Obama's Lead-from-Behind U.N. Schedule

Updates below

President Obama will take time to sit down with the ladies of The View while he's in New York, but other than making a speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, he won't take the time to meet face-to-face with any world leaders. Says Reuters, "Despite simmering global crises, he will skip traditional private meetings with foreign counterparts and squeeze his U.N. visit into just 24 hours so he can jump back on the campaign trail."

Even senior Obama advisor Robert Gibbs had a hard time explaining that one away when Chris Wallace asked him: "You say that he's got schedules, that foreign leaders have schedules. But the President has blocked out time to appear on The View on Tuesday. So, he has time for Whoopie Goldberg but he doesn't have time for world leaders?"

Gibbs' answer was that Obama will be "actively involved" at the U.N. General Assembly (he's giving a speech) and besides, they have telephones at the White House. Really, Robert?

Up-Chuck Todd at MSNBC "News" is perplexed. Well, no, perplexed is the wrong word, since Chuck seems to know exactly why O is having zero face-to-face meetings: "This is about a 'do no harm' trip, and his aides don't want any unexpected news." Well, guess what, Chuck: the "unexpected" news of the day is that fearless leader-from-behind isn't having any meetings. In a normal world, Chuck, that's news.

The O administration continues in its own tradition of telling convenient lies when inconvenient truths threaten. White House "spokesman" Jay Carney says that O's attendance at the U.N. General Assembly is "in keeping with attendance by past presidents engaged in a re-election campaign." Well, that's strictly true only if you parse the word "attendance." Yes, he'll be attending. But according to an A.P. report, more than just "attending," both Presidents George W. Bush in 2004 and Bill Clinton in 1996 held a series of meeting with foreign leaders in their re-election years.

Updates. Obama is such a petty, little man. KT McFarland, a woman with excellent creds in national security, says that everyone is missing the point about Obama not meeting with foreign leaders at the U.N. General Assembly. On Fox News this morning, she said that by not meeting with foreign leaders, Obama has effectively blocked Romney from meeting with them as well.

"In an election year, it is the responsibility of the leaders to also meet with the opposition candidate. Romney has the right to meet with all of those world leaders too, if Obama does--Obama doesn't, Romney doesn't. The administration doesn't want to get Romney in those pictures with world leaders--he would look presidential. They get nothing out of it. If Romney meets with these leaders, he gets everything out of it--he looks presidential, he looks like he has the ability to be on that world stage. If Obama meets with them, he doesn't get anything."

Why won't the world leaders meet with Romney if they don't meet with Obama? Because then they would be accused, as Netanyahu was, of "influencing" the election by favoring one candidate over another, which would be bad optics. It does seem, however, that by not meeting with them face-to-face, Obama stands to be criticized for his lack of leadership "on the world stage." I imagine he's betting on the lamestream media covering for him, which makes it worthwhile if he can keep Romney from getting any kind of positive press.

h/t to Gateway Pundit

Charles Hurt at The Washington Times has a good opinion piece on the subject of Obama stiffing world leaders while he sits on the couch at The View: "Pundits get unimpeded 'View' of leading from behind. --"And most cloying of all, he brought his wife along so he could display all of his best giggle and banter that makes him such a swell man around the house."

Muslim Brotherhood Lectures USA

Updates below.
Well, that didn't take long. Now we're getting finger-wagging lectures from Mohamed Morsi, the new President of Egypt and a leading figure in the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. "America must change," lectures Morsi. Who could have seen that coming?

Obama has "offered" to meet with Morsi next week when the U.N. General Assembly convenes in New York. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with Morsi on Saturday. While he is willing to meet with this Muslim "brother," Obama has given the back of his hand to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama has refused a face-to-face meeting with Netanyahu, either in New York or in Washington.

My question is this: Will Morsi meet with Obama? So far, all we've heard about is Obama's offer. Has Morsi accepted? Leave it to The New York Times to give Morsi a forum to lecture the United States--"Mr Morsi sought in a 90-minute interview with The Times to introduce himself to the American public." According to the article, it is up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world and to revitalize the alliance with Egypt. Is this why our pantywaist president couldn't bring himself to even mention the storming of the U.S. embassy in Cairo in his remarks in the Rose Garden speech when he spoke about Libya and our murdered ambassador?

By May of 2010, Obama's Middle East policies were already being termed a "disaster" by entities such as the GLORIA Center (Global Research in International Affairs), and in September of 2012, "disaster" continues to be the word of the day in describing Obama and the Middle East. In an editorial written by David Horowitz ("Obama's Foreign Policy Is a National Disaster"): "It wasn't enough that Obama pushed away our allies - he has also emboldened and empowered our enemies."

Dan Senor, called a "foreign policy hawk" by the Left (probably the nicest thing they call him) and also a foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney, echoed the sentiments of others on the Right viewing Obama's outreach to the Middle East: "Chaos in the Arab Spring. Chaos where allies in Israel feel they can't rely on us. You saw the flare up with Israel and the president. Do you think the president's policy in the Middle East has been a success? It looks like a disaster to most Americans."

Update: Obama has "quietly" cancelled his plans to meet with Egypt's new Islamist president. I still wonder of Morsi accepted or declined O's invitation.

Benghazi--It could have been prevented

Updates below.

If this had happened under a Republican administration, the leftist media would be demanding the head of the Secretary of State. They would be demanding the impeachment of an incompetent President. But because it's Barack Hussein Obama's administration, the Libyan attacks and murders at the American consulate have been largely ignored by the liberal press. Instead, the headlines for days from the leftist press were all about Romney, how he shoots before he aims, how the timing of his criticisms was wrong.

Well, I say to Romney, buddy, let it rip, because the leftist press is going to tear you up for anything you say, how you say it, and when you say it anyway.

It is now being reported that the O administration's State Department had advance knowledge that an attack was coming two days before 9/11 when the four Americans were killed. The exclusive report first came from the UK Independent: "Revealed: inside story of US envoy's assassination." Then yesterday, Fox News reported, from "an intelligence source on the ground in Libya," that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to the killing of Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans. "There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous," the source said, adding the attack "was planned and had nothing to do with the movie."

The O adminstration has come out with lie after lie about what happened in Libya, starting on day one with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her career ought to be over. We should be demanding that she either resign or be fired. However, naturally, the O administration is denying prior knowledge of the plot of the attack--and it all depends what the meaning of is, is. Said a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: "We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent." Actionable. How carefully they parse their words.

Barack Obama's Middle East policies have failed. The narcissist-in-chief who thought his mere Barackiness would change the way the ME sees America was wrong. Barack Obama is a failure on a grand scale. He's an amateur in over his head. God help the USA and the world if the man is put back in office for a second term.

Update: Senator Lindsey Graham (R, South Carolina), is calling for a congressional investigation into the consulate attack: "The Obama Administration's insistence that the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya resulted from a riot inspired by a film, rather than a planned and coordinated attack, defies common sense. . . . The bottom line is statements by the Obama Administration must be properly scrutinized, and that is the proper role of Congress."

Other updates. We have Marines at the French embassy but not in Libya? What gives with that? Evidently, the O administration decided to keep a "low profile" in Libya following Muammar Gaddafi's death. WTF? Protection of the American mission in Benghazi was outsourced to a British firm, since O didn't even want an American company in charge of private security. The British firm (note my "shocked" face) was willing to abide by the "no bullets" Rules of Engagement (ROE). Somewhere there is a ROE document for Libya with Hillary Clinton's signature on it. So where was this British security team? Did they run away? Why haven't we heard that a few of them died or were injured in the attack?

The State Department has declined to make the ROE for Libya available. Breitbart News has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the document.

The Wall Street Journal reports that there were just four Libyan military guards on the exterior perimeter who may have been armed, but who were ordered not to fire in order not to "inflame" the situation.

The investigation into what happened to the four Americans killed in the attack has been given to the FBI, so now the State Department and Obama can hide behind that fact, saying, "[w]e have an open FBI investigation on the death of these four Americans, we are not going to be in a position to talk at all about what the U.S. Government may or may not be learning about how any of this happened . . . not any of it . . . until after the election Justice Department is ready to talk about the investigation that it's got." So our man Barry is now securely behind two firewalls--his toady at the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder, and the leftist press, who won't report any of this anyway.

Isn't it great that Obama is so well-protected from any sort of criticism about what happened when four Americans were killed in Benghazi. Too bad Ambassador Stevens and his security personnel weren't equally protected.

Doubling Down on Stupid

Updates below.

U.N.Ambassador Susan Rice thinks the American people are stupid--or not paying attention, but I think it's more likely she thinks we're stupid. She was on all of the Sunday morning talking heads shows telling the American people that the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was not premediated. Nope, not at all. A small number of bad people came to the consulate (on 9/11, but that's just some random date on the calendar, not worthy of mention) with their anti-aircraft atomic cannon and RPG's, and this "spontaneous attack" spun out of control. It was all because of a video and had nothing to do with the White House policy in the Middle East.

Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday was hilarious: "Do you really believe that?" he asked Rice, with a barely suppressed smirk.

"Chris," said the Ambassador, "I absolutely believe that"--said with a straight face. I guess that's what you learn to do in ambassador school.

So there you go, that's the insulting, ridiculous Obama administration line and they're sticking to it--and they'll probably get away with it because: 1) the leftist lamestream media will cover all day long for Obama; and 2) they're probably right about at least 50% or so of the American people being either a) stupid, or b) not paying attention. They're hoping it's at least 51% so they will continue in power for the next four years and take this country down.

Never mind that this information comes as news to the Libyan government, who evidently didn't get the talking points memo this morning from O Team. Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf told CBS' Face the Nation: "It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival."

What must it be like to be a person like Susan Rice--her politics aside, I asume she's a reasonably intelligent person--and be required to come on national TV all morning long and repeatedly tell lies and make a damned fool out of yourself? I wonder if it bothers her at all? I wonder, when she got her assignment this morning, if maybe she didn't throw a shoe at her computer screen or something?

There's one fact alone that belies Rice's assertion that this was a spontaneous act (caused by a video, don't you know) by a "small and savage group," (that's talking point diplomacy) as Sec'y of State Hillary Clinton said on the day our Libyan ambassador was murdered--that this spontaneous group just somehow spontaneously knew the location of the safe house in Benghazi.

Here was what Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said this morning after Rice's appearance on Wallace's show: "The way the attack took place, I have serious questions. It seemed to be a military-style, coordinated. They had indirect fire coordinated with direct fire, rocket attacks. They were able to launch two different separate attacks on locations there near the consulate and they repelled a fairly significant Libyan force that came to rescue the embassy." If you missed Rogers' response on Fox News Sunday this morning, you might want to check it out. This was the most adult, measured, intelligent, non-partisan response I've heard from a politician--maybe ever. He has an interesting history, in that he worked as a special agent for the FBI in Chicago, specializing in organized crime and public corruption, from 1989 to 1994.

The O adminstration has sent the FBI to work up the "crime scene" in the Libyan consulate--oh, but wait, that's not quite right. The FBI will go to Libya as soon as it's safe enough for them to do so. But according to Susan Rice this morning, the FBI is there now investigating what happened. Well, Susan, you're a liar and your tongue is going to turn black. "FBI agents' arrival to investigate in Benghazi has been delayed due to security concerns--another example of how little clarity there is on the ground in Libya, reports Jamie Dettmer from Tripoli." An excellent article at The Daily Beast.

P.S. Check out today's post at Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog: "It's the Movie, Stupid! How many times do I have to tell you? --definitely one of the most intelligent and entertaining political blogs with some of the best commenters on any blog, anywhere.

P.P.S. Clarice Feldman is always good. She has posted an article at American Thinker: "The White House and Press Create a Fairy Tale Version of History." Feldman explores three myths surrounding O's administration and the events in the Middle East in the past week. Myth No. 3: "Obama might not know what he's doing but his staff does." Excellent article.

Another update. Ben Stein writes a diary at The American Spectator. His latest post is titled "End Times." --"time for Mr. Romney to go back on attack mode. Why did the State Department not protect our Ambassador in Benghazi? Why isn't Mrs. Clinton resigning over this? Why isn't Secretary of Defense Panetta apologizing and resigning? There was a colossal failure here. The President is accountable. Why isn't he taking some responsibility here?"

Update again. Roger Kimball at P.J. Media calls Susan Rice's performance this morning "peddling the administrations's desperate fantasy narrative." He mentions "the single most repellent bit of truth twisting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's plaintive observation that 'Libyans carried Chris's body to the hospital.'" Frankly, I think Mrs. Clinton ought to go to hell for a lie like that one. Have  you seen the photos of Chris Stevens's body being dragged through the streets? I only hope the poor man was dead.

"These optics suck, White House!"

Last night on Hannity, Michelle Malkin blasted Obama and his lack of foresight for protecting the embassies abroad on the anniversary of 9/11--and the leftist media for covering for him. She was on fire, even more than usual.

Hannity: Michelle, when you look at the height of this Arab spring, and Tahir Square, where American reporters were getting punched in the face . . . there were some in the media and the punditry class, and the President, and the Vice President, telling the world, “Democracy,” as the President helped push Mubarak out. Now we’re giving the Muslim Brotherhood 1.5 billion dollars and meetings in the White House. And the President fails to acknowledge what happened yesterday was the result of radical Muslim extremists.

Michelle: Right. That’s right. He won’t say those words, he won’t acknowledge the coddling that this administration is responsible for, and the subsidizing with taxpayer dollars of the kind of Islamic violent agitation that we are now seeing. Keep in mind that the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the so-called Freedom and Justice Party [FJP], is the one that’s instigating now all of these so-called peaceful protests that are going to erupt from now through Friday, through next Friday and every Friday because every Friday in the jihad world it’s Riot Friday against anything anti-Western.

Pretext is the word of the day, the word of the century here, because any perceived insult that can be exploited to castigate, to demonize, and to provoke violence against the West is the agenda of this group, Muslim Brotherhood, and all of its affiliates. “Jihad is our way” is part of their official slogan. “Death for the sake of Allah” is what they strive for. And the network of Wahhabi subsidized groups that have been offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood across this country—it’s very important that people understand that. What was 9/11 about? It’s not about “Will we ever forget, never forget.” It’s will we ever learn, it’s the Muslim Student Association, it’s the ISNA, it’s the Muslim-American Society—it’s all of the groups that the Bush Justice Department helped prosecute. But of course, whether it’s a Republican State Department or a Democratic State Department, you’ve got this attitude of dhimmitude that is killing Americans abroad and that threaten us here at home.

Hannity: But the President now is sucking up to the Muslim Brotherhood. They get invited to the White House, they get American taxpayer dollars, they push Mubarak out, paving the way for the Brotherhood. This is their definition of democracy. How is it possible that the President didn’t read the Pew Poll, didn’t read the other polls, that the people of Egypt wanted sharia law, that they wanted a theocracy . . . how is it possible, with all of his intelligence—we sit here on the set of Fox News Channel, we predicted with pinpoint accuracy what would happen, [but] the President, with all his resources, got it wrong, and to this day can’t admit it, and he’s off campaigning in Vegas.

Michelle: Well, it’s willful and deliberate whitewashing of the civilizational threats that face us. And I was completely disgusted by the clip that you showed at the beginning of your show, Sean, because . . . These optics suck White House! I mean we have four Americans who are dead who were butchered and slaughtered because this administration did not have the foresight to fortify these embassies on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. And there he is with all of his fanbois and fangirls in Vegas raising money while they scream ‘I love you!’ in the middle of an international crisis.

And how about his statement this afternoon in the Rose Garden. He couldn’t muster up a single flash of anger or outrage that these Americans are dead now?

Hannity: “Tough day” is what he said.

Michelle: “Tough day. Woe is me.” The bloodlessness of his statement makes my blood boil. And it should make every American’s blood boil, especially in this week, which was a tough week for all of the 3,000 families of people who died on 9/11.

Hannity: The worst part—this is why everybody’s blood should be boiling, everybody. Because for nine and a half hours the official position of the Obama administration’s State Department was an official apology to the people who breached our embassy and ripped down our flag—and we apologize to them?

Michelle: Their knee-jerk response is whitewash, it always has been whitewash. What did the State Department do, what did the U.S. embassy do, after they were caught with this ridiculous statement that the White House cut and ran from? They tried to delete it. And thanks to social media—we had it at our site at Twitchy.com—those deleted tweets that they tried to bury down the memory hole. And then we have this feckless lapdog media that’s conspiring to make this whole issue about Romney, instead of about Obama. It’s on his hands. The buck stops with you, buddy.

U.S. Ambassador Murdered, Obama "Condemns" Attacks

 

 

So it's come to this. The U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on their car by Muslim militants who are offended by a U.S.-made film insulting the prophet Mohammad. O came out with a statement, "strongly condemning" the attacks. Well, that's going to stop these radical Muslims right in their tracks, isn't it. They must be shaking in their boots at this schtrong statement from the United States.

Earlier in the day, when the U.S. embassy in Cairo was attacked by a radical mob, O's administration, including Hillary Clinton, issued an apology: "We condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims." Never mind, everyone, that the attack came on 9/11.

Well, O and Hillary, that apology strategy worked really well for you.

Meanwhile, O has snubbed Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that his schedule is too full to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister, while on the same day it's announced that he will appear on the Letterman show.

Update. Clinton's statements are already being scrubbed from the internet as O's administration attempts to distance themselves from the apology. Politico has come out saying that O's administration "disavows" the Cairo apology. Do they also disavow their Secretary of State?

Breitbart's Big Journalism has a post about the coverage of these events by the New York Times: New York Times Buries Attacks; Joins Obama in Capitulating to Mob, Attacking Romney. Where's the headline about the American ambassador to Libya being killed? Nowhere.

The post, written by Joel B Pollack, says that the real reason for outrage at the NYT is because "events have placed the Obama administration's foreign policy of appeasement in a deservedly bad light." The leftist media will continue to drag O over the finish line of this election in any way they can. Ignore the murder of an American ambassador? Check.

Here's another post at Breitbart's Big Government: Obama Camp Condemns Romney Before Condemning Attacks in Egypt, Libya. "If only the Obama campaign could find half the outrage they saved for Romney to level at the murderers."

President Empty Chair

Yet an unbelievable percentage of "the people" still seem to love the guy.

Would someone please explain to me how President Empty Chair actually got a bounce out of that Democrat convention? That comes from Gallup: Forty-three percent of Americans say what they saw at last week's Democrat convention makes them more likely to vote for Barack Obama. OK, so I guess 43% of Americans are stupid.* That's the only thing I can conclude. I guess what I would ask about that number is what I ask about every poll: who are the people being polled? "Likely voters" poll very differently than generic "Americans." But that doesn't matter, since the lamestream media now has their talking point: Obama got a bounce from the convention; Romney did not. And we'll hear that for the next week.

So the generic Gallup group is in love with O, but are they likely to get up off the couch and vote for their hero? I sure hope not. The enthusiasm isn't there even if the love is. And O is out there on the campaign trail telling his sycophants that "you'll love me even more" in his second term. Well, buddy, only if you give away more "free" stuff, which I guess is what he's going to do--or at least he'll tell these poor sops that that's what he's going to do.

According to Rasmussen, 17% of people polled rate the economy as good or excellent. And yet, also according to Rasmussen, 52% of voters say that they at least somewhat approve of O's job performance. There's such a huge disconnect between those two polls, that I don't even know where to start with it. How can his job approval be even approaching that number? We are looking an economic apolalypse straight in the face, and 52% of voters say they approve of Obama?

Good Lord, you fools, wake up. Did you people miss the report from the Federal Reserve saying that the median U.S. household lost 39% of its wealth between 2007 and 2010? And what has O and his administration done to make those numbers better? Just askin'. I wonder how much more we've lost between 2010 and 2012? Bet on it that we won't hear anything about that until after the election--or never, if the Dims have their way.

P.S. My friends at Hot Air remind me not to panic about the polls. There's a new one out from Public Policy Polling (PPP) that has O leading in Ohio by 5 points over Romney, 50-45. Says PPP, "This is the largest lead PPP has found for Obama in an Ohio poll since early May. Last month Obama led 48-45."

But it's the sample, stupid--and that proves true in the PPP poll as well. The sample has a D/R/I split of 41/37/22. The 37% for Repubs matches their 2010 midterm turnout, which had a D/R/I of 36/37/38. Very sneaky--very clever of PPP, but we're not stupid. We're actually learning to ask these questions (some of us). That 41% for Dems significantly exceeds turnout. Plus they're playing fast and loose with the Independent numbers. Has there been a 16-point drop in Independents in Ohio? Has Ohio suddenly become a lot more Democrat than it was in 2010? Other models, according to Hot Air, have Ohio deadlocked and in some cases even edging towards Romney.

This kind of "poll" is useful for the lamestream leftist press to use to push their meme about Obama taking a lead since the convention. Clearly they've got so much invested in this clown that they're going to continue down that road. But stay tuned....

P.P.S. Here's an article pushing back against the lamestream meme at Big Journalism: "Facts, History Undermine Media Con That Obama Win Is Inevitable ," by John Nolte. Over the past ten days, what hasn't surprised me is how the corrupt media created its own pro-Obama reality coming out of the conventions. What does surprise me is how this coordinated psy-ops push is working to panic a lot of conservatives. Read the article here.

*Actually, there might be another explanation for the Obama-friendly Gallup poll. Check out Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs: "Obama Bullying Gallup . . . DOJ Is Suing Them."

"Oh, it's only Joe"

Imagine for a minute if this were Paul Ryan doing a little lapdance with a biker chick. This would be NYT's front page, above-the-fold news for days. But since it's just Crazy Uncle Joe--you know, the one who's a heartbeat away--well, we'll all give him a pass. Crazy Joe was just having a little fun, after all. Good Lord.

Vice President Biden was in Ohio over the weekend where he addressed a crowd of 700--snort. The article I read said that he was defending O's coal policy. Seriously? In southern Ohio?