Obama can see Chirac from his house!
I’m talking about this:
Le Figaro reports…that Obama sent the former leader of France [Chirac] a “very nice” letter, which included this idiotic comment: “I am certain that we will be able to work together, in the coming four years, in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world.”
Whatever is happening to Obama? No matter what his agenda might be, socialist or otherwise, what possible reason could he have for reaching out to Chirac and drawing the ire of Sarkozy?
And, more to the point, whatever is happening to Obama’s aides and advisers? Don’t presidents have the equivalent of fact-checkers or spell-checkers or briefers or protocol experts or something like that to call on to keep them from making incredibly egregious errors such as this?
Either Obama is getting some very bad advice, or he’s ignoring some good advice, or he’s getting no advice. None of these options is especially reassuring.
[NOTE: I am more than willing to retract this post if it turns out to be some sort of joke—in fact I’d be relieved and happy to do so. I must say I thought at first that it had to be a spoof, but I could find nothing to contradict it, and the source seems to be the French press.
Come to think of it, that’s a bit suspect in and of itself. Stay turned.
If anyone can shed light on the truth or falsehood of the Obama letter to Chirac, please post the evidence in the comments section.]
[ADDENDUM: The multi-talented Fausta has provided some requested light. Please read what she has to say.]
[ADDENDUM II: More from Fausta. First France, now Italy?]
What a moron. This is really getting out of hand. First he insults the Prime Minister of England, and now the French President Sarkozy.
There is an air of unreality about all of this. It’s almost as if a psychotic break is happening either within the Big Mack Daddy or within the government itself. On top of it all there is the blowing of kisses towards the Mullahs.
He is being warned that his budget may amount to the bankrupting of the nation, and blissfully ignores it.
I have never seen anything like it in my lifetime. It’s really awesomely strange.
I can only think we are finally seeing the product of our edumacational system (I refuse to call it “education”). At least he picked someone who *had* been a real leader of France at some point – there are many poeple in our edumacational system that couldn’t even do that when taking modern geography or political science (I was continually shocked at the “new” things my cousin was learning in her last year of college as a “poli sci” major – she still doesn’t know who comes after the vice president in rank to be president nor does she even know what the Speaker of the House does other than “run the meetings”).
Outside of hard sciences school is a real joke. Even then the “feel good” people have tried to force changes. In the last place I worked one of my old professors took a sabbatical to work there and the pressure they were getting from the college administrators was ludicrous. Your software crashed or it didn’t, your proof worked or it didn’t, and your equations balanced or they didn’t. Failure to be able to do that whilst getting your seal of approval from the university could very well mean people die when your bridge collapses because you were “close enough”.
“Close enough” also got some multi-billion dollar satellites to crash into mars instead of taking readings – demanding excellence has a six month expectation operation time on mars go into years of real world operation. Now – which one would *you* rather have build your space ship, design your bridge, or open you body up and cut on your heart with a razor blade? Of course, I guess I’m also preaching to the choir here too, Obama would probably point out that he made it to be the President on that education (umm yea – we see how well that is going too).
It may just get to the point where we are going to have to at least contemplate drastic action in the future in order preserve the Republic for our children and grandchildren. Meanwhile, we have to redouble our efforts to get these idiots out of there in stages in 2010 and 2012.
Sober leaders of our other countries must be watching this and inwardly afraid. They are seeing the only responsible superpower in the history of humanity self-destructing. Right at a moment in history when China, Russia, and militant Islam are teaming up in a kind of evil pack to go hunting.
I’m holding my judgment on this too. All I can find is that one mention in Figaro.
Obama is emphatically not one of those superintelligent human calculators from the Dune novels, but he’s not stupid either.
I am starting to think that PM Harper from Canada is the only foreign leader Obama is not going to snub.
Ha ha ha, I was just checking back in to ask if this incident was for real, and you were already on it and asking the same question (apparently great minds do indeed think alike). As a follow-up from the 60 Minutes interview, don’t you think Obi is just putting us all on? You’ve got to wonder where in the world is the house juice, Rahmbo? Apparently out to lunch, or he’s too busy planning for the upcoming census with the Akorn krowd…
I posted the news about the Chirac letter in the previous comments thread, so let me post here that according to many comments on the web the Obama letter responded to a letter by Chirac’s Foundation.
http://www.fondationchirac.eu/en/
Still, it’s telling that at this point people are willing to believe almost anything about Obama.
Yep. Just like they were about Bush.
I think we’ll see an uptick in false stories about Obama coming directly from Obama people. The strategy being to portray his oppositions mere examination and mention of such things as a bunch of irrational racist.
Obama certainly is not stupid, but there is more and more evidence that he is a complete ignoramus, and many of his close associates are no better. When educational standards are dumped down for decades, even Ivy League graduates can not anymore be expected to know even basics of history and geography.
No Pasaran posted on this (scroll down to 3719). Maybe we will get more from there about the French reaction.
I also giggled at yet another blunder by America’s stupidest president ever. Then I thought that this didn’t quite pass the smell test – it was too stupid even for Obama. I’d like to see some independent confirmation, too.
Update:
I went to the “Le Figaro” website that talks about Obama’s letter to Chirac (http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2009/03/19/01001-20090319ARTFIG00357-confidentiel-barack-obama-a-ecrit-a-jacques-chirac-.php)
The section covering the letter states:
Le président américain vient d’adresser une lettre «tré¨s sympathique » é Jacques Chirac, selon l’expression de ce dernier. «Je suis certain que nous pourrons au cours des quatre années é venir collaborer ensemble dans un esprit de paix et d’amitié afin de construire un monde plus sé»r» , écrit le successeur de George W. Bush au prédécesseur de Nicolas Sarkozy. En évoquant le mot de « paix», Obama rend un hommage implicite é l’action de l’ancien président frané§ais qui s’était opposé é la guerre en Irak. Une intervention américaine contre laquelle le futur président américain s’était opposé comme sénateur, lors du vote au Congré¨s.
Google Translate:
The U.S. President has just sent a letter “very sympathetic” to Jacques Chirac, in the words of the latter. “I am confident that we can over the next four years working together in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world,” writes the successor to George W. Bush’s predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy. In mentioning the word “peace,” Obama makes implicit tribute to the action of the former French president who opposed the war in Iraq. A U.S. intervention against which the future U.S. president had opposed as a senator, in a vote in Congress.
Looks like there’s a whole lot of nothing there.
Someone should take away Obama’s crayons and Big Chief tablet before he sends off anymore embarrassing letters to former national leaders.
Obama is either the biggest idiot to ever sit in the Oval Office, or he’s deliberately trying to piss off the leaders of our closest allies. Of course, I happen to believe it’s both.
Obama is wrecking this country’s world image. This is not just inexperience or naivete. It is incompetence.
A lot of foreign countries are better than the USA at certain things. The French are some of the best in the world at diplomacy and negotiating. They are clever people. They and the rest of the world will just be confirmed in their opinion that Americans are simple, stupid people.
As others have pointed out, given the very strained relationship between Chirac and Sarkozy, it is not very diplomatic on Obama’s part to send a letter to Chirac. For the son of a foreigner, who lived overseas for part of his childhood, whose candidacy was widely supported out side the US, Obama is proving strikingly inept at connecting with the furriners.
For what it is worth, here is the link for the NoPasaran posting on the letter.
http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2009/03/jacques-chirac-very-sympathique-letter.html
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David: that is exactly what I read as well. And if you think that’s “a whole lot of nothing” in diplomatic circles, you are sadly ignorant.
Obama was supposed to be savvy and sensitive. He is neither.
This is purportedly from Michael Ledeen:
“He also sent a letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano (a member of the now defunct Communist Party), expressing confidence that the United States and Italy would work together “to overcome the current global political and economic hardships and build a safer world.” The only problem with the letter was that the Italian president does not make policy; that power resides with the prime minister and his cabinet. Perhaps the White House czars have issued an ukase stipulating that the American president writes only to his peers, and thus instead of addressing himself to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, President Obama wrote to a man who holds an almost entirely ceremonial position.
“This imprecision produced the predictable kerfluffle in Rome, as the leftist media and intellectuals pondered the event and concluded that Obama had deliberately stiffed Berlusconi. The Italian prime minister thus joins his British counterpart in wondering what hope they are supposed to find in the recent change in diplomatic protocol in Washington.”
h/t Urgent Agenda
http://www.urgentagenda.com/
I say purportedly because the link at the site takes you to the wrong place.
LOL. Love that headline. But I smell a hoax, too. I mean, c’mon.
But if it’s true – Have you considered the possibility that Obama doesn’t know that Chirac was succeeded by Sarkozy? Seems incredible, but not that much more incrdible than that the letter was sent at all. And the letter doesn’t indicate otherwise.
Gosh, this better be a hoax. God help us if it isn’t.
Gorbachev!? Gorbachev?!
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52M2RG20090323
Jim O’Sullivan,
I had pretty much the same thought – The One didn’t know that Chirac was no longer in a position of power!
Of course, if that’s the case, US diplomacy looks like a bumbling idiot….
How long before the incompetency hits critical mass, and will the US be able to undo the damage this novice has generated?
Geez with all the really smart people here I am surprised no one has put this together yet. So let me try my hand at expalining.
We all know that Obama is the ultimate politician so let’s consider for a minute that, unlike biden, his slips are not unintentional. Say the remark about people in Pennsylvania “clinging to their guns and religion” was actually intended to cut the feet out from under the “conservative democrats” by making them look like what he said they were when they took umbrage.
So if we can accept that premise then what he said here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws
that he had been to fifty-seven states and still had one to go (excluding Alaska and Hawaii – he said his staff wouldn’t let him go) that would bring the total states to sixty. Maybe he was actually telegraphing his intentions to get another ten states into the union. Maybe he is looking to bring France and Italy under the umbrella. In order to get France he would probably look to undermine Sarkozy’s shaky support with the voters and Chirac might be a good place to start. Perhaps he has been promised support to be the first governor of France. If he can get France then he might be able to engineer a breakaway by Quebec and bring them in as well.
As to what others he is looking at I guess we will just have to keep a close eye on his correspondence.
And just remember this
Barack Obama’s “climate czar” Carol Browner has been exposed as being a member of Socialist International, a highly influential group headed by a Bilderberg Group luminary that calls for the implementation of global government. The group tried to purge their website of information concerning Browner, but the idiots didn’t realize that you could Google their old web pages.
Here one view on the Bilderberg group
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm
draw your own conclusions.
Do I believe what I just wrote? Not really, but ask me if I think it is beyond the scope of imagination that Obama sees himself as President of the World and I will tell you it is not. The man’s hubris and arrogance know no bounds.
Fausta has more on Chirac.
http://faustasblog.com/?p=11017
Has Obama offered an explanation? Does it make sense?
This seems more sloppy and thoughtless than it does a major gaffe or intentional undercut. Chirac wrote, Obama had someone write a nice replay. They didn’t think about how it would be seen.
They’re supposed to think about it. This is a presidential administration whose actions affect an entire people. They are too busy doing all the magical historical stuff to just do their damn jobs.
neo-neocon: The Christian Science Monitor has a very cogent explanation for the episode which can be found at the link below. However, it does say bundles about the perception of Obama that this matter produced. After all, he did once refer to the “57” states he had visited.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/03/23/obama-writes-letter-to-chirac-blogosphere-goes-crazy/
Don Janousek: Yes, thanks, I had already discovered that through Fausta’s blog. I added an “addendum” to my post with a link to what she said, which is quite a bit more complete and thoughtful than the Christian Science Monitor’s take on it.
neo-neocon: You’re welcome.
No wonder that Obonga loves Chirac for opposing the Iraq invasion. Obonga’s buddy, Tony Rezko, is reported to have received money from Saddam through intermediaries.
Just a bunch of criminals scratching each other’s backs and massaging each other’s family jewels.
This is simply an example of Obama’s lack of foreign affairs experience.
Foreign affairs is much more than war, the UN and other typical assertions – it has everything to do with general communication between individuals, and far more than just canned speeches.
This type of foreign experience and knowledge is something Obama lacks, something Biden was supposedly chosen for, and something his advisers should have caught in advance. They did not, have not been and seem to continually allow Obama to make blatant mistakes. Perhaps he simply won’t listen or this is part of some odd strategy he is developing and has not told the rest of us about… I guess we won’t ever really know.
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