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Our Bitter and Graceless President
Commentary magazine ^ | November 18, 2015 | Peter Wehner

Posted on 11/18/2015 6:44:14 PM PST by Kaslin

We all know people of towering arrogance and we all know people of staggering incompetence, but Barack Obama is quite possibly the perfect package. No one on the scene today combines these two qualities in quite the same way as Mr. Obama.

On the incompetence side, and sticking just with the president's policies and record in the greater Middle East, there is Mr. Obama's mishandling of the rise of the Islamic State, which just last year he referred to as the "jayvee team" and just last week declared was "contained." Recall his threat to Syrian President Assad that if Assad used chemical weapons on his own people it would constitute crossing a "red line" (Assad did and Obama did nothing), and his stop-start-stop support for opposition forces in Syria.

Then there is the president's decision to pull out all American troops from Iraq, which had disastrous consequences; his failures in Afghanistan (including announcing a withdrawal date even as he was announcing a surge in troops); his bungled relations with Egypt; his failure to support the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009 and his nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, which Charles Krauthammer called "the worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history." Add to that Mr. Obama declaring his policies in Libya, Yemen and Somalia to be models of success before things collapses in all three countries, his alienation and mistreatment of Israel, and his botched handling of relations with our Arab allies not to mention policies that have allowed Russia a presence in the Middle East unlike any its had since Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviet Union from Egypt in the early 1970s and you have a catastrophic foreign policy record. It was only in the summer of last year that the Wall Street Journal reported, "The breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn't been seen since the late 1970s" and things are more disordered, chaotic and violent now then it was then. Things are so bad that the president has even lost CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Now most of us, with this almost unblemished record of ineptness, might feel some embarrassment. We might show a touch of self-reflection. And we would at least resist the temptation to lecture others. But not Mr. Obama. In his press conference in Turkey earlier this week, the president was prickly, petulant, condescending and small-minded. Consider just these two paragraphs:

But what we do not do, what I do not do is to take actions either because it is going to work politically or it is going to somehow, in the abstract, make America look tough, or make me look tough. And maybe part of the reason is because every few months I go to Walter Reed, and I see a 25-year-old kid who's paralyzed or has lost his limbs, and some of those are people I've ordered into battle. And so I can't afford to play some of the political games that others may.

We'll do what's required to keep the American people safe. And I think it's entirely appropriate in a democracy to have a serious debate about these issues. If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan. If they think that somehow their advisors are better than the Chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them. And we can have that debate. But what I'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning, or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people, and to protect people in the region who are getting killed, and to protect our allies and people like France. I'm too busy for that.

If only the president could summon up this much passion and anger against oh, say, the Islamic State. Or the malevolent regimes of Iran and Syria. But no; it's the Republicans for whom Mr. Obama has special antipathy. What a lovely touch, too, using soldiers who are paralyzed and without limbs to try to shut his critics down. And since we're dealing with Obama, there is the requisite "my critics are playing political games while my motives are as pure as the new-driven snow."

By now it's all quite predictable and quite tiresome. Even the president's own peculiar psychological habits his tendency to project, his narcissism and seething resentment in reaction to criticisms, his inability to see reality when reality conflicts with his rigid and dogmatic views are tedious because they are so commonly on display.

Watching Mr. Obama deal with his manifold and multiplying failures is to watch a man grow more bitter and graceless by the day. It's a long, long way from hope and change.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 0crazy; obama; psychoprez
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1 posted on 11/18/2015 6:44:14 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

The spoiled brat sure does sound bitter when he throws his tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. I can see why his mother dumped his spoiled ass on her parents.


2 posted on 11/18/2015 6:47:14 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (#blackfridaysmatter)
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To: Kaslin

As owebama’s time in office gets shorter he will become even more petulant, divisive, and dangerous. Bad times are here and getting worse.


3 posted on 11/18/2015 6:48:26 PM PST by 43north (BHO: 50% black, 50% white, 100% RED.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

Well actually if you think about it, they didn’t stop his temper tantrum either. They most likely encouraged it.


4 posted on 11/18/2015 6:51:31 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

It is ultimately the failure of a stupid American electorate. One term was bad enough. That he was given a second is incomprehensible.


5 posted on 11/18/2015 6:51:46 PM PST by doug from upland (The ultimate in foolishness -- "'Romney is just as bad as Obama" WTF?)
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To: Kaslin

I think he is a spoiled, petulant, man-child but this is all going as he, or his puppeteer, have it planned.


6 posted on 11/18/2015 6:51:51 PM PST by kalee
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To: 43north

I am afraid you are correct.


7 posted on 11/18/2015 6:52:24 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

He keeps saying His Strategy on IsIs is working so that makes me think that he is on the other side because he is enabling them and has been from Day 1.

This man is scary and evil all wrapped up in that skinny frame of his.


8 posted on 11/18/2015 7:01:56 PM PST by funfan
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To: Kaslin

There are people STILL writing about Obama’s “incompetence”???

Obama is the most successful “president” in U.S. history. He is an illegal alien Marxist Muslim Brotherhood agent. He hates Christians, Jews, and all other non-Muslims, and has engineered the genocide of all those groups. If he had a button that would kill 310 Americans, he would push it.

Can the Saudi-controlled government we now have be toppled with a mere “election”? Not if the next Republican runs a campaign like Romney’s—one governed entirely by the fear that Americans cannot handle the truth, and must spooned reassuring goo about how nice the usurper really is.


9 posted on 11/18/2015 7:02:19 PM PST by Arthur McGowan (Beau Biden's funeral, attended by Bp. Malooly, Card. McCarrick, and Papal Nuncio, Abp. Vigano.)
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To: Kaslin

Good read. Concise and accurate.


10 posted on 11/18/2015 7:02:40 PM PST by matt1234 (Note to GOPe lurkers: I and thousands like me will NEVER vote for Jeb Bush)
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To: 43north

Robin of Berkeley from 2011:

Because Obama will not change. He will not learn from his mistakes. He will not grow and mature from on-the-job experience. In fact, over time, Obama will likely become a more ferocious version of who he is today.
Why? Because this is a damaged person. Obama’s fate was sealed years ago growing up in his strange and poisonous family. Later on, his empty vessel was filled with the hateful bile of men like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.
Obama will not evolve; he will not rise to the occasion; he will not become the man he was meant to be. This is for one reason and one reason alone:
He is not capable of it.


11 posted on 11/18/2015 7:03:18 PM PST by Aria (Abortion = murder, the taking of a human life.)
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To: Kaslin

12 posted on 11/18/2015 7:07:41 PM PST by Hoodat (Article 4, Section 4)
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To: Kaslin
OBAMA: "WHAT I'M NOT INTERESTED IN DOING IS POSING OR PURSUING SOME NOTION OF AMERICAN LEADERSHIP OR AMERICA WINNING:"

0bama is not an American, he does not love America, he is not upholding his oath of office.

Impeach him now!

13 posted on 11/18/2015 7:21:49 PM PST by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason and rule of law. Prepare!)
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To: Kaslin

I have heard people say obama is stupid or incompetent, and afraid to make aggressive, decisive action against islamic terrorists, he is neither, he is doing exactly what he wants to do and that is destroy resistance to Islam. 9-11 and all the other attacks are NOT acts of war, they are NOT terrorist attacks, they ARE acts of islam.


14 posted on 11/18/2015 7:29:01 PM PST by Ponyexpress9790
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To: doug from upland
That he was given a second is incomprehensible.

You are welcome!

15 posted on 11/18/2015 7:38:36 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: TigersEye

I’d rather have that arrogant pos sentenced for life + 100 years to prison in Leavenworth, KS


16 posted on 11/18/2015 7:39:22 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: doug from upland

It was more than enough


17 posted on 11/18/2015 7:40:31 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

“Well actually if you think about it, they didn’t stop his temper tantrum either. They most likely encouraged it.”

They encouraged him to blame all his problems on the United States of America.


18 posted on 11/18/2015 7:45:55 PM PST by marktwain
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To: FlingWingFlyer

It seems that Obama is the bitter clinger.


19 posted on 11/18/2015 8:04:18 PM PST by Henry Hnyellar
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To: Kaslin
I wonder how many times he really has visited the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed.

After the terrorist attack at Fort Hood, George W. Bush quietly drove down to visit the wounded, no publicity. A few days later Obama visited the base for a photo-op, but didn't take the time to meet with any of the wounded.

Of course, in his eyes they weren't victims of a terror attack, but of "workplace violence."

20 posted on 11/18/2015 8:04:22 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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