[Doc]

It's actually closer to 3 in 4.

[DC Tom]

Now HERE'S how you turn a weakness into a strength...

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26427247

If the peace talks failed and there was "continued aggressive settlement construction" in the occupied West Bank, Mr Obama warned, Washington would have limited ability to protect Israel from "international fallout", an apparent reference to the Palestinians' threat to pursue Israel at the International Criminal Court and a boycott campaign.

 

Get people to do what you want by warning them you're spineless and won't do anything. Brilliant!

[Koko78]

OBAMA: We have a high degree of confidence that when they look at 35,000 U.S. military personnel in the region that are engaged in constant training exercises under the direction of a president who already has shown himself willing to take military action in the past, that they should take my statements seriously. And the American people should as well, and the Israelis should as well, and the Saudis should as well….

 

I think that he is deluded enough that he believes his own nonsense. That scares me.

 

Unfortunately the rest of the world sees him as the spineless kitty that he actually is. His "military action" consists of standing in the background taking France's lead in Libya (before abandoning people to die...).

[meazza]

Now HERE'S how you turn a weakness into a strength...

 

http://www.bbc.com/n...canada-26427247

 

 

Get people to do what you want by warning them you're spineless and won't do anything. Brilliant!

 

And FYI it`s Bush`s fault.

 

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maddow-americas-national-security-policy-defined-by-what-george-w-bush-did-in-iraq/

[Tiberius]

 

 

The "Editorial Board" of the Post wrote that????? I wouldn't have thought they'd have the courage.

 

If the NYT Editorial Board writes something similar, I may die of shock.

 

It's easy to complain, but what do they want, more military spending? How big is Putins military again? More "engagement"? To do what? We just learned the limits of military power in Iraq. I'm glad they mentioned that Bush set the precedent for this by --correctly-- doing nothing about Georgia. Are you guys all going to be riding around with Free Tibet bumper stickers now?

[IDBillzFan]

The mark of a true leader: everyone ignores him.

 

Someone get the IRS on the phone. It's time for a friendly little visit to Jonathan Karl.

 

It was a complete rebuff issued with blinding speed: Less than 24 hours after President Obama went on national television on Friday to warn Vladimir Putin that “there will be costs for any military intervention,” Russia’s military seized total control of Crimea.

 

It’s embarrassing for a world power to see its warnings so cavalierly disregarded — and not just when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. During his second term, President Obama has repeatedly found that the sternest warnings and firmest demands from the United States have been ignored with impunity.

[B-Man]

Pretty funny, the POTUS schooled by Rob Lowe

 

Rob Lowe ✔ @RobLowe Follow

 

 

“@BBCBreaking: Obama:"Russia on wrong side of history" in #Ukraine http://bbc.in/1pW83L5 ”

 

Perfect. Guilt trips always work on Putin.

 

4:02 PM - 3 Mar 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Tell Vladymir, I'll have more flexibility after the election"

[OCinBuffalo]

Christ, we have nothing but nerds(John Kerry) and bullies running around.

 

What I'm afraid of is Obama's nerdy, uncoordinated, response to Putin's bullying. All sweaty, elbows and fingernails, etc., that possibly ends up hitting the wrong people, and definitely makes the bystanders of the world say: "You know? I can see why Putin picks on Obama. F'ing nerd." Obama's nerd approach is straight up leftist ideology, that in turns comes straight from the nerds on college campuses. Since when doesn't nerd behavior attract bullies? DC_Tom can tell us about this. (He already did btw)

 

Meanwhile, dumbass bully Bill O'Reilly wants us to all out attack the Ruble. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's drive Russia's economy under, turn it into another Weimar Republic, and start WW3 over this. The Russian people don't deserve to be thrown into chaos because of Putin. Putin is the problem we need to fix, not Russia.

 

We need to tell the nerds to go sit down, relax and STFU, and we need to do what always works with Bullies: embarass them personally. You don't go after the entire school, because of a bully. That's Columbine thinking. Again, DC_Tom's experience is instructive: shoving one bully into one locker is measured, and effective.

 

We need to embarass Putin, and shove his ass into a locker. Drive a wedge between him and his people. Destory his image(riding horses with no shirt on). Obama needs to stop releasing photos of him, all by himself, on the phone in jeans, like the prototypical nerd asking the bully to release his underwear.

 

We need pictures of him in the situation room, in a suit, with all the Joint Chiefs in Class A uninforms. Obama needs a "crew" to hang out with, and stop looking like the kid who's all by himself. Obama should be going to the G8, and get a few images of 6 of them hanging out with him, and nobody hanging out with Putin.

 

Sorry for all the imagery...but...that's what this is, isn't it?