Bill Clinton splits with President Obama on Syria
Bill Clinton told Sen. John McCain he agrees that President Barack Obama should act more forcefully to support anti-Assad rebels in Syria, saying the American public elects presidents and members of Congress “to see down the road” and “to win.”
At another point during a closed-press event Tuesday, Clinton implied that Obama or any president risks looking like “a total fool” if they listen too closely to opinion polls and act too cautiously. He used his own decisions on Kosovo and Bosnia as a point of reference.
The former president also said commanders-in-chief should avoid over-interpreting public opinion polls about whether the United States should get involved in crises overseas.
His remarks came during a question-and-answer session with McCain, who has been among Obama’s harshest critics over what he calls a failure to take “decisive” action in Syria. Obama has come under growing pressure to step up American intervention by sending military and other assistance to the rebels.
“Some people say, `Okay, see what a big mess it is? Stay out!’ I think that’s a big mistake. I agree with you about this,” Clinton told McCain during an event for the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Manhattan Tuesday night. “Sometimes it’s just best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t overcommit — like, as long as you don’t make an improvident commitment.”
These remarks “came during a question-and-answer session with McCain, who has been among Obama’s harshest critics” at the “McCain Institute for International Leadership.”
Bill Clinton and John McCain criticizing Barack Obama at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. (Is that the single funniest think-tank name of all time? I think so.)
Remember the “Where’s Waldo” children’s video game?
Yeah. That one; the one where you had to find that friendly little twerp Waldo inside of masses of misinformation/disinformation?
Uhhhhh…where’s Hillary?
Oh.
Here she is!!!
—snip—
Clinton, whose wife stepped down as Obama’s Secretary of State at the end of January, has largely stayed away from offering foreign policy views while Hillary Clinton was serving in the president’s administration.
She had supported a plan that then-CIA head Gen. David Petraeus drew up to arm a vetted group of rebels, but it was put aside after his extra-marital affair scandal and her head injury following a severe virus.
And that li’l devil Petraeus as well.
Clinton (Bill, of course, ‘cuz Hillary be home nursing her virus and all.) goes on…
—snip—
The social media-driven revolutions can’t supplant having bodies to build a sustainable new government, Clinton added.
Yeah.
Lots of bodies.
Dead ones, mostly.
Note to Bill: Have someone vet your talking points before you get up there and misspeak.
Clinton, who McCain also asked about his own decision-making process on the violence in Kosovo and Bosnia when he was president, expounded on what the public means in opinion polls when it expresses disapproval of foreign intervention.
“What the American people are saying when they tell you not to do these things, they’re not telling you not to do these things,” he said, but instead, they’re urging caution. “They hire you to win … to look around the corner and see down the road.”
Riiiiight…we don’t mean what we say, exactly. Just like diplomats and politicians.
What bullshit.
Clinton repeatedly said it would be “lame” to blame a lack of intervention on opposition in polls or among members of Congress.
If Clinton had ever blamed a lack of action because “there was a poll in the morning paper that said 80 percent of you were against it … you’d look like a total wuss,” he said. “And you would be.”
That’s the sort of thinking we really need from our leaders!!! Avoid looking like a wuss at all costs!!!
It’s still early in the fix scheme, but they are going to have to do better than this.
Much better.
We shall see.
If I were Hillary, I’d hire Chris Christie immediately and put both McCain and Bill out to pasture.
I mean…really!!!
Speaking at the “McCain Institute for International Leadership!!!???”
Please. Remember when John “Go Get’em” McCain visited Iraq and declared that all was now safe there? Went into a market square all gussied up in a flak jacket with hundreds of armed soldiers and several helicopter gunships guarandamnedteeing his “safety?”
I got yer McCain International Leadership.
Right here!!!
McCain pulled his little surprise visit act once again just a couple of weeks ago, only this time he went to Syria to meet with the “rebels.”
Sheese!!! Are we back in 2007 here or what!!!???
Oh.
What’s that you say?
That’s what they want!!!???
Oh.
Nevermind.
I forgot for a minute.
I shoulda known.
It woiked in 2000.
It woiked in 2004.
It woiked in 2008 and 2012.
It’ll woik in 2016.
Bet on it, ya joiks!!!
What’s that you say?
It ain’t gonna woik dis time?
Why I oughta…
Nevermind.
Over and out.
AG
