Filed under: American Elephant, Election 2008, Liberalism, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics | Tags: Democrat lies, Dirty Politics, Obama, Obama's Lie of the Day
For a man who so frequently claims he wants to rise above dirty politics, Barack Obama sure peddles an awful lot of sleaze and tells an awful lot of lies. For all his lofty rhetoric, it turns out he’s nothing more than a typical Chicago-style dirty, sleazy politician.
Obama’s sleaze du jour:
Yesterday in Missouri, Obama predicted McCain and the GOP would use racially-tinged attacks against him.
“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”
An Obama spokesman denied that the line about “dollar bills” was related to the Democrat’s race.
Nor, is the first time he’s played the race card, and claimed “racist” Republicans were going to try to make people afraid of him because he is black. Of course, without any evidence whatsoever. Here he is from last month:
“We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid.
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
But do any of the lemmings in his audience stop and ask for evidence of any racist attacks from Republicans? Of course not, they are brainwashed beyond repair. Indeed, the Obama camp has the audacity to lie, and say Obama was never referring to race:
“Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they’re using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign, and those are the issues he’ll continue to talk about.”
Talk about projection!
The same way Obama said he couldn’t visit the troops in Germany because he didn’t think it was appropriate on a campaign trip, when the real reason is because the press wouldnt have been allowed to photograph him visiting the troops. And the same way he broke his promise to use public financing for his campaign and then blamed it on Republicans.
Its becoming quite clear that Obama is a compulsive liar.
Hot Air has the video and the latest pathetic lies from the Obama camp here.
And of course Obama and the Democrat party’s entire existence is based in creating fear… Republicans want to take away your social security! Republicans want to destroy the environment! Republicans are racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic bigots! Republicans are warmongers! Republicans want to reinstate the draft! Republicans want to deny veterans benefits! Republicans want to take your money and give it to the rich! If you don’t vote for Democrats the seas will rise, the Earth will boil, all the animals will die, and probably all the people too! and on and on and on… none of which has any basis in reality whatsoever, yet they pump out the propaganda like nobody’s business.
And when Republicans actually talk about real dangers, like, say, terrorists flying planes into buildings, Iran getting the nuclear bomb they are working tirelessly for, or increased taxation harming the economy as it always does, Obama and the Democrats have the gall to accuse Republicans of “playing on your fears.”
Perhaps so. I suppose all politics is based in fear to some degree — but unlike Democrats, Mr. Chicagobama, Republicans address fears that are based in reality.
(h/t Hot Air)
Filed under: Election 2008, Europe, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Liberalism, Media Bias, Military, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Terrorism, The Constitution, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Amir Taheri, Dana Milbank, Europe, Germany, Liberal lies, Obama, Washington Post
Barack Obama’s “Presidential World Tour” provoked a fair amount of humor and sarcasm on many right-leaning blogs, including this one. The repainted plane, with the U.S. flag on the tail removed to be replaced by the Obama symbol, the seat labeled “the President”, the entourage including three major television anchors, the announcement of his foreign policy towards Iraq and Afghanistan before going there on a “learning” trip were a few of the occasions for questioning presumptuous behavior.
But it was the arrogant request to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin that really raised questions. (Like who does he think he is?). Wolfram Weimer, editor in chief of the German political monthly Cicero said:
It would not occur to any one in France to let Oskar Lafontaine, the co-Chair of the German Left Party, hold a campaign speech at the Arc de Triomphe. No one in England would think of helping one of the Kaczynski brothers stump for Polish votes in front of Buckingham Palace….Why not? Because there is such a thing as a feeling of reverence toward national symbols. And this feeling forbids one from allowing such places to be misused for the politicking of foreign nations. It shows a lack of respect to want to degrade the historical monuments of friendly countries into electoral campaign scenery.
Weimer added that “By virtue of his request he makes brazenly clear that he is not really interested in Germany as such. What interests him is, above all, the décor for a good photo opportunity.”
His Berlin speech, where he presented himself as a “citizen of the world”, without irony, made him sound like a candidate of transnational progressivism — where global rules and norms are more important than sovereign nations — and little things like the American Constitution. The Press, however, ate it up. “He looks so Presidential”, they gushed.
Amir Taheri wrote about Obama’s tour that:
“He looked like a man in a hurry,” a source close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said last week. “He was not interested in what we had to say.”…Iraqis were most surprised by Obama’s apparent readiness to throw away all the gains made in Iraq simply to prove that he’d been right in opposing the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. “He gave us the impression that the last thing he wanted was for Iraq to look anything like a success for the United States,” a senior Iraqi official told me. “As far as he is concerned, this is Bush’s war and must end in lack of success, if not actual defeat.”
There were, however, some cracks in the media’s adoration. Katie Couric gave him the toughest questioning of the tour. Reporters had to gently remind his campaign staff that “He isn’t President yet”. The slight bounce in the polls after his appearances in Berlin, Paris and London has pretty much disappeared. He has encouraged portrayal of himself as a messianic figure, welcomed portraits of himself with halos. Though the mock “presidential seal” has disappeared, the media enthusiasm has not. Chris Matthews still has that ‘tingle’.
Dana Milbank from the Washington Post showed today that the press is not always a faithful and dependable doormat:
Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president’s) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.
Along the way he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president’s. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him.
[At the] adoration session with lawmakers in the Cannon Caucus Room…he told the House members, “This is the moment…that the world is waiting for,”adding’ “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”
As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama’s biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.
Whew!
Filed under: Iraq, Military, News, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Iraq, Iraq War, Obama, Support the Troops!, U.S. Military, War on Terror
Barack Obama couldn’t find time to visit the troops at Landstuhl Hospital, which he blames on his desire not to use the troops as a campaign prop; and the military suggests that Obama lost interest when he found out he couldn’t take his campaign aides, advisers and camera crew. I report, you decide.
The wounded veterans at Walter Reed had a visit from Iraq’s interior minister Jawad Karim al-Bolani yesterday. He went to the hosptal’s Military Advanced Training Center and thanked U.S. troops for freeing Iraq from Saddam Hussein.
We have come..to express our gratitude and appreciation for the sacrifices made by these great warriors, soldiers, in freeing the Iraqi people and in helping us in Iraq recover from tyranny and dictatorship. We also want to express our gratitude to the families of all these great men and women and express how important their sacrifices are for our nation.
Nicely done, sir.
Filed under: American Elephant, Movies, News, Pop Culture | Tags: Britain, England, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Movies, Prince Harry, Prince William, Queen Elizabeth
If you’ve been with us a while, you might have noticed I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter books, and, only slightly less so, the movies. So, naturally, I have been waiting very impatiently for the first glimpse of the movie of the 6th book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The movie, which comes out in November (precisely 113 days, 20 hours, 15 minutes and 20 seconds from the time of this writing), has also been chosen as this year’s Royal Film Performance. It’s not clear just which Royal will attend — I’m putting my money on Harry or William. But who knows! maybe they’ll drag her Majesty, the Queen, along for the show.
In any case, if you’ve read the book, most of the trailer should make sense to you. But be forewarned! they have apparently added a scene to the movie to illustrate the increasing dangers Voldemort and his death eaters pose to the outside world, and especially to Harry himself. Its a scene where Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix LeStrange attack Harry and the Weasleys at the Burrow. I am dubious, to say the least. I don’t like it when they mess with my movies!
Nonetheless, I wait patiently for the theatrical trailer. This is one of the best books in the series and promises to be one of the most exciting movies yet.
November is a very long time away!
Just want to point out a few minor changes we’ve made, and ask if you find them helpful.
First, we added a search bar to the sidebar to lookup posts by subject or keyword. I’ve already found this helpful myself.
Second, we added a “recent comments” widget to the sidebar, titled, “Elephant Talk”. I don’t know if people find this helpful or not, so I would love to hear your opinions.
Third, we added a “funroll” for lack of a better name, after the newsroll and blogroll, which contains links to sites we think are fun, from editorial cartoonists, to movie trailers, humor sites, etc…
And lastly, as I begin to have more fun with Photoshop, I decided to add a page where I link to all of them. This can be found under the “navigation” header in the sidebar. Will update it whenever I publish new photoshops.
Let us know if any of these are useful or not — our statistics show that people are already using the funroll and photoshop page, but we wont be able to tell from the stats if people are using the search function or “recent comments” functions — and as always, we love your comments and suggestions … well the ones that aren’t crude and physically impossible anyway. 
Filed under: Election 2008, Emerald City Elephant, Europe, Foreign Policy, Humor, Iraq, Media Bias, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: Britain, Obama, Obamessiah
And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child’s very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light. [read more]
Filed under: Election 2008, Europe, Foreign Policy, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Audacity of Barack, Berlin, Germany, Obama, Socialism
Obama came to Berlin. He came in his campaign plane with the Obama logo on the tail and the Obama slogan painted on the side, with his entourage, and his television anchors, and his crew of worshipful reporters. This visit, unlike his stops in the Middle East, was not paid for by the taxpayers, but by his campaign.
Speaking to an enthralled audience of “tens of thousands of elated Europeans” who just happened to turn up to hear him, he said “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.” Not as a candidate? Then why the plane, the logo, the posters, the fliers, etc., etc., And “citizen of the world”? What the heck is that? Nobody is a “citizen of the world”. A citizen, by definition, belongs to a state. And it’s wise to remember which one.
He throws in a line about his race, as if it were something new and different, ignoring the fact that the faces of American foreign policy for 8 years have been African-American ones.
After some fuzzy history (Obama has trouble with history), he apologizes for his country: “I know my country has not perfected itself”, “reject torture and stand for the rule of law” Apologizes to Germans? The history I recall had us going to Europe twice to rescue Europe from the Germans.
Many platitudes, promises to solve all the world’s problems with German help, bring a new dawn to the Middle East, defeat terrorism, end racism, defeat AIDS, end antisemitism, religious bigotry, class envy, and nationalism.
He also promised to save the planet from global warming. “As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya”. Oops! But he went on in that vein: “This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.”
Sigh. The ice caps in the Arctic are not melting, the coastlines are not shrinking perceptibly, the Midwest has been suffering more from floods than drought. The oceans are not rising unless you consider centimeters significant, and storms come and go completely unaffected by global warming. Even Obama in his Messiah role cannot cause the storms to cease, the ocean to cease its rise, and drought to end. If he becomes President, he won’t have the slightest control of the factories in Beijing. Anyway, it quit warming about ten years ago, and has been cooling in the last five years. Obama will probably take credit for stopping the warming if he finds out.
This is theater. Obama is playing a presidential role to convince the electorate that he can be “presidential”. From speeches with a fake presidential seal on the podium, to an embarrassing request to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, to the entourage, he is playing president. It’s one way to address a thin resume.
It is apparently successful with a gullible and adoring press, but I’m not sure it is playing so well at home. Obama apparently believes that people will not question the meaning of his words, which is slight; wonder why he is campaigning for the presidency in Europe when he hasn’t even been nominated yet; or wonder why his big European campaign event is in Germany.
Oh wait, we do know why his big event was in Berlin. It’s because Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy made important speeches in Berlin. What they said there has been long remembered. I looked for the significant words, the memorable words in this speech, but I couldn’t find them. The only thing notable about this speech was the messianic language (some borrowed from FDR and Lincoln) and the pretentious and arrogant demands. Obama’s really not in any position to be telling the Germans what they must do.
When the curtain comes down on this campaign tour, will the Europeans love us again? This is our moment, this is our time. Didn’t amount to much.
Filed under: American Elephant, Movies, Pop Culture | Tags: Disney, Reality TV
It’s popular on television, so it should work in the movies, right? That is how producers think at least. Let’s hope they’re wrong. “Reality TV” makes the jump to the big screen.
Filed under: American Elephant, Election 2008, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Media Bias, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Terrorism, Uncategorized | Tags: John McCain, Media Bias, New York Times, Obama
Once again The New York Times proves they are not in the news business, but rather the propaganda business. The erstwhile “paper of record”, now known more for the wanton publication of national security secrets than objective reporting, has rejected John McCain’s response to Barack Obama’s Op-Ed which America’s answer to Pravda ran last week.
It’s no wonder then, that an increasing number of Americans believe the mainstream media are trying to influence the election in Obama’s favor. Forty-nine percent believe journalists are trying to throw the election to Obama — and this is before news of the NYT’s shenanigans — while only 14 percent of the most deranged leftists thought the media would try to help McCain, and only one in four voters thought the media would play fair.
In defense of his decision, the NYT’s Op-Ed Editor, former Special Assistant and Senior Speechwriter to Bill Clinton, David Shipley, wrote:
Thank you for sending me Senator McCain’s essay.
I’d be very eager to publish the Senator on the Op-Ed page.
However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.
…It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate.
But setting “timetables” and announcing “troop levels” are two of the major disagreements McCain, and the military leaders in Iraq, have with Obama’s Iraq policy du jour. In other words, Shipley wants McCain to endorse Obama’s current plan.
Thankfully, McCain told The Times to go to hell, although, to our disappointment, not in so many words.
So, since the Rag of Record, The Obama Times, The Old Grey Leftist, won’t publish it, we are proud to. Here is John McCain’s Op-Ed in full:
In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.
To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.
Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.
No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.
But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.
Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
If you haven’t already, you can cancel your subscription to The New York Times here, or by calling 1-800-NYTIMES.
Filed under: Election 2008, History, Liberalism, Military, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, The Elephant's Child, Uncategorized | Tags: Debunking Liberal Lies, Democrat Demagogues, Dirty Tricks, Election 2008, John McCain, Liberal lies, Obama, Politics, War on Terror
Oh dear. The Democrat Disinformation Department had another meeting, and apparently sent out a memo. A specific word has been injected into the campaign chatter.
Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot at National Review Online spotted an interesting pattern:
Barack Obama, appearing on Larry King Live : “Where Senator McCain I think is confused is the difference between tactics and strategy.”
Joe Biden, the same day on a campaign conference call” “As a consequence of their profound confusion [Bush and McCain] make profound mistakes.”
The liberal blog The Carpetbagger Report uses the word “confused” in almost every post about McCain.
Think Progress does exactly the same.
AmericaBlog uses the words “McCain and confused” together 108 times.
Obama surrogate John Kerry, on a conference call on June 11; “McCain confuses who Iran is training, he confuses what the makeup of al Qaeda is, he confuses the history going back to 68 of what has happened to Sunni and Shia”, Kerry said.
On the same call, Obama adviser Susan Rice cited a “pattern of confusing the basic facts and reality that pertain to Iraq.”
If you remember, Wesley Clark embarrassed everyone by sneering at John McCain’s military service. W.Va. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV said that McCain was a fighter pilot who fired missiles and didn’t care where they landed or who they hit. Obama surrogate Rand Beers said that since McCain was in prison camp he didn’t really know anything about the Vietnam War, Ed Schultz called McCain a “warmonger”. Tom Harkin claimed that McCain’s coming from a military culture was dangerous, and that McCain had a hard time thinking beyond that. After public response, they had to drop that avenue of attack.
This all seems to belong to the “throw it up against the wall and see what sticks” method of campaigning. Try anything, and if it doesn’t work drop it down the memory hole.
The “confused” theme seems a particularly tacky approach. Obama has neither the character nor the experience to be attacking his opponent on that basis.
John McCain’s own story of what it was like to be a POW in North Vietnam, published in U.S. News in 1973 is available here in 9 parts, and is well worth reading in this election year.
John McCain has never claimed that his military service alone qualified him to run for the presidency. It does, however, give great credence to his character. But as John Hawkins of Right Wing News said:”If the willingness to fight for your country, put your life on the line and suffer the brutality that John McCain suffered as a POW doesn’t make the cut as far as qualifications go, how far below that does a “community organizer” show up on the list of non-qualifications?”
Filed under: Election 2008, Foreign Policy, History, Iraq, Liberalism, Media Bias, Military, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child, Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, Democrat Demagogues, Hubris, Iraq, Liveral Lies, Military, Obama, Support the Troops!, War on Terror
There’s a perennially popular genre of literature which might be called “Kids Say the Darnedest Things”. Small children, in all innocence, give charming answers to questions because they know so little.
Another version is based on the answers that college students write on exam questions. These are more often hilarious in their utter stupidity. The entire genre is based on the fact that we, as educated adults, know the subject well, and they, groping for an answer to a question on which they are poorly informed, make silly mistakes. It is usually enough to remind any adult that a simple “I don’t know” is a wise answer.
There are degrees of knowing about any subject ranging from superficial to mastery, and those who reach true mastery recognize that there is always more to learn. But as the old saying goes: “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.
Which brings me to Barack Obama’s op-ed in the New York Times.
The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.
Must have seemed like a gift when some news reports claimed that Maliki had called for a timetable for removal of American troops. Obama’s insistence on removing troops was becoming increasingly untenable. He’d just removed all his previous statements on the surge from his website, assuming that voters were unfamiliar with Google.
Unfortunately, that’s not what Maliki said.
The BBC reports that in an audio recording of his speech he did not use the word “withdrawal”. Elections are coming, and Maliki’s speech was directed to that audience. Some Iraqis are anxious for us to leave: Some are fearful that we will not be patient enough with them to allow them enough time to learn how to be a democracy. A US official close to the talks with the Iraqi government said “the troops will leave when the Iraqis are ready to take over. …It is politics — how you package it, how you sell it to your people. They want our support, but they also want to show that there’s progress towards sovereignty.” Obama goes on:
Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.
But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office.I would give the military a new mission; ending this war.
Sigh. If Obama had been paying attention and keeping informed, he would be aware of the recommended force reductions and mission shift broadcast by General Petraeus during his testimony to Congress in September of 2007. And he might be aware that all of the important benchmarks have been met.
In San Diego, Obama argued that “just because Sen. John McCain had made multiple visits to Iraq, that does not mean that he has the correct perspective on the region”. Well, at least McCain is well informed.
Obama also remarked earlier that he knew more about foreign policy than Senator McCain or George W. Bush because he had lived in Indonesia (from age 6 to age 10).
Obama is still trying to validate his big moment when he opposed the Iraq War while he was still in the Illinois legislature, which endears him to the anti-war crowd. He didn’t understand the reasons for going into Iraq. He didn’t understand the reasons for the surge. He doesn’t grasp the nature of Islamic jihad. And he has apparently never studied a map of the region. Along with announcing how many brigades he’s going to move around, he’s now attempting to push the tired old Democrat spin that the real war is only in Afghanistan in pursuit of bin Laden.
I find this endlessly fascinating. How do the Democrats do it? Do they all get together in a meeting and someone says — “I know, let’s say that the war isn’t in Iraq, that we’re really supposed to be chasing Osama in Afghanistan. I’ll bet we can get away with that.” Or perhaps they get a memo from MoveOn.org with the talking points, which they circulate, because they all say the same thing in the same words. Do they have rehearsals?
And how do they all manage to forget the same things at the same time?
Obama is going to great lengths to appear “presidential”. There are the sets designed to look like a presidential press conference, the array of flags in photographs, and of course, his “presidential seal” (quickly disposed of when it evoked more humor than awe). There’s the decision to deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver rather than at the convention site. Obama says he wants to give the common folk more “access” to the process. Uh huh. Visions of Leni Riefenstahl. Do you think there will be torches?
And then a demand to give a speech at the Brandenburg Gate like Presidents Kennedy and Reagan (he might wait until he’s actually a president, and it is usual for those things to be arranged quietly behind the scenes). German officials were not too keen on allowing their historic spot to be used as a prop for a candidate. It puts the German government in the awkward position of appearing to favor one candidate.
Obama’s now backed off on that, but seems unaware of the foreign policy gaffes he is making, or the problems he is creating. The rewriting of NAFTA created big problems with Mexico and Canada, opposing a free trade agreement with Columbia, invading Pakistan, the embarrassing Jerusalem gaffe all presented foreign policy problems that had to be soothed. And his pronouncements on getting out of Iraq aren’t going down too well in Europe.
On his upcoming trip abroad, he is making it clear that he isn’t going to Iraq or Afghanistan to learn, but to enhance his image. It’s (as usual) all about him. With a crew of star liberal TV anchors along to interview him at significant sites (looking presidential) he expects to raise his foreign policy qualifications. Oh, so that’s how it’s done.
Let me be clear. People may differ on the war. People may be opposed to the war, but if they are going to make pronouncements about the war, then they need to know what they are talking about. For Obama, this is a problem, and it is a problem for America. He does say the darnedest things, but it’s not funny.
