Two months later, as Iran agreed to rollback parts of its nuclear program in exchange for relief from some sanctions, President Obama assured us he wouldn’t allow and interim agreement to become a means for Tehran to play for time in the development of a nuclear weapon. … read more
Those of us who follow the political scene and remember who said what about whom, recall how Peggy Noonan shook up the right with her “endorsement” of Barack Obama in 2008.
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan’s advice to Mitt Romney is dissected by kramerontheright. (lonely conservative.com
“He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief,” she wrote about Obama in her Wall Street Journal column. She went on to comment that he was steady, calm, and showed good judgment.
Noonan was taken in like many other members of the media. New York Times columnist, David Brooks, wrote that he could tell by Obama’s perfectly creased pant leg that he was going to be president and a very good one at that; and MSNBC’s Chris Mathews remarked how he felt a tingle up his leg when he heard Obama speak.
Since 2008, however, Noonan has seen the light, writing a number of critical pieces on Obama, his policies and programs. “Mr. Obama seemed brilliant,” she wrote in 2011, recalling his longing for unity; that we weren’t divided into red and blue states; we can solve our problems together.
To conservatives, Noonan became someone we loved to hate. As a writer, I never stopped reading her columns, and often found myself agreeing with her in later years.
President Reagan delivered Peggy Noonan’s Pointe du Hoc speech in usual fashion at the 40th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. (blog.heartleand.org)
You may not be aware that Noonan was a speechwriter in the Reagan White House. She wrote the famous speech Ronald Reagan gave at the 40th Anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1984. I’ll never forget the memorable line as he spoke of the daggers thrust into the top of the cliffs, “And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs.” While you will find the complete speech on the Internet, click here to hear that stirring line. Continue reading
In an unusual photo op, President Obama walks to the Rose Garden with his arm around the waist of Jani Bergdahl, mother of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. (dailymail.co.uk)
A casually dressed President Obama was all smiles as he left the Oval Office with his arm around Jani Bergdahl as they headed for a Rose Garden photo op to announce that United States had secured the release of her son, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in exchange for five terrorists being held at Guantanamo.
I have witnessed a number of such walks to the Rose Garden, with staff appointments, judicial nominees and special guests, but never has the president taken them arm and arm let alone with his arm around their waist. It was truly unusual.
Who thought this photo op was something he should do? Obama himself? Yes, he was prisoner of war being released, but what about the murky circumstances of the case? Clearly, he deserted his post in Afghanistan five years earlier. Continue reading
It’s unconscionable that President Obama is more concerned about keeping a campaign promise, and preserving some sort of legacy with his base, than he is in protecting our national security. Yet it’s happening before our eyes.
The faces of the five detainees (below) released in exchange for the release of Army Sgt.… read more
“The United States keeps trying to restore what is unrestorable – leadership in the world system.” – Immanuel Wallerstein
In yesterday’s post, Merkel’s opinion of Obama revealed, I wrote of the NSA spying on Merkel, the ejection of the CIA’s Berlin station chief, and the souring of the German public on President Obama and the U.S.
Space didn’t permit me to give you details of what has been termed as an “unprecedented breach” in German-U.S. relations. I am posting this sidebar because the U.S. media has failed to give us the inside “skinny.”
President Obama was unwilling to commit to a no-spy agreement with German Chancellor Merkel. While apologizing privately to her, he would not make a public apology. (Charles Dharapak/AP)
“The United States has been stupid and very clumsy,” wrote Immanuel Wallerstein, a senior research scholar at Yale University. “The basic problem is that the United States is, and has been for some time, in geopolitical decline. It doesn’t like this. It doesn’t really accept this. It surely doesn’t know how to handle it, that is minimize the losses to the United States. So it keeps trying to restore the unrestorable – leadership in the world system.”
Wallerstein says Europeans in general, and Merkel and Germany in particular, see the U.S. as a “very unreliable partner.” As they lose trust in the U.S., they wonder if they can really trust Russia. “Today … Germany (Merkel) feels free to criticize openly and even harshly all the powerful nations with which she deals.” Continue reading
“What puts her off about Obama is his high-flying rhetoric. She distrusts it.” – The New Yorker magazine
While Barack Hussein Obama swept into office on a wave of popularity that extended to Europe and the Middle East only to see that acclaim dwindle, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has quietly gained leadership strength and approval.
“In Obama’s first years in office, Merkel was frequently and unfavorably compared to him (Obama), and the criticism annoyed her,” wrote George Decker in a Dec. l, 2014 piece in The New Yorker. Quoting Stern, a German publication, Decker writes, “Her favorite joke ends with Obama walking on water.”
As this photo seems to convey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not an admirer of President Obama (washingtonpost.com)
“She does not really think Obama is a helpful partner,” wrote Torsten Krauel in the publication Die Welt, “She thinks he is a professor, a loner, unable to build coalitions.”
Decker’s major profile, The Quiet German: The Astonishing rise of Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world, was one of two recent articles about her. Vanity Fair’s feature, Angela’s Assets, appears in its January 2015 edition. Merkel, however, looks upon “the most powerful woman” label with disdain. Continue reading
“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. That’s why Americans have never lost a war and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” – Gen. George S. Patton, May 31, 1944.
Gen. George S. Patton (dayiii.tripod.com)
Oh my, if General Patton were alive today, he wouldn’t recognize today’s America. Victory eluded us in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. This week President Obama told a gathering of Marines in Hawaii that the war in Afghanistan will come to a “responsible end.”
A “responsible end?” What is that? Whatever happened to winning?
In 2007 it was presidential candidate Obama who referred to the Afghan war as the “good war.” “We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We will wage the war that has to be won.”
President Obama told a Marine gathering in Hawaii that he was bringing the Afghanistan war to “a responsible end.” (abc30.com)
Since becoming president, the words, won, win, winning, victory and victorious never seem to get onto the teleprompter. Instead, sentence bites like “finishing the fight,” “we will finish the job,” “getting the job done,” and “time to prevail” appear.
It was candidate Obama who spoke of the need for a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO, saying “We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I won’t.” Continue reading
There they were, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, all smiles during last month’s APEC summit meeting in Beijing, after signing a commitment to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2025-2030.
The sight of the two leaders agreeing on the reduction of fossil fuels had to thrill the low-information crowd and, of course, the “greenies.” … read more
In my Oct. 1, 2014 post, It can all be traced back to President Obama, I called your attention to the ethically-challenged culture of the Obama White House, suggesting that his staffers and appointees merely follow his pattern of deceit.
It continues.
Yesterday we learned that Tony Blinken, the newly confirmed deputy secretary of state, openly lied during his confirmation hearing last month.… read more