Posted on 11/18/2015 7:32:22 AM PST by Kaslin
According to legend, if not actual historians, Harold Macmillan was once asked what he most feared could derail his agenda. The British prime minister allegedly said, "Events, my dear boy, events."
Macmillan may never have actually said it, but the quote endures because it gets at a fundamental truth of politics (and life). Facts on the ground can deliver a fatal blow to one's most cherished plans.
The line kept coming to mind as I listened to President Obama's remarkable news conference Monday from the G-20 meeting in Turkey. Asked again and again whether he underestimated the threat from Islamic State, a group he once dismissed as a "JV team," the president said, in effect, "no."
Of course, he used a lot more words, but that was the gist: "It's important for us to get the strategy right, and the strategy that we are pursuing is the right one." He added that "the terrible events in Paris were obviously a terrible and sickening setback."
Critics who disagree, he said, shouldn't "pop off" with their half-baked and ill-considered opinions. He's "not interested" in what he sees as mere sloganeering about "American leadership or America winning" that distract him from his strategy.
The contrast with remarks by French President Francois Hollande, addressing Parliament on Monday, was remarkable. Had Hollande's speech been delivered by a Republican presidential candidate, Obama would probably have dismissed it as more popping off. Hollande pledged to wage war "without a respite, without a truce. ... It is not a question of containing but of destroying this organization."
Obama's bloodlessly detached and condescendingly professorial remarks seemed oddly reminiscent of those excruciating news conferences during the Iraq War when George W. Bush couldn't bring himself to admit he made any mistakes.
The day before the Paris attack, Obama insisted that Islamic State was "contained." He may have meant, as he now claims, that he was merely talking about its territorial holdings in Iraq and Syria (leaving out its gains in Libya, Afghanistan, the Sinai and its successful terror attacks elsewhere). But when people hear that a threat has been contained, they can be forgiven for thinking that rules out mass killings in Paris.
And that's the bedeviling thing about events -- the enemy gets to create them. Obama has all but admitted that the Islamic State forced his hand by chopping off the heads of American hostages.
For Republicans, the attacks in Paris -- not to mention in Turkey, Beirut and above Egypt (the Islamic State almost surely brought down that Russian plane) -- are just more proof that Obama's foreign policy is a mess.
In a more rational climate, this would be a moment for presidential candidates with serious foreign policy chops to shine and for candidates such as Donald Trump and Ben Carson to recede. That is, unless you actually believe Trump when he says, "I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me."
But even Trump, in his own way, seems more attuned to events as they unfold than Obama and the Democrats running to replace him.
In Saturday's Democratic debate, all three of the candidates struggled as the ground shifted under their feet. They bristled at the suggestion that we are at war with "radical Islam." Saying so, according to Hillary Rodham Clinton, would be "painting with too broad a brush."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign furiously protested the CBS decision to shift the focus to terrorism, seemed despondent that he had to talk about the subject.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was far more comfortable with the change, insisting that we must take in even more refugees from Syria.
That was a minority view even before it was revealed that at least one of the Paris terrorists had been a "refugee." You can be sure it's even less popular now, which is why the roster of U.S. states seeking measures to bar Syrian refugees is growing rapidly.
For now, most Democrats stand with Obama in his denial. One wonders how long that resolve will last in the face of even one more "setback" to Obama's successful strategy.
JV President.
Stubbornly, no. Faithfully, as in encouraging the Dar ul-Islam. Some ‘martyrs’ will only advance the cause.
This so much reminds me of the Dhimmicrats during the Vietnam war. As long as a Dhimmicrat was President (Johnson) they were almost all pro government and pro war. Once a Republican became President, why -[GASP!] their ‘conscience’ dictated they could no longer support the war.
Now we’re seeing the same thing. No Dhimmicrat is objecting to Bath House Barry’s failing strategy. They can’t even admit there is an enemy!!
But, when’s Republican becomes President, the narrative will change. Recall how the Dhimmicrats DEMANDED a Congressional vote on the Iraq war in order to all go on record in favor of the war, and then blamed Bush for the war? That will happen again.
It’s amazing such an Idiot can be so Stupid
Neither does "professorial" describe the halting, faltering, pitifully arrogant and defensive style of his remarks this week in on foreign soil, taking his defiant petty political squabbles with Republicans oversees.
What competent American President in history has done that?
It is on his Teleprompter, and he is no longer allowed to deviate from the script.
Doubling down is never a smart strategy, even in Vegas. Doing so smacks of desperation.
Only rarely does it pay off, and then only if the hand is played perfectly.
Otherwise you just lose twice as much.
And President Bush went before Congress, that is factual.
Removing 0bama would certainly solve a LOT of America's problems, - just saying.
Is Hillary Clinton and the entire Democrat Party prepared to go down over Obama’s stubbornness?
That is the $64 question.
His solution to sucking is to suck harder.
Well, it is ValJar’s script. Her thumb is always on the scales, and she’s pulling the string on the back of this puppet. His only real emotions seem to be the desire to destroy the USA and the subsequent schadenfreude when he appears to succeed.
He said the strategy we’re pushing is the right one, only weeks after saying they still didn’t have a strategy.
Do doing nothing is the strategy. But, as a federal judge once ruled, doing nothing is actually doing something.
So the conclusion is that obama is working furiously to help further the goals of ISIS.
Any farmer that has had to deal with an Ass knows how stubborn and ignorant they can be.
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