Or is this story even true? Is it actually one of those “good-cop/bad-cop” tales instead?
It’s difficult to say, but I vote ever-so-slightly for “true.” My opinion of John Kerry is very low, but I think more of him than I do of Obama.
The following seems quite characteristic of the president:
An Israeli newspaper is reporting that two officials close to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are quietly accusing President Barack Obama of sabotaging Middle East peace efforts after giving an interview in which he sharply criticized Israeli government policy.
The unnamed officials also claim that Kerry was never given a heads-up that the president had planned an interview with reporter Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg View…
Eli Bardenstein, diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Maariv, reported Wednesday that “those close to Secretary of State John Kerry claim in private conversations that President Barack Obama sabotaged Kerry’s efforts to reach agreements over the framework agreement, in the aggressive interview he gave” Goldberg.
“Maariv has learned that the White House hid even from Kerry the very existence of the interview, in a way that is unacceptable in the U.S. capital,” the Israeli reporter added.
Such behavior would certainly be consistent with Obama’s arrogance, his go-it-alone sense of self, and his disregard for the ideas of others except for a few extremely trusted advisors. He has alienated even many of his friends and supporters—certainly quite a few of the Democrats in Congress—on a personal level by having very little to do with them, not asking their advice, and not even letting them know what he’s planning before he does it.
It’s well-known that Obama thinks he’s smarter than anyone around him, and it isn’t even a point of view he tries to hide. It didn’t take years of the presidency to make him feel that way, either; he believed it even when he was running for president the first time:
Obama said…to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign’s political director. “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
Obama measures most policy advisors and Cabinet members by how well they comply with his wishes and follow his orders, not for their input, challenge, or disagreement.
Note also this quote, emphasizing the role of Valerie Jarrett (one of the very few people he trusts), and making it clear that Obama is not interested in what Kerry might do on his own, or in achieving any “special cooperation” with the Israeli team:
Though Kerry allegedly wasn’t aware of the interview, Maariv’s unnamed D.C. sources speculated that Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett took an active part in arranging the Bloomberg interview.
One unnamed source told the paper, “It’s possible that Obama wasn’t fully up to date on the special cooperation that Kerry had achieved with Netanyahu and his team with the Israeli team. It’s also possible he ignored it.”
Anything’s possible, I guess—except that Obama had Israel’s or America’s interests at heart.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Comments
Yes, this story is easy to believe. That doesn’t make it true, it just makes it likely enough that it probably did happen.
Barry Soetero is indeed the smartest man in any room. So smart that he has earned the rspect of everyone in all 57 states. Even Austrians can be overheard, if you understand Austrian, expressing their admiration. I have a friend who is a Navy Corpseman, and he said the military has the utmost rspect for him too. As Americans, we should all be proud!
58.
had visited 57 and had 1 more to go.
Be nice. After all, he does come from the Asian island of Hawaii.
Hey, c’mon now – show some R-S-P-E-C-T !
Who in the world assumes that there is actually a peace to be had, and if so that these characters have what it takes to design a process to obtain it, and if all that, the world is actually going to stand still while it happens?
Whole lotta ‘summin’ goin’ on. As for me, I assume the parable of the frog & the scorpion is actually a prophecy. Ditto the ants & the grasshopper.
Any 4-H kid can tell you that you have to keep an eye on the piglets after you dress ’em up for the fair because if they see some mud, well, they’re pigs doncha know? I don’t think anybody is qualified to be president or SoS unless he/she is willing to try to catch a greased piglet in a mud pit.
On camera.
This is a big change from the previous Administration, where the President used his National Security Advisor, followed by her as his Secretary of State, as his foreign policy brain. The two of them rarely, if ever, weren’t on the same page – mostly because she was apparently the one calling most of the shots, and when she hadn’t, they at least had had long talks before hand. But, then again, that is the difference between a Harvard MBA and a Harvard JD.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/palestinian-leader-rejects-israeli-jewish-state/
Well, I’d say that was the ball-game, right there.
Pres. ScamWOW can rotate. The Israelis know how to take care of business.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/john-kerry-addresses-climate-change-first-policy-guidance-secretary-state_784314.html
We are SO screwed…
I think the Goldberg interview was complete bone-headed venting on the part of Obama.
It never occurred to Barack Obama to co-ordinate with his Secretary of State, because BO doesn’t know what a Secretary of State is for. Further, co-ordination is not his job. That is for somebody else, and he has no idea that it is important, or even happens, except by magic. This is a person with not one managerial success in his entire life, except allowing other people to get him elected.
Kerry’s not much better, but he has somebody who works for him who knows what a President’s staff is supposed to do.
” … not one managerial success …” — and yet, in 2012, his fans were painting Mitt Romney, who had achieved indisputable managerial successes in multiple arenas, as a bumbler who wasn’t ready for prime time! It’s like Alice-in-Wonderland time in America.
“Did Obama sabotage Kerry on peace talks?”
No, because as Platypus has pointed out, there is no potential peace to be had.
But even if there was, the answer still would be no, because in reality, both of these men either are clueless, or else are working toward goals that are different from the official pretexts.
It’s believable. Of course, there was never going to be any real progress, Kerry was only fooling himself about that, but there might have been a dog and pony show like so many in the past, demonstrating that “the peace process” was alive and ongoing. Obama is too arrogant to engage in any sort of negotiations with anyone. His idea of negotiating is having a meeting where he restates his unconditional demands and expects them to be accepted. But this gave the parties sufficient cover to avoid the Kabuki dance this time.
The world’s Left, from Europe to the ivy-covered ivory towers of the American academy, isn’t interested so much in peace in the Middle East as in the “peace process.” Peace itself is boring and bourgeois, no one holds a rally or a protest to celebrate peace that is an fait accompli. There are no champagne toasts or flowery speeches, no terse interim statements or shuttle diplomacy. But the “process” never ends, and feeds an entire industry of processors and caterers forever.
You have to love a good process. Pardon, but the tray of foie gras puffs is coming around . . .
Obama foreign policy: talk lousy and Kerry out a big schtick.
Never attribute to deviousness that which can more simply be explained by incompetence.
“My opinion of John Kerry is very low, but I think more of him than I do of Obama.” The only difference between Kerry and Obama is the letters of the alphabet.
Po’wittle John Boy Kerry. He weep. He rend his pricey garments. He keen and wale and blubber like the patronizing petulant infant he is,’Yo.
Ohhhh, Gawd, say it is true that this pseudo-Lurch feels blind sided and beetwayed by the Bamster. LOVE it!!
I’ve loathed that vermin for…ohhhh…43-years or so. I was a longtime antiwar Lefty and he was this snake oil selling piece of Shiite come lately to the movement. Later, as a mugged-by-reality Neocon, I continued to loath him for his unforgivable support of the Sandinista Butchers. A squalid piece of true fecal matter now as then.
The only time he’s the smartest person in the room is when he’s in a one-holer. And he’d probably forget the paper.
Calli…He’d liken the 1-holer to the squats of GGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGHHHIIIIIIIISSSSSS Khan. ((-:
Obama has got to have assembled the worst foreign/defense/national security/intelligence team in American history – Kerry, Hagel, Clapper, Brennan, Power, Rice, it is mind boggling. He would have been better off picking random names out of the Georgetown phone book.
Rather than the Georgetown phone book (a little close to the center of it all) … I’d suggest say the Bozeman Montana or Fargo North Dakota phone books.
Captain: PLEASE place Hillary at Point on that loathsome team.
I was referring to his second term and mercifully Hillary is not part of it. His first term had one adult (Robert Gates).
IF only Mr. Gates had resigned for integrity sake after The Boy King gave his loathsome Cairo address in 2009.