Inexperienced “Man” With Performance Issues?

For three years in a row, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been declared the most powerful man in the world by Forbes Magazine.

It’s no wonder.  Just last month Putin sent Russian planes, troops and ammunition into Syria to bomb ISIS forces there and met face-to-face with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad making the United States and NATO look weak in the Middle East.

With The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s influence shrinking, his approval ratings consistently mired below 50% and a growing chorus within his own party questioning his foreign policies, the President slipped to third.  Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was named the second most powerful person in the world.  That left Barry slinking in at third.  This is the first year in which a sitting president of the United States has not been in the top two on Forbes’ list.

Mr. Petulant, speaking at a fundraiser in New York, mocked Republican presidential candidates for not being able to handle “a bunch of CNBC moderators.”  Need we remind him when he was running for president he joined The Ice Cube In Heels in 2007 in boycotting a debate hosted by Fox?

Allahpundit got it right when he quipped, “What you’re really seeing here, I think, is Princess’s ego showing. The charge that Putin is kicking sand in his face stings because it’s obviously true and he didn’t pause in his annoyance before hitting back to consider whether maybe he wasn’t a gigantic hypocrite in doing so. Simple as that.”

@markknoller pass this along to POTUS: "The 80s are calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20yrs"

— Mark Mark Mark (@RevJimJonesInc) November 4, 2015

Carly Rose To The Occasion Lapping The Field

A scrapper with true grit, Carly Fiorina took the stage at the Reagan Presidential Library for the second GOP debate and drew her sword.  Brit Hume and a whole host of male pundits criticized Fiorina’s failure to smile noting that she came across as too aggressive and lacking humor.

Geez boys.  I find nothing humorous about mutilating babies to harvest their organs, the national debt, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, Putin’s incursions into Syria, the growing Islamic Caliphate, drug addiction and the culture of corruption in politics.  How about coming to terms with the fact that she had to show her toughness on stage?

On six morning talk shows today Fiorina said, “This is going to be a fight.  If you can’t fight on a debate stage, you can’t stand up and fight for the American people.”  She went on to say, “It’s only a woman whose appearance would be talked about when running for president—never a man.”  She added, “The point is, women are half this nation.  Women are half the potential of this nation.  Still somehow we spend a lot of time talking about women’s appearance instead of their qualifications.” [Damn right.]

John Podhoretz praised her performance noting, “At almost any moment that she managed to seize time to speak—and she was compelled by the structure of the debate to interrupt repeatedly to get that time—she knocked it out of the park.”

One über-liberal pundit wrote, "If you right wingers get your act together and nominate Carly, you win."

Byron York, writing for The Washington Examiner felt Carly had four “big moments” in the debate.

The first came when Fiorina turned a meandering conversation about Vladimir Putin into a crisp recitation of what a new commander in chief should do about Russian aggression:

"What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Soleimani's name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad."

"We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could also, to Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've asked for, which is intelligence. We could give the Jordanians what they've asked for, bombs and materiel. We have not supplied it. I will. We could arm the Kurds. They've been asking us for three years. All of this is within our control."

Fiorina had packed more policy prescriptions into one brief statement—all while throwing in a dig at Donald Trump with the reference to knowing "General Soleimani's name"—than any other candidate onstage could muster.

Any other campaign might have dispatched spinners to celebrate the moment. But Fiorina was just getting started. Next came an epic and out-of-the-blue connection of two of the issues about which there is a lot of agreement among Republicans—Iran's nuclear ambitions and the scandal over Planned Parenthood's sale of body parts. How to put those two together?

"I would like to link these two issues. One has something to do with the defense of the security of this nation. The other has something to do with the defense of the character of this nation. You have not heard a plan about Iran from any politician up here, here is my plan. On day one in the Oval Office, I will make two phone calls, the first to my good friend to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him we will stand with the state of Israel."

"The second, to the supreme leader, to tell him that unless and until he opens every military and every nuclear facility to real anytime, anywhere inspections by our people, not his, we, the United States of America, will make it as difficult as possible and move money around the global financial system."

"We can do that; we don't need anyone's cooperation to do it. And every ally and every adversary we have in this world will know that the United States in America is back in the leadership business, which is how we must stand with our allies."

"As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it's heart beating, it's legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up in and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us."

The power of Fiorina's presentation simply knocked out a lot of viewers. Conservative writer Mollie Hemingway, who has been pressing the media to pay more attention to the Planned Parenthood videos, was left nearly speechless, tweeting "THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY." 

But Fiorina's most intense big moment was still to come—and it was by far the briefest. Everyone knew that Donald Trump's insults about Fiorina's looks—the "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?" quote from Trump in a recent Rolling Stone article—would come up in the debate. It did, when moderator Jake Tapper read it to Fiorina and noted Trump's explanation that he was not talking about Fiorina's actual face but rather her "persona."

"Please feel free to respond what you think about his persona," Tapper said to Fiorina. Referring to an earlier spat between Trump and Jeb Bush over a Bush statement about women's health, Fiorina answered:

"You know, it's interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said."

Fiorina's answer took just a few seconds, but it knocked Trump flat—something that has not happened in any debate, or any other campaign event, so far. Trump, who has made it a habit not to apologize for attacks and to double down when challenged, surrendered completely. But he managed to do it in a way that did him no good at all. "I think she's got a beautiful face," Trump said, "and I think she's a beautiful woman." Did anyone believe that? And wasn't he still saying her appearance is an issue?

Finally, Fiorina lapped the field when Tapper asked the candidates to suggest a woman to put on the $10 bill. Most of the men onstage were unprepared for the question.  When the question came to the only woman on the stage, Fiorina rejected its premise.

Four big moments in one debate. No other candidate had that. 

Carly Fiorina Rips Planned Parenthood

Carly Fiorina Slams Hillary Clinton

Trump On Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina Gets Personal Discussing Drugs

According to Fiorina’s 2015 memoir, her stepdaughter, Lori, died in 2009 after struggling with alcohol, prescription pills and bulimia. She was just 35.

Chuck, Your Bus Is Here

This morning The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer stood at the podium in the White House State Dining Room to announce the departure resignation firing of his scapegoat third Secretary of Defense.

The president oozed phony platitudes:

“Last month, Chuck came to me to discuss the final quarter of my presidency and determined that having guided the department through this transition, it was an appropriate time for him to complete his service.” 

“Let me just say that Chuck is and has been a great friend of mine. I’ve known him, admired him and trusted him for nearly a decade since I was a green-behind-the-ears freshman senator and we were both on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” 

“If there’s one thing I know about Chuck, it’s that he does not make this or any decision lightly. This decision does not come easily to him, but I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have had him by my side for two years.” 

“And I am grateful that Chuck has agreed to stay on until I nominate a successor and that successor is confirmed by the Senate, which means that he’ll continue to guide our troops at this challenging time.”

I never agreed with Hagel’s appointment to that post. During his confirmation hearing he was ripped for his inflammatory remarks about Israel and the “Jewish lobby”, his support for unilateral reductions of U.S. nuclear weapons and his opposition to the surge in Iraq.

Secretary Hagel’s undoing was when he contradicted the regime’s talking points on Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria and the leaked letter he sent to National Security Advisor Susan Rice in which he asserted that Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, was “indirectly benefitting” from an impotent U.S. policy against ISIS.

Only difference between what WH aides are now saying about Hagel and what GOP said at his hearing is WH aides are talking anonymously.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) November 24, 2014

FROM: Every Republican TO: Every Democrat RE: Chuck Hagel We told you so. We told you so. We told you so. We told you so.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) November 24, 2014

As with OCare, the IRS, Benghazi, and Obama in general -- Hagel vindicates conservatives and proves the media subservient lapdogs.
— John Nolte (@NolteNC) November 24, 2014

About That “Leading From Behind” Foreign Policy Of Yours

When The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer campaigned for re-election two years ago, he repeatedly reassured us al-Qaeda had been “decimated” and “is on the path to defeat”—even after the attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Today, The Washington Post sounded the alarm that the so-called Islamic State “now controls resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations.”

Brilliant!

Please Don’t Feed The Animals

MINNEHAHA PARK—The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer spoke to a handpicked contingent of bored, phone-gazing millennials on Thursday.

“Let me tell you something, I’ve been really looking forward to getting out of D.C.,” TWMDCO said. “Our agenda’s still a little loose. You know I might pop in for some ice cream or visit a small business. I don’t know.  I always tease them [the Secret Service] I’m like a caged bear and every once in a while I break loose.  I’m just going to make it up as I go along.  I’m feeling super loose today.  So you don’t know what I might do. You don’t know what I might do.  Who knows?”

In the deep recesses of his narcissistic mind comparing himself to a caged bear connotes a fearsome creature, but to the rest of us poor schmoes all we envision is a pitiful creature relegated to wearing silly ruffles riding a ridiculously undersized tricycle.

Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Hamid Karzai, Kim Jong-Un, ISIS and all the other bad actors in the world see him in ruffles too.

Today, Clinton “mechanic” George Stephanopoulos poked at the caged bear declaring that the American public doesn’t support his foreign policy.  “George,” the ruffled tricycle-riding laughingstock chuckled, “there’s going to be times when the world is messy.”

The Insufferable Airhorn’s Plans To Become World Caliph An Epic Fail

Millions of Egyptians massed in Tahrir Square in Cairo to celebrate the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.  Kori Schake of Foreign Policy noted The Insufferable Airhorn “achieved the impossible, getting all factions angry with the U.S.”

Schake continues, “U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has achieved the hat trick of alienating all factions in Egypt. It neither defended nor pushed out Hosni Mubarak, thereby earning the embitterment of both the ‘deep state’ that had been America’s ally for 30 years and liberals who agitated against it; gave the military a pass during the 18 months of its ‘caretaking’ when policy choices and governance rules might have been established; waived congressional concerns limiting U.S. foreign aid; gave the elected government too little support to have influence; was largely silent during a crackdown on nongovernmental groups; and now condescendingly suggests Egyptians would do better to politically organize than protest.”

Protesters carrying signs that were clearly anti-Obama, anti-Clinton and anti-Ambassador Patterson indicted them all as shills of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Meanwhile, The Insufferable Airhorn was playing golf for the 19^th time this year.  If you’re keeping score, that’s the 130^th golf outing of his administration.

And John "Christmas-In-Cambodia-Is-Seared-In-My-Memory" Kerry, Hillary’s replacement at the State Department, was cavorting in Nantucket Sound on his 76-foot yacht, the Isabel.

CBS owned the story regarding “Lurch” being seen riding in a boat to get to another boat just to be able to board the yacht.  So it was little wonder that Sunday’s Face the Nation featured Reuters journalist David Rohde saying that the young people of Egypt would not be inspired by U.S leaders.

Rohde said, “The President has a tough statement and then, you, I don’t know how this happened, but it was terrible optics, the next day the President goes golfing and Secretary Kerry is out on his yacht.  What does that say to young people in Egypt and across the Middle East?”

If anything, they’re getting a taste of what we here in America have to deal with every day.  Welcome to our world kids.

Video H/T Blazing Cat Fur

Romney: America Carries A Torch And Must Hold It High Enough That All The World Can See Its Light

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney gave his much anticipated foreign policy speech today at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA.  He began by citing its contributions to the nation both in war and in peace by the students’ “transformation into citizens and warriors and leaders.”

Romney continued,  “Of all the VMI graduates, none is more distinguished than George Marshall—the Chief of Staff of the Army who became Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, who helped to vanquish fascism and then planned Europe’s rescue from despair. His commitment to peace was born of his direct knowledge of the awful costs and consequences of war. General Marshall once said, ‘The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.’  Those words were true in his time—and they still echo in ours.”

Romney then began in earnest to demolish the president’s foreign policy by raising the issue of Benghazi. “As the dust settles, as the murdered are buried, Americans are asking how this happened, how the threats we face have grown so much worse, and what this calls on America to do.  These are the right questions.  And I have come here today to offer a larger perspective on these tragic recent events—and to share with you, and all Americans, my vision for a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.”

“The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts.  They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East—a region that is now in the midst of the most profound upheaval in a century.  And the fault lines of this struggle can be seen clearly in Benghazi itself.”

“The attack on our Consulate in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 was likely the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001. This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long.  No, as the Administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls; who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.”

Lara Logan, CBS correspondent told 60 Minutes in a passionate plea, “that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war.  We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past:  ‘You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight.  In your arrogance, you think you write the script.  Our enemies are writing the story and there’s no happy ending for us.’”

Romney emphatically said it is the “responsibility of our President to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.  Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama.”

The world is in the throes of a crisis and this president has grabbed at baubles and glitter, made endless speeches, attended fundraisers and played at least 100 rounds of golf.

Romney said he would support Israel, the nation most obviously at risk if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, and charged that Obama’s poor relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has helped embolden Iran and other adversaries.

“I will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel and our abiding commitment to its security,” Romney said. “The world must never see any daylight between our two nations.”

He closed his speech with optimism, “The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.”

“The torch America carries is one of decency and hope. It is not America’s torch alone. But it is America’s duty—and honor—to hold it high enough that all the world can see its light.”

Bing West echoes my sentiment about Romney’s speech today:  “In summary, Mr. Romney has presented a foreign-policy view akin to that of President Reagan, asserting faith in American leadership—while equating Mr. Obama’s leadership to that of the timid President Jimmy Carter.”

The White House Disinformation Campaign On Libya

New evidence shows there were security threats in Libya in the months prior to the deadly September 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Despite these threats, the State Department left its personnel there to fend for themselves.

The Mediocrity Of The President Or The Destiny Of Our Nation?

On August 27, 2012 Bret Stephens wrote a stinging appraisal of this president’s failed foreign policies.  His piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal sixteen days before the barbaric murders of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.

Stephens writes:

“I tend to think that the buzz about American decline mistakes the mediocrity of the president for the destiny of the nation. But we have an election on, the outcome of which will decide whether one man’s mediocrity becomes a whole nation’s destiny. Mr. Obama is now the world’s leading has-been, trying to revive a career on the strength of a talent that was greatly exaggerated to begin with. But a country that’s willing to reward mediocrity with a second chance risks becoming a has-been itself.”

In his piece, Stephens comments that “the president would rather be loved than feared.  He is neither.”

I chose to Photoshop the picture associated with this post by substituting the American flag that had been set ablaze while a group of radical Muslims look on with the flag that his Obamaness is now hawking on his website.

His failed effort to improve America’s standing in the Muslim world with the now-forgotten Cairo speech and his comment while on the 2008 campaign trail where he boasted “when I’m inaugurated Muslim hostility will ease” rings hollow.  Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton said, “And what's unmistakable, despite the bluster which is coming from the Obama administration, they [the Muslim world] are not afraid of the United States. They do not fear this president. They do not fear the United States. They do not fear consequences for their actions.”

America’s friends are bereft, confused, paralyzed, says Charles Krauthammer.  He warns:

“Islamists rise across North Africa from Mali to Egypt. Iran repeatedly defies U.S. demands on nuclear enrichment, then, as a measure of its contempt for what America thinks, openly admits that its Revolutionary Guards are deployed in Syria. Russia, after arming Assad, warns America to stay out, while the secretary of state delivers vapid lectures about Assad ‘meeting’ his international ‘obligations.’ The Gulf states beg America to act on Iran; Obama strains mightily to restrain…Israel.”

“Sovereign U.S. territory is breached and U.S. interests are burned. And what is the official response? One administration denunciation after another — of a movie trailer! A request to Google to ‘review’ the trailer’s presence on YouTube. And a sheriff’s deputies’ midnight ‘voluntary interview’ with the suspected filmmaker. This in the land of the First Amendment.”

“What else can Obama do? At their convention, Democrats endlessly congratulated themselves on their one foreign policy success: killing Osama bin Laden. A week later, the Salafist flag flies over four American embassies, even as the mob chants, ‘Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas.’”

“A foreign policy in epic collapse. And, by the way, Vladimir Putin just expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development from Russia. Another thank you from another recipient of another grand Obama ‘reset.’”

I’ll close with this. Froggy at Blackfive attended the funeral of Tyrone Woods, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi while trying to protect Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

He writes:

Ty's widow, Dorothy, delivered an inspiring eulogy with more grace, poise, and fervor than I have ever witnessed from the spouse of a fallen warrior.  I wish I had the entire thing on tape, as it should be read by the nation on the anniversary of 9/11 next year.  Here are two quotes that I will never forget.

"It is easy to write a book about being a Navy SEAL, but it is very hard to write an obituary for one." 

"To all the Operators here today I give you this charge: Rid the world of those savages.  I'll say it again, RID THE WORLD OF THOSE SAVAGES!"