When will some of these hardcore conservatives wake up and realize that we need to work to stay out of the business of another country? Our military already is spread thin thanks to, among other things, conflicts going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. North Korea is stand out out there as an unknown potential threat and then there’s Iran. With our own eyes, thanks to various forms of media (including social media like Facebook and Twitter) we’ve seen the violence that has erupted since the highly-disputed (due to what many people feel is possible widespread voting corruption) reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran. Protests immediately erupted in Iran and, as expected, the government has tired of these protests and begun to put them down, violently so.
This brings me to a blog written by Greg Gutfeld (posted at Big Hollywood). Like a good number of conservatives, Gutfeld is whining because President Obama didn’t respond strongly enough or soon enough to suit his tastes.
Here is part of what Gutfeld wrote in a blog titled “The Bystander in Chief”:
“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”
Somehow, that statement doesn’t blow your mind like “hope and change,” but that’s exactly how Obama feels about Iran.
For Gutfeld, that is not good enough. What does Gutfeld want: missile strikes, ground troops, a nuclear bomb? Who knows? President Obama is not one of these hardcore right-wingers who want to invade every country that even looks like it is stepping out of line. The president is a man who wants to proceed carefully and now run into Iran with a cowboy hat on, bomb first, and ask questions, later (of those who survive).
“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”
Which, as you know, is a stance that has never stopped our President from immediately re-imagining health care, trying to end enhanced interrogations, or reducing carbon dioxide emissions via something ridiculous called cap and trade legislation.
I want a president who is concerned about issues more directly related to the American people. Issues like health care may not be so important to Greg Gutfeld, but they are to others who are barely making ends meet. We may not solve the health care crisis, but it’s a better issue than getting involved in the affairs of Iran (which will come back to bite us in the butt as some in that country will use it to further demonize the United States of America as evil and self-righteous meddlers). President Obama is trying to erase that false image of the United States that exists abroad.
“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”
I imagine you can use that excuse on pretty much anything. Except when it comes to press conferences. Which is why Obama does him. And now that our President has recognized that he’s potentially on the wrong side of history – he gave us a press conference designed to blunt criticism, as opposed to blunting the persecution of innocent people.
He’s on the wrong side of history, huh? I don’t think the American people see it that way. I certainly don’t think they see it that way after the previous eight years.
“Bearing witness,” as Obama calls it, is all it takes, apparently. But I’m not so sure. If you were being mugged, you’d really like a cop to shoot the bastard, instead of bearing witness. If you’re lugging five bags of groceries up four flights of stairs, “bearing witness” does no good. Lend a hand, champ.
Ugh, where does all the violence come from? President Obama is working to change things for the better and clean up the mess left for him by the previous administration. Of course, it makes it difficult with the Grand Obstructionist Party standing in his way and doing everything within its power to trip him up. President Obama is trying to lend a hand to working-class and poor people through health care reform, champ. It’s too bad Republicans won’t settle for simply bearing witness instead of obstructing. This is why the GOP has gone from champs to chumps.
So I disagree with Obama – we’re not seeing a “debate” in Iran. We’re seeing a brutal, ruthless crackdown. Something tells me that stopping that is more important than reducing carbon emissions to fight a questionable threat.
Look, I like the fact that he’s finally – although reluctantly – stepping up, but I wish Obama felt as immediately outraged about Iran as he did over the murder of an abortion doctor.
So, now we see what this is all about … our conservative friends are still whining about the murder of Dr. George Tiller (allegedly at the hands of an anti-abortion extremist). Just as Fox News correspondent Major Garrett asked a stupid question about the president’s response, so too does the rest of Fox News continue running down the football field with the ball – in the wrong direction. When you commit football suicide and run out of the back of the end zone … we’ll take the two points.
“We don’t know how this thing is going to play out.”
It would have been closer to Obama’s real concerns, if that quote ended with “for me.”
No, “for our country” is a better way it might end. The last thing we want to do is further damage the reputation of the U.S. worldwide and put more troops in harm’s way in another country. We did enough of that during the Bush-Cheney years in the White House.
What’s next: North Korea?
Big Hollywood:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/06/23/daily-gut-the-bystander-in-chief/
