"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” Mark Twain
September 4, 2013
By: Linda Case Gibbons
It’s so unfair! These people; attacking the president for "flip flopping!”
I know it’s unfair because I know what’s really happening and it’s not his fault!What’s going on is that Obama thinks he’s talking to his mainstream media who are used to his habits. That’s all it is.
When he says something one day and then something different the next, the mainstream media get it.
They know he didn’t really mean it, for instance, that the dead children killed in Syria is a real moral, humanitarian emergency! They knew he didn’t mean it was like a 911 emergency, for goodness sake!
It’s not like they’re killing Christians in Syria! I mean, the president would really react to something like that, right?
No, he meant it was the sort of emergency that could be handled now, if you really wanted to, or in a few days, or even weeks…That kind.
The only problem is that it wasn’t just the mainstream media who was listening and watching the president of the United States dithering.
China was listening.
Russia was listening.
Syria and North Korea were listening.
And so were the mullahs in Iran, Hezbollah, al-Quaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.
And Israel certainly was.
When the rubber meets the road, when the president’s "limited strike” is finished, when the shots over the bow of an American warship are done and the ships turn around and go home, who will be taking it in the neck? Israel.
Is that a coincidence, an Obama "unintended consequence?” A good question.
But the mainstream media so gets Obama, he doesn’t really have to be clear about where he stands on anything. They get him and that’s good enough for them.
But the world isn’t Obama’s media.
The world gets him, too, but not the way Obama’s media gets him.
They see a fumbling, bumbling weak president who is afraid to commit to anything, who is not genuinely enraged about or engaged with anything, and who has no allegiance to anything or anyone.
Yes, the world’s eye is turned toward this president and this country, listening and watching, and what they see is a president who won’t ever strap on his leadership guns and face his personal High Noon.
They watched him as he said he had to make the strike immediately. He had the power, he said. He didn’t need Congressional approval, he said.
They listened when he was careful to describe in great detail, when, how, and where the military strike would take place. One could only wonder, was this Obama’s version of promised "transparency?”
And then, after that he decided he wasn’t going to strike right now. He said he needed Congressional approval. But since they wouldn’t be back until next week, he didn’t see the need to call them back. No, he said he’d wait. No rush.
He said, if Congress approved of the strike, he’d strike, but if they didn’t, he still could strike because he didn’t need their approval.
People were so confused.
They think they heard him say he drew a red line, back in 2012, right before the election. But yesterday they heard him say in a press conference in Stockholm, "Heck no. That wasn’t my red line.”
"I didn’t set a red line, the world set a red line,” Obama said. "My credibility’s not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’ credibility’s on the line.”
He wishes.
Sigh. That type of quirky behavior may be something The New York Times, ABC, and the media et al in this country can accept from Obama, but it isn’t anywhere else in the world.
Americans may have been conditioned over time to accept whatever Obama says with a grain of salt, but that is not acceptable anywhere else in the world for the leader of the United States.
Out there they still judge a man by what he does, and what he says. Out there they know leadership when they see it and they know when it is not there.
And now everyone’s confused.
Who are we supporting? Who are we opposing? Are they Muslim terrorists? Who are the good guys? How to tell the bad guys? Why now? Why Syria? Why not 30 months ago when it would have made a difference?
Why, indeed.
Now some say that this president operates by avoiding, blaming and when things get tough, hopping on Air Force One and leaving.
Like former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
"This president has tried to blame everybody or anybody, for everything,” Rumsfeld said. "And leadership requires that you stand up, take a position, provide clarity, and take responsibility. I can’t imagine him saying that he didn’t draw the red line. He did draw a red line. We have ears!”
And some say petitioning Congress is an effort to pass the buck – and the blame – to Congress and to sink Congress, but most particularly the Republicans.
Some say.
Some say the president is making a fool out of Congress.
Like Sen. Rand Paul.
In an exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry during Senate Foreign Relations hearings on Tuesday, Sen. Paul said.
"I was just about to stand on my feet and clap and give him a standing ovation, and then I heard (Obama say that) well, if I lose the Congressional vote, I’ll probably go and do the bombing anyway. I want to be proud of the president, but every time I’m just about there, then I get word that really – he doesn’t mean it.”
He told Kerry,
"If we do not say that the Constitution applies, if we do not say explicitly that we will abide by this vote, you’re making a joke of us. You’re making us into theater. And so we play constitutional theater for the president. If this is real, you will abide by the verdict of Congress. You’re probably going to win; just go ahead and say it’s real. And let’s have a real debate in this country and not a meaningless debate that in the end you lose and you say, oh well, we have the authority anyway. We’re going to go ahead and go to war anyway.”
He has a point. What is Obama’s real end game and for that matter, what the heck is this all about anyhow?
Humanitarianism or distraction from Obama's scandals?
Obama's ego or the United States' safety?
But then again, end games are so over-rated, don't you think? All they do is explain what you're doing, where you're going and what the end result will be.
I guess all we really have to know is that Obama and John Kerry are on the job. And, don’t forget, Obama has assembled a crack team of advisors regarding Syria: Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Eric Holder, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel. He even released a picture with all of them in War Room mode. And you know them all from their excellent work in the past.
That should make you feel better.
Hold the line, America.