Sunday, August 17, 2014

President Obama: America's Vacationer-in-Chief lies again !


Before jetting off for two weeks in ritzy Martha's Vineyard for some swimming and golfing, President Obama laid the blame for the Iraq crisis at the doorstep of the Bush administration. At a brief press conference last Saturday on the White House lawn, Obama scoffed at the notion that he might regret for not having a residual American force in Iraq. Six years into his administration, he still blames Bush. This man will not own anything that is his responsibility.

''Under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to a sovereign democratic Iraqi government,'' Obama said. ''In order for us to leave troops in Iraq, we needed the invitation of the Iraqi government....based on its political considerations, in part because the Iraqis were tired of a U.S. occupation, but they declined to provide us with those assurances. By calling it ''wrong'' to override the wishes of the Iraqi government, while ignoring his military advisors advice, Obama failed to take responsibility for his failed leadership, infuriating a host of listeners.

Asked if air strikes against Islamic State forces were meant to restrain or destroy them, Obama flaunted his weak-kneed tendencies once again, stammering around for an answer but giving none. He talked about protecting the religious minority trapped in the mountains, finding an escape corridor for them, reconfiguring Baghdad's boundaries and finding satisfaction in the decision by Britain and France to contribute food supplies-- and yet, still failed to answer the question. When pressed on whether he and his staff had ''underestimated the power of ISIS,'' Obama again avoided admitting poor judgement and said, ''Their advance has been more rapid than the intelligence estimates and policymakers expected.''  And he then quickly turned towards his awaiting helicopter to avoid further questions and go on another holiday to put international matters on the backburner.

About those frequent holidays:  $44, 351,777 of Tax-Payer funds and counting since he took office in 2008. Remember when the Left - and much of the media - decided it was a crime for a president to play an occasional round of gold?  I recall that Bush was loudly criticized when he didn't hold a press conferences frequently enough to satiate a badgering press, though he averaged one every two
months. Over the course of his two term presidency, he held 45. Bush was also constantly criticized for playing golf . In August 2003, he gave up the game, believing it sent the wrong message to grieving parents of soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course he was ridiculed for that as well.

So why are the Leftist scumbags no longer worried about golfing presidents, even when Barack Obama is about to beat even Tiger Woods total? As Obama approaches his 200th round of golf since his election as president, here's a fact to put that into perspective: Since January 2009, Tiger Woods has played 269 rounds of golf. And Tiger, beleaguered by injury, is almost certainly done for the year. So that means the president, if he keeps up with his pace of play during his present 15-day vacation (a round a day) and his normal weekly round with his buffoon of a Vice-President, Joe Biden, will pass Tiger in the coming months. Think about that for a minute. The president of the U.S., juggling the American economy, the collapse of border protection, Iraq in full meltdown, the Middle East is a powder keg, Russia moving on the Ukraine and other world's problems -- has played golf nearly as much a guy whose day job is playing golf!

Now, a recently uncovered interview, recorded before the 2008 election, shows Obama saying the most ironic thing possible about making sacrifices to become the resident of the United States:
          ''You have to understand that if you seek that office, then you have to be prepared to give your life to it. Essentially, the bargain that every president strikes with the American people is, 'you give me this office, then in turn my fears, doubts, insecurities, foibles, need for sleep, family life, vacations, leisure, is gone. I am giving myself to you.' The American people should have no patience for whatever's going through your head because you've got a job to do. And so how I think about it is.....you don't make that decision unless you are prepared to make that sacrifice.''

The Way I See It......there is no denying that Obama's rudderless foreign policy has been a disaster. The international order has rapidly deteriorated since he entered the Oval Office. The current situation is so perilous that so long as Obama thinks of vacations more than his nation's standing, the phrase ''presidential leadership'' will continue to be an oxymoron.

The President suffers from two fundamental flaws. The first is that he is unwilling to make decisions. He much prefers to play the role of a disinterested observer who comments on a set of adverse events that he regards himself as powerless to shape, of which Assad's carnage in Syria is the prime example. The second is that he fundamentally misunderstands the use of force in international affairs.
He handicaps himself fatally by imposing unwise limitations on the use of American force, such as his repeated declarations that he will not send ground troops back to Iraq.....allowing ISIS to press on.

No one can claim that Iraq was at peace when George Bush left office, but the violence had been curbed. Since Obama has taken over, relative tranquillity yielded to factional squabbling, followed by vicious aggression that caught the President woefully off guard. Iraq is not alone. The number of hotspots in the world - including Gaza, Libya, Nigeria, Ukraine and the China Sea - is increasing. The President wrings his hands over how difficult it has become to find credible allies in the world to address these problems without ever asking why no one trusts him. So he resolves to hold back on the use of American force overseas. Armed with that certainty, every tin pot dictator and terrorist group thinks it has an open field in which to run. The world is now more dangerous than in the last 30 years.

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