Babalu Blog: He's Just Another Bullsh*t Artist Jim

December 02, 2008

He's Just Another Bullsh*t Artist Jim

You got to love hearing the President Elect yesterday, singing the praises over Hillary Clinton and her ability to lead the US Foreign policy ... shows you that the Messiah just like any politician will say anything to get elected. Change? Nah. He's one of the them. His sh*t stinks like everyone's else. So let's take a look at the tale of the tape:

Obama Disputed Hillary Clinton’s Credentials Before He Applauded Them Tuesday, December 02, 2008 By Matthew Cover
President-elect Obama names Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to be his secretary of state.(AP photo)
(CNSNews.com) – President-elect Barack Obama designated Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to be his next secretary of state Monday, despite having spent much of the previous two years questioning her foreign-policy credentials.

During the campaign for the Democratic nomination, Obama mocked Clinton’s primary claim that she possessed the necessary foreign policy experience to be president.

“What exactly is this foreign policy expertise?” Obama said to reporters in March, while flying from a campaign event in Texas. “Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no.”

In spite of these doubts, Obama praised Clinton’s credentials Monday, saying she would be able to advance America’s interests due to her knowledge of world affairs and familiarity with world leaders.

“She is an American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence, who knows many of the world's leaders, who will command respect in every capital, and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world,” he said.

Obama said that his new foreign policy team, which will be led by Clinton, would change America’s foreign policy for the better.

“I am confident that this is the team that we need to make a new beginning for American national security,” he told reporters at the announcement.

However, Obama had expressed exactly the opposite view of Clinton during the primary campaign.

“It’s what’s wrong with politics today. Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected,” Obama said in a January radio ad. “Hillary Clinton. She’ll say anything and change nothing.”

Obama also said Monday that he picked Clinton for her intelligence, toughness and work ethic, noting that his new team would need to pursue a new strategy around the globe.

“She possesses an extraordinary intelligence and toughness, and a remarkable work ethic,” the president-elect said of Clinton.

He added that his new team must “pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy, our intelligence and law enforcement, our economy and the power of our moral example.”

But last year, Obama’s campaign specifically said that the candidate didn’t need the advice of someone like Clinton, “someone whose ideas were more in line with those of President George W. Bush” than with Obama’s.

“Barack Obama doesn’t need lectures in political courage from someone who followed George Bush to war in Iraq,” the campaign said in a December 2007 statement.

A few months later, Obama reinforced the sentiments of his campaign, saying that Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy wasn’t the change Americans wanted.

“Real change isn’t voting for George Bush’s war in Iraq and then telling the American people it was actually voting for more diplomacy,” he said in March.

In his introduction of Clinton on Monday, however, Obama also seemed to contradict the prior statements of two of his top incoming advisors; both of whom said that Clinton had never been involved in foreign policy issues before.

Greg Craig, incoming chief counsel, said of Clinton in a March conference call: “There’s no evidence that she participated or asserted herself in any of the crises that took place during the eight years of the Clinton presidency. White House records show that she was consistently absent when critical decisions were being made and that her trips abroad were largely ceremonial.”

Susan Rice, Obama’s choice to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, meanwhile, said that a First Lady doesn’t deal with international issues.

“There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are First Lady,” Rice said in March. “You don't get that kind of experience by being married to a commander-in-chief.”

In the most hotly debated dust-up of the primary season – over Clinton’s famous “3 a.m.” ad asking which candidate would better handle a crisis call at three in the morning -- Obama himself said Clinton had already failed the foreign policy test.

“The question is, what kind of judgment will you exercise when you pick up that phone,” Obama said. “In fact, we’ve had a red-phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. Sen. Clinton gave the wrong answer.”

On Monday, meanwhile, Obama called Clinton “a friend, a colleague, a source of counsel.

I'm sure Mr. Limpet will say it's just the heat of the election. Well maybe it is in the mind of an asswipe, but in my mind, either he was bullsh*tting then when he made the statements (they were lies) or he's bullsh*tting us now.

Anyway you slice it or dice it, he's full of sh*t like the rest of them.

UPDATE: Here's a great piece in today's WSJ on the above topic.

Posted by Cigar Mike at December 2, 2008 09:49 AM

Comments

Simply politics as usual. Ambition as usual. Expediency as usual. Doing whatever it takes to get what you want, as usual. And yes, shameless bullshit, as usual.

Posted by: asombra at December 2, 2008 10:21 AM

Cigar Mike,

My take is that the American people are paying a big price now and will pay an even bigger price down the road from all this B.S. we're getting from our politicians.

Let's see when the shit hits the fan how Obama, Hillary and Co. are going to handle it or if they're going to drop the ball big time.

Have a feeling that the next few years are going to be very interesting to say the least....

Posted by: FreedomForCuba at December 2, 2008 10:36 AM

FFC, all I know that as someone who tries cases for a living and deals with "prior inconsistent statements" for a living, I'd have a field day with this one.

It's simple, he was either lying then when he made the statements about her, or he's lying now. The two positions are irreconcilable.

And yes, things will be interesting ....

Posted by: Cigar Mike Pancier at December 2, 2008 10:43 AM

Trouble is, Mike, it seems to be completely acceptable to lie in politics--unless, of course, you're on the unfashionable side, in which case the media and so forth will not let it slide. There's already been massive sliding allowed during the campaign; this is just the logical extension of the same practice. Obama knows it's bullshit, but he also knows he'll get away with it. Translation: he does NOT care, because he doesn't have to.

Posted by: asombra at December 2, 2008 10:51 AM

Cigar Mike,

We're getting very little honesty from our politicians as a whole today.

I guess is a sign of the current times and the society that we live today.

All I know is that I don't like it a bit, because not much good can come out of it.

Posted by: FreedomForCuba at December 2, 2008 10:51 AM

Asombra,

You said it all.

The truth is a lie and the lie becomes the truth.

Posted by: FreedomForCuba at December 2, 2008 10:54 AM

This is how I see it, how can I believe anything he says to us if he's already bs'ed us on this.

I'd tell you, we'd make millions if we could invent a good BS detector

Posted by: Cigar Mike Pancier at December 2, 2008 11:06 AM

Not only does the left get away with baloney and inconsistency, when the right points it out, it is called Swift Boating, a term that means not telling the truth. This is especially quaint since the Swift Boaters, as it happens, were telling the truth. So the left can have a field day in a heads I win tails you lose world.
We'd better get started outnumbering them.

Posted by: honey at December 2, 2008 04:42 PM