Posted on 01/25/2015 7:54:00 AM PST by shove_it
Fox News is not exactly known as an ally of the Obama administration, especially when it comes to disputes between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, or disputes between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yet two prominent Fox News hosts, Chris Wallace and Shepherd Smith, harshly criticized Boehner and Netanyahu on Friday for secretly arranging a Netanyahu speech to Congress that is transparently aimed at undermining President Obama, and set up without the White House's knowledge.
The White House, State Department, and many foreign policy observers, including prominent former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, expressed outrage over the move. And, in a sign of just how many lines Boehner and Netanyahu crossed, so did the two Fox News hosts.
"I agree 100 percent," Wallace said when Smith read a quote from Indyk criticizing the Boehner-Netanyahu maneuver. Wallace went on:
And to make you get a sense of really how, forgive me, wicked, this whole thing is, the Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Israeli Ambassador to the United States for two hours on Tuesday, Ron Dermer. The ambassador, never mentioned the fact that Netanyahu was in negotiations and finally agreed to come to Washington, not to see the president, but to go to Capitol Hill, speak to a joint session of congress and criticize the president's policy. I have to say I'm shocked.
Smith said, "it seems like [Netanyahu's government] think[s] we don't pay attention and that we're just a bunch of complete morons, the United States citizens, as if we wouldn't pick up on what's happening here."
Wallace pointed out that Netanyahu might face political backlash in Israel over this "very risky political strategy," which could damage Israel's relationship with the United States.
Here is the backstory: On Wednesday, Boehner announced that he had invited Netanyahu to come speak to a joint session of Congress in late February (later pushed to early March) on Obama's nuclear negotiations with Iran, which both Boehner and Netanyahu oppose, and which Republicans are seeking to blow up by forcing new, deal-killing sanctions on Iran. What made this such a remarkable breach is that Boehner had reached over Obama to make the invitation, which he and Netanyahu kept secret from the White House. That is a major breach in US foreign policy, which is supposed to be unified; things like official visits by heads of state almost always go through the White House.
Perhaps worse, Republicans are letting a foreign leader use the floor of Congress to bash the American president, thus not just allowing but helping a foreign country meddle in American foreign policy. (This is not the first time either. Republicans invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress in 2011, an opportunity he also used to lambast Obama.)
For his part, Netanyahu is once again attempting to undermine the American president who is by far his most important ally, and is using Congress as a campaign stop on his own bid for reelection in Israel's March elections.
"BIBI AND DERMER MIGHT HAVE FINALLY GONE TOO FAR"
While backlash was anticipatable, Netanyahu likely did not imagine it extending to Fox News.
"After watching this I think Bibi [Netanyahu] and [Israeli ambassador to the US Ron] Dermer might have finally gone too far," Lisa Goldman, the director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Foundation, wrote on Facebook of the Fox News segment. "They miscalculated the American Zeitgeist and didn't realize that when a foreign power, even a favorite ally, shows a lack of respect for US institutions, a red line has been crossed."
To Goldman's point, both Smith and Wallace, in expressing outrage at Netanyahu, pointed out that the Israeli leader had defied President George W. Bush's demand that Israel cease settlement growth in the West Bank, and had resisted Bush's efforts at an Israel-Palestine peace deal. The issue, for them, was not principally one of partisan politics, but of this ostensible ally repeatedly mistreating the United States and its president, regardless of political party.
If the Netanyahu government and Ron Dermer's embassy are watching this, and they certainly should be, they should be alarmed that even this crucially important element of their American support base is beginning to see the Netanyahu government as less of an ally.
That’s why I follow One-America-News . . .
Agreed. God love the purity police.
Wallace and Smith are only two voices, and I doubt that Netanyahu will criticize Obama directly. It will be an indirect criticism in that Bibi will point out the reasons why the Western nations and others {Japan, for instance], will need to be both vigilant and prepared for anything and everything that the jihadists will throw at us.
If his speech seems to be the antithesis of the Obama administration’s policies, so be it.
Its also been years since I watched FOX ‘news’
Apparently Indyk wasn’t equally concerned over the lines that this Obama administration crossed in trying to force feed Israel to bend the knee to Qatar to tell them what their position should be for a cease fire some months back, pretending as if they were somehow an unbiased negotiator for ‘peace’ when they knew it was a lie,
Or concerned over what lines were being crossed when he tried to force feed Egypt to the cult of his senior administration advisers, the Muslim Brotherhood,
Or concerned about what lines were crossed when these evil men it helped to empower are murdering Christians week in and week out all across the middle east,
Or concerned that this administration is attempting at every turn to provide Iran time enough to develop a nuclear bomb, (he must be wondering by now why they cant hurry it up already)
These attempts at ‘peace and security’ have already been the death of many,
Fortunately both Israel and Egypt rejected this evil obama creatures corrupt attempts to directly influence them,
But its not done trying, and with the upcoming election in Israel in March, I’m not surprised its trying to pick a very public fight and he can use every sign and lying wonder (touted in the MSM and by sycophantic press like a sheppard and wallace) to influence and impact the results,
When they finally do get themselves a compliant leader(s) in Israel elected so they can carve up the land for peace with a false agreement, then its this nation that will be in its greatest danger in all of its history
I don’t really care if Fox News is outraged.
The Federal Courts were intended to be a very weak branch. They are entirely under Congress's jurisdiction. If the Congress decides tomorrow there will be only five justices on the Supreme Court -- or a thousand -- that's the end of the discussion. If Congress decides to completely reorganize the circuits, or take matter under the jurisdiction of the courts away from them, that's all she wrote.
The myth that we have three coequal branches of government is one propagated by liberals [and liberal civics texts] to take government out of the hands of the people.
The steer and the queer, bloviating, little mikey's boy and blowing sheppie didn't like boner and Bibi. Tough.
OMG he is SOOOOOOOOO Ted Baxter, LOL never had this comparison cross my mind!!!!!Thank You VERY FUNNY COMMENT!!!!!!
“Yet two prominent Fox News hosts, Chris Wallace and Shepherd Smith, harshly criticized Boehner and Netanyahu on Friday”
Fox News is going downhill fast, the two jerks above along with the likes of Geraldo, Juan, Coombs, etc. and RINOS galore, make it a non-entity.
OMG he is SOOOOOOOOO Ted Baxter, LOL never had this comparison cross my mind!!!!!Thank You VERY FUNNY COMMENT!!!!!!
Rush Limbaugh has even alluded to BOR as Ted Baxter.
Wallace and Smith are the Fox News Closet Liberals. Remember who is Wallace’s father and the seed didn’t fall far from the tree. Smith is in more than one closet.
.................
*like*
What’s the “plan”? Just keep letting him be himself? Doesn’t take much to undermine a failed presidency.
Fox's late afternoon, Sunday, and prime time lineups are all over the place, unlike the uniformly leftard lineups on the news organs he prefers. Shep, Wallace, and Greta are all liberals [although unlike the former two, Greta is a professional who rarely lets her own ideology leak into her coverage.] O'Reilly, deliberately characterized as a "conservative" is actually a populist traditionalist with no real ideology, and Kelly and Hannity are [usually] conservatives.
So this genius takes the usual liberal straw man that Fox is a conservative monolith, and then proceeds to pretend that the outrage by two lib/progs who would feel right at home on any of the alphabet networks is indicative of something.
Nope. Fail.
Actually, if you watch the way he conducts his Sunday panels, it’s pretty clear Wallace is a liberal. He usually allows Juan “Brain Cell” Williams to have a soapbox, while he cuts off the opinions of the more conservative panelists.
The blooper itself wasn't all that surprising, but the fact that he went Freudian on a story about a female sure was...
Ha ha Hahahahahaha....
As if CHRIS WALLACE and the mascara wearer GET TO DICTATE what a co-equal branch of government gets to do.
Did Miss Smith get upset when NUMEROUS JUDGES violated the 14th amendment rights of MILLIONS OF VOTERS who chose to codify the definition of marriage for their community??? No?
Did Chrissie call it “WICKED” when Hussein gave a green light to Muslims to murder our ambassador in Benghazi....and then went to a FUNDRAISER in Vegas the next day?
No?
Then they both can shove it.
Plus Rove, McCain, Graham, O'Really, Beckell, Rove, Geraldo, Jesse's Girl, McCain, Juan Williams, Rove, and Any Way The Wind Blows Hanity, are the main reasons FAUX NEWS "we sorta report as we annoy Conservatives" stays off my TV. Oh BTW did I forget to mention Rove and McCain also?
I like the way you phrased that.
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