Good morning!
Well, considering the comments on yesterday’s blog write, no doubt many of you are disappointed and perhaps your feelings go even further, over Obama’s big screw-up yesterday. I know I am. To let U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice go when she has been nothing but support to him, been there for him, a great candidate for Secretary of State…to sacrifice her for him…well it is just plain cowardice of Obama.
How could Obama do this to a woman? This is a president who was raised by women, who is now surrounded by women. It just goes to show you, that when it gets down to business…when our livelihood is on the line, women have to depend ON WOMEN. Because evidently, once you depend on men, this is what happens. But then Obama’s advisers are mostly women so what does that tell us? The obvious is not good.
Look, Obama not only needed to do the right thing, and he didn’t, but he also needed to show the repubs who’s in control – show them he has balls. The repubs pushed to get what they want, and Obama didn’t defend when he needed to; he caved. I don’t care if some of his administration pushed for him to do this as well. We already know that not all Dems are in support and loyal to him. When it came down to making a decision, He should’ve done the right thing and gone with his gut, but instead he was gutless.
In my opinion Obama needed to remember what the repubs did over health reform. As much as I am grateful that we got the Affordable Care Act, we could’ve gotten single payer health care had Obama stuck with it and fought for it. When will he learn that no matter what, the repubs are not going to support him no matter what they say. No matter how Obama gives in and compromises, the repubs aren’t going to budge – they won’t vote in favor ever. So why bother compromising? Why bother working with them? They will never do the right thing – The repubs have no morals and no scruples. And they still want him to fail more than they will ever want the country to succeed.
He should’ve said fuck ‘em over health care and he should’ve said the same thing over this incident with Rice.
But he didn’t. If he didn’t learn over this incident, will he ever?
This is not good, not now and not for the future of this administration, and our country. This should not have happened. This was the time for Obama to be BOLD, not give a shit about what the repubs say or do, especially now…and look what he has done. The last thing we want is for anyone to think that the repubs have any control or power over the president. And right now they know he cowered. And once the repubs know you’ll cower, they will take it and work it as long and as far as they can with not a thought of how it will affect the American people. They don’t give a shit.
I don’t even want to think what affect it may have over the 2014 elections should republicans get any sort of mojo back from this screw-up.
(Sigh) In case you have little idea of what I’m talking about or want to read up on the latest about Rice, here’s the write. If you want to see the video, click on the title below; I can’t seem to post it.
WASHINGTON — In a phone call with the president on Thursday, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice formally withdrew her name from consideration as the next Secretary of State, putting an abrupt end to a political drama that had unfolded on the Senate floor and television airwaves for months.
Rice made her decision, administration officials told The Huffington Post, “during the last couple days,” after considering the heated battle that would have ensued had she been tapped to replace departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly – to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice wrote in her letter to President Barack Obama. “That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country.”
“Her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first,” the president said in a statement shortly thereafter. He will meet with Rice in person on Friday.
For all the high-minded niceties offered publicly, a genuine frustration could be felt below the surface. Not just from Rice’s defenders, who had spent weeks yearning for the White House to push back more forcefully against her critics, or from Democrats, who wanted Obama to go forward with the nomination and make an example out of those pledging to block her appointment. It also came from within the administration itself, which felt that a few dogmatic lawmakers, aided by a sympathetic press, had had a damaging effect on the course and conduct of foreign policy.
“She has been overwhelmingly confirmed for two different jobs in two different administrations and any fair reading of her record was exceptional,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman. “We are confident she could have been confirmed.”
The state of play on the Hill seemed to confirm that Rice’s withdrawal wasn’t related to congressional vote counts. Top Democrats have said for some time that Rice was likely to secure the support needed to win confirmation. A Senate Democratic aide told the Huffington Post Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hadn’t whipped his caucus — that is, taken a tally of his members — so there was no reason to think that calculus had changed. The aide added that Reid felt confident he could have held the Democrats in line, making it so that only five Republican senators were needed to confirm her.
Rice’s nomination would certainly have been in the majority leader’s interest. He had warned the White House against nominating Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) to the Foggy Bottom post because doing so would create an open Senate seat in Massachusetts. Kerry now appears to be the frontrunner for the nomination.
In a show of defiance, Vietor notably declined to rule out a future post for Rice.
“She is going to go to the UN and down the road she could be Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, any number of things,” he said.
And yet, the White House will inevitably be painted as partially to blame for Rice’s failed bid.
For weeks, Rice was accused of having intentionally misled the American people about the cause and nature of the September attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. Two senators in particular, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), charged that Rice’s role in conveying the administration’s early understanding of the events — that they had been inspired by an anti-Islam video and were not an act of terror — was enough to disqualify her from a cabinet position.
There was, at one point, genuine disagreement within the administration over how much the president and his staff needed to push back on the criticism. Obama forcefully defended Rice during his first post-election press conference, telling reporters that the critics were directing their barbs at the wrong person. For a short time, it appeared, the “come-at-me” approach would suffice.
But the attacks didn’t fade, and the White House struggled to come up with the right way to publicly respond.
Soon enough, Rice was angling for the opportunity to defend herself. She proposed heading to the Hill for direct talks with some of her Senate detractors. It was a gamble: she would be creating the perception that she and the administration were laying the groundwork for her nomination while lending presidential legitimacy to a line of attack that the administration didn’t want legitimized. An administration official confirmed routine talks had taken place between the White House and Rice’s staff over how best to respond. She ended up going.
The talks backfired. Graham, McCain, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) left their meeting insisting that it had raised more questions than it answered. Soon, another voice of dissent joined the chorus. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), typically a centrist Republican, dug into the past to suggest that Rice may somehow have been responsible for security failures ahead of the terrorist bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in the late 1990s.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney offered some cover during his daily briefings, but Democrats widely panned his efforts as insufficient. Left unaddressed, the controversy over Rice’s appearance on the Sunday shows had metastasized beyond control, and the perception that Rice would be a lightening rod was cemented. She apparently lost the will for the battle.
“It was her decision,” said one official close to the administration, “but my sense is no one tried to change her mind.”
By the time the withdrawal announcement was made, even Rice’s allies were caught off guard. The conventional wisdom had been that the criticism of Rice would only make Obama more eager to fight for her appointment. One friend of Rice expressed confusion over why the decision was suddenly made to not have that fight at all. But administration officials stressed that the decision was hers alone.
“I know people are going to write that [we ducked the issue] but the important thing is she made this decision … she wanted to rise above this absurd political theater,” said Vietor. “As it became clear that this could be a partisan food fight she decided it wouldn’t be true to who she is to be a distraction to the priorities of the president’s agenda.”
********
Readers: The write says, “Her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first,” the president said in a statement shortly thereafter. What about the strength of Obama’s Character? National interests first? Uh huh. I think somehow his strength of character was lost somewhere in the midst of politics of the moment, while he was putting his interests first.
It was her decision? Yeah right.
Yes, I know my republican readers are just snickering at me thinking, “Ha! Your guy has screwed up”. Yes, I agree with you. But that doesn’t mean I would ever, even for one second, wish the president to be any one different than Obama. But yes, he did fuck up and we have yet to see how bad this will be.
I’m done flapping these lips. Your turn. Blog me.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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