First the Israelis, now the Vatican
Another day, another religious group offended. All in a day’s work for Obama; including the lies about it:
The Obama administration, in what’s been called an egregious slap in the face to the Vatican, has moved to shut down the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See ”” a free-standing facility ”” and relocate offices onto the grounds of the larger American Embassy in Italy…
And while U.S. officials are touting the relocation as a security measure that’s a cautionary reaction to last year’s attacks on America’s facility in Benghazi, several former American envoys are raising the red flag.
It’s a “massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties,” said former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson in the National Catholic Reporter. “It’s turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy. The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and ”¦ [it’s] an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican.”
Mr. Nicholson ”” whose views were echoed by former envoys Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady ”” also called the justification for closing the existing facility a “smokescreen,” Breitbart reported.
“That’s like saying people get killed on highways because they drive cars on them,” he said in the report. “We’re not a pauper nation ”¦ if we want to secure an embassy, we certainly can.”
Moreover, the existing facility has “state of the art” security, he said.
And of course we all know what a huge terrorist threat the Vatican is, compared to all our other embassies around the world.
It’s almost as though Obama were going for the maximum number of people and groups he can outrage, particularly religious groups of the non-Muslim variety.
This administration is something to be endured. You might say that Obama is America’s cross to bear.
We’ll fix it after he’s gone.
Matt_Se; the problem, as I see it, is there will be way too much to be fixed after this administration is done screwing around.
And when Christie (or whomever) cannot fix everything he will be blamed instead of placing the blame where it belongs – on Obama and the Democrats.
I think it likely that someone within the administration made the argument that by the Federal government having an embassy to a religious organization, it was in violation of the concept of the separation of church and state. Obama clearly found this persuasive.
As for giving offense, that’s what the lies are designed to minimize. Obama probably doesn’t care about those (devout Catholics) who are unlikely to vote for democrats anyway and, figures that ‘progressive’ Catholics are more liberal than religious, which is probably true, so the ‘political downside’ is ‘manageable’.
Come now, Obama may give offense but give rise to outrage? When’s the last time anyone had been outraged in this country. I’ll grant a handful of the outraged exist but a drop of water in the ocean has greater consequence than that vapory element. Outrage has a language, a lexicon all its own. Outrage is without fear – it will call a spade a spade, the treacherous treacherous, the un-American un-American, traitors traitors, demolishers demolishers, etc. Who, with a public platform, would say as much?
And Catholics (and Christians in general)! Outraged? The Christian/Catholics who gave Obama its majority vote? Christianity has devolved from religion to etiquette i.e., civic graces and manners for discourse? Christians/Catholics would be outraged if, in some official capacity, the obvious had been stated about Obama. The respect (and fear) applied to race, the nonnative, and the office, prohibits them from outrage. I believe it would protect the devil himself.
If outrage exists it exists in silence. There may be those who think O outrageous but are cowed into silence. But that’s really not outrage; it’s suffering in silence – as would be expected of real, good, Christians.
As far as I can tell, this move was made just to get rid of the Obamacare headlines for a day or two.
What the hell did we gain from this?
This is the level of cynical pettiness this administration has come to exemplify.
He’s a Muslim. He considers Christians, and Jews, to be the enemy. It’s time he just came out of the closet and admitted it.
The bigger scandal is how a majority of American voters were tricked, or guilted, into electing a President named “Hussein” only seven years after 9/11. As I’ve said before, could you imagine electing a President named Hideki or Gé¼nter in 1948 or 1952?
In terms of foreign relations, this is a big deal. Ties generally get downgraded for cause, such as the other country’s dodgy human rights record, or support to one of our enemies. While it has happened for purely administrative reasons before, the country losing the representation has usually been a minor one, like a tiny South Pacific island nation, or government-of-the-month African cesspool. In other words, a place that nobody in the US really cared about. That has not been the case for the Vatican, which claims to speak for over 1 billion of the world’s souls. And I can tell you from having lived overseas for many years that the locals care deeply about how the US views their country, even if they don’t always admit it. This is another 0bama own-goal in the making.
Anyone still wonder why anti American sentiment in the world is pervasive, even without the Left’s propaganda helping things along?
So long as America was led by a sane leader, its power can be used for good, but even still people and patriots would chafe at the omni power of America bending the wills of their own nation, turning it into a dependent. So that when America has a change in leadership and ethic, the leaders of other nations in the world are too busy dealing with America to stand up by themselves.
In another sense, a world addicted on American power and security, is not good for Americans or for foreigners. Especially not when America goes insane.
Rick, Americans are being taught that Abrahalm Lincoln was a Democrat. Soon people won’t even notice that Hussein was a dictator we killed in Iraq.
We knew Obama did not like Jews. Now we can add Catholics.
This was JFK’s call. He is the Secretary of State, alleged Catholic and Boston College Law grad.
Nice slap in the face to the Jesuit Pope.
“It’s almost as though Obama were going for the maximum number of people and groups he can outrage, particularly religious groups of the non-Muslim variety.”
Almost?
Today is Thanksgiving. My prayer for America will be that we start telling the truth about what is right in front of us.
Almost?
Mike:
I know that tone is hard to convey online without little emoticons and things like sarcasm on/off tags.
But I thought it was at least fairly clear that that “almost” of mine was sarcastic.
I saw it.