An Amateur in the White House

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 14 September 2012.]

The events of this week continue to highlight the long held conclusion that we have an amateur in the White House.  As more becomes known about the attacks on sovereign US territories in Cairo and Benghazi, we are discovering the utter ineptitude of this administration as it overlooked visible evidence, and ignored prudent preparations against the likely 9/11 assaults by radical Muslim organizations in countries with unstable and/or embryonic Islamic governments.

The murders of our ambassador to Libya and members of his staff were not the consequence of spontaneous riots by Muslims infuriated by an insulting video supposedly produced in America.  Our long notorious lamestream media has done its usual diligent cover-up of the relevant events that led to this year’s 9/11 attacks.  The posting of the video was a convenient but unnecessary trigger that covered the planned assault by a hundred-plus, well-armed company of Islamic terrorists.  Seldom do spontaneous demonstrators show up with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns, and carry out their work with the active co-operation of the local constabulary.

But what all this calls attention to is what has not been going on within this administration and its conduct of foreign policy.  Besides ignoring strengthening terrorist attacks against western diplomats in north Africa and the mid-east, our President has demonstrated to our Muslim enemies that the United States is disengaging from that part of the world, and discounting the advances of expansionist Islam.

One can argue that this is just because Obama is busy getting re-elected, and doesn’t want us to focus on either his domestic or foreign policy records.  But, if so, then this kind of policy is inviting its predictable responses from our enemies that now range from Pakistan to Tunisia.  Why must we learn from Australian news sources that “Libya’s new draft constitution starts with the declaration that “Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)”...”.  And that last March the WW2 graves of allied soldiers buried near Benghazi were desecrated by Islamists.  That near the same city in June militants fired rocket propelled grenades at a convoy carrying the British ambassador, and that a bomb exploded just outside the US consulate that is now in ruins.

It goes on, but as recently as two weeks ago Libya’s interior minister stated that “heavily armed Islamists posed a serious threat to Libya’s security.”  And these were just the publicly available warnings that things were coming to a boil in north Africa.  It is difficult to conceive of what more could Obama’s national security mavens and foreign policy advisors demand before they would tell the President to prepare for action.  But then we recall that Obama has missed almost 2 out of 3 of his security briefings during the last 18 months.  And these events may now demonstrate that national security has not been a high priority of our President’s foreign policy.

Time does not permit a more complete recounting of his economic policy disasters, and the cynically named Affordable Care Act that at last accounting will not save the average family the advertized $2,100 a year in healthcare costs, but instead add on $2,500 and counting to a program that will devastate the healthcare industry in all of its dimensions – professional services, pharmaceutical advances, and development of new medical technologies.  The bottom line of it all is that everyone will have a healthcare policy, but the shrinking available healthcare will become highly rationed.

The amateurish conduct of this ideology dominated administration is documented by best-selling author Edward Klein in a volume, coincidentally titled, The Amateur.  This book was on the NYT best seller list for weeks, yet no lamestream outlet would interview him.  In it Klein “reveals a callow, thin-skinned, arrogant president with messianic dreams of grandeur supported by a cast of true believers, all of them united by leftist policies and an amateurish understanding of executive leadership.”

Among his most telling and now timely conclusions, Klein states that “Obama has taken a more personal role in making foreign policy than any president since Richard Nixon – with disastrous results.”

My name is Rebane, and I expand on this and related themes in my Union columns and on georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary with related links is posted, and where these events are debated extensively.  However these views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

Comments

[billy T]

Can anyone please explain to me the Obama Doctrine. I don't know what it is, the press takes pains, contortions, and contradictions to make sense of it, and the world does not know. Not stated with clarity. Maybe the only ones that know for sure are the mobs in the streets across the Middle East, with the exception of Israel per usual.

In such times as the last 3 days, any and all American Presidents would hunker down in the White House and stay on top of this. Take charge and act Presidential if you will. But, nooooooo. Obama spent the time in Las Vegas raising money for his reelection. Las Vegas of all places. Yes, he failed to make his National Security briefing the day after again. He has missed 50% of them and his cabinet has met ONCE in 2012. Its already September. 200 fund raising galas does keep the man missing security briefings. Obama is too busy savings jobs, particularly his own.

Romney is no longer running against Obama. Romney is running against The Amateur.

[TomKenworth]

I rather like the views presented by Carlos: "Carlos Miller
‎"Now that the dust has settled, it looks like a bunch of fundamentalist Christians were aided by a fundamentalist Islamic cleric in Egypt to stir up chaos in the Middle East, and to give us an Arab Fall as a dark, election-year coda to the Arab Spring (while all the while blaming the Jews).

It feels like something out of Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical movies, or an episode of 'South Park' -- only tragic rather than satiric.

The 'credible' mainstream media's complicity in perpetuating the falsehood is tragic as well. But perhaps more tragic is their collective inability to admit that they were played, and the fact that they posted 'updated' stories, and 'extras' shedding new light on Bacile, and in the process buried the original, erroneous stories under a blizzard of faux-mystery and spin.

The unmasking of Bacile became a news event in its own right, and the media disavowed its role in creating him in the first place."

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/09/how-sam-bacile-bamboozled-the-ap-wall-street-journal-over-anti-muslim-film258.html"

[George Rebane]

billyT 810pm - re Obama doctrine, please tune in here again tomorrow morning if you don't subscribe to The Union.

[TomKenworth]

Yes, Obama's the amateur. Romney would have had the sense to buy the video from the producer way back when. And then the next one, and then the next one, and then the next,one, and pretty soon we have full employment for 12 million Americans. As of now Google loves this money teat.

[TomKenworth]

Baa baa baa barbeque the ..... Why should the actors be the only ones in on the gravy train?

[TomKenworth]

There are enough cell phones now for this to work. Set up a toll free hotline for text messages indicating where a-holes may be hiding, and set it up so that the owner of the payphone gets his bill paid for three years, if the tip is useful, or some variation that would appeal to the ethnicity(s) involved. Pay even more for photos and names.

[billy T]

Thank you Dr. Rebane for explaining the Obama Doctrine in your last two posts. I was referring to foreign policy, but you show the big picture once again Yep, play nice and they will love us!

I can understand Libya in chaos as the government there is still being formed and a bit unorganized. Not the same with Egypt.

The bigger picture is there are two competing forces in the Muslim World. The moderates and the militant Islamists. When Obama signaled to the world that the big boy (us) was leaving the area, the void had to be filled.

We stood silent and did not support the young people in the street during the Iran uprising. We cheered overthrowing the President of Egypt. We are impotent in Syria and led from behind in Libya. We told the world that we are leaving Iran's eastern and western neighbor (Iraq and Afghanistan)and gave a date.

Egypt is the big power player in that region. What Egypt does, little countries like Yemen follow. It is not in Egypt's interest to control the radical forces since they are in control. Forget the press releases from the Muslim Brotherhood. Worthless. Look at their actions. They take a couple of billion from us and then catch the first flight to Iran to make nice with the Ayatollahs of rocks and rollas in Tehran.

The void is being filled and the train has left the station. The policy of appeasement has historically failed.

Obama had his experiences in Indonesia growing up. Gave him a unique perspective for an American President. However, things have changed in the last 40 years. As long as he thinks he is the smartest man in the room he does not need advisers and others' opinions to make things right. Its his way and it is the Obama way, the Obama Doctrine.

Obama does not see the evil in the world. He does not see the USA's role in the world. He sees us as just a country among countries, the UN model. The adults have left the daycare and the kids are running amok. A predictable natural occurrence every time.

[Russ Steele]

Obama did not think much of Churchill, sent the bust given to the White House back to the Brits, when he took office. He might want to review Churchill’s infamous passage about Islam from the original edition of The River War:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!  Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.  The effects are apparent in many countries.  Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.  A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.  The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.  Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.  Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die.  But the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.  No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proseltyzing faith.  It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

Hat Tip to Steven Hayward at the Power Line. By the way if you want some untarnished truth about the Arab Fall riots, Power Line is the place to go. Chaos at the State Department was most insightful. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/chaos-at-the-state-dept.php

[Russ Steele]

Hillary Clinton:

“Libyans carried Chris’ body to the hospital, and they helped rescue and lead other Americans to safety.”

Indeed, they “carried Chris’ body”:

The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who was not involved has been designated to answer the presses questions, she’s going to be on all the Sunday morning shows tomorrow.

Clearly, the Obama administration doesn’t want to any one who know anything, or is responsible for anything, to actually “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation.” So they’re sending a UN flack to take the flak.

Wow, what leadership. Ducking the questons and leading from the new bunker under the White House.

[Russ Steele]

Here are some question I would like for our friends on the left to answer.

• How many Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefings did Obama miss?
• Why did Obama attend a fundraiser in Las Vegas when our embassies were being burnt down, and our diplomatic personnel murdered?
• Do you think that the Obama administration leak the name of a filmmaker who is now in hiding for life?
• Do you think that Obama agrees with his Secretary of State that Libyans “carried Chris’s body to the hospital?”
• Do you think our relations with the Muslim world have improved over the last four years under the Obama administration?

Please explain your answers. I am looking for answers, because these root questions will never be ask of The O.

[Michael Anderson]

George, I posted the following comments over at Sierra Foothills Report. I'd be interested in reading your replies, even if you aren't willing to post them over there.
--------------------------

Michael Anderson, on September 15, 2012 at 8:47 pm said:
Obamunism doesn’t actually exist, and while I will give George a “nice try” award, his efforts are for naught. You might as well claim that President Eisenhower was a member of the Communist Party.
Reply
Michael Anderson, on September 15, 2012 at 8:48 pm said:
BTW, if George Rebane really wanted to reach out to folks other than the choir, he would post here. The fact that he doesn’t is telling.

[Russ Steele]

Michael@09:33

Why would someone want to waste their time posting at Sierra Foothills Report, when so many posts just vanish with no explanation. I stopped posting over there years ago. It is just a waste of time. If some wants to know what I think about an issue, they can read my blogs, or this blog.

I do not see any reason for George to post the Sierra Foothills report, it just drives traffic to a site that no one is reading any way, except the folks in the front row of a very small church.

[George Rebane]

The above MichaelA 933pm and RussS 1025pm comments belong in 'The Advent of Obamunism' post, where they have been copied along with my reply to MichaelA.
http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2012/09/the-advent-of-obamunism.html

[Todd Juvinall]

Russ your comment is spot on. The purple man blog is the black hole of conservative comments.

[billy T]

Why would I ever go over to the Fat Boy's self absorbed narcissistic ramblings? Mr. Steele is the designated reader to observe and report. He drew the short stick.

[George Rebane]

Gentlemen, cut me some slack. The comment thread started by MichaelA's 933pm, in which he refers to FUE's blog, belongs under 'Obamunism', and was a pain in the ass to move there. Help me out, please continue it there ;-)

[billy T]

Dr. Rebane, your wish is my commando. Subject is indeed most distasteful and not fit women and children. On a more positive note, someone said that person was not fit to eat with the pigs. I defended that person and replied "He IS fit to eat with the pigs."

Correction on my last post. Mr. Steel drew the short straw, not short stick. Fair, balanced, and accurate.

[Russ Steele]

And the cover up begins:

"U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was not premeditated, directly contradicting top Libyan officials who say the attack was planned in advance."

“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice told Jake Tapper at ABC this morning on “This Week.”

If this is true then, how can they explain RPGs and Mortars, and the military level coordination, redirecting the attack once it was know staff escaped to a save house. Are these the skills and equipment of all the spontanious mobs in Libya?

Are voters stupid enought to beleive that this was not a corrdinated attack. Never mind, I know the answer.

[TomKenworth]

Wonder what Romney does to unwind? Here's what Obama does: How to Stay Sane while serving as President of the USA: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama

[George Rebane]

RussS 847am - while an amateur at being President, Obama nevertheless has a great sense (or advisers?) of how stupid his core constituents are. They will believe him about this with fervor equal to that he knows how to handle the economy as well or better than Romney.