I know we are in the first week of 2010 and should be inclined to look forward rather than backward. Yet I think it’s only fair to look back over the past year and revisit the six stupidest things President Obama did in 2009.
Now one must realize that the challenge here wasn’t to come up with six stupidest things Obama had done. That was the easy part. The challenge was what to leave off the list. There was his joke about the Special Olympics. There was the time he told our troops they made a good photo-op. Who could forget when he told the nation we could have Obamacare without adding a dime to the deficit? How are those cabinet appointments for Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder working out? Snubbing fellow Nobel laureate The Dalai Lama was not one of Obama’s brighter moments. Not to mention all that incessant apologizing and bowing. So here’s the stupidest of the stupid.
6. Accusing Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James Crowley of “Acting Stupidly”
When a politician is asked about an ongoing judicial matter it is customary for a politician to say that it is a matter before the court that he cannot comment upon.
But instead of responding in a proprietary manner, President Obama allowed his friendship with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to cloud his judgment. Although Obama admitted he didn’t have all the facts before him he nonetheless concluded that Sergeant Crowley had “acted stupidly.” To his credit, Sgt. Crowley stood his ground and called Obama’s comments “way off base.” (1)
Of course, the air would be cleared with a beer summit at the White House. But there would have never been a need for such a meeting had President Obama politely declined comment.
5. Declaring War on the Fox News Channel
What was the White House thinking when it decided to single out the Fox News Channel for derision? Sure it might have impressed some of Obama’s most ardent followers but as a general rule it’s not a good idea to insult the viewing public. After all, Obama won over a lot of FNC viewers when he appeared on The O’Reilly Factor in September 2008.
President Obama did himself no favors by dismissing FNC as “a talk radio format.”(2)
Shortly after White House Chief of Staff David Axelrod stated FNC was not “a legitimate news organization” the White House attempted to exclude the network from a press pool interview with the White House pay czar Ken Feinberg. The other networks, to their credit, refused to play ball and the Obama Administration relented. (3)
This was a fight the Obama Administration picked and lost badly.
4. Scrapping Missile Defense Programs in Poland & the Czech Republic
It’s difficult to see how it is in the interests of the United States to scrap the construction of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. In fact, there are only two reasons for President Obama to have made this decision – to placate Russia and to take yet another swipe at President Bush.
Now Russia is supposed to help us rein in Iran. Yet scarcely a month after abandoning the missile defense program, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We are convinced that threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the present situation are counter-productive." Lavrov made this remarks after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an official visit to him in Moscow. (4) Gee, great work guys.
The Obama Administration hasn’t exactly endeared itself to its Eastern European allies. Czech parliamentarian Jan Vidim remarked, "If the (Obama) Administration approaches us in the future with any request, I would be strongly against it.”(5)
Talk about rewarding your enemies and punishing your friends.
3. We Will Not Meddle in Iran
So overwhelming has President Obama’s desire been to engage Iran he was prepared to throw its democracy activists under the bus even when it became clear its “elections” were a fraud. "It is not productive, given the history of US-Iranian relations to be seen as meddling - the US president, meddling in Iranian elections,” said President Obama last June. (6) But that didn’t stop Iran’s regime from accusing Obama from meddling now did it? (7)
Of course, this is the same President Obama who was more than happy to meddle where it concerned Honduras, Israel and Sri Lanka.
2. Transferring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to U.S. Civilian Court
KSM and four co-defendants were quite prepared to plead guilty before a U.S. military tribunal last December. (8) But last November, President Obama came to their rescue and transferred them into civilian court. So now KSM and his lawyers can compromise national security interests and put the Bush Administration’s interrogation techniques on trial all in one fell swoop.
This decision was ostensibly Attorney General Holder’s to make. Yet when appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder could not tell Senator Lindsey Graham if an enemy combatant seized on the battlefield had ever been tried in U.S. civilian court. As Graham told Holder, “We’re making history here and we’re making bad history.” (9) And if KSM gets acquitted then we’re also making stupid history.
1. Closing Gitmo
President Obama’s dumbest decision of 2009 took place his first day on the job.
It was a clear message that he does not take terrorism committed in the name of Islamic fundamentalism seriously. If he did then KSM would have his day in court before a military tribunal. Nor would Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the man who attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, be in a position to ask for a lawyer, maintain his right to be silent while telling us there are others like him.
We can only hope that President Obama will be a little less stupid in 2010.
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- http://wbztv.com/local/obama.comment.cambridge.2.1097782.html
- http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/21/obama-compares-fox-news-talk-radio-says-hes-losing-sleep-controversy/
- http://www.nowpublic.com/world/white-house-attempts-bar-fox-press-pool
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8303517.stm
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574418563346840666.html
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5556155/Iran-election-Barack-Obama-refuses-to-meddle-over-protests.html
- http://europenews.dk/en/node/24123
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7770856.stm
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG7lm8Sfbo4
