‘A lot of big words and big thoughts’ – State Dept. on Kissinger Op-ed
Ladies and gentlemen, our State Department in action
The State Department stepped in it. Again.
Now infamous for her dippy soundbites, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf might have topped her “ISIS just needs jobs” gaffe today.
Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, both former Secretaries of State, wrote an op-ed that was published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Brutally critical of the administration’s much touted Iran deal, the op-ed focused on the White House’s dismissive attitude towards the danger Iran poses. Kissinger and Shultz were less than impressed by the administration’s insistence on the necessity of a deal with a country whose priorities aren’t remotely in the same galaxy as those of the United States, noting:
Cooperation is not an exercise in good feeling; it presupposes congruent definitions of stability. There exists no current evidence that Iran and the U.S. are remotely near such an understanding. Even while combating common enemies, such as ISIS, Iran has declined to embrace common objectives. Iran’s representatives (including its Supreme Leader) continue to profess a revolutionary anti-Western concept of international order; domestically, some senior Iranians describe nuclear negotiations as a form of jihad by other means.
In sum, the op-ed eloquently observes the Iran deal is a complete and total cluster.
At a press conference held earlier today, Marie Harf was in no mood to discuss the WSJ lashing.
Flustered, Harf attempted to avoid questions on the WSJ op-ed, but Associated Press reporter Matt Lee persisted. “I read it and it’s far from nuanced. It’s pretty damning,” Lee says. “You just reject it outright? They say this is a recipe for disaster basically, but you say, no, clearly, you wouldn’t be pursuing something you thought was a recipe for disaster. Is that correct?” Lee reads a few lines of the piece, and lobs them back to Harf.
“I obviously disagree with that. I think that an Iran backed up by a nuclear weapon would be more able to project power in the region. So that’s why we don’t want them to get a nuclear weapon, that’s what this deal does,” Harf says. Interrupting Lee, Harf raises her voice and continues, “And I didn’t hear a lot of alternatives, I heard a lot of sort of big words and big thoughts in that piece and those are certainly, there’s a place for that, but I didn’t hear a lot of alternatives about what they would do differently.”
A lot of sort of big words and big thoughts. That ladies and gentlemen, is our State Department.
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Comments
There’s no “c” in George Shultz’s name.
” …the op-ed eloquently observes the Iran deal is a complete and total cluster …”
That’s what happens when the country gets starry-eyed over a supposedly “black messiah” and doesn’t properly vet. We ended up with a cluster of a president.
And he’s made a total cluster of our nation.
So Harf looks like a, totally hip college kid, with bleached blonde hair, that makes me like, really want her and all. and she is brave to let her roots show you know, and she is modest in showing a little cleavage but that is really like … cool you know.
And any doubting her should just look at her glasses, which show she is like really smart … so I don’t know how you tripped out haters can’t see how fooled you are by tea party trippers man, that don’t dig how awesome Obama is dude.
You are so uncool. /sarc
My best three beer effort at explaining how anyone can listen to this crap and “like, relate dude”.
Or, as Iowahawk puts it: “Peak Buffy”.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/585899569885483008
“this date would be better if you didn’t talk”
That would merit “snark of the day” if LI had that category…
Cue the photo of Marie Harf in a Hotdog On A Stick uniform: https://i.imgflip.com/hr4a4.jpg.
Peroxide rots your brain…
Rags: So does Leftism-Liberalism-Kerryism-Obamaism!!
“Alternatives..”??!! Dont’cha just friggin’ love it??
Marie Von Blonde: DON’T Remove or lighten the F***ing Sanctions,Dearie. That’s to start. WAIT for tyhem to open their squalid doors to inspectors FIRST and start doing significant dismantling to their Nuke Program. That’s the Nimder One “Alternative” which Bibi, Henry and George have been abundantly clear about.
How difficult can this be, Honeybunny?
ROFLMAO! Wish to heck I’d said that.
You nailed it.
Doesn’t she owe her State Department position to her professor daddy? (And affirmative action?)
The first thing you need for “smart” diplomacy is smart people. Of course it takes a smart person to know who else is a smart person. The man at the top of this administration has sealed his academic records, but we can infer that this is the real problem. There are smart democrats but they have all abandoned him. Smart people are not always good people to make thing more problematic. He had a Nobel prize winning physicist at energy that did not understand economics so we got a mega million failure with Solyndra and other abject green energy failures.
So we know at least three things which are not considered significant by the current administration: big words, big thoughts, and of course, facts.
The justifier of dumb blonde jokes strikes again. The perfect spokesman for a state dept with billary/catsup man as the secretary and obambi as the big boss.
It’s telling that Obama deposed a repentant right-wing Muslim in Libya, but wants to compromise with the unrepentant left-wing Muslims in Iran. Perhaps if the Iranian hardliners would apologize for statements and actions (through proxies) that pose an existential threat to Jews in Israel, and competing Arab regimes, then they could keep their nuclear weapons program; but, they haven’t, they don’t, and that’s why they are selectively isolated, and the people are, unfortunately, punished for the audacity of their leaders.
Deposed in the most brutal and extra-judicial manner… but, make love, not war. Make abortion, not life. Pro-choice or selective principles are an inadequate foundation for stability, let alone peace.
Notice the way I expertly wove two competing visions for life and peace into a single comment, where the latter contradicts the former. The politically correct semantic space will never have moral integrity again.
n.n. – You are right/correct about linking Obama administration advocacy for Abortion/3rd term/post-delivery murder, etc. devaluation of life with their inhumane/disastrous policies.
Only an Administration/State Department that supports abortion and is not pro-life could refuse to put Boko Haram on its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations for political reasons.
Yep – support for abortion is a signature characteristic of the barbarian and a corrupt soul.
Only a President/Secretary of State with such a low value on human life that they are champions/heroes/recipients of Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger award, could turn its back on the people under attack in Benghazi and refuse to rescue them because it was an election year or whatever self-protective, inhumane, detached, cognitively dissonant mental processes they engage in.
Only a President/Secretary of State with such a low value of human life could tell Americans in Yemen they are on their own getting out of that Islamic hell-hole mess the Administration helped to create.
Only a President/Secretary of State with such a low value of human life would even take Iran, Muslim Brotherhood, or even Islam, seriously as a valid system or basis of civilized society.
Rats – my ‘Yep’ sentence was supposed to be at the end of my tirade. Note to self: Do not forget to use the Preview button.
Don’t know if it was Obama or that Sec., of State, Hillary as this article makes out
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0415/morris040915.php3
” The U.S. government had been reluctant to get more deeply involved in Libya. But Hillary wasn’t. She wanted to get rid of Gaddafi and was very, very public about it. Is it possible that the unverified information from rogue sources triggered, or at least fostered, Hillary’s aggressive advocacy of U.S. military intervention in Libya — a policy that many in the Obama Administration resisted? That’s something that should be looked at quite carefully.
Because it was Hillary’s advocacy that was the prime moving force in triggering the U.S. involvement. “
Secretary of State is an O appointee, so he owes her decisions. Having said that, I assume that ALL of the more aggressive moves are Hillary’s or Kerry’s or whoever, even Biden’s. I really doubt O has any ideas about foreign policy other than to give a speech or drink mojito with Castros.
Does anyone else get the feeling that this idiot (and her predecessor, Psaki) were put in that position for the express purpose of the administration extending both middle fingers at the press and public?
No, I think they were the best people they could find to take the job.
All the smart Dems bailed on this administration.
A smart Dim is like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. They just don’t exist.
That isn’t true, and talk like that is the kind of thing that gets in the way of winning elections.
There has been enough flipping between Democratic and Republican administrations so that there is a very nice, large pool of experienced people of both parties. What has been readily apparent from Day 1 of this administration is that the Obama administration has NOT been drawing from the Democratic part of that pool.
If you look at the pool of political appointees, and who they rely upon to fill the more professional positions, you find a wasteland where talent, experience, and even integrity are in short supply.
In particular, the misuse of our government agencies to go after people for their political affiliation seems to be a theme across the spectrum of our agencies. We have lunatics running the asylum right now, and the smart and decent Democrats are looking on in horror, and considering voting for their idea of the Dark Side.
I think Valerie’s points are is correct. Commenters could think deeper if they tried.
That is precisely what I was thinking when I saw Psaki and this twit for the first time. If there were important goals assigned for their roles then it wouldn’t have gone to those two idiots. The fact they are there means they have nothing important to achieve.
Miles, yes, I was thinking that very thing today. “Here’s what I think about you Americans…” Psaki and Harf. As someone commented over at iowahawk (only partially in jest) “We’re all gonna die.”
This is Hillary Clinton — only younger, and without yet being a thief.
If she cashes her paycheck, that makes her a thief.
Instead of the death penalty, we ought to force this clown to have a special kind of surgery so that he gets Michelle Obama’s face, John Boehner’s balls, Barack Obama’s brain, Hillary Clinton’s ankles, Harry Reid’s right eye, Kim Kardashian’s ass, John McCain’s height, Sen. McTurtle’s voice and the integrity of most people in the ‘news’ media. Then inject him with terminal insomnia and force him to watch Hillary Clinton speeches the rest of his life.
(Sorry gang – the above post was intended for the Boston Bomber post.)
Marie Harf is the epitome of the fine public school education that is foisted off on the American young skulls full of mush. With the help of the teachers’ unions and their enablers in the DemocRAT party.
I am very glad that the both highly knowledgeable foreign affairs men, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, wrote a piece denouncing, in effect, Valerie Jarrett’s State Dept. policies. Val is a vacuum filling the void of the presidency.
Speaking of vacuum, Harf: She’s still on spring break and will be the rest of her life.
Shame, Shame on Shultz and Kissinger and all their big words and big thoughts, which merely reinforce the hegemonic patriarchy that oppresses dumb blonde bimbos who have, like, an equal, you know, right to their, like, opinions and stuff.
Vapid, Valley girl strikes again.
“You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government service.” — Agent Zed in “Men in Black”
I hate to break it to her, but as an example if yoU
I hate to break it to libs but, to use an example, if you are in a bus and the driver is stomping on the accelerator while driving towards a cliff “something other than what you are doing” is a perfectly valid plan in its own right without further elucidation.
Obama is just laughing at every single American now. The smart money is on he leaves the country when/if he’s done and settles in some far away place in a huge family compound.
That compound will be in Kenya.
dunce1239 The loan to Solindra wasn’t a failure for Obama. It was a success because it transferred $500 million into the hands of his cronies. They will use some of it to support progressive fascist causes in the future.
they alternative that they offered is to not make this deal. They said it loud and clear. They said it at great length, but you choose to not hear it.
You say that you heard big ideas – what were the big ideas that you heard, if not their call to cancel the deal? Did you miss the biggest idea in their whole piece? By your own admission, it would seem so.
And since you missed the whole point of the piece, now I am curious as to what you think are “big words”?
Forget Harff and the worthless Iran undeal and the latest two experts who’ve panned it. Notice Harff’s chief complaint, beyond ‘big words and thoughts’ – she condemns any criticism that isn’t accompanied by alternative recommendations. This is a recent (within five years) tactic by liberals, first rising to prominance as a defense of Obamacare.
It’s bullshit, of course. Every one of their cockamamie policies and bills has been met with a fusilage of alternative ideas, most reduced to the simple alternative of “don’t do that, dumbasses!”
The smart GOP candidate will be armed and ready with ‘alternatives’ when media interviewers toss this canard in his or her face over some liberal idea.
“Every one of their cockamamie policies and bills has been met with a fusilage of alternative ideas…”
Well, in addition to a plane-load, they were met with a fusillade of better ideas.
But, as Dr. Sowell says, when you remove a cancer what do you replace it with? Some things don’t require an “alternative”. This is just a variation on straw-men.
Remember, Hawkins…
YOU’RE the smart-ass….
Indeed, but my smartass status does not preclude you from smartassery, if such you are. Let the community decide.
lol
Aww, c’mon Henry — you’re not supposed to laugh at your own one-liners. 😉
The list of things I do but shouldn’t would fill twenty blog comment sections.
The part they censored said, “And you can’t expect too much more from me. Most people have no idea what all those big words mean. I sure don’t. Plus, I have my script and your comments aren’t helpful.”
Doesn’t the Secret Service have code breakers? I’m sure they’re working 24/7 figuring out what the hell Kissinger and Schultz said.
They were all told to go home. They were drunk.
We are headed for war. It can be a little war on their turf or a big one that includes ours. Thanks Progressives! We all have been Harfed.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Marie the youngest person to ever have her name become a verb? “Harfed” and “harfing” are showing up on-line as descriptors for persons who persist in stating “facts” that aren’t. The most interesting was a reference to our Old Friend Baghdad Bob “harfing” about how there were no coalition troops near the city when U.S. tanks were visible in the background!
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for this woman-child, or just go on laughing!
Dear Marie Von Blonde: FOCUS, Honeybuns…”Alternative..”, for gawdsakes??!! What sort of 10-cent vapid nonsense is that? Ohhh, we last heard it dripping from His Infantile Majesty’s chops after Bibi’s speech to the joint session last month. WTF..? The first and most important “alternative” is to KEEP THE SANCTIONS ENTIRELY IN-PLACE. Then,IF those slimebag-butchers want to make SERIOUS and VERIFIABLE halts, cuts and openness to their Nuke Program, we can cut back some on the SANCTIONS.
CANNOT—=simply Cannot—make this S*** Up.