Political & Elections

soccerguy315 · Guru

RE: Obama Admin: Blame 'Heinous' video, not our impotence

winchester · Guru

re:
how can you even stomach watching Bill Maher

I'm with you. Maher is the sanctimonious epitome of this accurate assessment of liberalism:

Liberalism is blind in one eye--yet it insists on the superiority of its vision and its supreme right to rule. It cannot see half the things a governing philosophy must see, and claims that those who see both halves are thereby unqualified to govern."

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/05/our-one-eyed-friends
or here,
http://www.amazon.com/one-eyed-friends-PUBLIC-SQUARE-Righteous/dp/B008CL6SBO

winchester · Guru

I like this.

if we value our freedoms, we are bound to offend a lot of Muslims a lot of the time. We can’t do much about it and we probably should not apologize. Should Salman Rushdie have apologized for writing The Satanic Verses? After all, millions of people were offended by that, too. Muslims have also been offended by a handful of obscure newspaper cartoons and by an obscure Dutch film. Last month, they were offended by a historical documentary aired on the BBC that dared to question the authenticity of some of the stories in the Koran. “Islam is a legitimate subject of historical inquiry,” objected the filmmaker, Tom Holland, who got so many threats that the BBC called off a private screening for security reasons.

Too many liberal intellectuals – and now, unbelievably, the U.S. administration – seem to think it’s partly our fault when Western insults to Islam lead to riots in the streets. But maybe there’s a bigger cause. Although it’s deeply unfashionable to say so, maybe what we have here is a clash of civilizations.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/its-too-easy-to-lay-all-the-blame-on-a-crude-video/article4550236/

In today's culture being "offended" is the ultimate trump card. If a person or group of people says or does or believes something that is contrary to what another person or group believes, then the second party is "offended" and the first party must be made to stop the supposed "offensive" behavior.

It's despicable. We've become a culture of cowards, and Obama has not only fostered it, he stands for it.

The author above is absolutely correct when she says "if we value our freedoms, we are bound to offend a lot of Muslims a lot of the time. We can’t do much about it and we probably should not apologize. "

Damn right we should not apologize.

As individuals and as a nation we should live as we believe and stand up for it, and if anyone is offended it's their problem, not ours, and they should deal with it. THAT is the true meaning of "tolerance" and "inclusiveness." TOLERATE people who believe differently from you, RESPECT their right to believe as they do, INCLUDE them in the larger society.

That's the exact opposite of the culture of being offended that we have become. At best we use being offended as a weapon to force people to suppress, or hide, their views, and at worst we use it to try to force them to change their views to be more like ours. Instead of being a culture of tolerance and respect and inclusiveness we've become a culture of thought police, in which the ultimate offense that must be prevented is to "offend" the views of somebody else.

Our culture is completetly upside down from our ideals, and the irony of it is that we've done it in the name of those ideals.

-- Edited by winchester on Tuesday 18th of September 2012 07:59:45 AM

pima · Guru

Off topic for a second, but Samurai how can you even stomach watching Bill Maher? I try every week to watch his show, but after 5 minutes I am so infuriated with his crap I have to change the channel. Seriously, the man gets on his soap box about helping out the poor, why doesn't he sell his mansion, his cars and donate his salary from HBO to the govt. He is the epitome of a hypocrite. Nobody can tell me he doesn't use tax loopholes like corporations to his advantage, but condemns corporations for doing the exact same thing. If he feels so adamant about helping...than write an additional check to the IRS. The IRS will cash it for him with no second thought!

Back to the regularly scheduled topic.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I missed that line in this article! I had seen reference that she was going into hiding back when story broke in 2010. How does Bill Maher get a free pass for offending Islam in his last movie? Just wondering.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Monday 17th of September 2012 10:23:02 AM

busdriver11 · Guru

Actually, that statement says that she is not on the taxpayer dime. She used to live next to a friend of mine, but who knows where she is living now.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I am sure Molly is enjoying her new digs on the taxpayer dime. Spontaneous, indeed. Playing right into the hand of the radical clerics and terrorists, more like it.

jazzy · Senior Member

"This" is a bit vague. If you're referring to the attack on Bengahzi, I agree that it was organized and heavily armed and not likely carried out by a mere street mob.

That doesn't apply to much of the other violence in so many places. Throughout the Muslim countries, the video, having been translated or dubbed in Arabic and launched not as a film, but as a "trailer," did indeed spark violent rage directed at the U.S. mainly. You can read many accounts by international journalists who were there, in these countries, and who quote clerics railing specifically about the video and urging their congregants to take to the streets to defend Islam. Maybe all foreign journalists and those Muslim clerics are in the tank for Obama, but I doubt it.

catahoula · Guru

The "Big Lie"? With caps?

Nah, it had about as much to do with it as any other bits of stale grievance lying around, picked up and dusted off for whatever anniversary bit of head-chopping needed to celebrate a special occasion.

I'm a firm believer in self-determination, myself, right along with the self-determining living with the consequence of the civilized world understanding they've skipped the crucial step needed to survive as a democratic society, not just some jumped up theocracy.

soccerguy315 · Guru

this didn't happen b/c of a video

jazzy · Senior Member

It can only do Obama a huge favor if the Breitbart dimwits and neocons push Romney into Gingrich-like "Act of War" saberrattling, Bachmann-like babbling (the entire Islamic world is our enemy!) and repeating the Big Lie that a U.S.-made film attacking Muhammad going viral on the internet had nothing whatsoever to do with the worldwide explosion of rage against the U.S. If MR takes up with this nonsense, his credibility in foreign policy will be even more shot than it is now.

And, btw, how dare these people, having won their freedom, elect the leaders of their choice....Islamists! We should be dictating and forcing their leaders on them like in the old days ---- that always worked out so well.

catahoula · Guru

Alter's one long-winded dude but I can't see he said anything this lead doesn't:

Matthews: Death Of Ambassador To Libya Has Been "Overshadowed By The Desperate Reach" By Romney

Maybe Bill Clinton could bull**** his way through this but then, he didn't do Carter impersonations, did he?

john doe · Guru

To Be Presidential, Romney Must First Be Truthful

By Jonathan Alter Sep 13, 2012 4:15 PM ET

Bloomberg Opinion

Presidential campaigns sometimes turn on big moments that help voters ponder the central question they have about every challenger: What would this person actually be like as president?

These aren’t the same as gaffes, which are slips of the tongue that may be politically damaging but say little about the candidates except that they misspoke.

I’m talking instead about critical moments of miscalculation -- often made in desperation -- that illuminate important truths about a politician.

In 1964, Barry Goldwater ardently defended extremism. In 1984, Walter Mondale said he would raise taxes. In 2008, John McCain suspended his campaign to work on the economic crisis and then offered no solutions for it. They all lost.

Now we have Mitt Romney, with astonishingly poor timing, trying to profit politically from tragic events in the Middle East. His remarks on Libya and Egypt at a news conference in Jacksonville, Florida, might or might not hurt his chances with pivotal independent voters in November. But we do know that he has managed to be simultaneously unpresidential, untruthful and unwise.

On the morning of Sept. 12, the world learned of the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979. Stevens died when terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. At the same time, angry mobs breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

Obvious Posture

The obvious and proper posture for a serious presidential candidate at that moment of shock and sadness would have been to show the country he could inhabit the role of mourner-in-chief, an important part of being president. Vows of justice are also welcome. Even if Romney couldn’t compete with President Barack Obama on this terrain, he needed to at least appear to be above partisan politics for a day or two.

Instead, Romney doubled down on a scorching statement issued the night before by his campaign that said: “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

In Jacksonville, Romney compounded his campaign’s slur with one of his own. “I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions,” he said.

Accusations that the Obama administration is somehow “sympathizing” with terrorists are false and, well, pathetic.

Here’s what the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, run by the Bush-era Ambassador Anne Patterson, wrote after mobs gathered outside in protest against a virulently anti-Muslim film associated with Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones:

The embassy “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims -- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions,” it said. “We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”

This is “disgraceful”? Really?

Read dispassionately, the statement is merely an effort by prudent diplomats to prevent a riot and bodily harm to Americans. It is almost identical to what the Bush administration said in 2006 after cartoons denigrating the Prophet Mohammad appeared in European newspapers: “We find them offensive, and we certainly understand why Muslims would find these images offensive.”

Was that also “akin to apology,” as Romney deemed the statement from the embassy in Cairo?

Republican Base

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the nominee is trying to pander to the Republican base, almost one-third of which still believes -- against all evidence -- that Obama is a Muslim.

In a fast-moving international crisis, facts can be confusing, which is why prudent leaders exercise caution. Not Romney, who was proud to shoot from the hip. “I don’t think we ever hesitate when we see something that is a violation of our principles,” he said at the news conference.

A little hesitation might have helped. Romney made it sound as if the statement by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo criticizing the anti-Muslim film was issued after the compound was under attack. It was issued before. A Twitter post reiterating the message, which the White House later said didn’t represent U.S. policy, was posted during the attack. But this, too, was nothing more than an effort to calm the “Arab street” and save lives.

To get a sense of how tone-deaf Romney’s news conference was, consider that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Fox News political analyst Liz Cheney and William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, were just about the only Republicans to echo his message. House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and McCain (though he assailed Obama on Libya the next day) all issued statements about Stevens’s death and the violence in Libya and Egypt. None included criticism of the Obama administration.

They understand that it’s not smart to use a tragic occasion to score political points even before the next of kin have been notified.

This fiasco may have originated with Romney, not his staff. In 2010, he wrote a book titled “No Apology” that charged Obama with issuing apologies for America in seven speeches at home and abroad in 2009. But Romney included not a single quote from any of those Obama speeches showing that the president actually apologized.

Is this what we want in a president? Imagine what would happen in the Arab world if a President Romney, pursuing his “No Apology” policy, expressed no regret when Korans were mistakenly destroyed by U.S. forces at a prison in Afghanistan, as they were earlier this year. The region would be ablaze for his entire time in office.

Americans recognize that judgment, prudence, instinct and a sense of what the moment demands are all job requirements for the presidency. Romney met none of them this week.

catahoula · Guru

And the media, with the notable exception of Tapper, continues to cover for the Obama administration. The facts are simple: Obama’s Middle East policy has handed over full countries to Islamists. These are the predictable results. This was never about a YouTube movie, even if Obama and company would prefer that the American people think it was.

Cover your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, sing kumbaya and spin your silly self till you barf, this is the unpleasant truth. The Arab street didn't dig the RPG's up after stumbling across that video while looking for something for movie night.

The adminstration, and what media it has in the bag for it, seem to be doing a full on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz impersonation.

Whether you've seen this one or not, it can't ever really get stale as long as the NYT and the like keep it up.

Chris M.?

john doe · Guru

He would do the exact opposite of what most Americans want which is to get out of these extremist countries and let them just kill each other.

longprime · Guru

In as much as US-America has a Constitution and Bill-of-Rights, Any President would have trouble in contolling what its Citizens say, save for sedition and even that may be difficult to prove. Even nonCitizens have an extensive protections. Popular opinion and good citizenship responsibility could be the only recourse our Nation has to limiting excessive and inflammatory actions.

So, what would Romney, do?

catahoula · Guru

That clerics are railing in chorus proves nothing other than the internet's still working, jazzy.

I guess when the reed's really weak, the spin has to be nuanced so lightly it won't break:

--------------------------

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi last week 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 me this morning on “This Week.”

“In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated,” Rice said, referring to protests in Egypt Tuesday over a film that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. Protesters in Cairo breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy, tearing apart an American flag.

“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,” Rice said. “And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there.”

-------------------------------------------------

A "spontaneous" "challenge" she calls it, one "hijacked" by opportunists, rather than admit it's a judgement as to the effectiveness of the president's outreach foreign policy. They'll go down kicking and screaming it's all due to an exercise of free speech and we shouldn't be surprised.

I forget how many times it takes to make a habit, but - remember Molly Norris?

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, "going ghost": moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It's all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoon

-- Edited by catahoula on Sunday 16th of September 2012 09:00:04 PM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Why is Jake Tapper at ABC News the only one pressing this issue?

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

OBAMA ADMIN: BLAME 'HEINOUS' VIDEO, NOT OUR 'IMPOTENCE'

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by BEN SHAPIRO 16 Sep 2012, 9:51 AM PDT

The Obama administration this morning sent out Ambassador Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, to flack for the administration’s utterly feckless Middle Eastern foreign policy. Her task was difficult: she somehow had to spin the administration’s cowardly foreign policy, resulting in a maelstrom of violent Islamist action around the world, as a result of something not Obama-related.

And she did. She blamed a YouTube video.

On ABC’s This Week, Jake Tapper asked Rice:

Look at this map, if you would. There have been protests around the world over the last several days. And President Obama pledged to repair America's relationships with the Muslim world. Why does the U.S. seem so impotent? And why is the U.S. even less popular today in some of these Muslim and Arab countries than it was four years ago?

Rice’s answer was astounding:

Jake, we’re not impotent. We’re not even less popular, to challenge that assessment. I don’t know on what basis you make that judgment.

Well, Ambassador, it might be the al Qaeda flag flying over the US embassy in Tunisia. Or maybe it’s the dead American ambassador in Libya. Or perhaps it’s the burning of the American flag at the Cairo embassy, or outside our embassy in London. Or it could be the 29 other countries that experienced anti-US violence last week. But Rice continued:

It’s actually the opposite. First of all, let’s be clear what transpired here. What happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi, in many other parts of the region, was a direct result of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the US government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting.

This is where the rubber meets the road for the Obama administration. They’ve spent the entirety of the last week playing movie critic to a YouTube video that presents an offensive take on Islam. Now, it’s not the job of the White House to play Siskel & Ebert; it’s the White House’s job to defend American freedoms around the world. Imagine if these Islamist assaults had been about Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger going at it inBrokeback Mountain. Would the White House have been so quick to offer its movie review? “Well, Jake, while I found the cinematography stunning and the portrayal of the same-sex relationship groundbreaking, I did quibble a bit with Michelle Williams’ performance … and the film was offensive to Muslims.”

Surely not. Some free speech rights are more equal than others, apparently. And the Obama administration won't stand up for free speech rights. In fact, Rice refused to do so this morning when questioned by David Gregory on Meet the Press -- she simply wouldn't answer why the Cairo embassy didn't say anything about free speech rights as Muslims rioted. Instead, she continued to blame the YouTube movie.

This is the height of absurdity. The attacks last week, especially in Libya, were well-planned and coordinated beginning months ago, as the Libyan President stated this morning. This was never about a YouTube video. New reports suggest that a Libyan security official told American diplomats that the situation in Benghazi was unsafe three days before the ambassador was killed. Last week, reports suggested that America had intelligence on the Libya attacks 48 hours in advance.

But the Obama administration must continue to embrace the lie that all this violence and chaos is the fault of one obscure YouTube video. There’s a reason they’re ignoring reality: if they acknowledge that the video wasn’t the problem, then the administration’s spineless foreign policy is the problem.

And make no mistake – it is the problem. Late last week, Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi told Obama “to put an end to such behavior” – referring to the exercise of free speech in the United States so long as it offends Islamists. And President Obama quickly complied; the Christian filmmaker behind the YouTube video was taken in for questioning. In America. Local authorities said they were investigating him for “financial crimes.” But the timing makes a mockery of that contention. So, too, does the Obama administration’s support – at the United Nations, by Ambassador Rice presumably – for a resolution condemning “religious intolerance.” The resolution was originally crafted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); the State Department hosted a meeting to discuss implementation.

And the media, with the notable exception of Tapper, continues to cover for the Obama administration. The facts are simple: Obama’s Middle East policy has handed over full countries to Islamists. These are the predictable results. This was never about a YouTube movie, even if Obama and company would prefer that the American people think it was.

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Tapper To UN Ambassador: 'Why Is U.S. So Impotent?'