Obama: Our expectations of Mideast progress were 'too high'

Jerusalem Post ^ | 1/21/10 | staff

[Nachum]

Getting the Israelis and Palestinians to agree to negotiate, or even to agree to the framework in which negotiations will take place, "is just really hard," US President Barack Obama said in an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, as the president was completing his first year in office.

Obama admitted that the administration "overestimated our ability to persuade [both sides] to [negotiate] when their politics ran contrary to that. Both sides - the Israelis and the Palestinians - have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation," Obama told the magazine.

[Nachum]

Obama admitted that the administration "overestimated our ability to persuade [both sides] to [negotiate] when their politics ran contrary to that.

What a maroon.

[johniegrad]

"is just really hard,"

"And they're really mean", he added.

[basil]

I love it that they “discovered” that “It’s really hard”.....LOL!

[johniegrad]

I’m starting to wonder if his focus groups have told him he is too aloof and if all this admission of difficulty is poltically motivated to improve his image.

[Spok]

“overestimated our ability to persuade [both sides] to [negotiate] when their politics ran contrary to that.”

Translation: I’m in over my head and don’t have the slightest basic understanding of what’s going on in the Middle East.

[skyman]

He’s still shocked that they didn’t swoon or get a chill up their leg.

[NMEwithin]

Apparently Community Organizing doesn’t work in the Mid-East....

[RC2]

Just shows to go that he has no idea of what’s really going on over there but is willing to put good peoples lives on the line. Lack of experience is dangerous.

[Wisconsinlady]

You think? Is he really this dumb?

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Does “above my pay grade” ring a bell?

Obama told the American public in August 2008 that he was incompetent.

In the past 365 days Obama has been proving it.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

So from his point of view either:

A. No one was really trying to bring peace to the Mideast

or

B. His will was so strong that merely being in the seat of power would tip the scales

If it is option A, his worldview is so skewed as to make him dangerous in his ignorance. If it is option B, his worldview is so skewed as to make him dangerous in his arrogance.

Ignorance or arrogance? I’m betting a little of the former and a lot of the latter.

[keepitreal]

First this:

Now this:

"Diplomacy is hard"

[Carley]

Aww, O’s all wee wee-ed up over another failure of his own making.

[cardinal4]

Obama: Our expectations of Mideast progress were 'too high'

Strikeout Mideast progress and you can insert just about everything else he has failed at..

[Ben Ficklin]

"Is he really this dumb"

Of course not. He knew that the parties would fail.

That is why he had a back-up plan made that he could promote when the time was ripe.

Who wrote Obama's back-up plan? Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Jimmy Carter.

[mjp]

the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation," Obama told the magazine.

don't blame me. It's their fault.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Strikeout Mideast progress and you can insert just about everything else he has failed at..

---

Good point. Plus we need to keep in mind that Obama is being resurrected by sympathetic MSM journalists. In much the same way as Stephanopolis resurrected Obama with leading questions in early September 2008.

[xp38]

Barbie would have made a better President.

[naturalized]

Not without concrete walls and barbed wire:

[RGSpincich]

Obama: Our expectations of {you name it}were 'too high'