And when he does it, the White House snarks about it, and is brutally and justifiably mocked on Twitter.
60 thoughts on “Mitt: “I Told You So””
Comments are closed.
And when he does it, the White House snarks about it, and is brutally and justifiably mocked on Twitter.
Comments are closed.
If his idea of dealing with Russia is buying Yandex shares I think I prefer Obama’s strategy.
Obama has a strategy? He doesn’t even seem to think he’s in a war.
US forces in Central Europe have been redeploying towards the Asia Pacific region for years now. Before that most of the troops were pulled out with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Fact is there isn’t a lot that can be done immediately. AFAIK US Army Europe has 30K soldiers. You can rattle all the sabers you want but without the military muscle to back it up rhetoric its useless.
You want a war with Russia?
No, you idiot. I want a president who lives in the real world.
We might get one if Obama keeps making blunders.
That’s what you lefties thought in the 80s under Reagan. That cowboy gone crazy was gonna get us in a war with the Soviets.
Now you rehash the same tripe.
You’re right; Obama’s rhetoric is useless. That’s why Putin in doing what he’s doing.
Hazard of electing a “community organizer” as President: you get a community organizer President.
Perhaps there were things we could have done before this escalated. Assurances could have been made to Putin that Russia would still retain its bases in Crimea. An effort could have been made to show that Ukraine could have more than one friend. It didn’t have to be an either/or situation.
We have a contentious relationship with Russia but we get a lot of cooperation out of them. Lurching from crisis to crisis is a terrible foreign policy. But lets blame Romney for buying shares in a Russian internet company?
“An effort could have been made to show that Ukraine could have more than one friend. ”
I think you’re right. Kissinger, among others, agrees with you. But that mistake was made by the EU, not the USA. And this will make you roll your eyes: the blame in being pinned EU technocrats!
From http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26606674
One afterthought: there is a strong current running in Brussels that the EU over Ukraine made a strategic error.
As officials now admit, the drafting of the association agreement with Ukraine – which was the trigger for the current crisis – was largely left to technocrats.
Yet, perhaps careless of Russia’s history, it involved pulling Ukraine into the European orbit. As one official observed “we never had a substantial debate over where we think Ukraine belongs?”
He went on to bemoan that there was no big debate as to how Russia would react to all this.
“But that mistake was made by the EU, not the USA. ”
Can it be both? Obama likes to take up the mantle of Leader of the Free World and cast it aside at will. That isn’t how it works. The USA has spearheaded relations between Russia and the rest of the world for a long time. Obama shouldn’t, pre-invasion, act as if we have no role. Then post invasion, act as if America will lead the way.
Where exactly is this smart diplomacy people keep claiming Obama practices with a +3 racial, +9 intellect, +21 charisma, and +7 organization bonuses? We want results from the actual sitting President not, “Things could have been so much worse under Bush or Romney so it doesn’t matter how bad Obama fails.”
But lets blame Romney for buying shares in a Russian internet company?
He also bought shares in Gazprom. In other words he funded the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline which was competing with Nabucco and bet directly *against* official US policy meant to contain Russia.
“and bet directly *against* official US policy meant to contain Russia.”
You seem to be saying that on ethical grounds Romney shouldn’t have any business dealings with Russian companies and that having Russian investments is worse than Obama’s foreign policy missteps? Why hold Romney to a higher standard than the President? Obama, and our government, have actual treaty obligations to live up to and the duty to advance our countries interests through effective foreign policy. That isn’t Romney’s job.
There is a disconnect when we want private citizens to create and implement foreign policy for our government and to hold them accountable rather than the politicians elected to do that job. I am sure Romney would get behind a plan to contain Russia economically but that has to be an explicit strategy created and led by our government. It isn’t his responsibility to create and implement a strategy like this.
It is called putting your money where your mouth is.
I will give you one example. A couple of years back I had some Chinese interested in my research. When I did a check on them I found out they had relations to people in the Chinese military-industrial complex in places like Chengdu. My line of research is not for military purposes but there are ways to use it for things like radar or sonar characterization of shapes. Once I found that out I basically removed them out of my contact list despite the head of the research lab being interested in their proposal.
There is more to life than immediate monetary concerns and you have to know where your loyalties lie.
Wodun wrote:
“Obama, and our government, have actual treaty obligations to live up to…”
Has Obama demonstrated he’ll live up to US treaties approved before his term, if he does not agree with them, or sees a domestic political downside to living up to them? Or will Obama deal with some international treaty obligations the same way he deals with the obligations of some US laws he swore to faithfully execute? A big question, and one that governments and leaders around the world need to be asking themselves. Obama’s cavalier attitude towards some US laws, and his sensitivity to Democratic Party interests in all things, have surely been noticed by Vladimir Putin and many others.
Obama would never go to war against Russia. Under most circumstances neither would NATO.
Putin knows this.
Obama’s latest move is to send Biden….
BIDEN fer crissake…….
To reassure our friends and calm nerves.
This is a man (Obama) without the slightest hint of reality.
The best line I’ve read today is from Power Line Blog:
“He (Putin) is a walking refutation of Obama’s fantasy world of the “international community” and “smart power.” ”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/03/the-1930s-are-calling.php
We saw 8 years of “Dumb Power”, sure didn’t work so great.
Don’t be so hard on Bill Clinton.
“BIDEN fer crissake…….” is a pretty lousy argument. Why did Obama send Biden to Poland and Lithuania (Latvia’s leader was in Lithuania and Estonia’s leader was in Poland)? Biden just proposed war games in the Baltics, reaffirmed the (silly in my opinion) missile defense installation for 2018 in Poland, and suggested that the US can help the Baltics rely on nuclear power and US shale gas instead of Russian natural gas.
“Recent events remind us that the bedrock of our alliance remains collective self-defense as enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO treaty,” Biden said. “We take it deadly serious and our commitment is absolutely unwavering and unshakeable.”
What else is he supposed to say or do?
“We saw 8 years of “Dumb Power”, sure didn’t work so great.”
Bush did an excellent job building international support in a number of different areas from Afghanistan and Iraq to the old Soviet states. Then there was also his humanitarian efforts in Africa. Where exactly did Bush’s foreign policy fail? If you say something about Iraq, you might want to reconsider. Getting so many countries to support our efforts in Iraq was a great foreign policy achievement considering how unpopular it was to free millions of people from the iron grasp of a genocidal dictator.
Sure, there were people who did not like us going into Iraq but many of those “anti-war” people believe in some pretty crazy conspiracy theories. No, it wasn’t a war for oil. No, we were not colonizing Iraq. No, Bush didn’t lie. And where are all those “anti-war” people today? Silent because it isn’t about war but being anti-American and anti-Republican.
“What else is he supposed to say or do?”
Biden’s problem is that he is Biden. No one takes anything he says seriously. He has even less credibility than Obama.
You really need to get beyond the rhetoric, everyone else around the world has.
Bob-1 writes:
““BIDEN fer crissake…….” is a pretty lousy argument.”
It’s not an argument. It’s shorthand.
Shorthand for all the myriad of stupidities, buffoonish behavior, tragic mistakes, lousy advice (just get a shotgun) and general retardation that we’ve seen come out of Biden’s pie hole over the last 6 years or so.
We’ve underscored those events time and again and when there are such numerous examples of oafish behavior from a guy like Biden, you just get tired and resort to shorthand.
We are sending a buffoonish, oafish clown to do serious work with our allies. Biden, to not put too fine a point on it, lacks gravitas.
And this situation calls for clear thinking and gravitas.
“What else is he supposed to say or do?”
It’s better if he keeps is yap shut and stays out of there.
Bob-1:
“What else is he supposed to say or do?”
How about this:
1) Before he leaves, He stands on the steps of Capitol Hill with a bipartisan bunch of congress critters and announces we are opening Federal lands for exploration and drilling. He says, “We are going to drop the price of energy – which is the basis for all economies, so low that every free economy will take off like a bandit. Nations that use petro-dollars to suppress freedom and liberty will find themselves without the wherewithal to do it.
1.a.) Second announcement is that he has a request – in his hand (and he gives it to the congress critters on camera) to not only halt the cuts to the Military but to increase mil spending. He says, “We had hoped we could reduce our military but Putin has, by his latest moves, made that totally impossible. We will build more brigades and more ships and more aircraft.
We will especially focus on improving and building more A-10 tank killers. As you well know, they were designed to operate against Warsaw pact troops. ”
2) The he travels a little Northwest and he stands next to a pile of Keystone pipeline pipes and says, “Today we’ve approved the construction of the Pipeline. Let’s get to work.”
3) He then travels to the US coast and says, “I am presently standing at a port where we are going to build one of (3,4,5) new LNG terminals. We are going to ship LNG to Europe. We will provide energy security to Eastern and Western Europe so that no one country has energy leverage over free people of any other country.
4) Then he heads to Europe – flanked by a squadron of F-15’s or 16’s and the fighters become permanently stationed in a host country that invites us……..Poland. Czech republic, Slovakia, Poland.
5) Next he goes to the borders of Hungary, Romania, Poland and announced US financing help to build a pipeline system to route LNG wherever needed (see #3).
That’s just a start THAT is how you say and do things that have an impact.
Not freezing the assets of 11 Russkie fat cats – some of which have no assets in the US.
All we have gotten from Biden is a lot of gaseous empty words. Which is all we ever get from the Obama administration.
Rand said “He doesn’t even seem to think he’s in a war.”
Today, March 18, President Obama was at Walter Reed visiting wounded servicemembers. I think he knows he’s in a war.
Oh, you mean a war with Russia? If, by war, you mean the state of affairs that existed between us and the USSR between 1945 to 1991, then sure. Why do you think Biden was in Lithuania today?
But that kind of war is pretty much a no-brainer for the USA — we did it for 46 years and the rules still haven’t changed: we have nukes, they have nukes, no one wants to fight, they have a (shrunken) sphere of influence, we have a bigger one with way more soft power (ie attractiveness), and we’ll keep slowly winning until the Russian people decide that the fun and profit associated with a Western style democracy is worth the short term cost of entry.
“Hey, the eighties called, Governor Romney. They want their foreign policy back.”
Pretty sure it was less than a month ago that the president implied that we weren’t in a Cold War with Russia.
Someone tell the president that the seventies called, and they want their foreign policy back.
The link I posted below, from The American Conservative, discusses why it would not have been a good idea to treat Russia like an enemy before it invaded Crimea.
“discusses why it would not have been a good idea to treat Russia like an enemy before it invaded Crimea.”
Ya, it said threatening sanctions could lead to an invasion. Good thing that didn’t happen…
Bob-1 wrtites:
“The link I posted below, from The American Conservative, discusses why it would not have been a good idea to treat Russia like an enemy before it invaded Crimea.”
And they are wrong. First off “treating like an enemy” is a strawman. In this situation you treat them as nations with their interests, and we are a nation with out interests. Starting the contruction of new LNG terminals an dpipelines isn’t treating Russia like an enemy – it’s dealing with the situation and is pure economics.
Secondly, The American Conservative get no special treatment because they claim to be conservative. Wrong is wrong.
Any schoolkid who appeased a bully, to no avail, in grade school understands this.
“Oooh Oohhh don’t make him mad!!! No no no then he might REALLY hurt you.”
Well the Russkies just took a Ukranian naval base.
I thought Obama was spending the day sitting between two ferns filling out his NCAA tournament bracket, no doubt consulting on it with Biden and Kerry.
“Today, March 18, President Obama was at Walter Reed visiting wounded servicemembers. I think he knows he’s in a war.”
When was the last time Obama met with his generals? Did Obama apologize for not pulling them out five years ago when he decided that Afghanistan was wasted effort? Obama might realize that we are in a war but as President he doesn’t view it as his war. That is pretty f’d up.
“Why do you think Biden was in Lithuania today?”
These efforts would have had greater impact if they were not reactionary. And why wouldn’t Lithuania contrast words with the Obama administration’s actions over the last five years? The first five years consisted of Obama throwing these countries under the bus in order to be “friendly” with Russia. Obama didn’t view these countries as valued allies or Russia as a threat. What has changed?
Certainly Syria has changed Obama’s view toward Russia but it isn’t a realization of Russia’s character so much as spite over a bruised ego. Maybe that means Obama’s threats toward Russia carry some weight but it is hard to tell because Obama’s words are meaningless.
These guys never take the blame for anything that goes wrong during their watch. It’s almost as if this Obama guy is some powerless law professor who would be really great if he were actually given a position of authority. Until then, we’ll just have to bask in his awesomeness and await his ascension.
That was brutally awesome. ^_^
“These guys never take the blame for anything that goes wrong”
It is the system’s fault not Obama’s. We need to fix the system. (Lets just get that out of the way. We all know someone is going to say it)
Here is some criticism of Romney from a conservative perspective:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/thank-goodness-romney-isnt-president/
We can argue about what the alternate reality where Romney is President would be like. We all have great imaginations. But why contrast the imaginations about an alternate reality with actual reality? Shouldn’t we judge Obama and his administration by how things have actually played out?
“When protests in Ukraine grew and violence ensued, it was surely evident to people in the intelligence community—and to the White House—that President Putin might try to take advantage of the situation to capture Crimea, or more. ”
That is spot on and how did Obama deal with it? By leaking to the media that there was zero chance of Russia invading Ukraine.
“That was the time to talk with our global allies about punishments and sanctions, to secure their solidarity, and to communicate these to the Russian president.”
Yes, before the invasion took place, it would have been a good time to create a plan with our allies to deal with the potential invasion. The author of your link claims that threatening sanctions before the invasion would have made things worse. I am not sure how? Russia invaded Ukraine after all, so the case needs to be made that things would be worse than what happened. And if you do buy into the argument at your link, how do you square that with Obama creating sanctions? It is wrong for Romney to suggest that they should have been planned and communicated in advance but right for Obama to create them by the seat of his pants after the fact?
“The problem with U.S. involvement in this situation has not been poor timing, as Romney claims, but a profound failure to anticipate and take into account the very likely Russian reactions to the attempt to drag Ukraine out of its orbit.”
What, it can’t be poor timing and a failure to anticipate a Russian response to Ukraine becoming closer to the EU? Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Smart diplomacy would have made an effort to assure Russia that Ukraine can have more than one friend. Increasing ties with the EU doesn’t necessarily mean any loss of Russian influence. The cultural ties between the two countries are strong. But why didn’t Obama make this case? Perhaps it is because after Syria, Obama’s ego took a major beating by Putin and Iran and Obama was looking to settle the score a little bit by trumpeting the division of Ukraine and Russia by expanding ties with the EU.
“He uttered a nonsensical claim about Russia as “our number one geopolitical foe,” which is still very wrong, and most of his defenders still don’t understand how laughable this was.”
Reality paints a different picture and even if it wasn’t #1, it is certainly top 2 or 3. The idea that we shouldn’t worry about Russia because they might be our second or third biggest threat is retarded sir.
Wodun said “. The author of your link claims that threatening sanctions before the invasion would have made things worse. I am not sure how? Russia invaded Ukraine after all, so the case needs to be made that things would be worse than what happened. ”
How could things be worse????! Are you kidding?!
It doesn’t seem to have registered with most of you that this was a huge win for the good guys (the Ukranian democracy-lovers who did the winning , and the Europeans and the USA who will celebrate their success and eventually trade with them as EU members). At the beginning of this year, Ukraine had a pro-Russian government in power, and it was slaughtering its own people. Some good people got killed fighting for their right to protest. Here’s how things could have been worse: many more people could have been killed, and then the good guys could have lost. Crimea would still be Ukraine’s but Ukraine would be Russia’s. I’ve got to run – I hope you can predict where I’m going with this.
“How could things be worse????! Are you kidding?!”
Yes, make the case that threatening sanctions before the invasion would have lead to a worse outcome. Then compare fantasy land with the actual invasion of Crimea and the fallout of sanctions enacted after the invasion. We didn’t get nuked, so threatening sanctions wouldn’t get us nuked if enacting them didn’t.
“I hope you can predict where I’m going with this.”
You seem to be claiming that proposing sanctions for the invasion prior to it taking place would have led to all of Ukraine being taken over instead of just Crimea. You don’t really have much to stand on there. It is equally likely that actions taken prior to the invasion could have prevented the invasion all together.
But I think were you are going with this, is that by threatening Russia with sanctions if they invaded Ukraine would have led to all of Ukraine being taken over and wholesale slaughter brought on the populace. So now that Obama has enacted sanctions, Russia will take over all of Ukraine and slaughter the populace and this is all Romney’s fault and Obama is a grand master of smart diplomacy.
No, Ukraine was already in Russia’s pocket. There wasn’t a need for a Russian invasion until the Euromaidan protests succeeded. I’m saying Putin could have been more effective at counter-revolution to prevent Ukraine from turning Westward. Yanukovych used snipers but then ran away. Putin was no fan of his before, and just imagine Putin’s fury when Yanukovych gave up. If Putin had seen the need for it, Putin could have engineered it so that Yanukovych was replaced with someone who would have cleared the Euromaiden by whatever means necessary and used other KGB-type tactics to stop the revolution cold. If we had goaded Putin, he would have realized he was in danger of losing Ukraine. For all the talk of Obama getting blindsided, don’t forget that it was Putin who was utterly blindsided.
Um, until several months ago the Kremlin regarded Yanukovich as a traitor to Russian interests because he’d turned his back on them. He was the President who pushed for integration with and membership in the EU. Then he had second thoughts about signing the deal that he’d secured with Europe, Russia made him a much better offer regarding Ukraine’s debt, and then things blew up in his face. If he was a Russian puppet, why did they hate him for so long over his drive to move Ukraine into Europe’s orbit instead of Russia’s?
I completely disagree with your characterization of Yanukovich’s relations with Putin and Medvedev. Rhetorically, Yanukovich threw bones to both Russia and the West (he is not only a killer and a thief but a liar as well), which has been diagnosed as a) an attempt to stay popular among all factions in Ukraine and b) an attempt to get both sides into a bidding war but Putin believed that his interests would not be threatened under Yanukovich or anyone else from the so-called Party of Regions.
“How could things be worse????! Are you kidding?!”
Ok tell us how.
“It doesn’t seem to have registered with most of you that this was a huge win for the good guys (the Ukranian democracy-lovers who did the winning , and the Europeans and the USA who will celebrate their success and eventually trade with them as EU members).”
They only won round one.
Game isn’t over yet.
There’s a trifle of schadenfreude to be enjoyed here:
Putin accuses the US of diplomacy at the point of a gun – the very antithesis of how Obama is handling this and precisely what Putin is doing.
In short, Putin has studied Obama-technique well: accuse your opponent of doing exactly what you are doing.
Obama and his crew have done this countless times.
“accuse your opponent of doing exactly what you are doing.”
Long time feature of the democrat and soviet playbooks.
Someone mention Biden? Been there only a couple of days and he’s already got it wrong.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/18/Biden-Commits-Embarrassing-Poland-Gaffe
BIDEN fer crissake….
NOW do you see, Bob-1? NOW is it clear to you, Bob-1??????????
Biden is an idiot. Anyone who doesn’t see that is an even bigger idiot.
On top of that, someone needs to enroll Biden in Toastmasters or something. The number of “um”s and “uhh”s in his “official” speeches make them embarassing to watch.
Or maybe the Veep needs his own Teleprompter. Does Obama have any that he can spare?
His “gaffe” makes him appear even more committed about enforcing Article 5 of the NATO treaty. It also reinforces his reputation as something of an egomaniac. Egomania is hardly rare among politicians. I think the Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Poles will happily work with an egomaniac who represents a American government committed to enforcing Article 5.
My first sentence should have read “committed to enforcing Article 5” (I know you knew what I meant, but I don’t want to sound like one of those people who says “Baby, I’m all about commitment”.)
Biden needs to make up his mind. Is he Neil Kinnock or Jesse Helms?
“His “gaffe” makes him appear even more committed about enforcing Article 5 of the NATO treaty.”
THAT has to be the craziest conclusion this side of Jim. It’s a contenda – even with regard to Jim-isms.
You REALLY think Obama is going to go to war against Russia for, say Estonia? I know you said you think so in the past – but here’s another chance for you to fess up to reality.
“I think the Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Poles will happily work with an egomaniac who represents a American government committed to enforcing Article 5.”
Too bad none of them exist in the present administration.
If Germany or France were attacked, I suspect Obama would jump in but he’d be kicking and dragging. And I wouldn’t believe it until I actually saw it.
Poland? A lot less likely but still possible.
Baltics? No effing way would Obama go to war.
At times like this, messages have to be clear, correct and unambigous. Biden’s gaffe makes him out to be either a liar or a witless fool.
Either way, that’s not the kind of messaging we need right now.
It’s amusing as anything to watch the gyrations as Bob and Godzilla and their ilk elsewhere sweat themselves blind to avoid having to admit that, as a President, Obama is a total loser compared to GWB.
After all, it’s not like anyone voted for Barry because they thought he was competent…
What would GWB do differently with regard to the man he called Pootie-Poot?
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush )
My answer: there would be no difference. I think it is sad that so many of you think that this is an opportunity to score domestic policy points. I don’t see an ideological component to this at all, which is why I’m happy to cite the American Conservative or read what Kissinger has to say with interest.
“What would GWB do differently with regard to the man he called Pootie-Poot?”
1) GWB isn’t President.
2) So your question is a ridiculously irrelevant strawman
3) A lot of conservatives did not like GWB very much or at a minimum disagreed with him an a whole host of issues. This is because GWB is not a conservative.
Better to ask what Reagan would have done, if your bag is to try and predict the untestable.
Even better to look at Obama’s actions and see how they got us into this mess. And then look at what the both Biden and Obama did once it was clear to even the most casual of observers that Putin was going to move big and hard after the Sochi Olympics were over…..or what they did after the riots started in Ukraine……
But no you don’t want to do that….would destroy your fantasy huh?
Gregg, your arguments are wasted on the members of the Hive who regularly post here. There’s an old saying, “There’s no use arguing religion.” Keep that in mind:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/03/17/the-rise-of-secular-religion/
BUT!!!!!!!!!!
Rest easy. Let not your mind be troubled…..
The situation is well in hand… we have Top Men in leadership positions of the government:
“President Obama unveiled his Final Four picks for the men’s NCAA College Basketball Championship to ESPN and predicted that Michigan State would top Louisville in the title game.
In a yearly tradition for the basketball fan, Obama shared his Final Four predictions, rounded out by Florida and Arizona, for the tournament in a video for ESPN, broadcast Wednesday.
“I’ve got Michigan State going all the way,” the president told ESPN’s Andy Katz.”
Top.
Men.
After Georgia the rest is inevitable. We allowed ourselves to believe Putin’s propaganda then, ignoring the fact that he had military assets on the move (I’m talking ships not tanks on the border) weeks before Georgia’s ‘provocation.’
The thing we should be doing (and will not) is get military assets in position in preparation for any aggression. As long as Putin knows military aggression will not be countered he has a free hand.
Not preparing for war ensures it.