My readers know that I am a foreign policy wonk and I have not been kind to Pres. Obama on his issues in foreign policy…..and after every attack from whatever your little mind wants to called the perpetrators there is a speech and then there is the politicals running for the nearest microphone to make a statement….all of which is just BSA political posturing…..
But Obama had to make his statement….his reassuring comments to try and calm the massive unwashed (you)…..and he did as I had expected talked and said NOTHING!
On Sunday night, President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office for the third time in his presidency. What the pundits are saying about the rare event:
- At Politico, Edward-Isaac Dovere has pretty much nothing positive to say about a speech that “said close to nothing” and did little to advance America’s understanding of how our leader and government plan to combat terrorism. It was a “not-so-peppy pep talk,” and seven years after his “cool, calm ‘I got this’ air helped get him elected … it’s clear that many Americans don’t want reassurance, but want him to convey the sense of urgency that they’re feeling.” He failed to do that, nor did he even manage to reassure.
- In a Washington Post piece headlined “Obama’s Oval Office address reflects struggle to be heard, ” Greg Jaffe agrees that Obama said nothing new, but rather tried to get the American people to hear what he’s been saying for weeks: that he’s pursuing a strategy that is “strong and smart, resilient and relentless.” His goal was to reassure, and Jaffe doesn’t really weigh in on whether he did that. But he does note that “the absence of big new policy proposals from the president reflects the lack of any low-cost or tidy solutions to ease [America’s] concerns.”
- At the New York Times, David E. Sanger argues that the purpose of Obama’s speech wasn’t to reveal new strategies against ISIS. Rather, he tried to “make the case that his administration was ahead of the problem, not playing catch-up.” But Sanger then goes on to recount recent criticism by some of Obama’s “closest former counterterrorism advisers” that he is moving “too incrementally.” One example, from former top Pentagon intelligence official Michael Vickers: “In the two months during which the United States drove al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, it conducted as many airstrikes as it has in the past 16 months in Iraq and Syria.”
- But in Fred Kaplan’s view, Obama did a decent job of doing a fairly impossible task. Kaplan writes for Slate, “Will any of these remarks assuage widespread fears about terrorist attacks in the holiday season and beyond? Probably not. What could he or anyone else have said that might have had that effect? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else.” Obama may not have offered “dramatic answers,” but “he laid out a road. Critics who have never been dealt hard questions on the subject soon reveal that their road doesn’t look very different.”
First, why is the location of the speech “big” news?
It is sad that everyone feels compelled to run for the camera after each of these horrific episodes……what did he accomplish with his speech? Not a damn thing except give all politically minded candidate something to talk about and avoid the real problems of this country…..
Well done!
I think he made one statement (between the lines), “I’m leaving this issue for the next president.”
And the choices we have….it will be the same as now…..this is what you get when you allow amateurs control foreign policy….
I always said he wasn’t qualified….
when it comes foreign policy in my opinion none of the candidates is qualified……every adviser will echo whatever the prez thinks….that can be disastrous….look at WW2 someone thought they were smarter than their advisers….they lost.
FDR worked hard to get into WWII to justify the overage of Lend Lease money and equipment sent to Europe – without Congress’ knowledge, plus he needed a common reason for Americans to stop being Isolationists — he got his wish and today people hail him ?
PS. I don’t see one qualified person at all in either party these days!! What the heck happened – were we asleep when this happened?
Sadly we were wide awake and let petty issues cloud our judgment that we are still allowing today…..
chuq, my brother,
One last comment for the day, merely a reminder
1) Every elected official in this country at the national level is lying to the public, regularly, and deliberately.
2) There is no such thing as ‘terrorism”. There are only people who allow themselves to be terrified by violence. Violence exists, get over it, and learn how to deal with it personally. This removes the fear, and thus, any threat from “terrorists”, most of whom are in large airplanes, dropping explosive devices on innocent people at the behest of corporate influenced governments, or, walking around in uniforms with badges, bullying the people they purportedly serve….
3) The United States of America, as it existed under the auspices of the Constitution, no longer exists, by the decree of the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and every other illegal executive order to war we have committed without Congressional approval or oversight. The provisions of the Constitution have been abrogated, one by one, as well as have every one of the Bill of Rights, all of which are now ‘regulated’ by the NDAA.
4) Climate change is real. It can’t be stopped. We are all going to die, from the result of our species’ own stupidity.
5) These are all harsh statements, but, each one is supported, if you will only look, by the events happening all around us. Our species has shot its wad, and we are not long for this universe, unless a few of us can escape the oncoming disasters, by moving out into space…. But, I don’t think we’ll be able to do that, for, who would decide who went? The same old human divisiveness will most likely prevent any such miracle….
SIGH…. Tough morning, but, hey, real is real, ffolkes.. Feel free to argue, but, I can tell you, the evidence is right there in front of all of us, and has been for a long time. Nobody seems willing to DO anything about it….and, I’m too old to convince enough people of the danger….
Oh, well…. such is life in the Big City, right?
gigoid. the dubious
And a partridge in a pear tree…..I could not disagree….chuq
Good thing; it’s tough to argue, when the evidence is slapping us right in the face, every day…. Seen the colors in the sunsets lately? Those colors have NEVER been seen before, because the chemical composition of the atmosphere has been altered, irrevocably…. Our imminent demise is being signaled to us, every morning and evening, by our own sun and air….
Don’t get me started on what this HUGE El Niño is going to do to our weather! The only thing that can be predicted is, it will be NASTY….
SIGH…. Got your mittens close at hand? You might need them, come next summer….
gigoid
Mittens and overcoats always close at hand….