Obama, the Virtuoso Manager

obama_evilOriginally published by the Jerusalem Post

Since he assumed office nearly six years ago, US President Barack Obama has been dogged by allegations of managerial incompetence. Obama, his critics allege, had no managerial experience before he was elected. His lack of such experience, they claim, is reflected in what they see as his incompetent handling of the challenges of the presidency.

In everything from dealing with the Congress, to reining in radical ideologues at the IRS, to handling the chaos at the Mexican border, to putting together coordinated strategies for dealing with everything from Ebola to Islamic State (IS), Obama’s critics claim that he is out of his league. That he is incompetent.

But if Israel’s experience with him is any guide, then his critics are the ones who are out to sea. Because at least in his handling of US relations with the Jewish state, Obama has exhibited a mastery of the tools of the executive branch unmatched by most of his predecessors.

Consider two stories reported in last Friday’s papers.

First, in an article published in The Jerusalem Post, terrorism analyst and investigative reporter Steven Emerson revealed how the highest echelons of the administration blocked the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office from assisting Israel in finding the remains of IDF soldier Oron Shaul.

Shaul was one of seven soldiers from the Golani Infantry Brigade killed July 20 when Hamas terrorists fired a rocket at their armored personnel carrier in Gaza’s Shejeia neighborhood.

As Emerson related, after stealing his remains, Hamas terrorists hacked into Shaul’s Facebook page and posted announcements that he was being held by Hamas.

Among other things it did to locate Shaul and ascertain whether or not he was still alive, the IDF formally requested that the FBI intervene with Facebook to get the IP address of the persons who posted on Oron’s page. If such information was acquired quickly, the IDF might be able to locate Oron, or at least find people with knowledge of his whereabouts.

Acting in accordance with standing practice, recognizing that time was of the essence, the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office began working on Israel’s request immediately. But just before the US Attorney secured a court order to Facebook requiring it to hand over the records, the FBI was told to end its efforts.

In an order that senior law enforcement officials told Emerson came from Attorney General Eric Holder’s office, the FBI was told that it needed to first sign an “MLAT,” a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Israel, a procedure that would take weeks to complete, and is generally used in cases involving criminal prosecutions and other non-life threatening issues.

In other words, facing a bureaucracy acting independently, Holder – reportedly Obama’s most trusted cabinet secretary – acted quickly, decisively and effectively. And thanks to his intervention at the key moment, although Israel was able – after an exhaustive forensic investigation – to determine Oron’s death, today it is poised to begin negotiations with Hamas for the return of his body parts.

Then there was the unofficial arms embargo.

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House and State Department had stopped the Pentagon at the last minute from responding favorably to an Israeli request for resupply of Hellfire precision air-to-surface missiles. The precision guided missiles were a key component of Israel’s air operations against missile launchers in Gaza. The missiles’ guidance systems allowed the air force to destroy the launchers while minimizing collateral damage.

In keeping with the standard decades-long practice, Israel requested the resupply through European Command, its military-to-military channel with the US.

And in keeping with standard practice, the request was granted.

But then the White House and State Department heard about the approved shipment and spun into action. As in the case of Oron’s Facebook page, they didn’t reject Israel’s request. They just added a level of bureaucracy to the handling of the request that made it impossible for Israel to receive assistance from the US government in real time.

As State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf put it at the time, “We’re not holding anything. A hold indicates, technically, that you are not moving forward on making a decision about a transfer…. These requests are still moving forward; there’s just additional steps in the process now, and there’s been no policy decision made to not move forward with them…. They’re just going to take a little while longer.”

The Hellfire missiles, along with other ammunition Israel requested during the war, arrived in September – a month after the cease-fire went into effect.

On Friday veteran military affairs reporter Amir Rappaport reported in Makor Rishon that the hold on the Hellfire missiles was only one aspect of the White House’s decision to stop arms shipments to Israel during the war. Shortly after Operation Protective Edge began, the administration stopped all contact with the Defense Ministry’s permanent procurement delegation in the US.

According to Rappaport, for the first time since the 1982 war in Lebanon, “The expected airlift of US ammunition [to the IDF] never arrived at its point of departure.”

The difference between Obama’s actions during Operation Protective Edge and Ronald Reagan’s partial arms embargo against Israel 32 years ago is that Reagan made his action publicly. He argued his case before the public, and Congress.

Obama has done no such thing. As was the case with the FAA’s scandalous ban on flights to Ben-Gurion Airport during the war, Holder’s prevention of the FBI from helping Israel find Oron, and Obama’s arms embargo were justified as mere bureaucratic measures.

As Harf claimed in relation to the embargo, there was no hostile policy behind any of the hostile policy moves. Obama and his senior advisors are simply sticklers for procedure. And since during the war Obama insisted that he supported Israel, policymakers and the public had a hard time opposing his actions.

How can you oppose a hostile policy toward Israel that the administration insists doesn’t exist? Indeed, anyone who suggests otherwise runs the risk of being attacked as a conspiracy theorist or a firebrand.

The same goes for Obama’s policy toward Iran. This week we learned that the administration has now offered Iran a nuclear deal in which the mullahs can keep half of their 10,000 active centrifuges spinning.

Together with Iran’s 10,000 currently inactive centrifuges which the US offer ignores, the actual US position is to allow Iran to have enough centrifuges to enable it to build nuclear bombs within a year, at most.

In other words, the US policy toward Iran exposed by Obama’s nuclear offer is one that enables the most active state sponsor of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons almost immediately.

But Obama denies this is his policy. For six years he has very deftly managed Congressional opposition to his wooing of the Iranian regime by insisting that his policy is to reduce the Iranian nuclear threat and to prevent war.

Opposing his policy means opposing these goals.

Consistent polling data show that Obama’s policies of harming Israel and facilitating Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear arsenal are deeply unpopular. His successful advancement of both policies despite this deep-seated public opposition is a testament to his extraordinary skill.

On the other hand, Obama’s virtuoso handling of the federal bureaucracy and Congress also reveal the Achilles heel of his policies. He conceals them because he cannot defend them.

Obama’s inability to defend these policies means that politicians from both parties can forthrightly set out opposing policies without risking criticism or opposition from the administration.

How can Obama criticize a serious policy to support Israel when he claims that this is his goal? And how can he oppose a serious policy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons when he says that he shares that goal? At least as far as Israel is concerned, Obama’s mastery of the federal bureaucracy is complete. It is not incompetence that guides his policy. It is malicious intent toward the US’s closest ally in the Middle East. And to defeat this policy, it is not necessary to prove incompetence that doesn’t exist. It is necessary to show that there are far better ways to achieve his declared aims of supporting Israel and blocking Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

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  • Mladen_Andrijasevic

    Another example. How about making the State Department create a new version of the English Language in which this what John Kerry said does not actually mean what he said:

    As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL coalition, the truth is we – there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt – and I see a lot of heads nodding – they had to respond to. And people need to understand the connection of that.

    http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2014/10/parsing-and-interpreting-john-kerrys.html

  • Bamaguje

    “Obama and his senior advisors are simply sticklers for procedure” – Caroline Glick.

    Really?
    The same Obama that waged an unprovoked war against Libya without Congressional approval and in violation of the War Powers Act.

    “Consistent polling data show that Obama’s
    policies of harming Israel and facilitating Iran’s acquisition of a
    nuclear arsenal are deeply unpopular. His successful advancement of both
    policies despite this deep-seated public opposition is a testament to
    his extraordinary skill” – Caroline Glick.

    No it’s not “extraordinary skill”, but Obama’s absolute contempt for American people who put him in the White House.

    • The March Hare

      “Obama and his senior advisors are simply sticklers for procedure”
      —Caroline Glick was pointing out the BS excuse that was used to brush off criticism.
      It is extraordinary skill that he could pull it off and he did it because of his absolute contempt for the American people. These things are not mutually exclusive.

    • KCGranny

      ……and for Israel and the Jewish people!

      • nomoretraitors

        Yet American Jews voted overwhelmingly for him. Why?

        • KCGranny

          Probably philosophy…ideology or self hate but hard to rationalize the irrational!

        • Arf

          Maybe they felt he was the best candidate and that their politics does not center around Israel. Maybe they consider themselves Americans first and Jews second and their political opinions are based on what they consider to be best for America, not Israel.

        • Ken Kelso

          70% voted for Obama.
          But whats crazy is that like 76% of American Jews voted for Kerry in 04 over Bush.

  • JVictor

    Just add these things to the ever-growing list of how Obama has done everything he could possibly do to destabilize the Middle East and put Israel at risk from her enemies.

  • Bert

    Obama gets away with this in large part because Israel fears to confront him in public even though most Americans would support Israel. Israel has 60-70% support in America while Obama has 40% support. Israel operates from fear because its leaders are secular and have not Jewish faith in G-d.

  • sundance69

    Obama hates Israel, always has and always will. He hates Netanyahu with a passion because Netanyahu knows exactly what he is up to. Obama’s master plan is to destroy Israel by letting all of the surrounding countries exist in complete turmoil and then finally assisting Iran by obtaining nuclear weapons and moving in for the final kill and destroy Israel once and for all. Iran will then rule the entire region and they are capable of handling any further uprisings in the region. That’s why he did nothing to help the Iranian people overthrow their government when he had the chance too early in his presidency. Instead he stood by and watched innocent civilians get arrested and killed by the government and crush the thought civilian uprisings in the future. His administration he help of Iran has laid waste to the countries of Egypt, Libya, Syria and now Iraq with Afghanistan bringing up the rear. Who’s next, Jordan….Saudi Arabia? I wouldn’t be the least surprised that he has thoughts of doing the same thing here in the US to his opponents if he could get away with it. All of the government agencies have been purchasing weapons and ammunitions for quite some time now, even the postal service is armed to the teeth, for what purpose? Why does no one question his intentions? Is he just waiting for the right moment? If the Democrats keep control of the Senate there will be no stopping him. He will be able to play his little game to the end.

  • JoeThePimpernel

    “Obama and his senior advisors are simply sticklers for procedure…”

    Except when it comes to immigration law, and a few other things.

  • jwmiller

    Giving Obama way too much credit. He would rather play than work. Certain he believes everything instructed to him but he is nothing more than a Hood Ornament for NWO’s old, but works, tactics of Divide & Conquer.

  • SoCalMike

    The Repubes are such complete cowards they will never fight.
    Even the talk radio hosts, those brave guardians of the right, won’t take on Obama with much more than the “incompetence” criticism because it’s safe and they have ratings to consider.
    Not one of them has fought Obama’s anti-Israel policies nor plans to run on rooting out the anti-Israelis infesting our State Department.
    I would run for office on the promise to root out with a fork each and every anti-Israel element at the State Department.
    These bimbos are the best friends in the world Islamic Jihad have.

    • Ellen_L

      Have you watched Fox News?

    • Dee Sams

      So Cal what we need is someone as prez who is man enough to get rid of all the muslim brotherhood people that O has put in place in the agencies and military. It is like having Nazi’s directing our war effort in WWII – it’s insane. Romney had planned to do that – had a guy ready to hire from Cris Cristy’s staff for the job. If the dems had not cheated like crazy in the 2012 election, we would be SO much safer now – Romney was not perfect for sure, but we are in such a worse place than we would have been with him at the helm.

  • Scar

    Ms. Glick’s article adds to my ongoing amazement at how Jewish Americans continue to overwhelmingly support Obama and the Democrats. Have many American Jews lost touch with their bond to Israel? And by the way, wih all due respect to Ms. Glick, I still think Obama is incompetent.

    • nomoretraitors

      No, he isn’t incompetent. He’s very competent at his mission — destroying America

    • Dee Sams

      Scar it is because Liberalism rules out over everything else with liberals – their faith, their children’s future, the economy, the security of our country – everything. It is a mental disorder and they cannot deal with logic and facts and real history.

      • Scar

        Liberals cetainly don’t comprehend “facts and real history,” as the basic foundation of their ideology is a proven failure…time and time again! “Those who fail to learn from history…,” as the old saying goes.

        • Michael Durham

          Scar:

          Do you get it now, Scar? Obama is not “incompetent”. He is malicious. He is evil. He is deliberately destroying America, American national security, and American prosperity. This is by design. It is *deliberate*.

          It is not “incompetence”, Scar. You really need to get on board with this.

          Learn it. Live it. Know it.

          • Scar

            I think you misunderstand me, Michael. I believe that Incompetence and malice can co-exist. Yes, Obama is an evil despot who is expediting the destruction of this once-great Republic. That’s a position I’ve held since he first entered the public stage. I’m definitely on board with you, but I STILL think he’s incompetent. It’s a common flaw amongst delusional liberals. This is a semantical debate. I guess I should have better explained myself in my initial post.

        • Dee Sams

          You are right Scar. And they have so screwed up our schools, as they are determined to brainwash the next generations, that we all are harmed by their teaching agenda.

  • nomoretraitors

    People need to stop thinking of Obama as “incompetent,” which may well be his intention. If people believe he is incompetent, then they will not believe he is malicious and therefore will not believe he is engaged in his true mission to undermine America,Christianity and Western civilization in general.

  • nomoretraitors

    “As State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf put it”
    Anything coming out of Marie Barf’s mouth is immediately suspect

  • cree

    Obama’s competence only comes from the power that he can wield. His ideological bents rule through the power of his office that he has usurped. He is a despot with all the necessary czars and military traitors he has with him, an oligarchy with the ability to shape national and world events into destiny and history.

    • carpe diem 36

      Obama is competent in only one thing: He single handedly distabilized the whole world, from China to Europe to the Middle east and to Russia. He hates all Americans and America and Israel because of two things: Israel is Jewish and Israel is an economic success while the Moslem world is poor, unsuccessful and vicious, and that is what Obama supports. He also succeeded in weakening America both politically and economically, and then has the chutzpa to complain of economic inequality, that of course was caused by his own stupid policies.

      • cree

        It never occurred to me that an ideological wacko would rise up in the USA, but it has. Our founders warned us, equipped us to ward off this possibility. We, and our leader’s oaths to the Constitution got complacent enough to allow what has occurred. We’re trying a desperate course correction. Reality is making itself known and there’s much trouble in the world. Resolve calls.

        • nomoretraitors

          Check out the DVD “The Agenda.” It lays it all out: communist infiltration of the media, education and popular culture (Hollywood)

          • cree

            Watched “Agenda” last night. Really good, and thanks. Corroborates many others’ books, articles, etc. Video will be great to educate. Plan on spreading around.
            We’re playing catch up, but better late than never.

        • Dee Sams

          cree one thing our founders tried to prevent was a guy like O being president by including the Natural Born Citizen clause in the Constitution. From the research I have done, because the definition is NOT spelled out in the Constitution, is a NBC is the child of 2 American citizens, meaning both legally become a citizens, then their child can be president. That was put in their specifically to PREVENT having a president with divided loyalties. O’s father was never an American citizen, and his mother was too young to convey citizenship. It does not matter where he was born. We have a fraud acting as president, and he is being allowed to get away with it!

          • cree

            Yes sir. Divided loyalties of this guy sure proves the founder’s insight, experience and wisdom right.

          • Dee

            Yes, they really were visionaries. Look at how O favors muslim countries over ours. Exactly what the founders sought to prevent.

  • bob smith

    “He has a furious animosity toward the white race, and he acts on it in every way he thinks he can get away with it, without getting caught, too much.”

    Well said. This is an exact manifestation of his dislike of his mother and an openly grandiose accept ion of a man he never knew as revealed by none other than himself in “dreams of my father”. This, and this alone should cause anyone to ask how he identified with someone he didn’t even know. This is his anger towards whites.

    • dumb broad

      he hates Jews too

      • nomoretraitors

        But Jews voted for him

        • Arf

          Not all Jews. In his first term, 22% did not vote for him; in his second term, 31% did not vote for him. A greater percentage of blacks, Latinos, Asians, and non -Jewish Americans under 30 voted for him. If you still care to ride the “Jews put Obama in office” train, remember: Jews represent about 1.5% of the population. Voting Jews represent even less.

  • semus

    Exactly correct.

  • Libslayer

    With Obama, down is up, good is bad, and sanity is insanity.
    Obama’s “razer”: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.
    Obama is one malicious Muslim.
    America’s hitler.

    • Dee Sams

      Correct Libslayer. I cannot fathom how after 9/11/01, we managed to let a muslim sympathizer/mole in the White House. What the !!! is wrong with people?

  • Jaybugs

    He is a community organizer. He knows nothing about management and has surrounded himself with like people. They remind me of the keystone kops.

  • Dawn Street

    You are so right. Thank you for being on target!! We, US citizens who support Israel, are appalled at his treatment of Israel. It is like there is no stopping him from destroying our nation and establishing the Caliphate. Indeed, that seems to be his goal. The world is truly upside down, good is now evil and evil is considered to be good.

  • Dawn Street

    I agree with you. He is manifestly evil. He lies and we all know who is the father of lies. He is shrewd and he is dangerous.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      He is definitely evil, but shrewd? Not hardly. He has a certain degree of animal cunning but he only gets away with his crimes because his lackeys have packed t government agencies with fellow travelers. The public refuses to speak up because of his Mulatto skin privilege.

  • Ellen_L

    They are not mutually exclusive. One can be both evil and largely incompetent. One can also be mislead by bad premises that do not lead to reality based solutions. Mr Obama is all three. Sometimes all together and other times with one or two of the vices more prevalent. The idea I added may help explain how he can be both evil and incompetent – he is after aims that are not in the county’s interest and that are based on misconceptions (especially in economics) that do not lead where he thinks they will.

    And he lies so much that I wonder if he has any conception of truth or reality. He seems to say whatever he thinks will get him politically ahead at the moment even if it contradicts his next sentence.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      Yup.

  • Ellen_L

    He knows how to manipulate power, but that is not the competence needed to even manage let alone lead this nation. He does not know how to get what he wants even from a Congress he had a majority of for the first two years. Lately, he doesn’t seem to even know what is going on or care. He is not stupid but that is not the same thing as competent.

    He is also thwarted because the US is not behind him in many ways and some of those he fooled are beginning to see through him. As to Israel, the people and Congress of the US are allies. It is Obama and his cronies who are not. That despite the misconceptions and errors of politicians. Caroline Glick has a clearer more informed and fact based explanation of the situation than most politicians and I hope her writing will awake many. But even so Mr Obama has made a mess of things that smacks of both malice and incompetence as well as being out of touch with reality and any conception of truth.

    We will see what happens if we are so lucky as to have him and his crony Senator Reid lose control of the Senate.

  • bob e

    a very scary article. what else is coming ??

  • Dee Sams

    I too agree antisharia – maybe it is a little thing, but why, in so many pictures of O, is there a look of pure contempt and anger? Never saw that with previous presidents. He was brought up being brainwashed by America/Israel hating communists/marxists. He is filled with hatred for whites and western culture. Couple that with narcissistic personality disorder and who knows what else, and we have a man who needs to spend time on the couch in a Dr’s office, not in the White House.

  • nimbii

    Caroline Glick lays out a very shrewd player.

    Pilosi will not claim until he leaves office that she sees him as the slickest and coolest operator every to be in the oval office.

    Look at what he has done? Even Hugo Chavez and Castro marveled at what he accomplished in such a short time. Domestically, he has taken over Wall Street banks and passed Obamacare. We have wide-open borders in the name of Central American children. On top of that, he can financially smother any businesses he wants with Operation Choke Point yet not be accused of the same.

    He is deft at slight of hand or in his case, slight of bureaucracy and he has a phone and a pen to leverage his position like none other.

    He has stopped big coal in it’s tracks and gift wrapped the Keystone pipeline to his green base in the red tape of indecision.

    He has expertly, illegally and artfully dodged scandal after scandal by knowing just what to release and what to destroy and when to plead the 5th.

    He is also a bloodlessly coy and invisible student of Alinski and can achieve Alinski goals even sometimes without using his bombastic tactics.

    We have elected the enemy and he’s very very good at being our enemy because most of us think he’s incompetent or stupid.

    Or, maybe it really is a just a streal of “Dumb and Dumber” luck that never seems to run out?

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      All of those things wete done for him.

      • nimbii

        Yes, it may be like the “Great Man Theory of Social Change” where the times make the man. But that may not be quite what you mean,

        In a way it suggests that Obama is a passive actor, which is of course not the case. Why he has enabled what other presidents have not, speaks more to his world view that America should be taken down a few pegs and it’s wealth reshuffled to the worthy.

        This is, surprise, also the George Soros world view that enables his ilk to use world peace, UN / NWO as a beard to dominate world trade, etc.

  • joe

    I don’t agree. I think obama was fortuitously swept into power by a worldwide fascist mentality that is emerging as it did 80 years ago. History will show obama for the intellectual lightweight that he has always been. It will further show how cleverly his averageness was concealed by a duplicitous media machine and academic establishment who in combination then repackaged it and drizzled it on a credulous public – a public that simply had to have its entitled panacea. History will treat obama as it did Mussolini. This nation has inherited as its leader the unprincipled popinjay it so richly deserves. It shouts for mediocrity and now it’s got it. We give our collective stupidity too much credit by labeling obama as anything other than an abysmal dunce.

  • Winston

    I like Ms. Glick but here she is completely wrong. Obama has been protected by the US media from the consequences of his misgovernment from day one. It requires no skill to handle a lapdog media. And the same lapdog media will not go to bat for Israel under any circumstances. Then you add the fact that the federal bureaucracy is essentially an extension of the Democratic party, to the point where even the IRS is politically biased. Handling a lapdog media and a fully biased bureaucracy requires no skill at all. The way things were handed to a very callow man is part of Obama’s failure. He was not qualified for office. But the system was highly stacked in his favor and still is. It is silly to confuse this with ability. And places like the State Department have tremendous built in animosity towards Israel.

    Obama’s incompetence stems from a worldview that has no correlation to reality. And his attitude towards Israel seems to reflect deep-seated prejudice and likely anti-Jewish bigotry. The consequences of Obama’s incompetence are for all the world to see. But that a feckless, bigoted man was elevated to the presidency under absurd conditions where he is shielded from criticism and is thus able to wreck even more than the usual havoc does not make him any less a fool or magically transform him into a competent anything. Morons who are given important responsibilities usually create a fiasco. That is the sign of a very bad president, but very bad presidents break a lot of things before they are done.

  • JB Ziggy Zoggy

    Obama’s successful corruption and perfidy are a testament to his extraordinary skill? Not hardly. It’s a testament of complicit media and a complete lack of opposition from Republican leadership. Just because Obama doesn’t hesitate to do the unthinkable doesn’t mean he has any skill as a statesman. He doesn’t. He’s an incompetent buffoon. His underlings plot all his policies, and if bureaucratic red tape takes skill to implement then the local DMV must be the most competent department ever.

    • Scar

      Ditto!!! Well said!

  • Genevieve St-Germain

    And that, is the very essence of this excellent article !

  • wsk

    I still find it amazing that so many people think the man-child messiah is incompetent. He told us exactly what he wanted to do and he has done it. Like him or not, you have to admit he has been one of the most successful presidents in terms of implementing policy.