Friday, July 18, 2014

A Real President

A CIVILIAN aircraft was shot down. We are not sure exactly who did it, but it is nevertheless down.

It might have been the Russians. It might have been Russian separatists. It might have been the Ukrainian government. Whoever it was, this is an international incident of monumental proportions.

The U.S. State Department, at their first press briefing, pretended nothing had happened and chose to speak about routine matters.

President BO (the amateur president) chose not to spend time on the event at the fundraising speech he was giving. Later he reacted with "sadness" at the event, but no more.

This is the least "presidential" president in the history of the nation. He came into the job unprepared and has learned absolutely nothing while in office (power). He refuses to deal appropriately with international matters. He is a weak kneed, lily-livered, yellow-bellied sap sucker. To any civilized American, he is pathetic.

In 1983 a Korean passenger jet liner was shot down by the then Soviets. Whereas President BO (the amateur president) would have gone fund raising, a real president would have effectively addressed the nation like this:



BTW: Ronald Reagan CANCELLED the remainder of his vacation to make this speech. Can you even imagine "President" Obama cancelling anything for something of this magnitude?  Well he didn't.

14 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, he made a speech. That's all he did.
What did we do when we shot down Iran 655? Ooops, our bad.

This type of thing happens, Joe and there ain't a lot you can do about it. Some trigger happy separatists have surface to air missiles. Yeah, that's bad mojo.

Maybe you want boots on the ground going door to door in Donetsk?

Joe said...

Unknown: You are too dense to realize that one of the duties of a president is to lead and inspire the country.

Whatever you think of Ronald Reagan's policies, he was articulate, spoke in linear logic, did not "uh" and stammer through ANY speeches. His speech writers understood the use of language and grammar.

He was presidential. That is, he conducted himself with dignity and respect, something the current president knows absolutely nothing about.

Contrary to popular belief, Obama cannot speak one sentence grammatically correctly unless he has a teleprompter, and even then he gets lost frequently.

Neither can he speak two sentences without referencing himself. That you NEVER heard from Reagan.

I stand by my conclusion that President Obama is an amateur, incapable of leadership and that Ronald Reagan was a leader.

sue hanes said...

Joe - You make a good point. That President Obama didn't treat the matter with enough force. Maybe he had reasons for that. But probably not. Maybe he is not the right man for the job. But he still has a lot of time left and I hope he can do good for our country. That would benefit all of us.

Joe said...

sh: He will probably do as much good (harm) to our country as he already has.

Ducky's here said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ducky's here said...

Joe, can you comment on the fact that Reagan revealed intercepted communication which gave the Soviets insight into our intelligence capabilities and resulted in Soviet cryptographic changes which hindered our intelligence gathering?

Not to say that St. Ronnie Raygun was inept but sometimes he was inept.

Joe said...

Ducky: Joe, can you comment on the fact that Reagan revealed..."

No. Because it is not on topic. The topic is Being Presidential and Professionalism. Reagan was presidential and professional. Obama is an amateur, and certainly not presidential.

Craig said...

He refuses to deal appropriately with international matters

At the time of Obama's first remarks, it was unclear who was responsible. On Friday he was downright Reaganesque.

What is the appropriate way to deal with this, Joe? When 241 marines were blown up in Lebanon, Reagan, professionally and presidentialy, turned tail and invaded Grenada. Maybe he should follow Bush's example of being presidential. 3000 murdered Americans and he pulls resources from the country harboring terrorists to invade Iraq.

The professional and presidential thing for Obama is to invade Mexico.

Joe said...

Craig: You really do think he was presidential on Friday-Reaganesque? There is no comparison.

"...it was unclear who was responsible."

Uh...That's what I said.

"The professional and presidential thing for Obama is to invade Mexico."

That's the first time I've ever heard you come up with a good idea.

Lisa said...

The professional and presidential thing for Obama is to invade Mexico."

That's the first time I've ever heard you come up with a good idea

lol Joe

Shaw Kenawe said...

Joe, the record shows that Reagan did not respond until FOUR DAYS after the Russians shot down the Korean plane, and that Secy. Schultz didn't bother to wake Reagan to tell him.

Speaker Tip O'Neill knew about it before sleeping and vacationing Reagan did.

Reagan did not fly back to Washington immediately, nor did he personally address the situation for four days.

Your criticism of President Obama is based on your basic hatred of the man and ignorance of what actually happened when Reagan was president at the time of the Korean airliner disaster.

The facts do not support your smear on President Obama nor your misplaced adoration of Reagan's response:

From House Speaker Tip O'Neill's 1987 memoir: "I'll never forget that summer day in 1983 when Flight 007, the Korean airliner, was shot down by the Soviets. I was on Cape Cod, where Secretary of State George Shultz called me at 7 in the morning. After telling me what had happened, he said he was sending down a plane to bring me to Washington for an emergency meeting at the White House.

"I'll be ready," I said. "But what does the President think about this?"

"He's still asleep," said Shultz. "He doesn't know about it yet."

"You've got to be kidding," I said. "You mean you`re calling me before you've even notified the President?"

"We'll tell him when he wakes up," said Shultz."


Larry Speakes, in his memoir, acknowledged that that was true, but said it was a cheap shot because Reagan was vacationing in California, where it was 4:00 A.M. (I guess the notion of a president taking a "3:00 A.M. phone call" didn't apply to Reagan.)

However, Reagan's personal response didn't get much more forceful in the hours after dawn broke. As Paul Slansky noted in his book on the Reagan era, "The Clothes Have No Emperor":

"Only after CBS shows President Reagan on horseback at his ranch as the crisis unfolds does he reluctantly return to Washington."

Facts are stubborn things.

Shaw Kenawe said...

FYI, this exchange just took place this morning:

BRZEZINSKI: At the same time there’s these parallels being made to Ronald Reagan and how he responded to the Korean airliner. It took him four days to go back and make the strong statements that he made, just for some perspective.


SCARBOROUGH: He immediately canceled his vacation.

BRZEZINSKI: No, he didn’t, actually.

SCARBOROUGH: Yes, he actually did.
BRZEZINSKI: No, he didn’t immediately cancel it.

SCARBOROUGH: Yes, he did. He immediately canceled it. He immediately went back to the White House. He immediately canceled fund-raising events and campaign events. Yes, he did. You can go back and look. Ronald Reagan didn’t keep campaigning. He stopped when the Korean airliner went down.

Eventually, Mika just gave up as she could tell Joe wasn’t going to be swayed from his wrongly-held notion that St. Ronnie hopped on Air Force One as soon as he heard the news about the plane being shot down and went into full-on crisis management mode. After tossing out a little more Reagan-worship, Scarborough proceeded to rip the Obama Administration for engaging in “bad theater,” suggesting that President Obama is more interested in drinking beer, shooting pool and eating cheeseburgers than dealing with issues like the border crisis or the situation in Gaza.

After the segment was over, Scarborough had to feast on a good helping of crow. On Twitter, Scarborough sent the following tweet admitting he was wrong over his statements on Reagan.

Joe Scarborough ✔ @JoeNBC
Follow
And thanks to all the kind souls on Twitter who pointed out my boneheaded error as well. You are great ombudsmen! I was wrong. @morningmika


So, Joe, you're not the only one who is wrong-headed about Reagan vs. Obama on their responses to blowing up planes by Russia.

Both Joes are wrong. Take heart, my friend. There's no shame in being wrong and then admitting wrong-headedness.

Joe said...

SK: "Your criticism of President Obama is based on your basic hatred of the man's policies."

Hmm! Reagan almost immediately, Obama never.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Joe, that was dishonest. You put quotes around something I did not write.

Why do conservatives have to cheat like that?

Here is what I wrote:

"Your criticism of President Obama is based on your basic hatred of the man and ignorance of what actually happened when Reagan was president at the time of the Korean airliner disaster."

You changed my words and quoted something I did not say.

I guess when you can't win an argument, you have to resort to underhanded tactics.

Also, you are silent about your mistaken idea that Reagan responded immediately to the Russian shoot-down of the Korean airliner in 1983.

The record shows (written by his own people) that he didn't want to leave his ranch in Santa Barbara and return to D.C. And he didn't make a formal statement until four days after the disaster.

And there were many more Americans, including a US Congressman, on that plane than were on the Malaysian plane.

It is instructive to see how quickly and inaccurately many conservative bloggers jumped on President Obama's reaction to the disaster without knowing diddley-squat about what Reagan really did.

Next time, I would suggest that you and your conservative friends take a deep breath and wait for the facts to develop before you guys trash Mr. Obama.

That way you won't look so silly.