Jake Tapper provides a nice money quote from Barack Obama’s interview with Terry Moran of ABC News:
In Baghdad yesterday, after a day spent witnessing the reduction in violence in Iraq, Obama was asked by ABC News’ Terry Moran if he was wrong..
“Here is what I will say,” Obama said, “I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.”
The problem with this answer is that by the time Pres. Bush announced the surge, the Sunni awakening was already well in the works. As I noted in “The Big Picture(s)”:
In September–November 2006, the Washington Post ran a series of articles suggesting that the US military was unable to defeat the bloody insurgency in western Iraq “or counter al-Qaeda’s rising popularity there.â€Â These stories were echoed in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, ABC News, CNN, the AP and others, down to local TV.
But this was not the only picture of events in Anbar. In “Will the Real Anbar Narrative Please Stand Up?â€Â, Bill Ardolino juxtaposed the WaPo stories against analysis by bloggers and embedded reporters like the Times of London’s Martin Fletcher and Michael Fumento for the Weekly Standard. Bill Roggio’s military and intelligence sources were angry over the media’s characterization of the secret reports cited by the WaPo. Roggio examined how the claims made in the WaPo coverage were taken out of the larger context of events in Anbar. Roggio and the Mudville Gazette’s “Greyhawk†charted the formation and rise of the Anbar Salvation Council  the alliance of 25 of the province’s 31 tribes in the fight against al Qaeda. Roggio and Greyhawk followed up when the Anbar tribes got US air and artillery support  a development ignored by the establishment media.
Moreover, as Bing West would later put it:
It’s conventional wisdom now to say that Anbar improved because the Sunni tribes aligned against al Qaeda. True enough, but an incomplete explanation. With inadequate manpower, the Marines and Army National Guard and active duty soldiers persisted year after year with gritty, relentless patrolling that convinced the tribes the American military was, as one tribal leader said to me, “the strongest tribe”. Hence the tribes could turn against al Qaeda, knowing they had the strongest tribe standing behind them.
But why join “the strongest tribe” if it is migrating back to the States?
Furthermore, Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army ceasefire was a result of the surge, but had nothing to do with the decrease in suicide bombings, which accounted for the biggest reduction in violence at the time.
Barack Obama — a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — should have been paying more attention to what was going on in Iraq as he prepared to run for president than relying on the Washington Post. That he either remains ignorant of what happened in Iraq, or seeks to mislead voters about it, simply to maintain the fiction that he was not wrong about the surge, does not inspire confidence in his competence or trustworthiness.
Update: NRO’s Andy McCarthy observes that Obama’s suggestion that the Awakening and the ceasefire are unrelated to the work of US troops is not only dumb, but also bad politics.
Update x2: Insta-lanche!
(h/t Memeorandum.)
You know what type of people flaunt ignorance?
Idiots.
Too obvious?
Persistence. Geniuses such as Obama may not appreciate it, but stupid tribes can.
Obama’s starting to sound like a hybrid of Joe Isuzu and Tommy Flanagan.
I suspect Baracky doesn’t appreciate indirect fire either.
“Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.â€Â
How in the hell can anybody take this weasel seriously? I really believe this country is beyond redemption, as a nation we are just too fucking stupid to survive.
He’s ignorant like a fox. The Chocolate Dashboard Bobble-head Jesus knows more than anyone ever has……ever.
There’s more good analysis of Obama’s trip and Maliki by the Fadil brothers to be had at PJM or Iraq the Model. Posted today: http://tinyurl.com/5zmwch
Oops, Sorry. That link goes to the second page.
Did you know he’s a great musician? Floutist.
Here is what I will say happyfeet said. I think that this Baracky’s assessment was wrong irrespective of “political factors” cause this Baracky’s assessment was that the United States had earned itself a humiliating defeat and this Baracky was gonna help make that happen for us. That’s what this Baracky’s assessment was. He wanted “our troops” to be losers what left a bloody genocide in the wake of their retreat. This Baracky is really a shitty person is the only fair characterization I think.
is there a bigger douche bag in the world than jake tapper?
he looks like a douche.
if he was a country the capital would be douchanbe.
“Barack Obama  a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  should have been paying more attention to what was going on in Iraq”
You’re a Racist!
The Fadil brothers are a very good source of information. I know in the early days of the Basra operation they were the first ones who explained what was really going on there. I bet none of the Obamabots who come here have even heard of Iraq the Model.
The JACK ASSES “selected” him …..what did you expect !!
The most UNAMERICAN CANDIDATE ever !!
All fluff ….no substance !!
One of the things McCain should do is detail to the People what is still at stake in the WOT.
Folks are seeing his ‘victory or nada’ stand as pointless pride or whatever, they don’t know they’ve a stake in this anymore.
Which is good, really, since its an indication of how insulated and safe we are from all that.
But I think if O! gets in, those hard cold realities are coming back in spades. Detailing that would make it plain to some others, maybe.
royf –
No, they tend to go to the ex-Baathist pity me whiner kind of site for their Iraqi pullquotes. You know, the kind that say everything was great until the American pigs came along, etc etc
The ex-Baathist sites, BTW, are often OK-ish from a cosmopolitan aesthetic. Those were the better educated [being elites] and were often seculars. Which just adds to the dissonance for the Leftards when you point out how they’re exactly the same as nazi collaborators, or nazis themselves.
‘Cuz, you know, those ex-Baathists are so much like themselves, its scary.
– Apparently “Obama the model” has gotten some “feedback” from some of his verbal tap dancing, and is trying to do the ole’ two step pivot a bit at a time. Today during that non-press meet, press meet, he was allowing that the surge “opened a window” to permit the Iraqi’s the breathing room and opportunity to make certain political gains, but they haven’t taken advantage yet.”
– At some point someone will no doubt inform him that 15 of the original 18 goals have been met, so he’ll have to “re-assess” yet one more of his off the cuff comments. Obvious flip-flopping. His ObamaBOTs are trying to deal with it by now saying “Well a good leader is able to adjust his positions as needed”, to which you would normally expect an interested non-partisan press to ask, “Well if he wasn’t wrong why the need to adjust?”. Not going to happen.
– We’re going to have to wait awhile before we see him confronted with a lot of this BS spin doctoring when he and McCain are on the same stage, and he can’t hide anymore. That day is coming.
– No matter how much they run, sooner or later they can’t hide, and every one of these changiness somersaults will be one more thing McCain can beat Obama senseless with.
– McCain needs to stop giving Obama gravitas by doing an Obama versus McCain attack, and shift to an Obama versus Obama approach, and make it clear thats what it is. Today he started running a couple of new Ads that does exactly that, and thats what he needs to keep doing. Play full metal jacket on using Obama’s own words against him. Thats the winning ticket.
Dumb or good or bad politics we see the future left wing narrative being finalized. 15-20 years from now this will be the party line. The surge / Bush’s change in strategy did not do it. It was the Awakening. This is going to be thrown in movies and repeated forever now… along with the old USSR was a paper tiger and bombing Vietnam did not work.
-The Anbar Awakening was in part accomplished through applying new tactics by Gen. Mattis, co-author with Petraeus on counter-insurgency dealios.
-Dunno about lending/denying O! gravitas. Seems like the youth voter bloc is subsiding in ardor pretty much because they think they got it in the bag, so you know, why even show up at the polls? I’m cool with everybody thinking that way, ‘cuz its the tragedy of the commons all over again.
-I’m still trying to work out how Marx would theorize about the Dems becoming the elites who own alot of the means of production and whatnot. Would he say that we’re living in the dictatorship of the proletariat and don’t know it, or what? Maybe he’d call for class war on the fourth estate or something.
-disjointed rejoinders. sorry.
-but the BBH respondent style works for that.
Obama to Our Fighting Forces: “Great job guys, even though I’m your intellectual superior and your blood, toil, tears, and sweat has had nothing to do with success in Iraq.”
Good thing Obama never got a military officer’s commission: we now know he would have been an insufferable prick just begging to get fragged by his own troops.
OBH 11-22-06 “Given the deteriorating situation it is clear at this point that we cannot through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have expect that somehow the situation will improve.â€Â
OBH Today – “There might have been improvement without our militaryâ€Â.
He has put all his chips on the surge failing, and it has been a spectacular success. Ask Katie C., today finally she reported the overwhelmingly positive numbers.
So Obama’s vision of Iraq is one of our troops running around firing blindly in clueless irrelevance, while the Iraqis look at each other and say, “Hey! Let’s put on a country! We can use my dad’s barn!”
Notice not even the usual trolls are showing up to defend him?
GMG, your error is that you expect Obama to have a vision of Iraq. He does not. This is a man who’s so far out of his depth that SCUBA gear is useless — it’s hardsuits, rebreathers, and DSRVs.
This is a man who has never won a contested election. This is a man whose only concept of “politics” is of the pushing and shoving necessary to distribute the graft without generating too many kneecappings. And, like most leftoid politicians, he has taken “all politics is local” to a near-insane degree.
I’m sure you’ve seen the famous New Yorker cover showing the view West from the point of view of a New York City resident — the Hudson River, and beyond that a wasteland; somewhere off to the left is “Jersey”, a bit farther away is “Texas”; somewhere off to the right are “Chicago” and “Canada”; and off in the far distance is “San Francisco”, with perhaps an ocean beyond, or is that the Great Lakes? If not, surely you’ve seen the derivatives, which are legion. They’re jokes, but jokes with a bitter nut.
If the same New Yorker turned around, what he would see is the East River and Brooklyn, with beyond that Long Island, then the ocean; far in the distance would be “London” and “Paris”, lost in the haze with fairytale castles poking up here and there. This is Obama’s understanding of the world. There is no country called “Iraq”; there is a political issue called “Iraq”, and he’s agin it, to the extent (not great) that he understands it. It gets great responses when he talks about it from the podium, though. He has a vague picture in his mind of irregular blobs of desert sand, with camels and people in robes and American soldiers in armor bounding about blowing things up.
If Obama has any concept of dealing with Maliki, Ahmadinejad, etc., it is in terms of ward bosses: feed ’em a little money, give ’em a chance at the trough, and they’ll keep their wards in line. Notice the accounts of his meeting with Maliki. The pole-axed expression on his face as he came out was hilarious. He cannot treat Maliki like a ward boss, and Petraeus like a precinct captain in the Chicago PD, and this is the first clue he’s had that that might be so. He really does believe that he can straighten things out. He didn’t have any trouble with the Fourth Ward!
Regards,
Ric
He cannot treat Maliki like a ward boss, and Petraeus like a precinct captain in the Chicago PD, and this is the first clue he’s had that that might be so.
What must be going through Petraeus’ mind, realizing this meathead might actually have the reins in a few months.
– Sure Ric. As a community organizerâ„¢, read precinct bagman, Obama’s biggest problem was making sure the candy got delivered to the right address. As long as he did that his precinct boss wouldn’t cap his ass. He got pretty good at it, so he got kicked upstairs a few times and learned how things are done in Dailey country. As you said “local politics”.
– Unfortunately National politics might as well be on a different planet for Obama, let alone international, which would be in a different galaxy effectively.
– So here he is, thrown into a national campaign, at a time when international conditions are on a razor thin edge of going off the tracks completely and hes totally overwhelmed.
– But strangely enough, as long as he can avoid direct questioning in a bipartisan setting, where the questioners are not in the tank for him, he can play the game.
– Problem is, that like today when he had to deal on the fly, he crashes and burns. So far the crashes have not been fatal, although in order to stay afloat his handlers are moving him closer and closer to the center.
– You got to wonder how the Nutroots are really reacting to all of his hoping around and changes in position, guns, FISA, now a bit on the surge, ect., and things like today when he landed in Israel and was told about the bulldozer terrorist – part deux, only a block from his hotel, and he responded by saying, to paraphrase, “This is just another example of why we have to be so vigilant about the WOT and terrorism in general.”
– This is another case of falling off teh Narrativeâ„¢ for the Left, who deny there really is any such thing.
…the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality… The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.From “The Audacity of Hope,” B. Hussein ObamaOh, sorry, that was from “1984,” George Orwell. An understandable mistake.
I am not sure that hubris is a strong enough term anymore, this is getting surreal:
“I think one of the things that was most eye-opening was the extent to which the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan makes it very difficult for our troops, as good as they are, to decisively defeat the Taliban and the terrorist operations in Afghanistan.
…
“A lot of what drives, it appears, motivations on the Pakistan side of the border, still has to do with their concerns and suspicions about India. And I think that’s an example of aggressive, creative diplomacy.
“We haven’t had a conversation between the Indians and the Pakistanis that has been sustained and meaningful about how they can arrive at a more sensible arrangement between the two countries. That could relieve some of the pressure and help us go after some of the — some of these forces along the border regions.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/so-what-did-he.html
I am becoming less and less interested in the inflatable politician and starting to wonder about his advisor. Axelrod is his name?? Clearly making bricks without straw is no real challenge for him (that’s a meta-, ah say, that’s a metaphore, son)… He’s gonna be running things, to an extent that would have Carl Rove fleeing, screaming, into the night. What’s he like?
Regards,
Ric
“Axelrod has become animated by a more basic challenge of political communication, the problem of breaking through, of sounding different and new. Axelrod says that the way to cut through all the noise is to see campaigns as an author might, to understand that you need not just ideas but also a credible and authentic character, a distinct politics rooted in personality.”
…
“In his office back in Chicago, Axelrod’s walls aren’t covered with bookcases but with political images, candidates Axelrod has worked for on winning election nights, their hands thrust up, their grins wide, the newspaper headlines behind them.”
Shallow to the bone, the lot of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01axelrod.t.html?pagewanted=1
“….a distinct politics rooted in personality.â€Â
– Could that in any way be connected to, say, a “cult of personality” type of thinking?
Ah. He isn’t an advisor. He’s a producer.
Explains a lot. Gonna be interesting, isn’t it, when the dozers start crashing in through the set?
Regards,
Ric
– If that titular cabinet line-up he has is an indication of his “dpzers”, I think what that will actually relate too is dozing in the afternoon, and early to bed. As a group you’d think you were watching a studio luncheon of bit-actors from a Gerital TV Ad.
He speaks like a tenth grader bullshitting on a term paper.
What a twit.
The way Zero Mostel was a producer. I wonder how many 100%’s of Obama has been sold to his supporters.
It’s not his ignorance that gets me. We’re all ignorant about something. It’s his damned, obdurate, willful ignorance about things he should either know or be willing to learn about.
Well, by “dozers” I was thinking of big machines with yellow paint on, sort of dragging another metaphor over from the other thread. If campaign-as-performance-art pays off, I reckon it’s gonna come as a big surprise all ’round when it isn’t enough to coldcream the greasepaint off, switch off the footlights, and slope off down the boozer.
Regards,
Ric
Why, sure, Jog. I’m ignorant. John McCain is ignorant. It’s the depth of the ignorance… I mean, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is porous. The Paks and the Indians don’t get along. Reminds me of why Aggies send their daughters to finishing school, so’s they can learn to say “how remarkable!” instead of “dayumm, no sheeit?”
Regards,
Ric
It isn’t just ignorance. It’s that he doesn’t know stuff.
At least McCain knows stuff.
oh, he knows stuff. just not most of the people he’s associated with.
good point. Or maybe it wasn’t the stuff he thought he knew.
Bernie Goldberg said tonight that he doesn’t think it matters what Obama says. I think that’s completely true. He’s an event, not so much a candidate.
hmmmmm, you may be on to something.
Or someone is just on something….
Hey! I can be a politician too!
“I would point out that, sure, I said that the Sun was cool as in not at all hot, but subsequent events – acting in concert with the space around the sun heating up – conspired to increase the temperature of the sun slightly above where it was. Then, it returned to it’s prior temperature – which means it was cooling! Surely is there anyone who will argue that cooling isn’t the opposite of heating? And Heating = hot; therefore I was not wrong and indeed am probably right again – everytime the sun heats and subsequently COOLS. No scientist would argue the sun stays the exact same temperature every milli-second of everyday – so science confirms that I am right.”
Oh, and I blame my staff.
“Oh, and I blame my staff.”
– For staff erections lasting longer than political campaigns, seek immediate re-training….
– And Ric, I knew your ref was dozer as in bull, I was metaphoring your metaphor.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and on some committee that has something to do with Afghanistan. If he had spent more than 143-150 days in the Senate since his election he could have been at work getting NATO to beef up the forces in Afghanistan. After all, it is a NATO operation. That’s right, he’s the new kid on the block and can’t be bothered to earn any part of the millions he spends on staff + his salary. A Jr Senator with 25% + – more employee’s than a Senator with years in the senate and 50 times more assignments, that’s an Islamist for you, rip off the American taxpayers if you can’t openly kill them. “If the political situation should change to the worse, I will stand with Islam”. Something in that line in his own words, in his own book. Hussein O not a radical Islamist, my arse. Get the book from the library, don’t put a penny in the enemy’s pocket.
“The only thing standing in the way of lower gas prices is a democrat”
Vegas has Obama close to a two-to-one favorite. Corporate greedheads, those publicly-traded casinos are cashing in on Obama.
thor returns and immediately goes OT, head still firmly lodged in Obama’s rectum.
Could have bet on that as a sure thing.
He left?
“Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.â€Â
In other words, if I hadn’t been completely wrong I would have been right.
For someone who has expressed irritation in recent interviews in dealing with hypotheticals, Obama has no problem in pulling them out of his hat to say that if the surge and change in strategy had not worked then his stand would have been right.
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