Friday, May 15, 2009

Obama and Pelosi - bonehead moments

Barack Obama yesterday in New Mexico: “We can’t keep on just borrowing from China…We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.” He went on to say that current deficit spending is “unsustainable” and warned of future skyrocketing interest rates.

It appears Obama is back into campaign mode, only this time he is now campaigning against himself. Of all the things that strike me about this guy, what stands out the most is his glaring lack of leadership qualities. Yes, folks, he is actually criticizing his own budget. Leaders don’t do things like that. Leaders take action. Hopefully he will grow into the job, but it seems like I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

And in the bonehead moment of the week, Nancy Pelosi has decided to declare political war on the CIA. Her story regarding the “torture” briefings has changed nearly half a dozen times and yesterday she decided to outright accuse the CIA of criminal behavior by deliberately lying to Congress. Dumb move. Very dumb.

This woman was formerly the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, which means she had a lot of interactions with the CIA, which means the CIA has a lot of briefing memos with her name on it. Put simply, they have the goods on Pelosi and have a talent for “leaking” things like that to the press.

I’ve never been impressed with Nancy’s cerebral skills, but this is foolish even by her standards. You could almost hear the collective gasp from her advisors when she stumbled into her accusations at yesterday’s press conference. That thing got out of hand in a hurry. Obama’s own CIA director is saying that the CIA was right. And now the sharks are circling. Even though she is a ranking Democrat, the press is still the press. And when there is blood in the water a feeding frenzy will soon begin. Ms. Pelosi is about to become radioactive.

Just watch and see how fast the Dems throw her under the bus. I give it a month before she is booted from the Speaker position. Rest assured, Steny Hoyer is building his coalition as we speak. Politics will always be politics, and in this case I have to give a tip of the hat to karma.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I apologize John for going OT but I wish to solicite your aid in encouraging outrage over the case of the Iris and Louis Andros, an American couple who sought to adopt twins from a Coptic Christian orphanage in Egypt and now are facing years in prison, having been charged w/ child trafficking.

TLGK

John Washburn said...

Loop, I researched it a bit. For those unaware, the N.C. couple was unable to adopt in the US because of the husband's age. The wife had Egyptian roots and sought to adopt from a Christian orphanage in Egypt.

The problem is that Muslim law forbids adoption and there are lots of roadblocks to adopting Christian children out of fear they will be brought up Christian, and not Muslim. And like most Muslim countries, religious law is usually the law of the land. So it goes in Egypt.

This couple spent some time in Egypt working with the orphanage. They were given a forged birth certificate - apparently without their knowledge - and the US embassy questioned the wife before their departure. She admitted to not actually being the mother of the twins and the embassy HANDED THE COUPLE OVER TO THE EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES!

Egypt has been under increased pressure from the US State Dept to crack down on child trafficking, so now they are prosecuting this case as such.

In my opinion, there is a litany of errors here, but the most glaring is the US Embassy handing US citizens over to Egyptian authorities for prosecution. Unbelievable! In this one move, the Embassy created an international incident. There is no way this couple will get a fair trial.

It also appears that Egypt is being a bit passive-aggressive and this case likely represents a backlash against the State Dept for pressuring them to cut down on human trafficking.

I don't know but it is quite ridiculous. The State Dept needs to intervene, and I think the Embassy should be investigated as to whether or not they followed proper protocol. A key job of the Embassy is to protect US citizens abroad, and it clearly failed.

Hopefully there will be a good outcome here. It seems these people just wanted to adopt two children and bring them back to the US. Now they face 7 years in an Egyptian prison.

SNAKE HUNTERS said...

Dr Washburn & Tony:

An interesting case, worthy of following. I wondered at the complexity of problems here; a clashing of Sharia Law, and our own diplomatic incompetence.

So, I took it to my friend Mohamed, an Egyptian Law student,
at "Understanding Islam" weblog;
I'll wait eagerly for his reply.

reb
_________________________________

Anonymous said...

Thanks John. I too wonder at the actions of the U.S. embassy.

TLGK