Obama Fail Blog

Remember kids, dithering on foreign policy demonstrates weakness and emboldens our enemies!

Five Afghan border guards were killed when a roadside bomb blast hit their patrol in the troubled southern province of Kandahar Sunday, police said.

The attack occurred in the Spin Boldak district bordering Pakistan during a pre-dawn patrol, said General Abdul Raziq, provincial border police commander.

"In an explosion this morning all five border policemen were killed when their vehicle was hit," he told AFP.

Source: AFP

It's time for a new feature at Obama Fail Blog!

President Obama has been getting alot of flack for failing to make a decision on his Afghanistan strategy. But let's be fair - Obama's dithering isn't limited to Afghanistan. You see, when it comes to dithering, the artist formerly known as Barry Soetoro is a bit of a renaissance man.

Each issue will be broken down to a SETUP - where Obama's smart new way of approaching a problem is laid out - and a PUNCHLINE - where harsh reality hits leftist incompetence like a bag of marbles against a glass jaw. Let's go:

TODAY IN THE DITHER-O-SPHERE - NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Today's Issue: Iran

SETUP: President Obama is suggesting that Iran should give its people more freedom and it should halt development of a nuclear weapons program. No pressure - just Obama's new, cool diplomatic style.

• Obama: Iran Must Decide What Its Focus Is (UPI)
• Obama Urges Iranian Gov't to "Open Door" for its People (Xinhua)
• Obama calls for new relationship with Iran on anniversay of embassy takeover (LA Times)

PUNCHLINE: Iran's response to Obama is to continue development of their nuke program while brutally cracking down on protestors and shipping arms to Hezbollah. Trifecta!

• Ahmadinejad: Iran will keep nukes as long as Israel does (JTA News)
  
• Witnesses: police clash with protesters in Tehran (AP)
  
• Amateur video of Iran rally turning violent (ITN News)
  
• White House Monitoring Crackdown in Iran (Radio Free Europe)
• Israel seizes vessel with cargo of weapons believed from Iran (Irish Times)
• Israel: Ship's seized arms intended for Hezbollah (Chicago Tribune)
  

Source: Reuters

Visiting U.S. President Barack Obama made a pointed quip Tuesday about Russia's sale of Alaska to the United States in the 19th century.

Referring to the long history of Russia-U.S. trade stretching back more than two centuries, Obama told an audience of business people in Moscow:

"Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you."

Czar Alexander II's sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million in gold, around 1.9 cents per acre, was regarded by Russians as a national disgrace -- particularly once it became clear that the province was rich in oil.

Source: HotAir

Reuters calls this a “pointed quip,” but unless Obama wanted to deliberately insult Russians, the only point is that Obama has still not figured out what diplomacy means. At its most basic, it means refraining from insulting people.

Editors Note - The intent here may not have been to insult. Given Obama's worldview and his clumsy speaking patterns when off-prompter, it may have been an awkward attempt at a backhanded apology. The real meaning of this Obama Fail is anyone's guess.

Source: UK Telegraph

In a gripping display of handshake diplomacy at Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, a beaming Mr Obama warmly greeted the socialist firebrand, who regularly denounced President George W Bush as "the devil".

Mr Obama went out of his way to walk across a hotel meeting room to greet Mr Chavez during opening ceremonies at the summit in Port of Spain on Friday night.

The Venezuelan president, who once famously claimed he could still "smell the sulphur" after speaking from the same podium as Mr Bush had used at the United Nations, responded in English: "I want to be your friend".

The Venezuelan government released photographs of the two men smiling and Mr Obama deploying one of his favourite gestures - putting a hand on Mr Chavez's shoulder.

The bonhomie continued as Saturday's summit meeting started. Mr Chavez presented his US counterpart with a book, The Open Veins of Latin America, by the Left-wing Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. Mr Obama accepted the gift with a smile.

Source: UK Telegraph via JammieWearingFool

While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies – including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington.

Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem.

The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship – or "special partnership", as we are now supposed to call it – by registering a complaint.

Source: Human Events

There are three words to describe the White House’s reception for the British Prime Minister last week: public relations disaster....

Even the ritual exchange of gifts was poorly handled by the White House. Brown brought several for the new president, including a first edition of the seven volume official biography of Sir Winston Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert, as well as a pen holder carved from the timbers of HMS Gannett, a ship used by the British to combat slavery in the 19th Century. In return, Obama presented his guest with 25 DVDs, ranging from “Psycho” to “ET.” And in case Brown is the last person in the galaxy not to have seen “Star Wars,” that was thrown in too. Quite what the prime minister made of the Wizard of Oz is unknown, but the London Daily Mail described the gift from the president as “about as exciting as a pair of socks.”

Source: Canada Free Press

The British press has offered several face-saving explanations for these serial rudenesses. Perhaps Obama is “exhausted.” Alternatively, he is simply “focused elsewhere” in the midst of cratering capital markets, collapsing automakers and skyrocketing unemployment.

The real answer, however, was supplied by an unnamed State Department official whom London’s Sunday Telegraph reported on March 8th “reacted with fury” when asked by the paper why the Brown visit was so, er, “low-key.” According to the Telegraph: “The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship. ‘There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.’”

Source: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red "reset button" to symbolise improved ties, but the gift drew smiles as the word "reset" was mistranslated into the Russian for "overcharge".

Video Source: Politico

Source: The New York Times

"President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday."

Source: Commentary Magazine

"President Obama’s secret offer to Russia on scrapping an Eastern European missile defense shield is a debacle. Obama sent a letter to Dmitri Mevedev last month suggesting the U.S. would abandon its plan to deploy a missile intercept system in Poland and the Czech Republic if Moscow got Iran to halt its nuclear program. The worst part of the offer is not that the U.S. president was willing to turn his back on our Eastern European allies (that’s just a dangerous and depressing long-term side-effect); it’s that the offer was flatly rejected by Moscow. This is called diplomatic failure."

Source: National Review (via Charles Krauthammer on FoxNews)

"This administration has prided itself, flattered itself on deploying smart diplomacy. "Smart diplomacy" is a meaningless idea, but if it has any meaning at all, it is not ever doing something as humiliating, amateurish, and stupid as this."