Syria

The Red Ranger: So we have a country that has used chemical weapons on its citizens and the world fails to take quick and decisive action.  I would have thought that a Nobel peace prize winner like Obama would have been able to quickly pull together a bilateral coalition to extract some payback on Assad.  I guess that he does not really have the confidence of the world leaders like everyone thought he would get when he was elected.

In fact, Obama seems to be totally fumbling US foreign relations.  Other than getting Bin Laden which if you believe some accounts Obama wasn’t too interested in following what has he done.  Our relations with Russia are probably at their lowest level since the pre-Reagan years, the Benghazi attackers have gotten away unscathed and even Britian, our former strongest ally, will not fall in line with us.  Let’s not forget his support of the Muslim Brotherhood in the coup that ousted Mubarak in Egypt.  How many Christians have the Brotherhood murdered or how many churches have they destroyed since their ouster in Egypt.

Looking back the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Obama when they did makes the committee look pretty foolish.  The award shouldn’t have been given based upon hope but on actual results.

 

Nattering Naybob: First, am I to believe that you are still adhering to that Sean Hannity nonsense that Obama “didn’t really want to get Osama bin Laden”? You’re joking, right? From Day 1 in office, Obama informed his National Security team that catching bin Laden would be a priority. Unlike George W. Bush, who replied in a press conference on Marsh 13th, 2012, LESS THAN ONE YEAR AFTER THE 9/11 ATTACKS, and I quote: “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority”.

Every President has foreign policy mis-fires, it’s part of the cost of doing business. Stop reading columns by John Bolton.

The Red Ranger: I did not mean to imply that Obama did not want to get Bin Laden, I was just referencing the fact that there were reports that he wasn’t too interested in watching the actually taking down of Bin Laden.

I would classify a mis-fire as something that happens on a rare occasion.  It seems like other than Bin Laden all of Obama’s foreign policy moves have been mis-fires.

Nattering Naybob: Oh. You are only saying that there are “rumors” (source: unknown) that he did not want to actually watch the video of bin Laden being taken down. Frankly, I don’ think it’s important whether he did or not. All I know is that he was there, watching intently. Or, you may have been seeing those internet reports from the usual Right-Wing nuts, that claim Obama’s image was somehow CGI’d or Photoshopped into the official photographs of the “war room” during the raid.

I find it truly, profoundly, pathetic that so many people waste so much time trying to discredit or criticize every single aspect of this President’s life. Over two years after we successfully captured and killed the perpetrator of the worst carnage ever inflicted on this country’s soil from outside forces, Republicans are still scraping, scratching, clawing, biting, and in some cases, chewing, to find any possible way to criticize Obama’s role in it. Sad.

And still, The Red Ranger always wonders: “What is happening to our country?”

The Red Ranger: Did you find it as profoundly, pathetic that so many people wasted time trying to discredit or criticize every single aspect of Bush’s life?  Or were you just part of the mindless Democratic horde partaking in this sport?

Nattering Naybob: No, I was not, if you want to know the truth. I thought George W. Bush  was an incompetent Chief Executive who listened too much to people who were giving him terrible advice (read: Dick Cheney). However I actually gave him credit for the way he handled the aftermath of 9/11. His “bullhorn moment” at the top of the debris pile at Ground Zero was a stroke of leadership genius, and one of the iconic moments in the history of the American Presidency. I thought he was unfairly criticized for continuing to listen for a few minutes to the reading of the students whose class he was visiting, before he started to take direct action on the news given to him on that morning.

I think Bush did a good job in imploring the nation to not take individual vengeance for 9/11 on Muslims in their neighborhood, or who they came across during their day. I think it was disgusting that someone threw shoes at him during a press conference in Iraq late in his Presidency because I think that could conceivably have been deemed an assassination attempt, and it was horrible that anyone would laugh at that and praise the show-thrower.

Bush was and is a devoted and faithful husband, father, and son, and I think his wife was an excellent and dignified First Lady. I think that any suggestion that he would have taken part in a “plot” to help facilitate 9/11 is outrageous and utterly contemptible because for all his management deficiencies, I think he is at heart a patriot and loves his country.

These are all positive comments that Republicans and the Right-Wing lunatic fringe, would never in a million years consider bestowing on Obama.

Libya: A strange way to show gratitude

The Red Ranger: So the United States aids in removing Qaddafi from power in Libya and for our thanks the Libyans go and kill our ambassador because of some film maker’s movie about Mohammad.  I though Obama was going to make everyone love us.

Nattering Naybob: Yes, it is unfortunate that Obama does not have the ability that all the previous Presidents had, to make fanatical militants, love America.
 
We are still not clear what role the amateur YouTube “film” (if it can be justified by such a term) played in all this. But I assume you heard that it was promoted heavily by Terry Jones, the so-called Florida “Pastor”, who gained notoriety last year for threatening to burn the Quran. As deliberately incendiary as his actions were, both then and now, the United States faces an impossible mission in bringing stability to the Middle East if every single nut-job who slurs Islam, whether in print or video, sparks murderous retribution towards the United States.

Mitt Romney’s statement (issued at 12:01 AM, so he could keep his pledge to leave politics out of the remembrance of 9/11), that President Obama was showing “sympathy” towards our enemies (based on a mis-interpretation of an earlier State Department statement), did not help matters either. Is this the kind of ham-handed and potentially dangerous foreign policy path that we can look forward to in a Romney administration? 
 
I see where the aforementioned Pastor Jones addressed a chapter of the Tea Party earlier this year. Don’t worry, Red Ranger, I am not holding the Tea Party responsible for the behavior of Terry Jones. But I wonder if the roles were reversed and if a pastor (or anyone) who had recently addressed a subsidiary of the Democratic Party, thereby indirectly leading to the killing of a United States Ambassador, what Fox News would be saying right now.

The Red Ranger: Whoa there, Nattering Naybob, don’t get your feathers in a tizzy so quickly.  But it is good to see that you are so willing to defend your failing leader with the usual “no one else has done it” or the “it was inherited” or “no one realized the enormity of the problem” excuses.  

I was not really trying to criticize Obama just trying to highlight the utter lunacy involved in trying to deal with these Middle Eastern countries and their citizens.

Nattering Naybob: I could tell you were trying to criticize Obama by the tone of your voice, Red Ranger. You forget we have known each other for about 42 years.