Barack Obama's Pursuit Of Carter's Second Term Is In Full Effect

Anti-American protests break out in the Middle East: U.S. diplomatic compounds came under attack Tuesday in Egypt and Libya, where U.S. envoy Christopher Stevens (pictured above), and three other U.S, diplomats were murdered. Image Credit: Washington Post  

Barack Obama's Pursuit Of Carter's Second Term Is In Full Effect

Outside of a really, really bad economy and inept public sector leadership, the one thing that the 39th Presidency of Jimmy Carter principally known for is direct attacks by Islamist mobs against American embassies in the Middle East.

Today, Americans are waking up with news on Google, cable, TV, and what few newspapers folks read anymore, to the news that U.S. Embassies in Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya were over run by mobs and a U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and three other American diplomats have been killed Tuesday in the assaults.

No official comment has come from the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack “in the strongest terms.” She said she had called Libyan President Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf “to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya.”

So this is where our "Lead From Behind" foreign policy has led us and it is time for an immediate change. Clint Eastwood said it best at the Republican National Convention held in Tampa, Florida a couple of weeks ago when he spoke into the microphone these words - "Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best.  And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go."

This excerpted and edited from the Washington Post -

The attacks — apparently prompted by outrage over an amateur, anti-Muslim film made in the United States — are likely to prompt a deep rethinking of U.S. policy toward both Libya and Egypt, where the United States supported Arab Spring revolutions and has been instrumental in providing financial and diplomatic support for their newly-democratic governments. Local security officials in both countries appeared slow to provide protection for the American diplomatic installations, and have issued no firm statements explaining the violence or expressing strong concern.

The film, produced in the United States and posted online, denigrated the Islamic prophet Mohammed. In her statement, Clinton said that while she “deplores” any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, “there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

The crisis quickly spilled over into the U.S. presidential campaign, as Mitt Romney issued a brief statement saying he was “outraged” by the assaults. Romney then said “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn the attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
----
 A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, of which [Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi] Morsi is a member, said that the United States should do a better job of protecting Islam.

“It isn’t a matter of freedom of speech,” Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Gozlan said. “It’s a matter of a holy Islamic symbol.”
[Reference Here]

Charles Krauthammer, a political commenter for Fox News, probably stated this outrage best - “That statement is an embarrassment,” Krauthammer said. “That’s a hostage statement (official White House statements link here). That’s a mob of al-Qaida sympathizers in Egypt forcing the United States into making a statement essentially of apology — on 9/11 of all days — for something of which we are not responsible. I would issue a statement saying to the mob, ‘Go to hell.’ The way America works, the way a democracy works, is that everybody has a right to express themselves. We don’t police our speech and you ought to apologize to the United States for storming an embassy and the violation of the ultimate sacred principle of democracy, which is protecting embassies and missions abroad. For the U.S. to what, essentially, issue a veiled apology, I think is disgraceful.”

Welcome to, hopefully, the end of days of this "full effect" experiment of a 44th Presidency ... welcome to Carter's Second Term!


** First published as "Barack Obama's Pursuit Of Carter's Second Term Is In Full Effect" at Technorati **